Siem Reap, Cambodia

On our bus to the border of Thailand and Cambodia we met two Spanish girls (Estibaliz and Raquel) who we decided to cross the border with and take a taxi with to Siem Reap. We had heard horror stories about the scams at the Cambodian border crossing, so we were all on our A-game. All of the stories we heard about visa and Tuk-Tuk scams were true, everyone was out to rip us off. But, four strong, we conquered the border without paying any extra money (even though even the immigration officer tried to coerce us into paying him extra for the visa) and made it to Siem Reap.

Walking through a huge market in Thailand trying to find the border

We finally found the border!

With Estibaliz and Raquel, we made it into Cambodia

We were immediately shocked by how poor this country was. Leaving Thailand and stepping into Cambodia was like entering a different world. They just barely paved their roads. And, oddly enough, they use US dollars here, but there is not much that costs more than $1. However, everyone is so nice here because they appreciate the tourism industry and what it can do for their country.

We were so relieved to finally be in a location where we could stay for more than 12 hours, so we made plans to go see Angkor Wat the next day with the Estibaliz and Raquel by renting a Tuk-Tuk for the day.

Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples were truly amazing, and the Cambodian vendors (most of them young children trying to sell bracelets) were the sweetest people in the world. Even when you told them you were not going to buy from them they would continue to talk with you and take pictures with you. I even had one of the little girls named Tuan give me a bracelet just because she liked me. It really is a lesson in humility to receive a gift from someone who has nothing, just out of the kindness of their heart. By the end of the day, we were both in love with Cambodia.

Children trying to sell me hats, there were a ton of them.

In front of Angkor Wat

Steps to one of the many buildings inside the temple

Another shot in Angkor Wat

Our Tuk-Tuk driver was taking a little nap when we got back from Angkor Wat

Angkor Bayon (personally, we liked it more than Angkor Wat)

A group of kids at the "Tomb Raider" temple. We took a picture of them and they demanded money. We felt bad not paying them, but we have heard horror stories of children being sold to orphanages to make money for the parents/mob, etc.

Bicycle BBQ vendor, selling beef organ sausage. Ben tried one and nearly vomited.

When Ben was ordering from the bicycle vendor, this little boy walked up holding these huge beetles. I ran. Ben took this photo.

Ben handing out some "Wet Ones" to the Cambodians who were mesmerized. They had never seen them before and were so appreciative, smelling them and smiling.

That night we went to the night market to get some food and do a little shopping since we have not bought a single thing thus far on our trip. We got dinner first, Ben got the traditional dish, Lok Lak (deep fried beef) and I got noodles. Raquel had ordered a chicken thigh/leg, and when we were finished paying for our bill, but before our dishes were cleared, a sweet little girl came up and asked if she could finish Raquel's chicken. This girl, maybe 5, stood over our table and cleaned the chicken bone dry. It was seriously the most upsetting thing I have ever experienced. That definitely put a hinderance on the evening, so we did a little shopping and called it a night.

3 Day Trek from Hell

Well, once again tired, weathered by the elements, and ready for a break, we set off for Bangkok in hopes of getting some rest before going to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We set out on a boat from Railay to Krabi town, where we caught a bus to Surat Thani, spent the night, and then hopped on the train for Bangkok in the morning. On the train ride to Bangkok, we were greeted with the news that we were on the eve of the worst flooding Bangkok had seen in 100 years. We had done lots of research and read many articles, but finding reliable information on what was currently going on was hard. So, about 6 hours into our train journey, the trouble began. We were stopped and herded off onto buses because, apparently, the tracks were flooded, so we would be doing the rest of the journey by bus, which took an extra 3 hours. When we arrived to Bangkok, it was eery. Bangkok is one of the liveliest places I have ever seen, and it was dead. Every shop had built a brick or cement wall about 3 feet high in front backed by sandbags. There was no water available in stores, and the city was in a state of panic. We arrived at our hotel at 10:30 PM, and set out to talk to people about the situation.

A block from Khao San Road, completely dead at 11 PM.

Stocking up on cash from a fortified ATM

After speaking with people we found out that the floods were set to hit within 24 hours, and even though we had a hotel booked for a few nights, we decided it was time to flee. We decided to try to stock up on some water and food in case we became stuck, but had no luck.

No stores had any water or beer.

Food was completely gone.

We then went back to the hotel and slept about 3 hours, packed our bags and set out for the bus station at 6 am to catch a bus anywhere out of Bangkok.

A picture of the outside of our hotel. This was typical of all the shops in Bangkok.

Directly outside of our hotel. That flood was just a small puddle when we went to bed. In about 4-5 hours it became about 6 inches deep and went from 100 yards away to about 20 yards from the hotel. I can only imagine what happened later that day.

You know you are in bad shape when Tuk Tuk drivers have resorted to selling row boats out of the back of their trucks.

The bus station was like a zoo, filled with people desperate to get out. We caught a bus to the border of Thailand, where we walked across the border to Cambodia, took a government bus into town, and then a taxi 2.5 hours into Siem Reap.

All in all, in 58 hours, we spent 31 of them travelling via 6 cab rides, 4 buses, 1 train, and 1 boat ride. We are so relieved that ordeal is over!

Railay Beach, Krabi, Thailand

With our energy back, and well rested, we went to our final Thai island, Railay beach in Krabi. A driver picked us up at our hotel in Koh Lanta, then we took 2 car ferries, and drove 2 hours to Krabi Town, where we caught a long tail boat to Railay Beach. We both thought Phi Phi was the most beautiful island we had seen, until we got to Railay.

On the long tail boat to Railay beach with our luggage.

We met some really cool French and English people on our boat ride to Railay that we ended up spending the next couple of days with. This English guy we met, Steve, was absolutely hilarious. We spent that night drinking with him, because he got stood up on a date, cracking endless jokes, and laughing harder than I have in a long time.

This is our buddy Steve...Don't worry Steve, we won't forget you.

The next day we chartered a boat for about 8 dollars a person, and went to 4 different smaller islands to go snorkeling and cave dwelling for the day.

On our way to go snorkeling

Our French friends, Damien and Olivia

Turquoise water against a white sandy beach with limestone cliffs, this is Krabi

Sarah feeding some fish pineapple

One of the beaches we stopped off at. This picture does the white sand no justice, but it's nice nonetheless.

Rock climbing is the popular activity in Krabi. If you look closely you can see a lady wedged between the rocks about halfway up.

With the Frenchies cave dwelling

After just a couple of nights in Raialy we were beat up and it was time for a big trek. I had about 15 mosquito bites, a bee stinger stuck in the bottom of my foot, was sick with a cold, had a rash, and was sleep deprived....Oh, backpacking. So, on that note, we set off for our journey back to Bangkok.

Koh Lanta, Thailand

After a few rowdy days in Koh Phi Phi, we decided to head to a more laid back island in the Andaman Sea called Koh Lanta. We booked a nicer place on Agoda in order to recharge for a few days and were pleasantly surprised when we arrived to find that for our $30 USD a night we were staying in a 4 star resort that rivaled any resort in Hawaii. But, our luck ran out there. The two days we stayed in Koh Lanta were full of fails. The first day there we rented a car to drive around the island and see all of the amazing sites people raved about. We still have NO idea where any of these sites were, because we could find nothing! There were no signs in English, and we pretty much spent the day driving aimlessly around the island. At the end we did find a really cool bar to hang out at, but that is about it. Oh, and we saw a monkey! I swear, regardless of how many monkeys you see, it never gets old, and this one was just sitting in the middle of the street.

Ben driving our little car. Driving on the wrong side of the road proved to be a little more difficult then we had originally thought.

The crabs in the mangroves. They only had one large claw, really weird. We would see them fighting each other with their one claw...a really uneventful battle.

The walkway through the mangrove forest. If you fell through this you would definitely get sick, the water below was disgusting.

One of the many dirt roads that we got stuck on. Ben had to reverse down this one for about 2 miles.

Mongo Bar, they sold everything there. We became friends with those two Swedish girls and hung out with them all day and night.

The second day in Koh Lanta we decided to cut our losses and just lay around the hotel pool, which was relaxing, but we were definitely ready to head onto our next adventure in Krabi.

Koh Phi Phi, Thailand

We arrived in Phuket town and realized that I had accidentaly booked us for 2 nights at a hotel instead of one. It looked like we would be sticking around to recharge in Phuket Town, which was fine because our next destination would be intense. One simple task that needed to get done was laundry but, as always with traveling, this simple task soon became my worst enemy. We found a laundromat to use, however didn't have any change, so I set out to get some coins. This took about 30 minutes and multiple transactions of goods to get the right amount of coins. Next was the detergent. We could not tell whether the detergent we were buying was bleach or detergent, and it was all in Thai, so we went with the most colorful label assuming it was for colored clothes and hoped for the best. But the real kicker happened at the end. After waiting around in the heat for our laundry to finish, the monsoons came. It poured for hours, and we were in a non-touristy area....no taxi's. So, we saddled up with some 50 cent ponchos and headed out on the 2 mile trek home in the pouring rain while carrying our freshly washed clothes.

All "ponchoed up". Yes, our clean laundry is in trash bags

Another experience in Phuket Town was the night market where we get some really good food, and some not so good food. I ordered a Pad Thai and it was phenomenal. Sarah, on the other hand, decided to get some chicken curry over noodles. The look on her face when she received her dish was priceless. Sitting on the top of her curry was a chicken foot, and the chicken in the curry was gizzards, not the breast meat we are used too. I was very surprised though, she ate the noodles and some of the curry sauce but left the goodies for me.

Chicken organs and feet

I was not very excited about this. And I had good reason. It was all bone with a layer of skin that I scraped off with my teeth. Not that great.

Next we headed to Koh Phi Phi which was everything I had dreamed of. The beauty that you see of Koh Phi Phi in the movies is accurate. It is a tropical paradise. White sandy beaches butted up against huge limestone cliffs covered with lush green foliage. The unexpected part was that Phi Phi had beautiful small narrow streets, and one of the best nightlife scenes I have experienced thus far on the trip. The first night we went to a Reggae Bar which doubles as a Muy Thai boxing ring...I know, it makes no sense. The great thing was that anyone could hop in the ring, and for doing so you received a free bucket of booze. Sarah was all about it, and stepped up to take one for the team. And, she won the fight! Not really because they basically danced around the ring chasing each other and trying to land some punches, which was hilarious to watch. The other big party place on the island is a bar called Slinky located right on the beach where they have nightly fire shows and a club type atmosphere all night.

On the ferry to Koh Phi Phi

These signs are everywhere now

This was convincing enough to get Sarah in the ring

Very Intimidating

Sarah winning the fight

At club Slinky on the beach with fire dancers

While there we did a snorkeling trip to Koh Phi Phi Leh, the island where they filmed the movie "The Beach." It was by far the most beautiful place I have ever seen and the fish were abundant. Overall, Koh Phi Phi was both of our favorite place we have been so far.

Snorkeling in paradise

Jumping off of the front of our longtail boat

In Maya Bay of Phi Phi Ley. This is where the movie "The Beach" was flimed.

Gili Trawangan, Indonesia

We left Bali for the dreaded ride to Gili Trawangan that we had been avoiding for weeks. We had heard awful things about the trek, about the seas being rough and people getting seasick. Once we boarded the boats, they started passing out sea sickness pills. We immediately decided that if they were passing these out, it would be a good idea to take them. And it was. We passed out the whole way there, and despite the rough seas and apparently people yelping as the boat turned, we were sleeping.

Getting onto the "fast boat"

Getting off the boat after our hour long nap!

We arrived to paradise. A remote islands, with no cars, no motor bikes, no dogs, and no police. This place has only been discovered and developed in the last 20 years. We did not have a place to stay so we set out to find a hotel, and came across some bungalows inside a family's home. They had built the bungalows in the last 10 years as tourism boomed.

The main street. The Islands are ruled by indigenous Tribesmen who set the laws. One of the laws is no motorized vehicles, so everything is done by horse and carriage.

The view from our bungalow porch. The thatched hut is the main house which the family that we are stayed with lived. They built 6 really nice bungalows but lived in this hut. Did not make much sense to us.

Apparently, Magic Mushrooms are also legal as they are advertised everywhere by these signs. No, we did not take any while we were there!

We spent that day discovering the island, and walking around. We quickly found that you can walk from one end of the town the the other in about 10 minutes. We were dead tired from getting up early so we called it a night at around 10.

The beach we went swimming at the day we got there.

Going for a swim!

That night we ate the traditional way!

The next morning we got up and rented bikes. We biked around the whole island, stopping at beaches and swimming, stopping at bungalows and reading, and finally settling at a nice resort for lunch, a drink, and a swim in their pool.

Ben biking towards a carriage. The carriages have little bicycle horns that they squeeze to let you know they are coming.

One of the beaches that we hung out at

Another beautiful beach that we discovered with a shipwreck in the background

The next day we got up in time for the snorkeling trip. It was the best snorkeling I have ever done. We saw a ton of different tropical fish, and got to swim with huge turtles. We unfortunately didn't get any pictures because we don't have a waterproof camera yet. That night we went to the night market where we got to try all different kinds of street food.

The night market on Trawangan

This is the traditional dish called Nasi Goreng...You eat it with your hands!

Yes, he looks like a savage...and there is no doubt that he is! I even ate some food with my hands!

We finished up our 3 days in the Gili Islands very happy that we made the trek. The islands are very small, therefore they are pretty slow. We are happy that we came for the days that we were here, but also ready to head back to Thailand to finish up the islands there!