Holidays & Cambodia

Christmas Day in Thailand.

Myself, the older Stick, the Uncle, the younger Stick and the T-Bone.

Midnight on Khao San road, Bangkok.

Angkor Wat

For the second year in a row, Christmas abroad didn't quite feel right given the outside temperatures were up in the 30s. Once the Lush squad returned from their boating trip, we had a quiet Christmas Eve then awoke Christmas morning and quickly made our way to the Phuket airport where we picked up a travel worn Uncle Gerry. After another bus ride, then boat ride, then tuk-tuk ride, we were settled into our Christmas bungalow on the island of Koh Yai Noi. Most people have probably never heard of this place (including me until we were actually on the island) and it made for a very quiet, relaxed place to spend Christmas.

Trevor and I were up and at em early the next morning in order to zoom across the island on our little scooter, attempting to find some kind of communication place in which to contact our families. After some searching, we found a few dusty computers in the back of a tailoring shop and jumped onto Skype to hear from our distant kin. Once again, my never ending love of the internet was intensified, as from a tiny island off of Thailand I was able to have live video of my house back in Coquitlam. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and destroying poor James at our final games of Go. My last full day with the Lush's saw us long boating out into the surrounding islands, for an enjoyable day of snorkeling and lying around on the beach.

The next morning, after my final farewells to the Lush family (which of course includes my long time travel companion of Jason, *sniff* *sniff*), Trevor and I ferried back to the mainland and treated ourselves to a quick flight up to Bangkok from the wondrous Phuket airport. The following day had Ryan flying back in from Vancouver, and after some shopping and a couple meals, he was quickly on his way down south, after we also said our final farewells to one another (*sniff* *sniff*). Intentions to leave the next morning were thwarted by Trev falling quite ill and having to make an evening trip to the hospital, where he was quarantined from society for two days, during which I played Nintendo in my cramped little hostel room. Trevor was released on New Year's eve and we spent a rather quiet evening inside before venturing out onto Khao San road for the midnight festivities amongst the fireworks and bomb blasts.

Early the next morning we began a tiring 14 hour journey out of Thailand and into Cambodia to the town of Siem Reap, home of Angkor Wat. Along the way, thanks to a crafty exchange booth and my own ignorance of the current Cambodian/Thai rate, I was robbed of a sum equalling that of most Cambodian's annual incomes. After a solid, but short sleep, we awoke this morning and chartered our own personal moto-chariot to tour us around the ancient headquarters of the Khmer empire. I've become a little...bored(?) with ruins after seeing so many while on this trip, but Angkor was still a fantastic sight and helped breathe some fresh air into my interests. It was a very cool site and a must see for anyone in the vicinity, as well as being a great place to simply sit back, relax and take it all in.

Tomorrow we continue our lightning trip through Cambodia as we make our way to the capital Phnom Penh, where we hope to visit the notorious Killing Fields and hopefully play Rambo with some surplus US weaponry at one of the local gun ranges.