Best day so far...

Tottenham won the cup!

Cup final day, and my first excuse to wear my new Spurs shirt. The time difference made it a late 10pm kick off, but we headed into Siem Reap to find a bar who would let us watch the match. They weren't too happy that it ran into extra time, neither were we, we had to get up at 5am.

Early morning start for our boat trip to Battambang. Boat was maybe a little small for the 40 people travelling with us, so Kate and I headed for the roof to sit with the luggage. The boat was slightly top heavy and so a little unstable, but was reasonably comfortable. It was very scenic with lots of wildlife and floating villages, but the travel company had a little suprise for us: we'd be finishing the journey by road. Since it's the dry season, the river was too low for the boat. That would have been ok, if they had more than two pickup trucks.

We had 20 people in each pickup - myself and two others had to sit on the roof of the cab. Again, would have been fine, if there was a proper road!

We really love Cambodia though - the people here are very friendly and Angkor was incredible. We've just spent an hour editing our photos, we took far too many, but of course, they still don't do it justice!

Life's a Beach

Cheesy title. Kate's choice. We've been in Thailand for the last week. A few days in Bangkok, followed by a bit longer on a beach on Ko Chang.

Bangkok wasn't quite what I expected. Actually I can't justify that, as I don't really know what I expected - but I think I liked it!? Having spent the last 2 weeks in Nepal, the big city came as a bit of a suprise, as did the heat and humidity. Hotel was around the main backpacker area, but comfortably far enough away from the infamous Khao San Road. I think I expected to see everything you hear about Bangkok to be on one street. Lots of bright lights, clubs, markets, food (oh, I'll have to mention food!) - good fun! Had a couple of beers there, but didn't hang around too long.

Yes, food! Loads and loads of street sellers, and unlike in India, it seemed (reasonably) safe to try them. How can you resist a 50p plate of fried noodles! Well, I couldn't resist, many times. Saw one person selling deep fried insects, although I think her real profit was in the charging for photos.

What else, temples, palaces, boats on the river... Very nice, but we needed a holiday (from our holiday), so off to the beach.

Ko Chang is an island just off the south east coast of Thailand. We've spent four days being very lazy. If we weren't on the beach, we were in a hammock, and if not there... then riding an elephant.

Our 13 year old (former working) elephant was called An-na, and she took us for a trek up a mountain and along a river. The clear high point, and possibly of the trip so far, was swimming with the elephant. Great fun and I think, I hope, An-na enjoyed it too. Did you know that elephant poo floats...?

Off to Cambodia tomorrow morning. It's a 12 hour bus journey, so had to buy some more books. Looking forward to a decent night's sleep (our beach cabin is very noisy at high tide, at 4am) and a hot shower (pouring buckets of cold water over your head isn't fun).

Shouldn't complain though - life's a beach!

Adventure!!

It's been a really busy week!! Last Sunday, Paul decided to throw himself off a cliff. Luckily he did it while attached to a parachute and an experienced paraglider. He says it was really good, but he felt a bit sick when they guy made him do acrobatics. I stood on the hill, like a wimp, and took lots of pictures!! Kind of wished I'd done it too, now, but we had a row on the lake in the afternoon - much more my style and pace!

Then... on Monday, we set off on our 4 day trek into the Himalayans. We had an amazing, but very tiring time. On our first day we walked for 5 hours to a village called Tikedhungga (I think?). We followed a river up a valley, walking through pretty villages and stopping to look at pretty waterfalls.

The next morning we had to walk up 3,300 steps to a village called Ulleri, where we collapsed for a while, before continuing uphill to Gorhepani. We started in warm sunshine, but while we walked up through the forest, we started to see snow and ice. Gorhepani was freezing and snowy. Our water and Paul's deodorant froze in our room overnight and we slept under 6 blankets!! The views of the mountains were amazing, though.

We started day three at 5.15am, by walking up Poon Hill to watch the sun come up over the mountains. I thought I was going to die, but the view was stunning at the top. I have never been so high up and am proud to say I wasn't at all scared. I slipped and fell on my backside on the way down though! After a hearty breakfast, we began our descent to Tatopani. The valley we walked down was the most beautiful place I have ever been - we nearly stayed there an extra night!! There were high mountains and hills, terraced paddy and mustard fields, farms and pretty villages. We were regularly overtaken by herds of pack horses and wandering cows.

We stopped for lunch at a lodge where they dug up the veg fresh for our dinner. The family just got on with their jobs around us - grandad mainly shooing chickens off his veg patch! We started our walk at freezing temperatures, but by the time we got down into the valley, it was lovely and warm and there were orange trees growing! They were the sweetest oranges I've ever tasted. We finally got to Tatopani after about 7 hours and collapsed into the hot springs there - our muscles were very relieved for it!

On our last day, we only had to walk a few hours to get a jeep, then a taxi back to Pokhara. It was lucky we hadn't gone further, because we could barely walk at this point! The valley we walked down was much more severe than the last - the hills towered above us. They are building a road up there, so it was really dusty, which was a shame, but you can't stop progress!

We got to Pokhara last night and treated ourselves to a huge dinner and a few beers. Today, we've just been hobbling slowly around like a pair of O.A.P.s. The trek was brilliant, though and we both want to come back and do a longer one - more slowly and with more preparation, though!

Back to the Future

In Nepal, it's the year 2065 - but no hover boards or flying cars. They just use a different calendar, which is almost as odd as their 5 hour 45 minute time zone

Our bike ride was predictably unsucessful. We found the monkey temple... big stupa and lots of monkeys. But after that we struggled to find everything else we were looking for. I blame the map, Kate blames the navigator.

We took a walk to see the world's biggest stupa (a Buddhist monument) - it was big. Then from there we went to a site of Hindu temples alongside the holy river in Kathmandu. There were several funeral pyres burning on the river banks, which was a very sad, but interesting experience.


We left Kathmandu a couple of days ago, and stopped halfway to Pokhara in a tiny village called Bandipur. The village sits on the top of a hill, and gives great views over the valley below. It's a bit off the tourist trail (but still in the Lonely Planet!), so was really quiet. Lots more walking. plus a bit of caving in the biggest cave in Nepal - it was big. Feeling really relaxed from a lazy couple of days there, and ready for our trek!