More nha trang from phnom penh...
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2008
1
40
117
Trip End
??? ??, 2009
Phnom Penh,
Cambodia
Monday, November 24, 2008
friday 7th november
so this morning, or probably more like this afternoon, we wake up with me only having vague memories of the night before! in my head, i can envisage myself hurling over the edge of some skanky loo in a bar in nha trang, but it's not until sean turns to laugh at the state of me the night before that i realise that i haven't just awoke from a nightmare. yes indeed i was drunk! anyway, so with the little energy i can muster, we wander around the corner to the scene of the crime - le petite bistro - where i knew the night would go downhill if we ordered a bottle of wine, to have breakfast. i could only handle the idea of a small croissant, which it turned out i still had problems with. over the next half hour, i was all over the place, running up to the toilet, just incase i needed to be sick again, and out to the street to get air so not to faint. not good! anyway, in the end i managed this tiny croissant and we headed back to the hotel, where after a shower, i was still good for nothing but laying in bed watching tv. in the end however, at about 4pm, i suddenly felt like i might be ok to do something small at least, so not to waste the entire day, so we got a taxi and headed back to the mud baths. it wasn't a good journey. that road does not allow for a yucky tummy! at the baths, we asked if we could buy the ticket advertising the mineral baths only, the swimming pool and waterfall. it was up there on the sign in black and white, price and all, but the lady just would not sell it to us. she kept saying 'no, finish'?! not that i understood any of this or really wanted to bother trying to as i felt so ill, but sean tried to kick up a fuss so we could get some kind of explanation other than that it had apparently finished. i think we gathered that due to the low season, there isn't enough warrant for them to open up a mineral bath for us at the price that they're offering. we said we'd pay more, but they weren't taking our money, so we had to settle for the swimming pools and waterfall. i guess that was ok though. it felt good to just bob around, although the heat of the pool did get to me in the end. while there, we watched as a man sat under the waterfall for ages, simply sitting with his eyes closed. sean thinks he must have been meditating, but i don't know how he would have possibly found inner peace under that thing because when we went to sit under the waterfall, the pressure of the water felt like someone beating you over the head! oh well? when we got back to the hotel, i thought i'd feel better, but sure enough at about 8pm, i was back over the toilet throwing up my breakfast! nice! not up to much, we headed next door for tea, where sean had some traditional soup dish while i stuck to a plain omelette. but somehow this worked because next we were off to the louisiane brewhouse so sean could try some of their home brews and where i got my appetite back! nothing beats the feeling of being back on form after being sickly for the morning, and after polising off one hell of a banana split, i was definitely back to my old self! no booze just yet though! we stayed to watch the inhouse 'entertainment' - 'music and roses' - who reminded me of some hairdressing singing group, before heading home.
saturday 8th november
this morning was started with breakfast at pho cali restaurant next door, where sean had steak and eggs! after i headed out to find a bank for our next withdrawal, which took forever because half the banks wouldn't accept my little cirrus card and the other half would only give out a tiny amount of money. just to explain, we've been getting one large withdrawal to last us about a week for the both of us. now one big withdrawal has usually been easily achieved if we've gone into a bank or the ATM belongs to a big company like HSBC, but especially in the smaller towns, we've only been able to rely on the national banks' ATMs, and therefore we've only been able to withdraw small amounts each time, meaning getting charged up to three times, each time by the ATM itself and for me, my bank natwest. this has sucked and this morning led me to walking around in circles, in the baking heat, trying to avoid having to withdraw three tiny amounts and being charged three times. unfortunately however, all that i thought would happen did. i walked around in circles for nothing because an hour later, there i was back at one of the first ATMS getting out three withdrawals and being charged through the nose for each one! bad times! oh yes, natwest will be getting a letter from me because it does indeed suck that they knew i was going away and yet nothing was ever said about even trying to stop the charges for withdrawing money overseas. ah well, here's hoping i can get some reimbursed. anyway, after finally sorting out the money situation, i returned back to the hotel to pick up sean and go find a friendly taxi person to take us to the cable car terminal to try again!...
written on 27th november, # 10 guesthouse, siem reap
so we're walking down the road and he spots a female taxi driver, and believing that all women are the children of the lord, he says ''she won't screw us over''! hmm?! so we head over to her, ask if she'll take us to the cable car, and of course she will. she moves her jacket and handbag from the back seat, all very apologetic, and off we head. so we turn round a corner and start moving when we discover that she hasn't turned the meter on like we asked and like we're used to, to which she says if we want the journey on the meter then we're going to have to get back out and step back in again so that she can rectify the problem - she didn't use 'rectify' (!) - to which we're like sod this, she's probably trying to con us somehow, and so jumped out of the taxi in search of a more honest creature. and it's as we walk off that she starts shouting for us to come back and that she will put on the meter and that she'll take us to the cable car. well too bad lady! so we find our next man and get into his taxi and he turns on the meter and everything seems above board, until he starts stopping outside travel agents, where he says we can buy our ticket for the cable car and waterpark over on 'vinpearl' island, to which we say no because what's he getting out of this little transaction, when we can buy the ticket for ourselves at the cable car terminal itself?! anyway so we say no and within no time are at the terminal, where this time a very informative young man tells us about the cost of the ticket, what's included in that price, what water rides are open and what aren't and explains all about the maintenance work in low season, so that's good and no displays from me being pissed at the state of things! we take our phonecard style tickets to the entrance to the cable car and post them into the revolving door 'underground' style and join the queces 'theme park ride' style and wait for the next available car. i get in, sean gets in, and a southeast asian couple, which comes at a great relief because we didn't want to be the only ones in one of these things, so light that we're swaying in the breeze and fearing our impending deaths! so it's a nice trip across the water. bright sunny day, the sea is blue etc! and sean is holding on for dear life! he aint a fan of heights, and being trapped in an electric powered car with air vents, meaning had the car snapped from the cable, the water would have rushed in, the doors wouldn't have opened, and we would have been lunch for the fishes! anyway, so we make it across alive and make our way first to the underwater world, an aquarium that we'd heard was absolutely amazing. and soon enough we discover why the staff find it the perfect time to close half of the attractions during the day. the place is dead, like a theme park on a rainy day or towards the end of the day when all the masses have had enough and are heading back to their cars, motorbikes and tour buses, to go home! now we see that as much as this i going to mean us really having to plan when to go on certain flumes etc, it did mean that there would be fewer people and so allowing us double the amount of goes on everything! so the underwater world starts with a series of glass tanks filled from head to toe with warm water, i expect, and residence to all number of tropical fish. big ones, huge ones that look like they could jump out the tank at any minute and eat you alive, little tiny ones, black ones, white ones, shiny tinfoil ones like those in 'finding nemo', oil slick coloured one, star fish, sea horses, even turtles etc! all absolutely amazing and all worth taking shots of, but do you know how difficult it is to work my camera without the flash, a slow shutter speed and shaky hands?! lets just say that we could have been there all day trying to capture just the one decent shot. next we take a trip down a spiral staircase to where the over head aquarium is. at the bottom of the stairs is a large cylindrical tower and glass moat containing yet more massive fish and sting ray. opposite, and crossing over the 'floor escalator' - those contraptions you get at airports and between stations on the jubilee line - another huge tank stood containing yet more turtles and sharks! we stood for a minute trying our damndest to get the perfect shot of any one of these creatures, before climbing aboard said floor escalator to go into the over head aquarium. here it turned out that the huge tank we'd just seen actually fed into the over head aquarium, meaning we could keep seeing those same turtles and sharks, and it turned out that there was that much water over head that any number of them, sting ray, fish, were able to be seen swimming over us, which was absolutely incredible! i'm running out of good words here! during our time in the aquarium, i almost jumped out of my skin when i saw a diver plunge into the tank and take a swim around and between the animals within! i couldn't believe this guy, though of course it was his job to get in there with them and check they're all ok and feed them. it just seemed very surreal after imagining the whole scene as though it were under the sea. anyway after watching as the shoals of fish and sharks all appear to get excited at the prospect of feeding time, we decided to make a move so not to miss out of any of the activities soon to open in the waterpark. we went to the changing room to get ready and then emerged out into the park where there were hardly any people around, maybe fifty at the most, which was brilliant, and meant that within the next hour, we were bobbing about in the wave pool, floating along 'tubing' style on the lazy river, and waiting with our tubes to fly down the flumes. there were five currently open, which was certainly enough, after plunging down all of them at such speeds that at times, i felt as though the tube and me would ride up the open flumes so high that we would both climb / slide over the edge of the flume and fall to the floor below. not good times. sean decided that it might be fun as well if we were to tandem slide down the flumes and so there we were speeding down each flume in a tube made for two, me screaming away and him, and the attendant at the top of the flume, pissing themselves with laughter at me! after long enough, plenty of climbs up the tower to the flumes, sore feet from having to step onto each metal grid step, a stomach full of chlorine water from being tossed into the water by sean, and a fear of my labyrinthitis - yes it is a condition, to do with your inner ear and balance - we decided to wander over to try out a giant slide, which you tumble down in a double tube, and which gives you the sensation of rocketing over a gigantic drop in a rollercoaster. sean, not being the biggest fan of heights or rollercoasters, didn't like this one, needless to say! next we tried out a set of slides, upon which you ride down, flat on your stomach, on a thin rubber board, giving the sensation of riding a wave, expect that this wave fills you up with water as it sprays up into your face both half way down and as you plunge into the pool below! after, and with an impending storm brewing on the horizon, we decided to go for something to eat before getting changed, thinking that maybe water and a possible lightning shower weren't the best mix! after the waterpark, we took the long way round the park, taking in the amphitheatre and a currently closed bar, called exotica, behind what appeared to be a concrete carving of a naked mermaid creature - giving me reason to believe that even in this child friendly theme park, there was room for a strip joint! - before getting to the indoor and outdoor rides and amusements. here, we raced, tried our hand at a 'bust a groove' dance game that was not as easy as the playstation version, slalom skiied, with little success, and took in a 3D film based on a trip under the sea and next aladdin. the replacement cost for broken 3D specs was exhortionate! we didn't dare break them though they weren't that special! next we returned to the cable car, where we realised that we needn't have paid for the whole cost of a day in the park and return cable car ride as our tickets were eaten that morning as we boarded our first car across to the island and therefore we had no ticket to check all day. no beating this system for us. that evening we had tea in a restaurant called thuc linh, caught up with brid and cole, who were back at le petite bistro, before realising we weren't going to find any bars playing the rugby and so returning to our room, where i packed up early because i'm a crap packer and sean watched the football.
