Hey all!
Im excited to share with you that I have successfully reached Cambodia! Ill give you a couple brief journal entries along with some pictures to update you.
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Sunday, February 10th, 2008
Time: 7:18am - On a train two hours outside Bangkok on my way to Cambodia
Sorry in advance for the messy writing that this train ride will produce...
So, to catch you up to how exactly I got here from Pai; 12:00pm yesterday I took a bus to Chiang Mai from Pai for 150B, 4:30pm we(being Shelley and I, a friend I'm traveling with from Pai) boarded the bus to Bangkok, 540B, we arrived at about 3AM today. We then took a taxi for 150B each to the train station in BKK and then purchased tickets on a 3rd class train to Cambodia's border for 48B. So the total costs for all of this is 888B or 28$CND, it took a total of 26 hours.
I am definitely excited to be on the "road" again. It feels good to have everything I need in one backpack. The only other thing that I took was my guitar.
As the train was leaving BKK I felt like I was in the movie Baraka (you should see it if you havnt already). The sounds of the train clicking and skipping over the tracks along with the imagry out the window to my left. Tin roofed "houses" line the tracks all the way out of the city. graffiti lining the houses walls. I also saw two of the most disgusting dogs I've ever seen. All of their hair bitten or scratched off except for the unreachable strip lining the tops of their backs. Mohawk dogs. Mange dogs.
These are the shots from the train ride!
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Monday, February 11th, 2008
Time: 8:36am - Angkor Wat
Amazed is how I feel right now. As I'm sitting along the outer fence of the Angkor Wat looking up at the main inner temples, 3 of them. The outer wall is in the foreground about 100ft away, on it sits Shelley. The temple looks just as amazing from this view (behind) as it does from the front. Perfectly symmetrical. The morning sun is stunning but the soft but vibrant light it casts onto the ancient sandstone of Angkor Wat is ever more brilliant. As the morning progresses more people begin to explore the temple and I feel relieved to be completely alone, hearing the many different birds calling to each other, quiet... haha, as I wrote that a circular saw cutting something far away pierced the silence. It goes off every minute or so, interrupting my quiet. I'm starting to get hungry now. I havnt really eaten anything today, since we got up at 6 and have been exploring ever since. Off to go do some more! bye!
These are the pictures from Angkor Wat and two other temples around it. There is also a picture of an ant carrying other ants on its back. It was one of the weirdest things Ive ever seen, they arn't attacking it either, the trail they were following had many large ants with small ones on there backs. Ant busses!
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Tuesday, February 12th, 2008
Time: 12:48pm - Our guest house in Siem Reap
This morning we had planned on going to a floating village that Lonely Planet said was 10$ each for the boat. I arranged a tuktuk driver to come pick us up here at the guest house at 8 this morning. When we arrived they wanted 20$ each for the boat, a "fixed rate" they said. Angkor Wat was 20$ and it is one of the wonders of the world so why would some random village cost the same??? We asked for the 10$ priced ticket, they then dropped there "fixed rate" to 15$. We said no, tried to get the 10$ price a little longer and then gave up and left. Definitely some sort of commission scam.
We then went to the War Museum. It was really neat, cost was 3$. We met a girl there from Australia, we went for lunch after words. The guy working as the guide for us was a very interesting person. He has been shot by about 7 different guns, has been injured by 5 different land mines and he has multiple pieces of shrapnel in his body including ball bearings to nails. He has also been fighting in wars in Cambodia for nearly 30 years and has lost his entire family through war, genocide and land mines. "it would be better if I was dead than life is right now" is how he put it. He was blind in both eyes but has not 80% vision in one eye and 20% in the other. He left leg was also blown off by a land mine. He has had a very tough life.
Right now in Cambodia there are two mines for every single person left out there. That is nuts.
Shelley and I are either leaving Siem Reap tomorrow or the next day to go to Phnom Phen, the capital city of Cambodia. That is where we will meet up with Kyle. A buddy of mine from Pai.
Today we are probably going to split up and then meet later to go to Beatocello. A free concert at the Children's Hospital. www.beatocello.com
Here are the pictures for this entry, they include the war museum and also one picture off the balcony of our guest house, BEAUTIFUL!
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Thanks for reading these posts guys. love you all
bye
