2009 - Year of the Fire, Scam and non-existent Visa

NYE in Bangkok
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Rich writes:

One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster

The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free

You'll find a god in every golden cloister

Killing Fields - Cambodia
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And if you're lucky then the god's a she

I can feel an angel sliding up to me

No sliding please......there was certainly no Angels. We arrived into town and decided that we wanted to do as the locals do on this trip so luckily for us we read on the plane that Bangkokians, and I quote "love nothing more than to eat fantastic Thai curry, drink Singha and Mojitos and laze around in a roof top infinity pool," we will do anything not to offend our new hosts.

So New Year came and went and we found ourselves in a great little part of town where Champagne was not uncommon and angular haircuts were abundant, this was not the part of town that Murray Head sang about in 1984, although after so much hype we were sad to miss our chance to see the Ladies Table Tennis we had heard so much about!

Phnom Penh - Cambodia
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Luckily we were far enough away from the unexpected firework display in the nightclub down the road which turned into an inferno by 1am and left 60 people dead....hmmmm

What does two do in Bangkok for 24 hours, well first we thought we should look into one of those popular scams, they looked so inviting in the guidebooks that we thought we would give one a go. So off we popped down to the palace and as if by luck we didn't have to go looking for a likely suspect, he found us! So helpful here in the land of smiles. Anyway longstory short, we ended up seing every Buddha in town, Lucky Buddha (ironically), Tall Buddha, Gold Buddha, Buddha's favourite silk tailors, Buddha's favourite shop, Buddha's favourite travel agents....all for good pri.

Vietnam - One way, no way
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Ok, enough of Bangkok, lets stick a pin in a map. Koh Chang, too busy, apparently the King has given everyone 9 days holiday because of the problems earlier this year. South Thailand, sorry no flights. Koh Samet, no room. Ok Hanoi, two tickets please! Bags packed, arrive at airport for checkin at 8am on New Years Day, "sorry sir you need a visa"... Stupid thing is we did know this, I blame the heat.

Anyway things always happen for a reason and that is why we are sitting in a cafe on the river front in Phnom Penh enjoying our first taste of Cambodia. It certainly enlightens the senses, more mopeds than Roman Holiday, no Audrey Hepburn though. After Bangkok it finally feels as though we have hit the real Asia, this was compounded today significantly when we travelled out by Tuk Tuk to the Killing Fields to see where 17,000 of the 1.8M people were brutally murdered by the Khmer Rouge during Pol Pot's dictatoral reign during the late 70's. For those of you that have been it can be quite disturbing to see thousands of human skulls in a pile next to their mass graves.

So to make us feel better we are heading to the beach, Shinoukville is the lucky place unless of course we change our minds......