Into Cambodia, our 19th country!

Tuesday 19th May
Today we got a taxi to the airport ( paying far too much for such a short journey!) and flew to KL, where we checked in at the Tune hotel, making sure to get a room without a view of the courtyard. We then decided to take public transport into the town centre, partly to make our next visit easier, as we shall be staying downtown. This proved a lot more difficult than we'd hoped and it was definitely a good move in terms of knowing where we're going next time,when we'll be carrying our packs. First of all we returned to the terminal to pick up a bus to KL Sentral – a transport hub on the edge of the city. The journey took an hour, much longer than we'd expected. From here we hoped to get a direct link onto the monorail. Finding this was a nightmare: it was the start of rush hour and we couldn't find the right sign. Eventually we asked and had to walk outside and around the building, crossing a busy road, in order to reach the station. The monorail was great and we got off as close to the Twin Towers of KL as possible. The walk there took us past some touristy, disco type bars, flashing lights and all. It was around 6pm and a few local were having a drink, but most were pretty empty. We were in need of sustenance having tackled Malaysian traffic again, so dropped in for a drink and were too easily persuaded to buy a pitcher of ale, which only held a couple of pints. As soon as we'd had a sip our glass would be replenisshed, and the piitcher quickly emptied... tempted though we were we didn't buy another. We knew we needed an early night as we had a 5am start the next day. The twin towers and the area around there are quite spectacular, with lovely fountains and high rise buildings. We walked through one of the towers, which is a very exclusive, massive designer label shopping centre . We both found this another surreal experience as we'd just walked along muddy, pot holed streets to get there and also had witnessed the difficulty many of the local people have in eking out a living:eg hawker at street corners, street cleaners with basic brooms and pans, taxi drivers who constantly tout for business. Needless to say we didn't stay long in the mall, but headed off to find some dinner and chose an Indian restaurant full of local peope, where we had a fairly cheap and very reasonable meal.
0n the way back to the monorail we stopped for another pint, lured in by the promise of a glass of beer for MLR1 (about 15p). Our waiter appeared and explained that the first glass of beer actually cost MLR20 -or£3- but that thereafter until 9pm any more beers would be MLR1. We couldn't resist and both bought a beer. We then were given wrist bands and could head to the bar with an empty glass for a 15p refill. By now it was 8pm, so we only had an hour and don't forget, we wanted clear heads and an early night!! We managed a total of 7 glasses for MLR45 ( £6.50) ...next time we'll get there for 5pm and be staying within walking distance...something to look forward to..tee hee! Next to us we got chatting to a young Californian couple, who'd been working in China for 4 months... and clearly found it very difficult. They'd just come from Siem Reap in Cambodia, our next destination and highly recommended a guest house there. They taught us a new card game called Speed, which was fun. Just after 9pm we headed back to the monorail and by 11.15 we were tucked up in bed, ready for our visit to our 19th country tomorrow.

Wednesday 20th May
Woke to the sound of the 5am alarm... oh my god that is early! Had quick showers ( Tune power showers are fab!) and checked out of the hotel. I was gob smacked when Brent suggested we get the MLR1 bus to the terminal instead of walking. Don't say he's losing his Northern frugality...oh no, I've remembered, he really struggles with these transit days. At 5.20 in the room he started sweating about being late, reckoning we should have got up earlier! What??? Anyway we got the bus and headed for the international departure lounge, only to be directed to the local terminal. You can imagine Brent's reaction...'we should have got up earlier!'. We got through check in and decided to head straight on rather than have breakfast: Brent struggles if he doesn't get a coffee and something to eat withing minutes of getting up! Anyway by 6.10 we'd gone through all the controls and were sitting in an espresso bar, with a sandwich and drink. I was absolutely flabbergasted when Brent looked around and thoughtfully announced how how stressed people looked. I spluttered in astonishment .. could anyone be more stressed out than he was?? In the end we both collapsed in fits of giggles!! It turned out that our plane was about 10 minutes late leaving and we were both a bit puzzled when the gate was labelled Phuket, and not Siem Reap... I was tempted to ask someone in the queue if they were going to F_ _ k It ( my pronunciation of Phuket)..but realised that I was getting hysterical and clearly needed more sleep. Once on the plane we were able to spread out and I did get quite a bit of sleep. We arrived 2 hours later, at only 8am local time and picked up a taxi to take us to the 2 Dragon guest house as recommended last night. The taxi driver had great English, but was very keen to get more business from us, to the point of being irritating: he even took us to a new hotel where he assured us he could get us a room for the same price as the guest house $15.. but we stuck to our guns. The hostel is very nice with free wifi, a TV, and air con in the en suite room. There's a lovely cafe area, where we sat and had a cuppa, whilst our room was being cleaned. We immediately got chatting with a lovely Irish couple, who'd arrived at 6am. They told us about a deal the guest house was offering and we decided to go for it: 3 days accommodation, one free breakfast and 3 days touring with an English guide to see the Angkor Wat and other temples as well as a nearby floating village and an evening show... all for $109 each...brilliant eh. After a nice lunch we got a moto tuk tuk into town. As we headed off the heavens opened and we saw more of the rainy season. We were dropped off at a good indoor market, where Brent bought a tee shirt ( same, same but different). Then we wandered the streets: it was all a bit chaotic, with potholed roads filled with muddy water and tuk tuk drivers everywhere touting for business. We were beginning to find it a bit invasive so got another tuk tuk to the Angkor National Museum. This has only been open for 2 years and is a beautiful building with excellent exhibits. All very state of the art. It was $12 each to go in, which seemed very expensive, but the young man on the reception said it was expensive but worth it! His English was great an he made us laugh by puttiing on a cockney accent and saying 'cor blimey guv ... and ...lovely jubbly! We paid up and spent a good hour an a half in there. We were in awe of some of the exhibits there, which really prepared us for the tours we'll be following in the next few days. In fact we wished we'd allowed more time and got permission to go back on the same ticket another day, which we really hope to do. At 5pm we left the museum and immediately spotted our smiley tuk tuk driver, who whisked us back to the guest house. Actually more detail of the whisk back is worth noting here: we were quite exhilarated by the short tuk tuk ride. Here in Cambodia, although drivers officially use the right hand side of the road, in fact they chop off corners and often use alternative sides. At times there were 3 motorbikes side by side on the road and our moto driver would beep his horn and overtake them with equivalent traffic on the other side of the road! Amazing and very exciting.