Sorry it has taken so long for me to write the first Asian blog. One of the big differences of travelling in a group is you have less spare time, there is always something to do!
My Asian adventure began with my trip to the exotic isles of Manchester to meet up with Alex. I was up there a few days in advance and ended up going to his cousins surprise birthday party. I think that this has given me an idea for future surprise parties, there should always be someone there that no one has a clue who they are, and ideally they should be stood front and centre for the big surprise shout. What could be more of a surprise than that?
We met emily in Manchester airport and had the customary Brits on tour pre-flight beers. We headed to the plane feeling more than a little merry and boarded. I'd managed to get an exit row seat away from Alex and Emily in order to survive the long flight without my knees in my chin. However, the others kindly negotiated with a man next to them to swap with me, at least their hearts were in the right place, unlike my knees which were lodged firmly into the reclined seat in front.
After some severe confusion at Bangkok airport we got a train and taxi to our hotel and met John who had flown in from Hong Kong and went out to see the sights of Kao San road. The rest of the evening was comprised of drinking cheap beers and trying the local delicacies, fried scorpion being the most unusual (although the distinct lack of it in restaurants does suggest it is little more than a tourist trap).
The following day we wandered around Bangkok and found a park to walk around, added a monitor lizard to the list of exotic animals I've seen on my trip. That evening, we hit Kao San Road again and sampled a few of the signature buckets. We also visited the famous ping pong shows of Bangkok, and it was unsurprisingly horrific and traumatic!
The following day twiggy did his best to convince us that he was dying, gaining sympathy from Em, but nothing but abuse from me and John. Our stay in Bangkok ended early the next day as we braved the horror stories of Thai trains and took a 6 hour trip to the Cambodian border. It was surprisingly manageable, even when a Thai lady fell asleep on my shoulder. The whole trip cost one pound as well, so can't really complain there! By far the highlight of the trip though was when we got dropped off by our bus 5km from town and told it couldn't go further and we needed to get on one of the waiting tuk-tuks. However, the majority of the passengers were very unhappy with this so led a revolt and the entire bus refused and began to walk into town. It was clear that this was a shock to the drivers who quickly mounted up and chased us down the road offering us cheaper rides and promising of we carried on walking we would die. But of course, we remained loyal to our fellow travellers and continued walking, for about 30 seconds before taking up the offer. There is no loyalty amongst travellers.
In Cambodia we visited many temples, including Angkor Wat for sunrise. However, due to cloud cover we didn't get to experience the sun actually rise which was a shame. After two days of templing (new word invented) we had begun to suffer from temple fatigue and so now are pretty reluctant to see any more. I managed to make it until the very last temple before I hit my head pretty badly, so it could have been a lot worse. We also sampled a traditional Khmer massage, which if I'm honest involved a bit too much of them hitting me for my liking. Nothing says relax like being slapped by a Cambodian lady.
One of the best experiences in siem reap was after a night out in the town, waking up early to hear twiggy telling us a drawn out story about how he had woken up in a different hostel surrounded by chickens. Luckily John was on hand to explain that this had categorically not happened, as he had walked home with him!
We also visited Phnom Penh in Cambodia and saw the killing fields and prisons of pol pot, not a lot of scope for comedy there really but it was very interesting.
We left Cambodia for Vietnam, arriving in Ho Chi Minh. From there we went on a tour of the cu chi tunnels of the Vietcong which was great. We had a tour from an ex-soldier and got to go in the original tunnels used there. He sent me down the smallest tunnel first, presumably to show the rest of the group that if I could fit, everyone else could as well. I was feeling okay about heading down on my own until he passed me the worlds most pathetic torch and said I couldn't go in without it. He also warned me not to go too far or else I would be lost forever, so it was slightly more nervy than anticipated. We also went into some tunnels they have made slightly wider for tourists to use, emphasis on 'slightly'. We still had to crawl on hands and knees for the majority of it. We also got to fire an ak47 in a shooting range which was pretty cool.
I think I'll leave the blog there as otherwise I think I will lose the majority of my loyal readers to boredom. Ill try and write the next one soon, as a little trailer it will contain stories such as, how I rode a moped for 5 meters, climbed a waterfall and spent 12 hours in a Vietnamese petrol station. Tune in next time!
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