I'm currently sitting in a bar in Bangkok patiently waiting for our bus, we still have 3 hours left to wait so perfect time to tap away on my netbook.
So we left Sihanoukville on the night of the 9th and arrived early in the morning on Sunday 10th February - Chinese New Year.
The hostel we'd pre booked wasn't ready so we took a walk into town and after an uncomfortable night bus we went to a massage parlour to pass the time. We all had traditional Khmer massages :)
After a bit of food we went back to check in at lunch time and our room was available. We had a 3 bed room which was full of mosquitos but luckily had a mosquito net in the room to go round our futons on the floor. It was the cheapest place in Siam Reap and as it was Chinese New Year everything was fully booked. $2 a night each was a right bargain, so we didn't mind - I went and bought a can of Raid to kill the blood suckers!
Siem Reap has a large Chinese population so we were told to go up for the celebrations, so that night we went out to "pub street" had dinner at the Temple Bar and as watched an Apsara Show (Cambodia's Geishas) over dinner and went to a few bars after for the night. There was a cool bar called Angkor What? The street was really busy, good vibes and got chatting to the others on our table throughout the night. A lot of people we spoke to said the night before was much better, but we spent it on the night bus, and thinking about it its probably like New Years Eve for us.... so we left Sihanoukvile early where we were really happy to go to Siam Reap for this amazing experience of Chinese New Year... but just didn't turn out that way!
It didn't stop us having a good time anyway and we bumped into the 2 girls sitting in front of Lee & I on the bus the night before (Nic & Bish). It was quite late at this point after we were both smashed. I had to go off in search of food to sober myself up, and came back drinking a chocolate milkshake (we are addicted... key part of our staple diet) and a bar of Cadbury's Dream for Lee - he'd been going on about white chocolate for ages and I found some for him :) We'd lost Lora as she was dancing inside with the Canadians from our table and only by chance did I find Lee again and the two girls from the bus. Turns out Lora went home as couldn't find us and we ended up getting whiskey and a bottle of coke to drink after being kicked out of the Temple Bar and stumbled over to the X Bar. We were there for a bit and decided to go home (at 5am). By this point Lee was absolutely smashed. I was feeling OK as i'd had the food so I escorted him back (this is becoming a nightly routine) but was honestly the funniest walk back ever as he repeatedly kept falling over.. i'd not seen him that drunk before, and as I was pretty drunk too, every time I tried to pick him up I collapsed with laughter!
The next day we'd planned to go to swimming in a lake nearby, the tuk tuk we booked for 10am came and went as we didn't wake until 12 and no surprise Lee was still drunk and I felt a little bit like death. We went downstairs where there was a pool table and a help yourself bar (which was very dangerous as the beers kept adding up) and thought the only solution would be to have a can of ice cold Angkor and a couple of games of pool.
We got chatting to two Canadian girls (there's a bloody lot of them out here!!) and decided to go to a guesthouse two doors up with a swimming pool. We had a swim and chilled for a couple of hours (with a couple beers, Lee was going for it!) and the conversation turned round to tattoos.... I said I wanted another one so said to Lee, shall we go get one? He got up and was like Yeah!! I want one now. He was rather drunk, topping up from the heavy night before but was dead set on getting one done (only last week he said he'd never get one lol!) so we literally got up, left Lora to sunbathe with the girls and went into town.
It was about 2pm when we left and didn't get home until about 9pm as we went to a tattoo shop in the X bar and waited for the guy to come back as he wasn't at his shop. We waited about an hour or two playing yet more games of pool and eventually he came back but he had a booking so Lee couldn't get his tattoo done there and then. He was adamant that he wanted it straight away so he told us of a Cambodian man further down the road. . A sign outside said he'd be there from 6pm so we stood outside and asked a Cambodian man to call him and say we wanted to book in, he did and we sat outside for a bit. Two French men walked by while we were waiting and we chatted to them and they said for us to come to their hostel "Garden Village" for a beer and to watch the sunset on the roof terrace bar. We went up with them and had a look at tattoo designs for Lee. When he first thought about what he wanted by the pool he came up with " I AM PREGNANT" which he thought would be a good idea ?!?!?!? I told him no and that he needed to rethink something else otherwise the tattooist wouldn't tattoo him. He settled on stars so we took a look and found some ideas and we agreed on 5 stars in a diagonal line which looked cool. We went back for half 6 and Sinath was open! We walked in and Lee was so impatient, the tattooist found the design we'd seen and drew it up and all the time Lee was saying "Tattoo me now!" It was half 7 by the time he was ready so I went off to get us pizza, spring rolls and beer and came back to watch him get inked!
While he was getting everything ready Sinath noticed that Lee didn't just have 2 nipples... he has 4 so was absolutely amazed at the other two he had and called all these Cambodians over to take a look.. some were disgusted with him lol but they all wanted to touch him and see for themselves! Sinath at the end then took photos of his tattoo and afterwards a picture of each nipple and then one of all 4... funniest thing!He did a good job and made it unique by shading the stars each in a different way and Lee was happy with the result :) I agreed to go back the next day to get mine and we walked home.
On the way back Lee was shouting out "I've been stabbed" as he was walking through the town with his top off and clingfilm stuck to his hip. Definitely one of the funniest days as I was cracking up with laughter and reassuring passers by that he's just being a drama queen. One lady looked so concerned and feared for her life, so I had to explain that he'd just been tattooed.
We bought a pass for the next day for the Temples of Angkor as Angkor Wat is not just the only one, but it's the biggest tourist attraction.
Tuesday Evening I got my tattoo after we left Angkor and I already knew what I wanted. "Follow your heart and chase your dreams" and Sinath suggested the Khmer language. So I got him to write it out and looked good and was quite long so I got it along the bone in my forearm. (Never ever said i'd get a tattoo which is so visible.. but Cambodia really seemed to be the place where we've all done something we never thought we would!)So we all hung out there that evening, Lora came with us and she was looking through the books too contemplating whether to get one as well!
She found a design that she really liked and symbolised her love for Asia - the 9 spires.
She got it done the following evening on her thigh.
Wednesday we booked into a hotel as the hostel was full and we hadn't planned on staying a 4th night and went to the temples of Angkor for the day.
Was a long day and we'd had enough by about 7 temples so we got the tuk tuk to drop us off back to the hotel.
We booked a bus to go up to Battambang for the following morning and went to the tattoo shop and hung out there all night and met quite a few Aussies who were getting tattoos before Lora. Good ending for our time in Siem Reap :)
Summary of Siem Reap - lots of beer, all got a tattoo and the temples of Angkor are overrated (or so me & Lee thought.. Lora disagrees) and if you ever go, stay in our hostel - Mangolo. Was great and so cheap :)
Will put up Battambang and Phnom Penh soon, now only an hour to wait until the bus to Koh Samui so tomorrow morning we'll be back on a beautiful beach where we belong :)
xxxxxx
