Siem Reap and Battambang

Siem Reap is a relatively large and attractive Cambodian town, which has benefitted from its proximity to the Temples of Angkor; the vast majority of visitors use it as a base for touring the historical sites.

After our three days of intensive temple sightseeing, we decided to have a quiet one around town before heading off to our next Cambodian destination, Battambang*. I was especially keen to take it easy, as I'd started getting some quite nasty headaches and feeling really tired.

We began our more sedate day with a trip to Artisans d'Angkor, where they teach local people how to create traditional arts and crafts and thereby provide them with a vocation and income, and preserve the skills of Khmer craftsmanship that could otherwise be lost. It's free to show yourself around the small workshops and we saw wood carving, lacquering, silver work and stone carving. The tour ends up at the gift shop where there were so many beautiful things we had to be really strict with ourselves not to spend our whole holiday budget! It was absolutely full of gorgeous clothes and homewares that are only sold there and at a couple of other choice locations (i.e. not in the markets selling the usual tat) and the proceeds from sales are sunk back into the Angkor Artisans project. 

There's also an outlet of Blue Pumpkin there, so we sat down to treat ourselves to coffee and ice cream while we wrote some postcards home.

Even after all that culture, shopping and ice cream, I was still feeling under the weather so we headed to a pharmacist for some paracetamol. While chatting to the lady behind the counter, we found out that the former king of Cambodia had passed away. He'd been in China receiving medical treatment and died there of natural causes. Even though he voluntarily abdicated in 2004, the 'King-Father Norodom Sihanouk' was still held in very high regard and it was during his reign that Cambodia gained independence from the French. We noticed that there were signs of a more subdued atmosphere amongst the local people of Siem Reap, who were clearly saddened by King Sihanouk's death.

That evening we went to the Temple bar on Siem Reap's infamous 'Pub Street' for dinner and to watch some traditional Cambodian dancing. One of the first things we noticed was that many members of staff were distracted by the TVs mounted on the walls, which were showing rolling coverage of the arrangements for having the King's body flown back to the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.

The dance performance we'd gone to see was really entertaining. It lasted for a good couple of hours with half a dozen different styles, performed with skill and energy by a troupe of young local dancers. Luckily, there were English introductions to each one explaining their history and meaning so we could understand what was going on. 

Towards the end of the show, the party crowd obviously cranked it up a notch in the bar downstairs as the Big Phat Bass started drifting up the stairs and drowning out the traditional music, which added a whole other aspect!

Here are a couple of videos that Dave took during the show: one is the coconut dance where the performers drum out a rhythm with hollowed out shells and the other is the peacock dance which shows young lovers courting in the park and then watching two peacocks doing the same.

You can also find the videos on our YouTube page.

We were due to leave Siem Reap over the next day or two, and on top of my tiredness and headaches I'd also broken out in some painful red spots, which I assumed were insect bites. So as I was feeling less than 100%, we decided that in Battambang we'd opt for accommodation that was a little more plush. We went online and booked ourselves into a proper hotel and our guesthouse helped us organise our bus to leave early the next morning.

It was a challenging journey from Siem Reap to Battambang; the majority of my 'insect bites' were down the backs of my legs and I found it very difficult to get comfortable on the bus' vinyl seats. After a four hour journey of trying to arrange myself into a position that wasn't extremely painful - the best seemed to be for me to poke Dave with a combination of at least three elbows/knees/shoulders at a time - we arrived in Battambang relieved and resolved to find the nearest English-speaking clinic as soon as possible.

We easily found the Asia Hotel and after a small mix-up over our reservation  - the 'deluxe' room we'd booked for $20 per night for some reason wasn't available, but they cut our room rate and agreed to include breakfast - we moved into our new comfy digs. Our room had a big bed, aircon, a fridge, plenty of storage space, a hot shower in a clean bathroom, cable TV and free WiFi. Flashpacker alert! 

Before getting too settled though, we headed out to find the polyclinic listed in the Lonely Planet guide, which was luckily just round the corner. I was feeling increasingly rough and realistically needed to have myself checked out. 

A couple of days after the event, I had an IM conversation with my friend George and I don't think I can better describe the Cambodian clinic experience better now than I did then. So here's the transcript:

"I rock up, all sick and in pain and shit, after a 4 hour bus ride from Siem Reap. And I show them the spot on my arm but try to explain that's not the worst of it while she peers at it/me slightly dubiously. And there's a kinda stern female doctor who doesn't speak much English. Then I'm ushered to a room with a man in a medical gown - dragging Dave with me - [where I really struggle to get up onto the hospital bed because the spots on the backs of my legs are so sore] and the man in the gown and a lady take a look, clean it all up with alcohol/iodine etc. Me: lots of pain and slightly freaked out that they don't really speak English either and it's not as bright white sterile as UCL. But they were really nice and gentle and kind (in Cambodian). And then I get taken back to the stern doctor who prescribes me drugs and I ask her what's wrong with me... but she doesn't know what it's called in English [only Cambodian and French] so I'm none the wiser. And even though Dave's french is good he doesn't know many random medical terms. But she smiles at me kindly/sympathetically, then there's minor confusion over my diabetes medication while I'm trying to make sure there's no problematic cross-overs with what she's prescribed. And I'm saying "diabetes" and "insulin" a lot and she doesn't seem to understand, so we pull out the phrasebook, which doesn't have 'diabetes' in Khmer but does have it in Thai and show her that and she's like (in ENGLISH) "Oh! You have diabetes? You take insulin? No problem." So we leave pretty happy with how it's all gone and head back to Google what she's scribbled down in French. And it was shingles! So I went back to bed. THE END."

The consultation, ministrations and anti-viral meds cost us about $30 and I finally knew that the painful blisters weren't insect bites and the headaches weren't caffeine withdrawal. I guess it also went some way to explain why I'd not been feeling my best in terms of dealing with things like the border crossing a few days earlier. 

We figured the shingles had probably been brought on by us overdoing it, paired with my slightly compromised immune system. In hindsight, although it didn't really feel like it at the time and even though in a lot of ways we'd had a very relaxing few weeks, once we got to Bangkok we were spending hours and hours walking round the city, then we had that hectic day travelling into Cambodia, then the few very long days looking round the Temples of Angkor - including the accidental 55km bike ride and the early start for sunrise.

The thing with shingles is that you just have to rest, so it was lucky we'd gotten ourselves such a comfortable hotel room. I basically spent the next week lying in bed sleeping, reading, watching TV, and receiving Skype sympathy from loved ones at home. Poor Dave found himself playing nurse and delivery boy - dressing my boo boos and fetching takeaway pizzas and curries as I was too sick to go out for dinner. 

The staff at our hotel were incredibly nice and even though they didn't technically do room service, they'd bring our breakfast up to us each morning until I was well enough to go downstairs for it. The breakfasts were really good too - Dave was tucking into omelettes and French baguettes and I was trying to keep my vitamin levels up with fresh fruit and muesli. And they served seriously good coffee; one of the lovely ladies kept checking if we liked it or not and when we emphatically told her that yes, it was excellent, she told us the hotel manager had specifically sourced the best he could find.

It was a frustrating time. Dave was really bored and climbing the walls, and I felt trapped and angry with my body for letting us down and interfering with our honeymoon adventures. But we both knew that taking it slowly and making sure I recovered properly at this point would mean we could get on with our travels sooner rather than later and hopefully with no further setbacks.

After a few days I was in less pain and feeling a little more energetic, so we decided to try a trip out to dinner. We found a place called the Gecko Cafe, which turned out to be perfect - so much so that when I still felt better the following evening, we went back for dinner a second time! It's a great little restaurant with outstanding food, which supports its lovely staff and their families by paying higher wages than a lot of places and gives them opportunities for training etc. The restaurant is on the first floor and we took a table overlooking a junction of the road, which gave us some interesting activity to watch during dinner! On our first visit it was 'Martini Monday' and after a week in my hotel prison I wasn't likely to say no to $2 cocktails. We also treated ourselves to some Cambodian comfort food over our two visits: vegetable soup, spring rolls, wantons, sweet and spicy chicken, lemongrass chicken, basil fried rice, stir fried fish with lime sauce. And for dessert: warm apple crumb cake with huge scoops of vanilla ice cream. I'm sure our indulgence had a significant impact on my subsequent rate of recovery!

As part of our Cambodia travels, we'd planned to visit Kampot and Kep before moving on to Phnom Penh. But after having to extend our stay in Battambang, and conscious of not wanting to overstretch ourselves again, we made the tough decision to skip them and head straight for the capital.

So even though we hadn't had a chance to see a lot of Battambang, once we decided that I was well enough to travel again we were keen to move on. We were delayed another day by huge sky-splitting storms, but the following day it was clear and dry and I was ready to hit the road. 

We checked out of the Asia Hotel and humped our bags over to the bus depot, where we bought our tickets to Phnom Penh. As we were waiting, a couple of lovely things happened. 

Firstly, we suddenly spotted the lady from our hotel trying to get our attention. She hadn't been at the desk when we were checking out and had therefore been unable to give us our leaving gifts, so she'd followed us over to the station hoping to catch us before we left town! We received two lovely scarves and exchanged some very fond farewells. 

The second thing was that some local girls were buying sticks of bamboo from a seller at the station (on the left in the photo above) and out of curiosity I went over to peer at what was inside them. The girls caught my eye, gave me two huge smiles and proffered one of the sticks, splitting it open so that I could see the contents. It was filled with a sticky concoction of sweet rice and red beans and I was encouraged to pull some out to try it. When I made gestures of 'yum, this is delicious' they then gave me one of the sticks they had bought to take onto the bus with me. People can be so very kind.

And so, after a bit of a hiccup in our plans we were on the road again, excited and delighted that our travels were continuing.

* Pronounced BATTAM-BONG. Although as lovers of marzipan-covered-cake we do struggle not to call it 'Battenberg'.

Our first stop in Bangkok

After seven weeks in Indonesia it was time for us to move onto mainland South East Asia. From Gili Air, we used our magic piece of paper to get us back to Bali, via Lombok, and stayed in Padang Bai for a couple of nights (at Beach Inn 1, which was quieter and cheaper than Marco's) before catching a bus up to Denpasar for our flight to Bangkok.

The plan was to stay in BKK for 4/5 days to run some errands. We needed visas for Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos; more malaria medication; and various essentials we hadn't been able to get hold of on our tiny island. Even though leaving the Gilis was a little traumatic, we were actually looking forward to being back in a proper city for a few days... massively shallow and probably immoral, but all I wanted was to eat Maccy D's and go to the cinema!

Our flight, via Hong Kong, was a piece of cake and we landed in BKK in the very early hours. So it was straight into a taxi from the airport to our guesthouse, Baan Hualamphong. When we arrived, dropped off by our very cheerful female driver, we were told that the room we'd booked was full so we'd be put in an aircon room for no extra charge. Fine by us! Especially considering the weather, even at 2am, felt like being in a steam room.

We paid 520THB per night (about £10.50) and got a big room with two double beds (incredibly hard mattresses), A/C, fridge, private bathroom, towels and loo roll provided. Breakfast was included too and was good, provided you like toast and fried eggs (the only option). Also, we soon discovered that the location of our guesthouse was excellent - not too close to the crazy tourist part of town but really near the Hua Lamphong Metro station, so it was a perfect base for exploring the city.

And what a city it is. One thing I was beginning to learn on our travels was that preconceptions are pretty much useless. I've never been interested in visiting Thailand, least of all Bangkok, which I was under the impression was some sort of unbearably dirty, seedy slum. As far as I was concerned we'd get in, do the necessary jobs, and get out as fast as we could. What did I know?? It's a fabulous, vibrant, thriving, modern metropolis. I fell madly in love with this place and, mainly due to my enthusiasm, we ended up staying for 10 days.

It turned out, after much internet research (with WiFi pilfered from the cafe across the road from our room), that we didn't need to organise our three visas ahead of time and would be better off just getting them all at the respective borders. So we threw ourselves into our other missions, namely: shopping and eating.

One of our first stops was to the MBK mall (one of about, oh, a MILLION!) We founds Boots - an exciting reminder of home - and bought the rest of the malaria tablets we needed to get us through Asia. We also purchased our first pot of Tiger Balm, which we soon realised is an absolute essential; great relief from mosquito bites and various other ailments - although we're still to figure out how it can cure flatulence, as it claims on the label... just rub some under your nose perhaps?? MBK was also our first encounter with the glorious phenomenon of 'Asian tat' - shops and stalls full of coloured plastic, grinning cartoon characters, cutesy animals, and unironic bling. Plus on the sixth floor, they have a great foodhall where there's a huge variety of cuisines available for bargain prices. You buy vouchers and then swap them for a meal; the best we found was the vegetarian stall where you choose three delicious dishes for 50THB (about £1).

We ate very well in Bangkok. The area called Siam is full of hip young things (BKK is so much more fashionable than I would've expected too!) and we had some good food around here (between my bouts of drooling over the shops and market stalls full of clothes I couldn't afford to buy). 

We treated ourselves one night to the Hard Rock Café, gorging ourselves on meat and various deep fried accompaniments. We also went to Som Tam Nua for the eponymous green papaya salad, plus excellent chicken wings, fried fish and sticky rice.

We took the extremely cheap and fun river taxi down to the Khaosan Road area where we bought a knock-off copy of the Lonely Planet guide to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos & Northern Thailand, and stopped off for a lunch of som tam, tom yum kung (a hot and sour prawn soup), chicken noodle soup and spring rolls. Most of what we ate in BKK was supremely spicy (after all that bland Indonesian food, everything we ordered in Thailand had to be swimming in chili) and when we told the waitress we wanted our dishes 'Thai spicy' not 'tourist spicy' she agreed, but kept coming back to our table during our meal to check we were ok!

Even though I came travelling with grand ideas of eating street food everywhere we went, the multitude of stalls lining the pavements were rarely all that appetising once we'd considering how long the edibles had been sat in the open or how much diesel fume had choked them. So we didn't really delve into that culinary adventure.

We did push our boundaries with some stuff that was kind of odd though: raw prawns and sun-dried beef (both really delicious) at a place called Heap with our friend Toby. This was also when we discovered that pork fried rice in Thai is pronounced 'cow pat moo', so we'll never go hungry as we'll never forget that! We also had dinner with our friend Josie, who introduced us to pomelo, a big citrus fruit that we had as a yummy salad.

Also, bubble tea, which comes in all kinds of flavours but is basically flavoured milk with chewy balls in it and an extra wide straw so you can suck them through. I had a chocolate one. It was awesome.

The Paragon Shopping Centre is the high-end mall where all the posh designer stores are: Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Mulberry, Chanel, H&M. Yep, you read that right. We were accidentally there for the grand opening of the first Bangkok H&M store and it was a frenzy! Hundreds of people queuing out of the door, mums taking photos of their kids in front of the signage. Hilarious. 

Our main reason for visiting Paragon was to go to the cinema though. We'd heard really good things about the Bangkok multiplexes, especially the big comfy seats and the glorious air conditioning. We saw Dredd on a massive digital screen with great sound, and ate our body weight in Häagen-Dazs. All for about £4.20 each. A great indulgence after a month on an Indonesian desert island in the middle of nowhere!

The weather was sweltering the whole time we were in the city so opportunities to escape inside to air conditioned comfort of shopping malls and cinemas were extremely welcome. It broke one night though, with a spectacular storm right over the top of our guesthouse, and woke us up with some of the loudest thunder and brightest lightning either of us had ever encountered. It lit the room up like it was midday and came through our eyelids to wake us up! It was still ridiculously hot and muggy the next morning though.

As well as shopping and eating, we did do some sightseeing. We had a lovely afternoon at the Bangkok Art & Culture Centre, looking round the galleries of brilliant Thai artworks and chatting to a young artist called Kan who was selling some of his drawings in the public space.

The Jim Thompson House was also really interesting. He was an American who settled in Thailand and set up a huge silk empire (before going missing in Malaysia) and you can look around his gorgeous 1950s Bangkok residence. It was a very interesting little tour and a really nice way to spend an hour or two, looking around the gardens and his collection of artifacts.

One evening we had a speedy walk through the Patpong area, constantly dodging the invitations to ping pong shows. We didn't feel the need to linger, as the 'sexpats' (dodgy old white men enjoying the company of beautiful young Thais) were quite noticeable enough without going looking for them.

We mostly got around the city using the BST (skytrain) and Metro systems. They were fast, easy and cheap... a bit like the girls in Patpong!!! Sorry. 

Ahem! The trains are pretty entertaining in themselves, with constant adverts showing on the overhead TVs and priceless people-watching opportunities. Sometimes there's more than just watching too... like with the friendly old guy who told me about his massage business, said I was very 'modern' looking and then nodded knowingly when I said I was from London, then gave me his card and kissed me on the cheek before disembarking.

All of this urban sprawl got a bit much in the end though, and Dave especially was getting antsy and keen to move on. So, knowing we'd be back to my 'new favourite city' in a couple of months, we booked ourselves onto a bus to Aranya Prathet at the Cambodian border and left for country number three.

Indonesia in pictures

Getting to know Ubud

The road Jalan Hanoman, where our homestay was, is charming. It runs off of Jalan Raya Ubud - the main drag through the town, which struggles with heavy traffic of both the motorised and tourist varieties, and includes the large market, main temple and loads of shops and restaurants.

Jalan Raya Ubud

Hanoman has a quieter pace, though still busy, and is pretty upmarket compared to some places we've seen since. The shops sell all the common souvenir stuff like bright cotton trousers and tie-dye dresses, bangles and beads, and then there are little boutiques selling jewellery, jams, art, yoga wear and soaps. The eateries range from average Indonesian warungs to Western-inspired, new age cafes serving homemade cakes and pastries (huge slabs of almond chocolate cake, apple pie and glazed fruit danishes), potato wedges, chicken parmigiana, huge salads and health juices. They're popular spots with tourists and ex-pats - all sporting deep tans, linen pants and Apple hardware. The food is great but pricey and the staff lack the charm of smaller, less commercial places.

Kafe is the key example and has a sister branch at the nearby Yoga Barn (A.K.A. The Hippy Mothership). We headed over for their Monday night movie, which was really good fun. We paid 85,000 rupiah each (about £5.50) for an all-you-can-eat buffet of delicious food. There was green salad, grilled tuna, watermelon, pasta, rice, tofu and tempe*. The movie (Lost In La Mancha) was after dinner, projected onto a screen in a massive wooden yoga hall. There were probably 30-40 people there so it was cozy with a nice atmosphere and we all laid on the floor with cushions and yoga mats, munching free fresh popcorn and listening to the rain hit the thatch overhead.

*Tempe is a soya bean product used as a meat alternative, but the beans are left more intact than in the mushy curd they use for tofu. And it's great. Good taste and texture and really versatile; during our time in Indonesia we ate it marinated and stir-fried, deep fried and crispy, curried, in omelettes and more. I can't understand why that bland crap tofu has become so pervasive in the West yet we've never heard of tempe!

Jalan Hanoman also has some cool stone carvings/statues etc... 

Check out this little dude throwing a peace sign

And this badass tiger! Rargh.

The weather in Ubud was much greyer than it had been on the north coast. We didn't get much rain but there was a lot more cloud cover to break up the sunshine. Still hot though!

We rented bikes one day and cycled up to the Neka Art Museum, which is reputed to have the best examples of Balinese art in the area. It didn't disappoint. We saw a wide variety of traditional paintings - many based on the aesthetic style of old shadow puppet shows - through to some by the 'Ubud School' depicting everyday life, and contemporary artists doing more abstract work. The Arie Smit collection was lovely too. Interesting sculpture as well, both traditional and modern. It was a nice way to spend a couple of hours and the setting itself was peaceful, set out among a quiet compound of gardens and pavilions. It was good to absorb something really Balinese, away from the tourist-centric town centre.

A door carving

Dave contemplating

A little of the Keith Haring about this one, m'thinks

Our next experience of hired transport was the bemo... retrofitted minivans that have the seats replaced with low benches running the length of the vehicle, which speed along with no seat belts and the doors open. Fast and fun! Our driver Kadek took us out of Ubud to see a couple of sights.

We went to a largish temple (Pura Ibu Pejeng) that houses the Moon of Pejeng, the largest bronze kettle drum on earth. It was 'on display' at the top of a tall, decorated (but dilapidated) stone platform and you couldn't see much. The temple was practically deserted and in places was very shabby, but it was nice to wander around the grassy areas with trees and bright tropical flowers dotted about, seeing the stone Hindu idols, the towering pagoda-like stupas, the statues draped in different coloured cloths and the gold-painted wood carvings. 

The Moon of Pejeng

Dogs sleeping on the platform of the largest pavilion, which looked newer than the rest.

We had a nice encounter with the couple of young lads manning the entrance of the temple. One tied on our obligatory sarongs, carefully reaching round our waists and deftly knotting them. We didn't have the correct money for the donation and they didn't have change, which wasn't a problem and we went in to look around giving it no more thought. But as we were leaving and returning our sarongs, one of the boys handed me a few rupiah - they'd clearly gotten the right money from another tourist while we'd been inside and remembered to give it back to me. It was a heartwarming example of thoughtfulness that was refreshing after the regular barrage of pushy hawkers we'd encountered a few times in town. Obviously, I asked them to keep the money.

After Pejeng, Kadek drove us to Yeh Pulu, a small area among some rice fields that's home to some 14th century reliefs carved into the rockface. And more hawkers and chancers...! "I show you stones? Tour? You have transport? You need trek tomorrow? Sarong sarong? My wife makes! Transport? Tour?" Plus the lady sitting by the carvings who ignored by protests against the blessing she forced on me and quickly uncovered an until then hidden pile of folded donations which I was then obliged to contribute to. 

But the carvings were cool, and we saw a praying mantis.

All in all, a few good days sightseeing and getting to know Ubud and the surrounding area.