After arriving typically two hours later into Bangkok on the 9th I have spent two full days enjoying Bangkok and now reached my new destination of Cambodia. On the first day in the Thai capital i visited the grand palace, the cities most famous historical sight where men and women were to be strictly covered to the ankles and then an afternoon of bargaining for fakes in the mall and very fashion conscoius clothes in the market stalls outside. The clothes here are very on trend and infact have many styled on vintage items. After trying to barter with stubborn expensive taxis myself and Kristina had a thai massage near the hotel and then met some of the last of our group for our last dinner on the backpackers favourite Ko San Road. The freshest of fish and squid was cooked on the street side barbeque and eaten with fat noodles and thai beer. After dinner we spent a few hours looking round the night market and joining other travellers in one of the many chilled out bars offering live music before bed after a long first day in Bangkok.
The next day we were up early to say goddbye to our last leaving member and myself and the three girls left venture out to the floating market 100km out of the city. It was a fascinating place where you got aboard a long skinny speed boat and jette dlaong the canals to be met with floating stalls selling food and souvenirs, it was great to see but seems like it is now for tourists rather than a working thai parsons market, which i believe it may be at the weekend. Oh, and swimming along side us at one point was a monotour lizard, 3 foot long and living in the drains, it was carzy and unfortunately i didn't get a photo as my camera had died by this point but terrifying to see what could come up my toilet. That afternoon i left the girls to venture out again on my own to try and book transport into Cambodia but after both travel agents lonely planet told me about did not offer the chance to book buses or trains only flights, I took them up on the offer and backed out of the bus ride i was very nervous about. I have been told by Hannah a veteran traveller from our group of now 10 months to avoid tourist buses as your bag kept in the hold can either be theived or hidden with drugs so I chicken out and paid for an internal flight whic also meant far leass hastle with the Cambodian visa. That afternon I travelled via metro and sky train which ar emuch cheaper than taxi and very modern, I also enjoyed a starbucks which i found and enoyed every sip and had my feet nibbled at by fish eating all the dead skin from my disgusting flipflop wearing feet. I am really enjoying Bangkok and feel it is city I could even live in. I very much like that it has deep set traditions imbedded into everything but yet very modern and clean and apart from touting tuk tuk drivers offering there services and that of a ping pong show not much hasstle for westerners.
Yesterday I arrived in Siem Reip the town based around the Angkor temples and enjoyed a look at some of the smal temples yesterday afternoon and the big ones this morning starting at 5am to see the sunrise behind another of the wonders of world "Angkor Wat". The whole temple area is amazing and feels like being a theme park with something new to be found in every forest clearing, I have counted that I have now visited 47 sites and that is only about half of all possible to see in and around the area. Yestarday evening I paid to go the the nationa museum which helped in my understanding of hte sybolic statues and arcitecture of the many sites included angkor wat and angkor thom the two biggest attractions.
Last night I had one of the best meals I have had sinse being in SE Asia suggested again by onely planet I ate at a restaurant in the centre of town where I ha a selection of cambodian Kmer dishes with some of the typical asian dishes but the flavours were gorgeous and I easily finnished it all.
I am now about to head for lunch and who knows I may end up back there but I think this afternoon I need a nap as my 4.30am wake up and walking around the vast expanse of angkor is starting to take it's toll. I leve tomorrow for Pnomh Penh, the Cambodian capital and my final stop in my very short visit to the country.
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