Different country, same foreign investors laughing in the faces of the locals.

Angkor Wat, January 2005


Cambodian entrepeneur. They are way too sweet - you have to let them rip you off


Going for the kill...


Waiting for trade


A wedding couple.


There is such a difference between Siem Reap, or should I say the area around Angkor Wat and the rest of Cambodia. Siem Reap boasts a massive street, full of luxury hotels – some costing $1000’s a night. You have to pay for a day pass into the area where all the temples are, so there are barriers on the road that leads up to it. This whole area is so glossy and clean. The moment you are back to Siem Reap proper the roads are broken, the curbs are all smashed, the footpaths are covered in rubbish and there is dust everywhere.

They are obviously making a lot of money from Angkor Wat – the $60 entrance fee goes to a hotel group. Some of the cash is used for restoration, but those hotels must be making so much money. Why can’t they put a little bit of it back into the community? It’s so unfair. It’s nice to see the people here with jobs, at least, but the rest of the country is so poor. One thing I will give them is that at least they allow traders in to sell drinks and snacks on the site. Machu Picchu bans all independent traders. If you want a drink you are forced to go to the American run luxury hotel restaurant and pay ridiculously hiked prices for a bottle of water. It’s that or nothing.

At least here the kids can make a few dollars selling postcards and breakfasts. They are amazing, funny and simply irresistible. They memorise all the main facts and figures for the countries of all the different tourist groups and charm you with their knowledge. “You have a queen, but the boss is Tony Blair. Your capital is London and it always rains.” They ask for pens, try to sell you tourist guides and offer to act as ‘guides.’ They haven’t quite got the guide bit right yet – our little boy just wanted him to follow him around as he walked ahead completely silent – I think he needed to squat up a bit on his Angkor history.

They also allow landmine victim groups to busk for money. There has not been a single day that we have spent in Cambodia where we haven’t seen hoards of victims. They are everywhere. Many are children, but most are adults. It’s quite safe to come here. All the roads and public areas have been cleared. You just have to remember never to venture off a clear path.

It’s the poor, as usual, that suffer – those that are forced to work on the land or in fields. It’s heart-breaking. Not only did the Khmer Rouge blanket the place with them, but the Vietnamese and the Americans did too. Companies like MAG are working flat out to clear as many mines as possible, but apparently it’s going to take a further 100 years for the whole country to be cleared if they continue at the rate they are working at. Shocking isn’t it? Heard it all before? That’s because you haven’t seen it. I don’t mean to sound arsy or superior. We all know that there’s a horrible land mine situation over here, Princess Diana did her bit there. It just doesn’t really sink in until you see countless young, good looking men with no legs busking in the streets and begging for money or kids running round with no hands.

Angkor Wat, Jan 2005. A bit templed out after 3 days but still simply amazing

The site entrance.


Tim and Tin Tin







Caught in the Jungle


Not sure how I feel about this. It was a really short walk up.


Angkor Wat


Sunrise over the wat. We waited ages for this whilst the cute kids made us a hot breakfast.




These tree roots just wowed me out completely. Imagine what it must have been like when they first found it.


Ta Prohm Temple, Angkor Wat


Ta Prohm interior. We virtually had the place to ourselves for a few hours.



Angkor Wat is amazing. I was truly impressed and so glad for Cambodia that it was rediscovered. What an amazing place. For the first time in ages I felt lucky to be there and to have seen such a fabulous place. I have to say, though, impressed as I was by Angkor Wat itself, Ta Prohm was the one that wowed me out the most. We were lucky enough to get there when there were not too many tourists. What a place. Part of it was used to film Tomb Raider and you can totally see why. All of the temples in the area date back to the 12th Century. Most have been restored but Ta Prohm has been left pretty much as it was found more than 100 years ago. Giant trees with roots taller than the building itself have worked their way over, under and in between the stonework. Their trunks tower hundreds of feet into the sky above creating a scene which really doesn't merit a description from even the finest of writers. You really have to see it for yourself. I think I used a whole memory card on the place. I can't remember who directed Tomb Raider but I can just imagine his reaction when he saw it and the beaming, smug smile on the face of the location manager when he showed it to him. I was walking round the place totally stunned at what I was seeing. Once again I was reminded just how lucky I am to have been able to do this trip.

The Great Cambodian 'Bus' Scam

All aboard the "Luxury VIP Coach."
Pay no more than the absolute minimun to get to Siem Reap from Bangkok. This is the best you are going to get unless you fly (which is dull).



Calm amidst the storm


En route to Siem Reap


It's workers like these that are most in danger of the landmines.


I knew one of them would collapse! The driver just drove into the field around it!!



“Are we going to get on the big bus now?” We were all asking. The whole group was a little riled because they had conned us out of 300 baht extra each for our visas. We were told that we'd get a bigger bus on the other side.

It was bigger...I'll give them that. But it was the oldest and most clapped out bus I have ever seen. It seated about 16. The door was broken and the windows were plastic - most of which were stuck open. The broken curtain rails were banging against what was left of the windows. There were no curtains. The road from Bangkok to Siem Reap is notorious. Apparently Thai Airways have been bribing Cambodian officials for years not to get it fixed. We had a very amusing six hour journey. Some people were getting annoyed, but I found it all hysterically funny. Luxury bus indeed! Holidays over, back to the travelling then.

The road was so full of massive craters we were bouncing around all over the place. If no-one was suffering with a bad back or whip lash before they got on they were by the end of it. Suspension? Never heard of it. Not on this route anyway. (We found out later that they will not allow their decent coaches to do that road because it is so bad). We kept on having to go over rotten wooden slack bridges. 'I'm sure these are going to collapse!' 'Don't be silly' replied Tim. Sure enough we arrived at one which had indeed collapsed. No worry at all for the driver. He just drove the bus into the field and around it. So much for not straying off the official path!

It got dryer and dryer and so dusty and then dustier. The scenery and the good spirit on the bus made the journey go quite quickly though. We couldn't stop laughing about the poor sods who had paid an extra 200 baht for a VIP service. Twats. There are warnings all over the guide books. Luckily, they saw the funny side of it too.

As soon as we crossed the border into Cambodia and cleared the first town, everywhere looked like we were in ‘Apocalypse Now’. It's the trees that do it. I had just read a book called 'First They Killed my Father' about a little girl who survived the Pol Pot massacres. It was exactly as she described it. Everything covered in red dust (including all of us), tumble down shacks on stilts and those fantastic trees that you always see in Vietnam war movies. Lots of very thin cows and lots, and lots, and lots of huge holes. After six hours of the bumpiest road ever we were glad to reach Siem Reap to a clean bed and a warm shower.

Travellers yet to visit Siem Reap take note: Part of the bus scam is that the company makes sure it arrives after dark and then takes you to his mate’s guest house. Well, in our case ‘mate’s guest house’ was actually really nice. We got a huge, really clean room for $3 each with a private bathroom and hot water. The guide books will also tell you that the hotels they use are out of the way. Ours was about two minutes walk to the rest of the backpacker hotels. I wasn’t about to complain.

The rocky road to Cambodia

Question: How many people and bags can you cram into one 8 seater minibus?
Answer: 14 plus two at the front.




The queue at the border




Not sure what the mask is about.


Just a few metres away from Thailand and suddenly all the streets are littered with rubble.



January 2005, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

I liked Cambodia from the moment we got to the border. The 300 Bhat luxury bus that was due to pick us up from our hotel in Bangkok turned out to be a mini bus for 8 people. They loaded it with 12 people and 12 sets of luggage and took us all the way to the border.

Once there I was virtually attacked by kids asking for food. I remembered that I had bought some doughnuts for the ride and pulled them out. Big mistake. Within seconds I was surrounded by about fifteen children all dressed in rags and covered in dirt shouting 'yam yam' at me and signalling their hands towards their mouths. It was heart breaking. I didn't have enough for all of them and soon enough a local adult came and shooed them all away. I’d bought the doughnuts knowing that I’d be able to give some away. OK, I caused a bit of a riot, but when else will those kids get sugared doughnuts? Tim really had a go at me. Not in a bad way. You could see his heart was going out to them too, but he feels strongly that we shouldn’t give to kids. I don’t give them money, but a bloody sugared doughnut?

There was a girl sat outside the passport office aged about 15. She was thin as a rake, with short, curly hair and her face was smeared with dirt. She was stunningly beautiful. Her clothes were in tatters. As the kids continued to hassle people for food and money, she just sat there staring ahead of her. My heart stopped beating when I saw her. She was obviously no older than 15, but her face, her expression, was one of a 60 year old. I tried desperately not to let her see my face because I was holding back tears. I didn’t want her to see my pity. I know she saw me though. By this time I’d given all my food away. As we left, Tim waited for the kids to run away and then gave her a bag of crisps that he’d forgotten we had. The local police get really angry with them and are constantly shooing them away because they pick pocket tourists on one side of the border and then run to the other side where they can’t get arrested. It was the first time I had seen misery like this since Peru. I assume she was Cambodian. Just a taster of what was to come.

Running low on money and patience.

6th January 2005, Bangkok.



Outside out apartment in Ko Tao on New Years Day. I spent the whole day thinking I
was about to throw up, but never did. Considering we are 4 months in and this is the worst its been so far, I think I'm quite lucky.




I took this photo not realising it was actually Pete walking across the sand.



Sariee Beach Ko Tao.



This is the beach that belonged to the apartments where we were staying



And here are the fish you could see in the water before you put your mask on. One of them bit a scab on Tim's leg and made it bleed. Yeuch!



We hired a boat and went around the whole of Ko Tao stopping off to snorkel in all the bays. It was a fantastic day. Tim saw a turtle. I missed it because it was in Shark Bay and I just couldn't cope with the idea of going out of my way to meet a shark in my bikini, vegeratian or not.



Ko Tao - another lush sunset. I've seen so many on this trip, but I'm never going to get complacent about them.



Even Buddha gets old. Bangkok



Khao San Road



I'm going to miss Pete and Sal when they go



This is Mr Shaky Shaky Man. He lives just outside our hotel in Bangkok and gave us breakfast every morning. He serves fantastic smoothies with ice made from mineral water "because I love you guys" for 20 Baht.



I'm still having trouble getting used to these things. Tim just won't do cars anymore - even to the airport, which means backpacks on our knees all the way.

6th January 2005, Bangkok.
We are in a guest house just off the Khao San Rd. We moved from a hotel near Nana after Tim blocked the loo so badly we couldn't unblock it and dare not tell the owners in case they charged us. (There is a 1000 baht fine for putting loo roll down the toilet, when will he learn??).

We are running out of money fast and we have just been completely scanked on our India Visas. We paid way 800 Baht each for them. We found out they are doing them on the Khao San for 400. It isn't a lot of money, but we've got 4 months left and barely any money to live on. Its been hard because Pete and Sal were here on holiday so they were spending English pounds earned at home. I so wish we could keep up with them. I feel like we held them back from doing things at times, because we simply could not afford it. I'm realising we didn't plan the trip well at all when it comes to money. We just gathered as much as we possibly could and went for it. Anyone planning to do a trip - make sure you take into account alcohol - it costs a fortune when you want it - and trips - like hiking, snorkelling etc. There's no point coming to all these amazing places if you cannot afford to experience them properly and you WILL pay tourist prices for them unless you stay for an age and really get to know the locals. Unfortunately my desire to see as many places as possible on this trip means we can't really do that.

We left Ko Tao shortly after New Year. Its such a beautiful place. Really chilled and nicer than Ko Pha Ngan - the snorkelling is amazing. It feels like we've had a three week holiday away from travelling. The beaches are very resort like and what with having Dani, Zak, Pete and Sal around too. I remember when we first spoke about meeting up with people before we left England. Back then I was a bit against it because I didn't want to be reminded of the real world for the whole trip, but it hasn't been like that at all. I've really enjoyed seeing both Dan and Zak and Pete and Sally and I'm missing them all already. I just wish our bloody cash hadn't ran right the way down. We had a fantastic time in New Zealand and Oz, but I have to say Tim was right - it drained us out completely. I'm not quite sure what we are going to do. There is absolutely no way that I will even consider going back early.

Khao San is nowhere near as mad as I expected. It's certainly colourful and all the traders of fake everything are there, but it's actually quite chilled. I wish Dan and Zak would have met us here instead. I’m sure they would have liked it, despite Zak’s horror of other backpackers. I much prefer it to where we were on Sukhumvit - the only other tourists we saw there were overweight 50 + men who I could not help but sneer at. In our hotel there was a sign up saying that if guests did not ensure that their 'Thai lady friends' left ID at reception they would take no responsibility for theft from the rooms. If I have to be with thousands of other tourists, I’d much rather they were back packers than paedophiles and dirty old men. Zak – you’re wrong on this one.

Tim has been doing my head in quite a lot lately. We have been together a long time, but I am finding out many things about his personality on this trip that I am not liking one bit.

I knew he was bad with money, but I always thought it was because he didn't have much. I now realise that he is completely irresponsible with it. All he wants to do is buy stuff...mainly junk. And we are skint. I'm sure he thinks that I'll come up with a reserve of cash, but this time he is wrong. The emergency budget was spent a long time ago. The whole £5,000 has gone and I am left only with the travellers cheques I have left. Money is just disappearing like water.

He's also being really pushy about everything. Where we go, what we do and even where things are put. On Christmas Eve we had a massive row because he refused to let me put my comb on the dresser. The rooms we have barely have any furniture. There is never anywhere to put anything. The one time that we were given a room with a dresser and shelves, he insists on having a whole shelf for the walkman and speakers and nothing else. It's so ridiculously childish and unrealistic. On Christmas Eve I disliked him so much I was desperate to be at home as far away from him as possible.

I have also noticed that he can be really rude and condescending to people since we have been away. I don't think he realises how he talks down to people sometimes, but he has left me cringing with embarrassment on several occasions. On Boxing Day, the day of the biggest natural disaster the world has seen for a century, my Dad was desperately trying to call. It was a bad line and Tim was saying in that nasty Mr. Superior tone, ‘look you'll have to move your mouth away from the receiver or I won't be able to understand you.' Then he put the phone down. He knew full well it was a call from home. My Dad was so scared at hearing such a bad, crackled line with a voice he couldn’t understand that when the phone went dead he started to cry.

That day I not only disliked him, but utterly despised him. He tried to make out that he didn't know who it was. He would never have given up on the call so abruptly if he didn't know it was from my parents. He thinks they call too much. There’s just been a massive tsunami and 240,000 people are dead. We are in Thailand for fucks sake. Even our friends were calling never mind our parents. I think it’s because he’s secretly upset that his Dad didn’t bother to call. I think his contempt or jealousy or whatever the bloody hell it is will eventually mark the end of us. I can't believe he made my Dad cry.

I think both of us are a bit down at the moment. Not anything like being down at home – that’s impossible – we are just way too relaxed and happy to be out here. But it’s been a weird time. The tsunami was horrible, and now Pete and Sally have gone we are feeling a bit lonely stuck in Bangkok waiting for our Visas for Laos and India. It’s about 38 degrees here and polluted as hell. Sometimes the smell is so bad it makes me gag. We are fast running out of cash – so much so that I am starting to think that we might have to go home early. So we are just hanging in our hotel room, trying to save our cash for the rest of the trip rather than wasting it here.

There are so many people in the Koh San area with bandaged up legs, arms, bruised faces. All of them back packers. The lucky ones. At the top of Koh San Rd, just by the police station there is a huge barrier up with lists of names and photos of thousands of people that are missing. It’s horrible. It reminds me of Ground Zero. I know I should take a photo of it, but I can’t bring myself round to doing it. I think Pete might have taken one. I feel as if we should be doing something, but they don’t want any more people over there unless they have medical skills or are builders. We’ve heard so many stories. Apparently the Thais on the islands have been amazing. Treating the tourists still out there as if they were their own. Feeding them, housing them. I’d like to think the Brits would do the same. I’m not so sure though.

Christmas pre tsunami. Ko Pha Ngan, Thailand

Hat Yao Beach, Christmas Eve 2004



Ko Pha Ngan - our room



Pete and Sally are here! Christmas Eve 2004



The Pirate Bar - Hat Yao




Dani and Zak mid way through far too much Thai whisky



Oh no, it's those buckets. Bang goes all the culture stuff then.


Christmas Eve at the Pirate Bar


Christmas Morning at our beach huts.


The owners prepared us a huge fish BBQ.


Christmas night. Dean has turned up too. Its nice to have so many familiar faces tonight. For the first time on this trip I'm missing home a bit.



Dean put on a great display for us. He burned himself silly tho!



Ghecko porn anyone?



Blissfully unaware. 26th december 2004 11am, Hat yao Beach. We were just about to hear the first rumour that 150 people had died in Kho Phi Phi