Perhentian Islands Malaysia - Part 2

To celebrate Hari Raya the hotel staff at Suria put on traditional food and cakes and we ate and drank for free all day.

On our almost daily walk through the jungle to Long Beach we spotted a snake, Vince the Viper, who stayed in the same place in a tree all week. The hotel staff also found a bright green snake.

Our last week was spent checking out different beaches, snorkelling, eating and drinking (non alcoholic).

The weather was good; it rained until 3pm one day but apart from that it was fine. The islands have virtually shut down for the monsoon now.

Perhentian Islands Malaysia

After a sleepless night on the "sleeper" train, dawn broke; we could see huge vertical cliffs and lots of jungle as we rattled along the track. Our train was due to arrive at Tanan Merah at 10:03. We got off at the duly appointed time, which turned out to be 4 stops too early, so had to take a taxi for 80km to Kuala Besut. From here we caught a boat to the Perhentian Islands.

The two islands are beautiful, set in a marine park so there are no pesky jetskis. There are also no roads on the islands so transport is by boat or foot.

We were pleased to find our chosen accommodation at half price as it's low season. We can live on 10 pounds each a day here and that's eating out 3 times a day.

The water is turquoise and we've been snorkelling and scuba diving. We saw our first non-baby shark (a black tip reef shark), a group of huge bumphead parrotfish, along with a stingray and some green turtles.

Two metre long monitor lizards also roam around the islands but we have yet to catch one on film.

We have another week to spend here in paradise as all the trains back were full, due to Hari Raya (a muslim festival marking the end of Ramadan?).

Paul thanks for telling us about these islands, they are beautiful.

Siem Reap-Phnom Penh-Kuala Lumpur

The minibus taking us to the Mekong Express Bus broke down in the middle of one of the few sets of traffic lights in Siem Reap, we were crammed in like sardines and it got quite hot! Eventually we made it to the bus and safely back to Phnom Penh. We visited the National Museum but gave the killing fields and Tuol Sleng Museum a miss as we didn't think we could handle it.

We flew to Kuala Lumpur amidst some of the worst haze they have had for years. We had a swish four star hotel with a good view of the Petronas Towers, the only trouble was there were small cockroaches in our room! This was surprising as we were on the 25th floor.

After a good nights sleep we set off on the monorail to buy our train tickets for the next day. It was quite scary like being at Alton Towers and the driver looked as if he was flying a plane. As there were some public holidays coming up the train was full apart from seats in economy class on the night train. Instead we had to check out of our hotel a day early and take the sleeper train that night. Whilst at the train station we had our first McDonalds! We had local food the night before but it didn't seem very cooked. A meal deal was only about a pound.

Angkor Wat & the surrounding temples

Day 1
Our Tuk Tuk driver picked us up and we checked into our new plush accommodation (in comparison) at the Red Piano.

We had seen a few nice butterflies in Phnom Penh so decided to go to the Butterfly Garden for breakfast. There were hundreds of beautiful butterflies flying around, some had a wingspan of 6-7 inches. We then set off for the temples. Our first stop was Bayon, the entrance was amazing and at the temple there were loads of huge faces looking down on us from every angle. We visited the other temples that made up Angkor Thom and then set off back to Angkor Wat for sunset.

The approach to Angkor Wat was breathtaking and we took the iconic reflection shot by the pond. We explored the temple with the Bas Relief carvings and then climbed to the top. The steps were so steep as to be almost vertical. Helen opted to go down the only stairs with a handrail (joining a long queue) and Steve braved the normal steps. As we stood by the ponds to watch the sunset, some aussies approached us and asked if they could phtograph us possibly for posters for the Commonwealth Bank. All we did was stand there whilst they took photos and they paid us $50 each! We were very pleased as we seem to be going over our budget of 27.00 pounds each per day. The sounds coming from the forest got really loud, mostly from crickets but there are all sorts of things living in there. The Tuk Tuk journey home in the dark was quite scary as we didn't have any back lights so we held our torch up instead.

That night we tried Khmer food in the Dead Fish Restaurant which was very tasty. Helen had Kao-Pad-Ki-Mao (chicken with spicy fried rice, basil leaves, garlic & chilli) and Steve had Cha-Urk (Chicken with basil, garlic and lemongrass).

Day 2
We got up at 4.30am to watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat. There was a bit too much cloud cover and it didn't really materialize. We then explored more temples eventually Ta Prohm (where two scenes from Tomb Raider were filmed). This temple really got swallowed up by the jungle with trees 100-150ft high growing out of the top of it in many places and in this temple the biggest trees have been left in situ. After visiting more temples we were flagging as we'd had hardly any sleep and went back at 2.30pm for a kip.

Day 3
After a bit more sleep we were refreshed and ready to go. Our first stop was the landmine museum set up by a Aki Ra who was forced to fight for the Khmer Rouge and Cambodian Army since he was 10 years old. He has since set up the musuem and uses all the donations to clear landmines and help local landmine children. For information you can visit the website at www.akiramineaction.com We then set off on the 27km Tuk Tuk ride to Banteay Srei. The carvings here are some of the best in the world and we met a local girl with a very cute puppy, earlier we met a nice local girl names Wat which made for a confusing conversation, she took away our drink cans for recycling..

We then had about four more temples to cover. Ta Som had a huge tree growing around the Eastern Gate. Preak Neak Pean is surrounded by water, we had it almost to ourselves and as dusk was looming the sounds of the frogs in the ponds croaking got louder and louder. As it was getting dark we reached Preah Khan, it was a large temple and walking around in near darkness got quite scary, the jungle creatures and birds were waking up. It was all very mystical and gave us a glimpse of how the temples may have been like in their heyday.

It was sad to come to the end of our trip to the temples of Angkor Wat, it is a magical place-especially at quiet times.

Phnom Penh to Siem Reap Cambodia

After getting up at 4am I wasn't feeling too great. We arrived at the new airport which looked cool lit up. I sat down whilst Steve queued up to check our baggage in, as he got to the front I tried joining him in the queue only to be sick on my chair, on the floor on my way to the queue and again in the queue with Steve! Steve said it looked like the scene from Little Britain! Luckily it was all clear liquid and didn't contain the minstrels from the night before and it made me feel better!

We arrived in Phnom Penh the capital of Cambodia after a 1 hour 10 minute flight, as we approached Phnom Penh practically the whole countr appeared to be under muddy water! Cambodia is mad, the traffic drives on all sides of the road simultaneously and it's chaos. We got some kip and visited the Royal Palace which was very pretty. After another kip we went to happy herb pizza for tea but we didn't opt for the "happy pizza"!

The next morning we got up early to catch the Mekong Express for our 6 hour bus ride to Siem Reap. The journey was interesting as we spotted cows, buffalo, pigs etc in peoples front gardens which were pools of muddy water, people were also washing their clothes in the water whislt the children played.

Amazingly we arrived in Siem Reap without being submerged in water and took a Tuk Tuk to our accommodation. At first our $5 dollar a night room looked okay but after a closer inspection was quite dirty and we were not really in the hub of Siem Reap.

Our Tuk Tuk driver took us to the temples of Angkor Wat and we bought our 3 day pass and went to see the sunset. We drove past the main temple of Angkor Wat which is an amazing sight. Along with 1000 other people we trekked to the top of a hill climbed up some very steep steps just to watch the sun go behind a cloud on the horizon.

We slept well that night as we were exhausted.

Helen x

Reflections Hotel Bangkok

Our hotel in Bangkok was quite cool. Each room has been decorated by a different artist and some of them are quite mad. You can choose the room you like best via their website www.reflections-thai.com . We stayed in room 209 which wasnt too mad and had a fish tank with fancy goldfish dividing the bathroom and bedroom.

The hotel itself was bright pink with lots of lush plants and orchids around the pool area. It had quirky decoration, to say the least, but this just added to the charm.

Bangkok Thailand 6-10 October 2006

Our National Express bus got us to Heathrow an hour late but we made the flight okay. It was a long 11 hours. We landed at the brand new airport in Bangkok that only opened on 28.9.2006, it was quite nice. We got a taxi to our hotel and checked in. We ate out in a Thai street cafe for 64 baht (about 91p).

The next day we set off bright and early (11am) to get to the Grand Palace and Wat Poa. We eventually arrived by way of skytrain, a Tuk Tuk and a longtail boat. The Wats and Grand Palace were very ornate and pretty. We saw the reclining Buddha and the Emerald Buddha (made of Jade!)

As the Grand Palace was closing it started to rain, we caught a bus to the MBK shopping centre until closing time! Steve got some good speakers for his iPod for about GBP3.80 and Helen bought a dress which was XL! She couldnt fit into any of their normal size clothes!!!!!!! We got home using the skytrain which kept us nice and dry.

The next day we took it easy spending the morning by the pool then taking a boat up the river and visiting the Emporium shopping centre. Once again it started raining at about 5pm and this time it tipped down all night with thunder and lightning. We had to get up at 4am to catch our flight to Cambodia so didnt get much sleep.

Anna I thought you said it was gonna be sunny!

Helen & Steve xxx

Around The World in 180 days

It has been over two years since we decided to take off and see a bit of the world. Armed with our redundancy payments and all of our savings, it is almost time to set off on our once in a lifetime trip.

This is our plan:
Bangkok (Thailand) for 3 nights, then fly to Phnom Penh (Cambodia)
Phnom Penn & Siem Reap (Cambodia) 7 nights to visit Angkor Wat
Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) for about 3 days, then catch the train to the coast
Perhentian Islands (Malaysia); 7 nights on the beach/snorkelling/diving
Kuala Lumpur or straight to Singapore by train
Singapore for 3 nights
Bali (Indonsesia) for 9 nights
Darwin (Austrailia) for 3 nights
Aice Springs-Ayers rock for 3 nights
Cairns, making our way down to Sydney; 7 weeks including Christmas & New Year,
New Zealand; fly into Christchurch and out of Auckland, 5 weeks
Tahiti –Moorea; 7 nights
Easter Island; 7 nights
Santiago (Chile); 3 nights
La Paz, Sorato, Puno, Cuzco & Macchu Piccu; 18 nights
Galapagos Islands; 8 nights, via Lima and Guayaquil
Madrid (Spain!); 3 nights
London Heathrow arrive back 3 April 2007

We are going to miss all of our family and friends - on the plus side we are also going to miss an English winter! We hope you will all keep in touch by visiting this blog.

Love Helen & Steve