myanmar

I am finding it difficult starting this blog entry because so many things have happened.
I had been telling everyone about my parents, Edward and Christian coming out to see me and was very excited. I really enjoyed seeing them all, spending time with them and I am so appreciative they came to see me but it wasn't as stress free and easy as I had hoped. There was a clash of interests and some illness due to exhaustion and bad food. It isn't necessary to go into detail so I'll stick with the good stuff, which there was also plenty of.
Edward and I started our adventure in Yangon. We arrived at our couchsurfers flat and were very warmly welcomed. Jonathan gave us some great tips about what to do in yangon. We had a lie in and met jonathan in the afternoon. He took us around town and showed us some good places to go with mum and dad.
Christian arrived that day and i went to collect him from the airport. Annoyingly the airline lost his bag so we had to get some new clothes from the market.
We went to meet mum and dad from the hotel and took them to china town for some food.
Sadly mum spent the next few days in bed because she was exhausted after the end of term and the flight so the boys and I checked out the market and a very big pagoda.
We all piled onto a night bus to bagan and arrived early on the 25th. We all wore Christmas hats at breakfast and impressed the Burmese staff. We hired ebikes for the days we were in bagan and enjoyed zooming around exploring the temples. Dad, ed and I went on a wonderful boat trip across the river and took a tuk tuk up a bumpy track to the top of a hill. The view was amazing.
Edward got struck with a stomach bug flu thing so spent a few days in bed. This meant christian went ahead to mandalay and Edward and I met him there once we had said bye to mum and dad and edward felt better.
For my birthday we had a small explore of the city and christian and I went out for a lovely western dinner and cocktails. Was such a good change from noodles!
The next day we visited mingun and amarapura, two small places outside of the city and we had a tuk tuk driver for the day called steel fighter. We were even invited to a monk's funeral and saw him in a huam size fridge. The locals were very keen to try and tell us about the ceremony. We also walked along the world's longest teak bridge and witnessed a burmese seven aside football competition.
New years eve was spent in a noodle restaurant with the owner and his colleagues drinking beer and whiskey and playing the guitar. He was very friendly and we had a good pre-party before we joined the massive street party that was going on. We had a lot of fun celebrating with the Burmese!
The next day Christian went off to the beach and edward and I are spending the last few days of our holiday exploring the beautiful surroundings of mandalay before edward heads back to Mogadishu and I am travelling further to chiang mai.
Travelling in Myanmar has been fantastic because it had been so different to vietnam, laos and cambodia. There is such a wonderful mix of cultures with chinese, indian and thai influences. The people are the friendliest I have ever met and I always felt welcome. I have definitely eaten the best burmese food in mandalay and have enjoyed learning about this amazing country.
Two interesting cultural things is that men were a sarong type skirt which edward is wearing in the first picture and the women paint sandle wood on their faces to use as sun protection.

Jonathon, ed and I in yangon

In dala across the river from yangon

Bagan and it, s stupa-filled landscape

Mandalay

siem reap to bangkok

I spent the last few days relaxing in siem reap and have met some really nice people. I did a few yoga classes and enjoyed cycling around town.
I arrived in bangkok today after a long 12 journey and luckily the border crossing was nice and smooth.
I am super excited about this weekend because I am going to the airport to pick edward up tomorrow morning and we will be joined in myanmar by christian, mum and dad on Sunday.
Cannot believe it has come around so fast!!!
So my next post will be from myanmar :-)

siem reap and angkor waaaat!

Warning! This is going to be a long post :-)

The journey from koh rong to siem reap was the journey from hell, so some it up succinctly. It started with a trip on a catamaran across to the main land tackling our way over 3-4m waves and then a night bus which was making similar motions over the horrendous road for 12 hours. Another common factor was that numerous people were throwing up. So after that ordeal I finally arrived in siem reap, sat down to have some breakfast in the hostel and a very nice dutch girl called marieke came to sit next to me and we ended up spending a lovely day checking out the city and the market.
I was very tired so went to bed early after we had arranged to get up at 4.30am to meet our tuk tuk driver Ngug and head to the temples for the day.

Could have obviously slept for longer but I launched myself out of bed and got ready. Ngug, an elderly cambodian man who never failed to smile and laugh, was waiting for us and we went to collect two more girls we'd met the day before, before we went to angkor wat for sunrise.
There were quite a few tourists but it was still a wonderful experience. It was really quite mystical walking through the temples at dusk. The atmosphere had a light buzz of anticipation and excitement as we all stood waiting for the sun.

We headed back to find Ngug and started to driver around to the other temples.the site is phenomenal and at each temple marieke read a section from her guidebook so we knew what we were looking at. The first european visitors to the site came to the site in 1907. This was when the french 'discovered' the site. The only temple that had inhabitants was angkor wat and the others were over grown by jungle.

The above pictures are of Angkor Wat

It was quite amusing watching the other tourists and we saw lots of chinese people taking more pictures of themselves than of the temples.

A few of the temples had sections being restored. We learnt that the government tried to clean the temples with acid...so the germans have stepped in and run the majority of restoration projects.

The following temple was one of my favourites because hundreds of years ago someone decided to take apart sections of the temple to repair the stones. However before the temple was put back together,  war broke out and the blue prints were lost so the puzzle remains a mystery and the stones remain on the floor surrounding the temple.

we invited Ngug for lunch which he was quite happy about and managed to get a good price! Getting quite good at bargaining!

Temple buddies

After a fantastic day exploring these wonderful ancient buildings we made it to the sunset point and enjoyed the sit down taking in a beautiful view.

I had to take a picture of this guy.
He has the most ridiculous selfie stick I have ever seen.

koh rong

Apologies for the lack of blog entry recently! I arrived on the cambodian island of koh rong and as I was about to write my first entry I got struck with food poisoning (again) and have been in bed for a few days.
Anyway, I am feeling better and ready to tell you all about this lovely island.
I am travelling with a very nice spanish couple at the moment and as we came off the ferry, I met a group of people I had met during my travels in vietnam. South east asia is a small world when it comes to backpacking.
One of these guys was actually working at a popular hostel and got us a bungalow at low season rates which was a great bonus!
There are 24 beaches on the island and the main one is lined with wooden and bamboo guesthouses, bars and restaurants. It is not at all high-rise and they have managed to maintain a a castaway vibe. There is a local village with cheap food to the left of the pier and a more western style to the right.
There is not too much to do but swimming, sunbathing and playing volleyball has been keeping us occupied.
I invited a few cambodian guys to play volleyball with us and they were so enthusiastic. They just could not stop laughing and I think they were mainly laughing at us! That was a really nice experience.

ostris beach

After kampot I got the minibus to sihanoukville and met a couple from.spain and we decided to go to a beach called ostrid beach about 20mins from town. We are glad we did because this place is just one road with lovely cafes and bungalows and the beach is quiet and clean. After taking a while to find a place we found a great mushroom themed hostel at the end of the road. As soon as we could drop our bags off we went straight to the beach and swam. We had a bbq with the hostel and there were some guests who performed.  One played guitar and sung, one guy did spoken word and a scottish guy did some hilarious rapping!
The rest of my time here has been spent on the beach, swimming, reading and chatting. This will be continued tomorrow when we get the boat to an island called koh rong.

A little visitor on my sun bed as I was enjoying a coconut

kampot

Today was a bit of  an adventure! I was up early to go to a yoga class in a women's only spa which trains Cambodian women from bad backgrounds to be masseuses, yoga teachers and beauticians. There was a very relaxed atmosphere there.
I then rented a motorbike to explore the surrounding area. I drove to a pepper farm and annoyingly came off my bike as I was trying to go through some mud. I was lucky that there were some nice Laos guys to help pick the bike up and they even gave me their water to wash the mud off my arm. I have a good bruise on my knee and annoying broke the right wing mirror so after the farm I stopped at a petrol station and asked, by pointing at the broken mirror, where I can get a new one. A guy who was getting petrol indicated for me to follow him and he took me down the road to a bike shop and I got a new mirror for a dollar.  Not bad!
I drove through a place called Kep which had a lovely beach and got home before it got too dark.
At my yoga class, an irish lady recommended a restaurant to me and I went this evening. It was amazing. It opened six months ago and is already no. 1 on trip advisor. It is a tiny bamboo and straw hut with one table and the owner prepares and cooks everything on the same table and even grows all the veg in his garden. He has 6 meals on the menu and my meal was the best I have had in weeks. I wish I had taken my camera!

Phnom Penh

I had an interesting day exploring Phnom Penh yesterday. The city is buzzing but the poverty and hardship of many people here is a lot more evident than in Vietnamese cities or cities in Laos.  This changes the atmosphere somewhat but I still enjoyed the markets and eating street food with the locals.
Edward got in touch with an old school friend of his called tomas who is working in Phnom penh and he messaged me with some tips. His job as a private investigator keeps him busy so I didn't think I would catch up with him however as I was having dinner in a restaurant with some guys from my hostel he walked passed us by chance and recognised me, so he joined us for a beer.
I was with a 19 year old german guy who had just quit an internship he was doing in ho chi minh city to travel for a month and an indian canadian guy who had been travelling for the past 4 years. This is the part of travelling I really enjoy. Just sitting with other travellers and sharing stories and experiences.      
As we were sat on the street a small cambodian boy came up to tomas and said 'hey 1000'. Tomas and the boy seemed to know each other and I realised this was a game they often play. 'You name 1000' said theboy and after some haggling, tomas gave the boy 1000r (25cent) and he went off with an excited smile.  
There had been some lightening in the distance as we were eating but didn't think much of it until the torrential down pour started. A tuk tuk driver came into the restaurant after us and waited until we were ready to leave. I stood with him at the door as the guys finished their beers and started chatting. I asked him about his life and he lives out of town with his wife and two young sons. He has always been a tuk tuk driver and had surprisingly good english. I asked how much he earnt a day and was told he would earn between 8 and 15 dollars for 15 hours. He told me it costs 8 dollars a day to feed his family and they eat twice daily. He is also trying to save for this sons' education so he told me he sells weed too. This is apparently something lots of tuk tuk drivers do to try and make even. He doesn't like doing it because if he got caught he would get into big trouble and could lose his license and have to pay a fine.
It's when you find out information like this that makes you put a lot of things into perspective. Travellers always complain about tuk tuk drivers trying to rip you off and I am guilty of this too. But in the grand scheme of things an extra dollar here and there does not stretch the wallet too much and sometimes it is good to think where the money is going. Everyone has to earn a living and support a family.
A conversation topic I often have with travellers is how lucky we are to be able to travel far and wide without too much trouble and be able to find jobs that allow us to afford it. Some people feel guilty that cambodians or vietnamese people don't have this opportunity but I don't think that is the point. It's important that we use this privilege we have effectively and support sustainable tourism. For example, eating locally and supporting community projects. In siem reap they have restaurants that train young people with difficult backgrounds and often the homeless to cook. Providing then this skill allows them to work and get off the streets.
Here are some pics from pp.
I have now arrived in kampot and it is so much better than being in a big city.

If you can see the brown spots on the walls I was told it is bat poo. The man who told me couldn't speak so he had drawn a picture.  It must be a common question.

National museun

Iced coffee with a tin a milk,  that's a new one!

I made a friend. She loved looking at her picture on my camera