Left on the 17th August - Sydney to Bangkok. Was on a Qantas flight which was being operated by British Airways. The flight went on for about 9.5 hours and was fairly rough in the last hour, as there was a storm in Bangkok we experienced quite a bit of turbulence. You could feel the plane falling every so often as we hit an air pocket. It was like the plane was dropping a 100 meters and could then resume flying again.

I finally arrived in Bangkok and got thru customs without any drama's. That's right I did not get busted for carrying any illegal substances, well not yet anyway. It took about half an hour before I met up with my mate Jason... the airport is so big and I managed to exit on a different level to the one he was on. Apparently the airport told the plane to go to a different terminal than they were to originally dock to. While I was waiting for Jason I was constantly being harassed by the local taxi agents. These people hang out waiting for any passengers to exit once they have gone thru customs. They try and get you to hop in a taxi for about 500 Baht (which is equivalent to $20 Australian dollars). To my luck I found out later that it only cost about 250 Baht for every 50km driven. What a Fucken scam they play with new arrivals to Bangkok. The actual taxi ride only cost us about 200 Baht, with 80 Baht being tollway fees.

We went continued in the taxi and dropped my gear off at Jason's flat (which is at 26 Sukhumvit Road, Sukhumvit) and then proceeded to hit the town for a quick beer. I know what you are thinking...they went to those dodgy go-go bars in Patpong where they have the local girls showing off their ping pong skills. We actually were in the nicer parts of Bangkok called Nana (but you really cannot call them that nice). We went to a few of the western style hotels where there are a few pool tables and you can actually sit down and have a quiet drink without the local girls hassling you. The problem with the local girls is that if you even look at them while in one of the bars, they will rush up to you and they will try and become your girlfriend. This happened to me in the nightclub in the Nana hotel, and the nightclub had a fitting name called Angels (you can check out their website at http://www.nanadisco.com). The problem with this nightclub is that there are about 5 girls to every one guy...and every girl there is trying to get your attention so they can become your girlfriend. My mate Jason explained that the girls only want to become your girlfriend so you take them home and give them money....well you get the drift. We did not stay long and continued to go to some of the more discreet pubs where we could actually enjoy a quiet drink without getting hassled. After a couple more drinks we got a taxi home.

Day 2 - 6: Monday 18th - Friday 22nd August 2003

I thought that I would get acclimatised to my new environment and relax for the next few days, since I will be here for around 3 weeks. I didn't do any touristy things apart from walking around the streets with my mate Jason. We ate at a few of the local establishments, well that if you could call them that. These food stands are no bigger than 2m long x 1m wide and a couple of tables with chairs next to the food stand. They are usually situated on top of some wheels so the guy can move the store easily. The only trick to remember when going to one of these stalls is either visit the busy ones so you know the food is freshly cooked or you could pay the price of getting some dodgy food and becoming sick.

We have been getting a little pissed off with the taxi drivers in the last 2 days as they do not want to use the taxi meter. They want to try and charge us more money, because they think we are tourist punters (or as the Thai call us "Farang"). It's a little annoying, but you just tell them that you want them to use the meter. If they don't you just hop out of the cab and get another one. There are a ridiculous amount of taxi's in Bangkok, there are about 300,000 or something like that. It seems like every second car is a taxi.

The other annoying thing is that the traffic can be really bad at times. It seems to get worse as the day progresses and becomes gridlocked at 4-6pm daily. Not like in Australia where you get peak hour in the morning and afternoon Monday to Friday. This is every bloody day. Also when it rains the traffic becomes a standstill as well.... I see the reasoning why this happens because when it rains in Bangkok it pours. You can barely see the car in front of you let alone the direction of the road. The taxi drivers don't seem to mind the bad conditions on some of the freeways, they still drive over 100km/h and its pretty scary when they hit one of the puddles from all the rain. I am not just talking about your everyday puddles being 1/2 - 1cm deep. I am talking about 3 - 10 cm deep puddles. And every time you go thru one of them at high speeds you thing you are about to die, because you think the taxi driver is going to crash the car. But I guess they do this every day and become accustomed to it. Personally I cannot trust them. The only good thing about taxis is that they are really cheap. You spend on average about AUD$2 - $3 per trip. A really expensive taxi is about $5, but you are in the taxi for about an hour and have travelled about 20-30km in it.

Transportation is not as bad as you think. I know that the traffic can be shocking at times but they do have alternative modes of transport. You can get on one of the local Tuk-tuks, which is a motorcycle with a cabin at the rear of it and you can fit around 2 people comfortable, three if you are a cheapskate. It's essential to bargain the price with tuk-tuks before getting in. If you only ask after the ride, it's likely to end in a request for an ridiculous fare which can obviously lead to an unpleasant situation. Most times, they offer no savings over a taxi, except perhaps if you're good at bargaining and can speak good Thai. The initial price they quote is likely to be well over the going rate, but it's easy to bargain it down to a more reasonable one if you know roughly the equivalent taxi fare.

You can also get around on motorcycles, this is another really cheap form of transport. You basically just jump on the back of one of these bikes with the driver taking you to any destination. It can be pretty handy on one of these bikes as you can usually duck and weave between the traffic, saving you a lot of time. They are really cheap to use, but they are a little unsafe as some of the drivers drive very fast

The Skytrain is another form of transportation and like the name suggest, it is built above the roads (it is similar to Sydney's Monorail). The Bangkok's Skytrain (rot fai fah in Thai) started operating in December 1999 and, for the areas it goes to

                           Picture of Skytrain                                                                Inside Skytrain

at least, is an extremely useful way of getting about. There's a central station located at Siam square, and two lines: the 17km Sukhumvit line, which stretches from Sukhumvit Soi 81, all the way up to Mo Chit. The 6.5km Silom line from the National Stadium down south to Saphan Taksin along Silom and Sathorn roads. The Skytrain fares cost between 10B and 40B per person depending on the distance, about half the cost of a taxi. For one person, this is good value but for more than one it can obviously be cheaper to take a taxi.

To see a map of the Skytrain please click here

I have been trying to do a bit of shopping in the past week to get cloths and gifts, but it seems like I have spent days shopping but I really haven't brought much at all. The problem with Thailand is that you can go shopping in one of the shopping centres, but you usually get ripped off quiet badly. Probably paying 2 to 3 times as much as you should. My friend Jason has been showing me where to shop. In order for me to save the most money when I am buying the items on my shopping list, is that in Bangkok you need to go to a different suburb every time you want to buy something different. What I am trying to say is that you go to one part/suburb of Bangkok to buy cheap shirts, another for shoes and jeans, and another for electronics and yet another for DVD's, and so on. So you are getting my drift with trying to buying one item and it being a real pain in the arse.

Jason has been taking me to a couple of places to eat. Eating here in Bangkok is nothing like going to the shops back home in Sydney. There is little influence from the western cultures here. You only have a handful of places like Subway, Burger King and Pizza Hut. I usually either eat at some of the local stalls by the side of the street or at a place called 'Foodland', which is a restaurant in a 24 hour shopping centre. The food here is really nice and there are a couple of westernised items on the menu. Pad Thai is huge here in Bangkok, with many stalls on the side of the road selling this. It is a little funny with the sauces you get with Thai food, they give you a tray with the 4 tastes:

1. Sweet - This just plain white sugar

2. Spicy - Dried chilli in a bowl

3. Sour - Pickled chillies in vinegar

4. Salty - Fish sauce

I only use the sweet and spicy option on my food. I am getting more accustomed to eating hotter food, what I mean by that is by adding more and more chilli to my food. It was a little difficult at first, but I am really starting to enjoy it. Back home I could barely eat any chilli on any food I had, but as you can see this is changing.

Day 7: Saturday 23rd August 2003

Went to a place called Wat-Po, which is a temple where there is the largest 'Reclining Buddha'. I managed to get a better description of what Wat-Po is:

 "Occupying a 20-hectare (20-acre) site next to the Royal Grand Palace, Wat-Po is the oldest and largest temple in Bangkok. It was built in 1688 during the reign of King Petraja of Ayutthaya and contains one of Thailand’s most spectacular sights, a 46-metre (150-ft) long and 15-metre (72-ft) high statue of a reclining Buddha. The statue itself, which is gold-plated and inlaid with mother-of-pearl on the soles of the feet, was not added until 1832 during the reign of King Rama III, and serves to illustrate the passing of Buddha into nirvana (the state of absolute blessedness). The grounds of Wat-Po house over 1000 Buddha statues, the largest such collection in Thailand, as well as 95 stupas – Buddhist religious monuments – and a series of marble slabs depicting part of the epic Thai poem, Ramakian, which depicts the struggle between good and evil. Visitors can also wander amongst the peaceful rock gardens and chapels. King Rama III also established Wat-Po as an important centre for Thai medicine and massage and thus founded Thailand’s oldest seat of learning. It is still possible to have a massage or learn about the art of Thai massage and medicine at Wat-Po today."

I was here for about 3 hours and was an amazing place. You can see some photo's in the photo's section. I definitely would recommend this to anyone that visits Bangkok.

Day 8 - 10: Sunday 24th - 26th August 2003

I really cannot remember to clearly what I did over these days, well I guess that what you get when you are lazy like myself and do not write in a diary. It's not the fact that I don't have a diary, I actually got a really good one from my Aunty Joan. Its just that I am lazy and I tend to be a messy writer, so I may not be able to read my writing if I wrote it in my diary. Don't get me wrong, I love the diary and use it for many other functions. So getting back to the point, I guess I will just write about some experiences that I have had while my stay in Thailand in this section.

One of these nights I went to Tony Roma's, which is a really nice Ribs place here in Bangkok. There are an American franchise. I thought it was particularly good value, as you get about 2 racks of ribs for about 300 Baht ($12 Aussie), which may tend to be on the expensive side here in Thailand, but I think its an absolute bargain compared back to the Ribs & Rump in Australia. Since I had received so much food, I actually needed to get a doggy bag to take half of it home.

I got this really good Thai massage the other day....I can hear you thinking now "Alex you dirty bastard!!!", well it wasn't one of those kinds of massages. I got a Thai Foot Massage, I just left out the foot part to see what reaction I could get out of you! I ended up having a Shave, Manicure, Shoulder and foot massage for 500 Baht ($20). It feels like I am living like a king, but only paying for things like I am a Bum. Well that's debateable, as most of you think that I am a bum and you are quite right there.

I also went to this crazy bar which I keep hearing about from Jason. It's called the Thermae Bar, this bar is a real freak out. Look the only way to describe this bar is to remember the bar from Star wars where there are all freaks (i.e. warped looking people, chicks with 3 pair of breasts, etc.) well you are getting my drift now, all the people that are swept off the street and put in place where they can all enjoy a quiet beer. I'll tell you this, I will not be going there anytime soon.

In the mean time, if you are getting bored with what I have to say about Thailand, why not see a really good site about Bangkok and how to find the good spots.

http://www.stickmanbangkok.com - Stickman's Guide To Bangkok (this is probably the best and most informative site on Thailand)

Day 11: Wednesday 27th August 2003

Today Jason and I decided to go to the Grand Palace. The Grand Palace is basically situated in the same suburb where Wat-Po is at and is probably a 5-10 minute walk. It costs 100 Baht (AUD $4) to visit and is where the King lives. Also there is a separate house where guests can stay (e.g. President of USA, Prime Minister of Australia - Well maybe not Australian Prime minister, but you are getting my drift). There are huge walls that are probably 15-20 feet high that surround the whole complex and has a many temples situated in here. As you cannot actually go into the King Palace, Jason and I went visiting the temples around here.

There are three influences on the temples in palace walls, they have been influenced by Indian, Thai and Cambodia and as you can clearly see in the photo's section of the Grand Palace. I was there for around half a day and took about 200 photo's. I have not put them all up in the photo's section as clearly this takes time to:

1. Upload them,

2. For you to view them,

3. The shit photo's that I don't want you to see,

4. And the fact that I am one lazy bastard.

Below is a brief explanation on what the Grand Palace is:

"This palace has an area of 218,400 sq. metres and is surrounded by walls built in 1783. The length of the four walls totals 1900 metres. Within these walls are situated government offices and the Chapel Royal of the Emerald Buddha besides the royal residences. When Siam restored law and order after the fall of Ayutthaya the monarch lived in Thonburi on the other side of the river. Rama I, immediately on ascending the throne, moved the centre of administration to this side of the Chao Phraya; and, after erecting public monuments such as fortifications and monasteries, built a palace to serve not only as his residence but also his offices - the various ministries, only one of which remains in the palace walls. This palace came to be known as the Grand Palace, in which the earliest edifices contemporary with the foundation of Bangkok were the two groups of residences named the Dusit-Mahaprasard and the Mahamontien."

Day 12: Thursday 24th August 2003

Today Jason and I decided to do a little travelling of our own. We had been contemplating many places to travel, which some included Laos, North Thailand, Southern Thailand around all the islands of Phuket. But it was Cambodia that won our hearts. We decided to go to Siem Reap where they have the world famous Angkor Wat ruins. I will expand on the Angkor Wat ruins later.

Since we had decided on a location to travel, we needed to actually get off our arses (well not literally, since we would be doing some research on transportation). After a few hours of going to a few travel agents and finding out that it would roughly cost between 7500-12000 Baht (roughly AUD $300 - $450) for a return ticket by plane. The flight is about a 1-2 hour trip. I thought it was ridiculous that different suburbs in Bangkok would charge you different rates of travel. For instance a airplane ticket in Nana, which is one of the nicer suburbs would cost about 12000 Baht, where as if you go down to backpacker alley (alternatively known as Kho San Road) you could pick up the same ticket/airline for around 7500 Baht. I guess that since I am a white man they think I am a bloody sucker or something. You will soon learn that in Bangkok that since everyone is so poor and you being a foreigner that can take you on a quick ride to make a quick buck.    

We also found out the same problem if we wanted to go buy bus (overland). In Nana the price of a bus ticket was around 1200 Baht (about AUD $50) or in Kho San Road only 100 baht (about AUD $4), which is a huge difference. With this huge difference, I am not talking about the 1200 Baht ticket getting you a really fancy bus, it the same bus, well its not really a bus, actually a mini bus to be exact. We had done some research earlier on a few forum boards on how long the trip takes by one of these buses and it should only take about 12 hours. But what the travel agents do not tell you is that the bus only takes you to the boarder, you then need to walk the boarder from Thailand to Cambodia and then they organise you onto another mini bus (if your lucky) but more likely a truck of some description. You may be thinking that, oh that does not sound too bad.... well let me tell you that the road from the boarder of Thailand/Cambodia where there is a small town called Poipet (which you pronounce like toilet, and let me tell you this! the friggen place looks like a toilet and smells like a shit hole) is around 170km long. But you only get about 30km of the road actually being sealed.

Anyway getting back to the point, we also found out that the bus trip usually takes a little longer than the 10 hours the travel agent tells you when you are buying the ticket. We have read hell stories that the trip took 20 hours. Both Jason and I looked at each other and said that we were on a budget and couldn't really afford to fly to Siem Reap, so told Jason (jokingly) "it will be a trip you won't forget", he saw the funny side of that and said ok. So we both headed back down to Kho San Road at around 8pm (it's great that everything is open until 10pm at night) and brought ourselves a 100 Baht bus ticket which was leaving 6:30am the next morning. The funny thing about this was that the bloody taxi ride down to Kho San Road (1 way) was actually more expensive than a one way ticker to Cambodia.

All I could think of was that D-Day was going to happen tomorrow and that its going to be one hell of a bus trip to Cambodia tomorrow.

Day 13: Friday 25th August 2003

I decided to do a little more investigating into the hell bus trips where people talk about their experiences on forum/message boards. After a little reading the trip was sounding worse and worse. It was about midnight when I stumbled onto this really good site that describes how a local business man travels between Bangkok and Siem Reap a couple of times every month. Here is the site and it is really worth a read on how you travel between the two places. He goes on to explain the in and outs of heading off on a Bus from Kho San road to a Do-it-yourself approach. The introduction section gives some valuable general information, which is really worth reading.

http://www.talesofasia.com/cambodia-overland-bkksr-intro.htm

I would really recommend to have a read for fun, once you read it you think to yourself "Fucken Hell". And yes we went thru that shit hole of a road. Read on to hear more about it.

Well as suggested by the website listed above we caught the bus from Mo Chit station at 7:30am in the morning. We were probably the only westerner's in the whole bus station (this is a huge regional bus station that transports thousands of Thai people in, out and around Thailand). The bus trip seemed pretty quick and took about 5 hours to get to the boarder and like the website said, as soon as we got off the bus at the station (which is positioned about 5-10 kilometres away from the actual boarder) we were already being hassled by touts. They were offering us a lift to the boarder, Visa's and transportation to wherever we were going. But we stuck to what the guide on the website said and just jumped in the first tuk-tuk we could see and said "to the Boarder". The tuk-tuk driver drove us to within 1km of the boarder and there were literally 50-100 touts around the place, not to mention the hundreds of people trying to sell you things. The place was like a little town itself and looked like a bloody rubbish dump. Immediately as we got out of the tuk-tuk we were being hassled (mainly by the touts) to where we were going, did we want visa's or transportation. We kept on telling them that we did not want help at all and we acted as if we knew what we were doing and where we were going. But all we really had to go by was a piece of paper that had a simple map of how to get thru the boarder. This still did not deter a couple of the touts, they were still determined to get us thru the boarder and then give us transport to Siem Reap (because like the website stated that each of these guys gets a commission for each person they get onto the truck).

Map of the Poipet/Aranyaprathet Border Area

Jason and I got thru the Thai side of the boarder after a 1000 Baht (AUD $40) visa fee and proceeded to walk the boarder to Cambodia. This walk is probably about 1km long and the place is a bloody whole. It's like a rubbish dump and there are beggars everywhere asking for money or little kids holding up umbrellas over you to try and give you some shade for some money or other kids with wooden carts. There are people that are missing limbs, obviously from a land mine explosion or something similar. You fell kind of sorry for these people as they are so poor and don't really have a bright future. Also in this no-mans-land section are a whole bunch of casino's, that's right casino's, here where there are some of the poorest people alive there are massive casino's. The reason for these casino's is that in Thailand it is illegal to gamble and the Cambodian government has decided to create these places to bring in some extra revenue.

Once we both got thru the Cambodia boarder side the place was a dump. Definitely a third world nation here! Again we were swamped by touts and Jason and I jumped onto a motorbike and pointed straight ahead and said "Dae-Dae" which means "Go-Go). After about 2 km's down the road we got off the bikes and went over to a bunch of card (which all happened to be Nissans - about 90% of all cars in Poipet are Nissans) and asked one of the drivers if he could drive us to Siem Reap. He was happy to, it only cost US $25 for a 3 hour trip (170km). Like the forum boards said the roads were shocking, there is only about 30km either side of the two cities (Poipet and Siem Reap) that have actually sealed roads, the other 110km of road was shocking. I almost felt like throwing up a couple of times along the way, but we were happy enough to enjoy a 3 hour trip with air conditioning and in relative comfort, compared to a 6 hour trip with 30 other people in the back of a semi-trailer with no room to move or any air conditioning. You can see a map of the road that we had to travel.

Map of Cambodia National Highway 5 (Poipet to Sisophon) and National Highway 6 (Sisophon to Siem Reap)

*** The below pictures are taken from http://www.talesofasia.com/cambodia-overland-bkksr-intro.htm. I was lucky enough not to experience any wet weather while travelling on the road from Poipet to Siem Reap, and the greatest hardship that I experienced on the road were the bumps. But you can see how some lucky travellers get all the fun. ***

Images of the distant past - travel along the Siem Reap to Poipet highway before the 2001 reconstruction. Photos taken December 7, 2000.

Image of a recent and glorious past  - here's a look at the road on September 2, 2001, about 25 kilometres west of Siem Reap, when the road was in prime condition and travel between Siem Reap and Poipet took as little as two and a half hours. In June 2002 this very section of road became tarmac.

Images of a recent and not so glorious past - here's a couple of shots taken September 23, 2002 showing the flooding problems.

Image of the future - this is one small paved stretch of highway seven kilometres east of Siem Reap as of September 2, 2001. Someday the entire road from Poipet at the Thai border to Bavet at the Vietnam border will look like this. Water buffalo included.

Repairing a bridge between Siem Reap and Sisophon, August 24, 2002. This repair took about 45 minutes.

Another bridge repair near Sisophon, November 27, 2002. This one took most of the day and people had to walk across the bridge and change vehicles to continue their journeys.

When we arrived in Siem Reap and it was mid-afternoon and the weather was nice and sunny. We had no idea on where we were going to stay or what conditions the hotels were in. All the information we had was that a couple of people on a few message boards had suggested a particular guide was great and would be your driver for US $20 per day. We decided to call this driver recommended off a couple of websites and his name was "Mr Sen". We got in contact with him and asked if he was available to be our driver and show us the sites for the next couple of days. He was happy to.

He was a great guide and spoke almost perfect English. That afternoon he asked us what sort of budget we were after and showed us around to about 4 hotels (basically until we were happy with the hotel) that were in our budget. Jason and I had budgeted US$30 per night in the hotel room (that's for the both of us). We got a room that had our own shower, air conditioning, TV and a fridge, all in all it was a nice hotel. The only problem with the hotel is that you have to pay cash as there are no visa facilities. But this is pretty much the same for the whole of Siem Reap. They have no visa facilities or ATMs, so basically you have to bring all the cash you need with you, which luckily we had done so.

Here are Mr Sen's Details:

Name: Sam Sen (He is pictured on the left)

Phone: (855) 12 922 683

Email: senangkor@yahoo.com

So if you want a driver to take you around, he is the man. He catered to all of our needs by taking us to sunrises, sunsets by the ruins, he took us to many places to eat and some great drinking holes. He basically is at your beckon call for 24x7 for the days you hire him. He will wait in his car while you visit some of the temples, he will even recommend a few and drive you around to them. Because he does this all the time, he has become accustomed to when the tour groups take people to certain temples, so he take you to the same temples at different times of the day to the tour groups. There were a couple of times when it was only Jason and myself in the whole temple. It was pretty spectacular to visit.

Day 14: Saturday 26th August 2003 - Monday 28th August

Jason and I woke up fairly early and met Mr Sen at our hotel lobby. He the took us to the Angkor Wat ruins. He explained a little about the ruins saying that there are around 1080 individual temples, stretching over 200 square kilometres and only about 45 open to the public. We knew we had some site seeing to do but not really enough time to see it all!

Below is a brief blurb about Angkor Wat.

"Nestled between rice paddies and stretched along the Siem Reap River rests the small provincial capital of Siem Reap Town, gateway to the millennium-old temple ruins of the Khmer Empire. Designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, the Angkor Archaeological Park encompasses dozens of temple ruins including Bayon, Banteay Srey and the legendary Angkor Wat whose artistic and archaeological significance and visual impact put it in a class with the Pyramids and the Taj Mahal. Unlike many other world class monuments, the ruins of Angkor are as yet unspoiled by commercialism and over-development. This may not be true in a couple of years. Now is a very special time to visit Siem Reap and the temples. It is still possible to discover Angkor. 
Siem Reap Town is where you will stay during your visit to Angkor. The area has been receiving visitors for over 100 years but has managed to maintain a certain provincial quaintness. The town is actually a cluster of villages with an old French colonial centre. The villages originally grew around individual pagodas, eventually coalescing into the town. Nowadays, the Siem Reap offers a wide range of hotels, restaurants, pubs and shops including several upscale hotels and dozens of budget guesthouses. Often missed by the temple visitor are the many opportunities to experience traditional Cambodia - traditional dance performances, craft shops and silk farms, road tours through rice-paddy countryside, boat trips on the great lake to fishing villages and bird sanctuary, and much more.."

Below are some links to various maps that you will find useful in getting around Siem Reap and the Angkor Wat temples.

Map of Siem Reap Town  - This map covers the main body of town. It does not cover of the temple area or the outskirts of town. This is probably the most helpful map for ordinary day to day use in town.

Temple Map - This map covers the area north of town containing all of the main temple ruins including the grand and petite circuits. It does not cover Banteay Srey, Phnom Kulen and other distant temples.

Cambodia Overland Travel Map - Map of Cambodia, highlighting the overland travel routes. 

I have put together a page of information about the temples and how they are rated in what you should see 1st. I got this information from one of the local handout guides called "Siem Reap Angkor - Visitors Guide", I found it helpful and thought you might find it a good read about each of the temples. Click here to see temple information page.

On the Saturday night Jason and myself went to a place call "Happy Herb Pizza", Jason had been telling me that there was a really cool pizza place in Penom Piem and they had a second store in Siem Reap but I wasn't too sure what he was talking about until we got to the pizza place. Like the name suggests the pizza's make you happy...if you catch my drift. The pizzas come in three formats.

1. 'Normal'  2. 'Happy'  3. or for the daring 'Very Happy'.

So Jason and I both ordered a pizza each and got them to be Very Happy. Because we ere so hungry, we both were going to face some self inflicted punishment...can you blame us!!!  We didn't do much that night but we both really felt the pain the next day when we got up for a Sunrise at Angkor Wat stoned....it sort of defeated the purpose of going but we enjoyed it. You can see the temple information page by Clicking here to see temple information page.

There is are a couple of stories I would like to share when visiting temples at Angkor Wat, firstly there are going to be kids at every temple trying to sell you postcards, drinks, books, in-fact anything they can get their little hands on you can sure bet they will try and sell it to you. Definitely try and bargain with the kids because they will come down drastically in price. The other story is that when Jason and I went to one of the temples, I cannot quite remember which one it was, obviously not one of the larger ones, we both saw a policeman. I thought nothing of it as they have people checking your pass as you enter each temple. This policeman then asked me if I wanted to buy his police badge...I was tempted for a second (it was a steal at only US$10 for an authentic police badge...but then I thought...maybe he is trying to trick me and get me arrested so I declined. I later found out from our driver that the cops in Cambodia are very corrupt and would sell anything to get some extra cash.

I will be putting up some photo's later on my trip to each of the temples. I will be putting a brief blurb on each of the temples I visited. (This is still to come, I have been partying way to hard to bother with updating my website yet...but I will get there).

Day 17: Tuesday 29th August 2003 - Friday 5th September

Jason and I made our way back from Siem reap via the same route as we got their. This time no one hassled us at all. We almost felt like we didn't exist. We only made one mistake coming back and that was choosing the wrong bus, I don't mean we got the wrong bus and went to a different part of Thailand, we got a 2nd class bus instead of a 1st class bus. The difference was about AUD$1 which made a huge difference. The trip took an extra 3 hours as the friggen bus stopped at every stop along the way. The bus got packed and a lot of people had to stand for hours as we made our way back to Bangkok. Luckily we both had seats, but it was a real pain as the last bus trip we did minimal stops and the bus was almost empty all the way.

The last couple of day I have just been catching up on some sleep and getting some essential washing done before I head off to Europe. I got the last bit of shopping I needed before heading off to Europe.

A little summary on Thailand is that I probably should have gone down to the beautiful beaches but I really enjoyed taking a different approach and heading off to Cambodia. It sure beats all those tourists in southern Thailand. I guess that on my return trip to Australia I will probably go to Thailand again but this time to the beaches and maybe one of those Full Moon parties you hear about.

Day 23: Friday 5th September

Germany

I have arrived here in Germany on Friday afternoon, roughly 1:30pm local time. The flight went pretty smoothly, as I managed to squeeze in 8 hours sleep on the 12 hour flight which was pretty good as I was stuck at the Window seat and you know how much of a hassle it is to wake people in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I have to thank Dad here for the sleep as it was those lovely sleeping tablets he got me which enabled me to get so much sleep, another mention has to go to Jason and the big night out we had prior to me leaving I didn't exactly get much sleep that night, but I have to party hard on my last night in Thailand.

I flew into Frankfurt, where my brother picked me up from the airport and we drove back to Düsseldorf on the auto barn. We hit speeds of up to 220km/h, which is bloody fast. Well in my book they are!! As I was a little home sickness from Thailand, Ben took me out to dinner at one of the local Thai restaurants with a friend of his (Sally). Sally is a Queenslander, but being in Germany I would not hold it against her...but if we were in Australia I would (he he).

Day 24: Saturday 6th September

Today was a pretty uneventful day, I basically just slept in and recovered from my flight from Thailand. After bludging for most of the day my brother Ben, his friend Sally and myself went out and met a couple of my brother other friends. They were also another bunch of Aussies living here in Germany and have 3 kids. As they were Greek, they cooked us a lovely Greek dinner (lamb souvlaki) which had been cooked over a period of around 5-6 hours and was unbelievably delicious. We also managed to get thru 9 bottles of red wine, that's right 9 bottles between 5 people, which is a good effort on anyone's book. They were lovely people and made me feel like I was back in Australia at one of my dinner parties with Georgie, Natalie, John, Afsoon, Katharine and Grant, but enough of that talk...it will make me homesick if I start thinking about that too much.

Day 25: Sunday 7th September

Today I went and saw my oldest brother up in Munster, which is about 1.5 hours north of Düsseldorf. My brother took us around Munster for a look around the sites, we saw the Palace and some of the churches in the town centre. They were pretty impressive! We happened to go into town when there was some festival on and there were marching bands with heaps of people around the place. After lunch when walking back to the car we stumbled onto a park where most of the people in the march were getting pissed. We had a little laugh.

Then after getting back from Munster Ben, Sally and myself went out to one of the local Irish Pubs for a nice Irish home cooked roast dinner which they only offer on a Sunday night.

Day 26-7: Monday 8th - Tuesday 9th September

As it has been a really tough trip for me to complete so far (can you feel the sarcasm in my voice) I decided to take a few days off to acclimatise my body to European food, well just German to start with. I basically did nothing over these 2 days and loved every minute of it. I even got a chance to watch one or two of the 50 DVDs I managed to buy my Dad when I was in Thailand ("What a hard life" I keep thinking to myself...but somebody has to do it). I basically saved my sightseeing of Düsseldorf until my parents arrive from Munich on the 10th (tomorrow).

Day 28: Wednesday 10th September

Mum & Dad arrived in from Munich and picked them up from the train station just around the corner from my brother's flat.. They caught a 5 hour train ride from Munich where dad had been at another one of his conferences, you know the ones you claim on tax and get a nice deduction...but enough of that. Since I hadn't really had a proper German meal yet we all decided to go down to the local Altstadt (Which basically means "old city") and had one of these hearty meals. I ended up getting something so completely different to what I thought I ordered, but my brother wasn't sure on what it was so I thought I would take a chance. Well these are the difficulties I face visiting a foreign country where the native language is not English. I ended up getting some huge piece of pork, it actually ended up being pretty nice which was a bit of luck for myself.

Day 29: Thursday 11th September

Today I travelled with Mum, Dad and my brother Ben, we drove down to a town called Köln to see the Dom Church. This is a huge church that took over 600 years to actually build. Unfortunately it was bombed during war but to my luck it has been restored fully. The German government still does restoration on the church, but this is a continuous thing that will keep on happening for years to come. It was very impressive and is huge, Have a look at some of the photo's I took when I was there in the Köln section on my Photo's page. There are just so many impressive churches all over Europe that I hopefully will see in time but I have to say that my favourite part of the trip down to Köln was not the Dom Church but visiting the Chocolate Factory/Museum. You need to see some of these photo's as they are really yummy!. There is even some photo's on how chocolate was used many years to go and will probably make you think twice about chocolate. I am still undecided on which part off this tour was the best...one the taste testing section or visiting the gift shot where you get to choose what chocolate you want to buy...

After we had done our little stint in the chocolate factory we decided to have a beer to was all that chocolate we have just eaten. We ended up in some small little bar that was full of really old memorabilia. They had literally no wall space left anywhere in the bar. They also had a variety of automated musical instruments that would play at random when you put money into a certain box. They had a automatic piano, an automatic organ (like in a church) and also two dummy's where one was holding a trombone and the other a playing organ. These two dummies were my favourite as they would stand up and play. You can see some of the photo's that Dad and I took while were were in the bar.
 

Day 30: Friday 12th September

Today I Walked around Düsseldorf with Mum and Dad as I had not really seen much of it up until now. We Did the tourist walk which you can get at any of the tourist offices anywhere in Europe. Basically to sum up Düsseldorf in one sentence I would have to quote from the Lonely planet guide that I brought along with myself and it states "Besides walking around and museum-hopping, one of the best things to do when in Düsseldorf is (surprise!) drink beer". and I didn't want to let down everyone that had worked tirelessly on this guide and I drank beer like the book suggested. So we Went to the Altstadt (Old city) to drink beer and also went down their for dinner. My brother wanted a Spanish dinner so he took us down to a Spanish section in the Altstadt. I thought there would be one or two Spanish restaurants not a whole bloody street of them. As we walked down all the restaurant staff were basically fighting over where we were going to sit in which restaurant.

We were all heading off to France in the morning so needed an early night. Was was to make it worse was that Ben and I were driving from Düsseldorf to St. Savinien which is near La Rochelle in the South West of France. After dinner our plans got side tracked and went out for a few beers and then a few more. Went to this cool bar called Carbinintos and had a few local Brazilian rums in a few cocktails, one of these deadly drink was called a comphrena and they were awfully strong. After many drinks here we decided to head somewhere else, this place happened to be an Irish pub, I really liked this Irish pub and hope that Ireland will be full of them. They were selling $1 euro tequila's. We Drank ourself silly until 2.30 in the morning. We left drunk but our night did not feel complete. So we wandered down to the local pizzeria in the Altstadt and ordered a wood fired pizza. Got home at 3am and realised that we were leaving in 3 hours and I hadn't even packed my bags yet. Finally after struggling for an hour to pack my bags I got to bed around 4am.

Day 31: Saturday 13th September

France

Got woken up at 6am by my lovely parents and they told to start driving to France with my brother Ben. Little did they know that I was still pissed as a fart and only had 2 hours sleep sop far. My other brother Peter, Mum and Dad all however got to travel via plane while we had to suffer an 8-9 hour car trip thru 3 countries (Germany, Belgium then France). It was the longest fucken drive (excuse my language but I deserve to day it) as we had a huge hangover. After a few hours, lots of water and some sleep it was my turn to do some driving. I got a chance to drive on the French roads and got up to speeds of 180km/h on their 130km hour roads. I was only trying to keep up with the local French drivers (you see in Germany there are no speed limits on their autobahn's, well not many). But I was still being passed like I was a snail by many of the French drivers.

You can check out where we are staying in France by going to http://www.labrossadiere.com. I even created a promotional video (on the French Page) for the people were were staying at as they were a friends of Peter and that he had also spent 3 months of his life doing up the Chateau we were about to stay in. I have made the same video in different sizes for people with fast internet connection and a slow dialup connection, with the 1st being 10mb and the other being 3mb.

*** Everything below here is just in point form. I will update this with more detailed stories soon ***

Day 32: Sunday 14th September

Stayed in la Brossardiere -
 

Went to the following places today:

- Taillbourg
- Saintes - Roman gates
- Saintes lookout
- Saint Savinien
 

France has to be one of the most spectacular places I have been. You can see some pictures of my stay in France, so just click this link to see them.

Day 33: Monday 15th September

Went to the following places today:

- La Rochelle - beautiful, fort, old city streets, boat show - saw a 581000 euro boat
- Lunch at La Rochelle - Seafood - Herrings and Sorbet (Raspberry & Passionfruit)
- Rochefort
- La Tremblade (Seafood by the sea and ate Oysters, Mussels and beautiful Sea Snails)

You can see some pictures of my stay in La Rochelle, so just click this link to see them.

Day 34: Tuesday 16th September

Went to the following places today:

- Cognac city
- Cognac tour - Hennessy
- Hotel Gardens - Amp theatre

You can see some pictures of my stay in Cognac, so just click this link to see them.

Day 35: Wednesday 17th September
 

Went to the following places today:

- Royan - Went to the Beach and lazed around for most of the day.

Day 36: Thursday 18th September
 

Went to the following places today:

- Bordeaux wine tour - Chateau Mouton Rothschild in Pauillac
- Bordeaux City - Walked around the city for a few hours

You can see some pictures of my stay in Bordeaux, so just click this link to see them.

Day 37: Friday 19th September
 

Went to the following places today:

- Relaxed around la Brossardiere
- Chateau de la Roche Courbon
- Nice BBQ with Dick and Jenny the hosts of La Brossardiere 

You can see some pictures of my stay in Chateau del la Roche Courbon, so just click this link to see them.
 

Day 38: Saturday 20th September

Went to the following places today:

- Drove to Paris with Dad and Ben and then Went up Eiffel tower

You can see some pictures of my stay in Paris, so just click this link to see them.

Day 39: Sunday 21st September

Went to the following places today:

- Drove to Belgium - Travelled to the medieval town called Brugge
- Had a few Belgium beer - Leffe Blonde . Was good to have a few beers for a change and not just red wine all the time. Not saying that I don't love red wine because I do.
- Had Moules + Frittes in Belgium (National Dish) - Mussels and chips
 

Day 40: Monday 22nd September

Went to the following places today:

- Canal ride around Brugge
- Drove to Brussels
- Bad signage in Brussels and was hard to get to and leave the city - got lost and added an hour to the trip.
- Went to centre of Brussels and went to Godiva chocolate shop
 

Drove to Amsterdam

Experienced my 1st rainy day in over 10 days, which I though was pretty good in Europe as I have head lots of stories about the crap weather they get here. But this is only the beginning.

Amsterdam was a shitfight to navigate around and was really hard to find the hotel. All these one way streets and not real map of Amsterdam to use. Since there are so many canals there is literally no parking and had to park in the parking station. This was 26 euro a night...(a little steep for my liking)

Went out and had a look around Amsterdam and did the usual Coffee shop thing...that's right I got stoned in Amsterdam....yee ha. Wondered around the red light district with my brother and had a laugh at all the women standing behind the glass. They would tap the glass as you went by to get your attention and hopefully get you to go into the back room with them...unfortunately I could not go down to that level of disgustingness that these whores put themselves to (that's right they are not even women in my books).

Day 41: Tuesday 23rd September

Looked around Amsterdam today.

Went to see the Van Gough collection

Went to the Heineken Brewery for a beer tour and had a few beers.

What...got stoned again (what a surprise)

Day 42: Wednesday 24th September

Drove back to Germany today

Day 43: Thursday 25th September

Did washing and relaxed before my trip to Munich for Oktoberfest

Day 44: Friday 26th September

Drove down to Munich for Oktoberfest. Took forever to find the accommodation. The great  navigation system was fucked and took us to the wrong street in the wrong suburb 3 friggen times. Finally got there at 3am

Day 45/6: Saturday 27th - Sunday 28th September

Probably the most expected day of the trip so far. Drunkenness day at Oktoberfest. Got their about midday and went to Bavarian tent but was too full to get seat. Tried a few other tents but they were closed because they were full. This was because it was the weekend and it was a hot autumn day.

Went to a tent called to Paulaner. Stood around in one the isles as there were no seats anywhere, and found out that you cannot buy beer unless you have a seat. We soon became friends with some local German people who we found out to be croatian-german who worked in Berlin.

Then met some crazy Italians who brought their own parmesan cheese and salami.

www.oktoberfest.de

Reset my watch from 1pm to midday to not see what time of day it was but to see how many drinking hours I would have. I ended up having 6 mass (litres) of beer in 5.5 hours. Got absolutely pissed as a mother fucker as sally, ben and I only shared to 1 giant pretzels that they were selling....we self inflicted our own death of beer. We were home by 8pm after a hour train trip.

Was doing some shooting at the shooting gallery...was shooting like a daemon (Shot 14/15 targets with the pellet gun) I guess I should become a sniper when I am pissed.

Day 47: Monday 29th September

Travelled down to Zurich on one of those speed trains. With Mum to see my cousin Simone, Daniel and their 3 kids.

Day 48: Tuesday 30th - Wednesday 1st October

Relaxed

Day 50: Thursday 2nd October

Jungfraujoch

Day 51: Friday 3rd October

Cheese Fondue

Day 52: Saturday 4th October

Drove around the mountains, Lichtenstein, Austria.

Day 53: Sunday 5th October

Left for Frankfurt

Day 54: Monday 6th October

My Birthday

Travelled to Luxembourg

Got pissed in Luxembourg at the Britannia pub

Day 55: Tuesday 7th October

Walked around Luxembourg with mate  Stephen Myers

was raining for most of the day

went to an Irish pub for a few beers in the evening

Day 56: Wednesday 8th October

Got 4 hr train back to Düsseldorf where i met brothers peter and Ben. Went out to a Argentinean restaurant and had  a steak. drove to Munster

Day 57: Thursday 9th October

Watched the Aussies win their opening world cup match. went out with peter and his Aussie friend who is  a chef in Munster. went out to many place and brother left us about 1am. we continued to go out until 3-4am. Went to get a kebab and this Turkish guy making kebab asked if i was English. I told him no and him no. told him i was an Aussie and he ran to the fridge and got me a free beer.

Day 58: Friday 10th October

went out to Peter's friends restaurant for dinner. is a German place. went out on the piss again. what a surprise. rode peter bike home pissed

Day 59: Saturday 11th October

recovered from the night on the piss.

packed bag for London to meet mate Saxon and Natalie.

drove to airport which took forever but must thank brother for driving me their. Caught plane and met cool Irish guy that works in Germany. had a barrel of laughs.

Caught Ryan air flight which only cost 20 euros. Flew into Stansted and got bus from airport to Liverpool station

I was staying at a friends house in Shepard bush....basically where all the Aussies and kiwi's live in London. Nat met me at the train station as Saxon was working. Dropped off my bags and went straight out on the piss and caught up with Saxon. We went to Piccadilly to cheers bar and got home at 4:30 am....yet another night on the piss. music was shit though.

Day 60: Sunday 12th October

recovered from the big night. Went to Camden markets. Was pretty nice their and were heaps of people around. Also gave Saxon and Nat a little pressie (jar of vegemite which they love)...have to be an Aussie to understand this one

Day 61: Monday 13th October

Went to see Big Ben, Westminster abbey (did the tour), parliament square, walked over Westminster bridge. Saw the London Eye (big Ferris wheel), walked to Trafalgar square and along oxford street. Tried to find Soho square which is meant to be a really nice garden in the middle of the city but only ended up in the suburb of Soho which is the gay area...no that doesn't mean i am gay!

Day 62: Tuesday 14th October

Went to Buckingham palace and was trying to see the changing of the guard but due to winter it is on every alternate day and my luck proved to me to go on the wrong day. saw some people go into the palace in some nice carriage. guards were wearing grey suits and not red ones...must be winter attire. Walked thru Green park and St. James park. Caught the tube to London tower and did the tour. Was absolutely fabulous. Worth doing. saw the queens crown jewels. Saw and walked over London bridge.

Went to west end musical called "rat pack" with frank Sinatra, dean martin and Sammy Davis junior. Was awesome and only cost 10 pounds.

Day 63: Wednesday 15th October

Got a train to Notting hill and walked to Kensington palace and thru Kensington gardens. Also walked thru Hyde park thru to Harrods. Walked around in the store for a hour or so. Everything was so damn expensive but really nice, Brought some fudge and chocolates for Saxon and Nat as a little present for letting me stay. Met up with Saxon at Knightsbridge for lunch. Went to baker street (221b to be exact and saw the Sherlock Holmes museum) was a little bit of a letdown.

Day 64: Saturday 18th October

Travelled to Ireland and started working for Dell Computer's in Dublin in the beginning of November. I have been in Ireland since then working and making short weekend trips and a huge 3 week holiday with my mate John Hazell in Austria and Scotland in February and March 2004

Well I am off now. I hope you have enjoyed reading my trip so far. I will update the photo's and My Diary Page soon.