Tag: Travel

  • Phnom Penh to Saigon

    Travel around about’s these parts is not too much of a problem as long as you happen to be on the biggest thing on the road. Other than that it’s a bit of a lottery, people will ride motorbikes the wrong way up the stream of traffic, pedestrians dance across the road with surprising confidence and most people get where they are going.

    I paid $17 for a ticket all the way to Saigon, I was given an alarm call by the hotel staff and nipped onto the 8am bus. We stopped in one of those roadside eateries for lunch where all you can do is point at buckets of delicious looking food and recieve some welcome surprise, but by early afternoon we were in Saigon already, looking for a hotel.

    The first hotel I found that said it had an internet connection was speaking with forked tongue. I had a shower then tried to connect but not a sausage, so I packed my bag up and went up the road to yet another expensive hotel, so right now I’m tapping away in a room built to house a family in semi luxury – they even have two packets of smokes on the table neatly balancing in an ash tray.

    My first impressions of Saigon – and I have only taken a walk around the block and eaten – is that it is a very busy colourful S.E.Asian city that I could grow to like a lot. The food seems to be the best in the region and people are full of energy. I had a run in with one feller though as, to get my financial radar adjusted, I ask a few people what prices things are, then compare with other places for similar things. So to this end I asked about the price of a book, which he then ran up the road after me making the price smaller and smaller until, frothing at the mouth, he stated that ‘foreigner want everythign for bleedin’ dollar’.

    The internet connection I have here in my room seems to be as fast as back home in London. Cambodia could be slow sometimes because they tend to pay for bandwidth a lot more than here, so only the better internet cafes had fast connections, I get the feeling that from here on in things will be pretty much up to European speeds.

  • Phnom Penh

    I’m in a bar making the most of the wifi yet again, I am with the Cambodian president of the football federation, and a couple of fellers from Hertfordshire who are making the most of five jars of Sangria. One of them I met on the boat the other day, he’s a breath of fresh air with that foul mouthed British whit that leaves a vew raised eyebrows around the table. I was gently coerced into making a free website for the Cambodian Football Federation, I don’t mind, they don’t have two pennies and apparently even have to pay TV stations around here to broadcast matches so they need a punt, I might as well help spread the word.

    Tomorrow I am off to Vietnam, apparently the internet connections are faster and the food is better, but I have enjoyed my stay around here. I’ll come back and have a better look around, but for now I’m motoring.

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  • Spicies sauce with peantits

    Ok, so I know that if I were to write a menu in Cambodian I’d probably end up with worse gaffs (actually I don’t speak Cambodian so it’d be a very short menu) but we did have a chortle over this one….

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  • Some flowers for Baffy and Isis

    These are what they put on the bed when they have made it in the morning, one each for my girls x

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  • About Asia

    I had the privilege today of being invited into the world of one of the local philanthropists today in Siem Reap. Andy Booth became comfortably enough off by the age of 37 to ‘retire’, but not being of the thumb twiddling sort he has set up a business in Siem Reap that offers quality guided tours in Siem Reap and Angkor Wat.

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  • Golden Banana

     Nope, that’s not my nickname it’s the name of the hotel I have fallen into like a lover into his lovers arms.

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  • Phnom Bakheng

    Ok, so I nipped up Phnom Bakheng which is on top of a hill meaning lovely sunset shots and I’m starting to realise that I have seen only a tiny bit of this place. The map below shows the scale – if the moat in my picture in the previous days post is the moat surrounding Angkor Wat, you can then deduce scale of the whole site itself, it’s huge.

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  • To Cambodia

     The train ticket costs 48 Baht to go almost all the way to the Cambodian border. That’s less than a quid – and this morning I managed to get on the train. Hurrah.

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  • The Halifax

    So I get up at 3.30 am because I can’t sleep due to the excitement of it all, then sit in the foyer chatting on MSN to people who are enjoying their Friday night in the UK. I then get a taxi to Hualamphong station to get my train to the Cambodian border.

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  • Chao Praya

     I managed to catch up with an old buddy who has made Bangkok his home. Paul has a lovely wife and son and has that unique perspective that someone has who has 1. been in bangkok for 10 years  2. Is a Leeds united supporter. I asked him about his angle on the changing way of life here, he said ‘it was changing before we got here, will change after we have gone, but whatever changes happen the Thais will make them their own enough for them to keep their unique outlook and way of life’.

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