Sunday Lunch - Japan Style

An early lunch because we needed to catch the train for Kyoto in the afternoon. Junko's Mum and Dad picked us all up in their people carrier and off we wentthrough the Tokyo suburbs to a shopping centre. Up to the 5th floor and turn into an unexciting looking doorway and suddenly its another world - somehow a space in a modern building has been made to look like a very traditional Japanese interior, calm, quiet and peaceful with beautiful caligraphy on the walls and waitresses in tight rolled tube skirts and loose kimono style jackets. We were shown to our table and given the menu for the set lunch. We had been told that this restaurant specialised in soya cake - which didnt sound too exciting but as the meal unfolded we realised how wrong we had been.

I think I have only had two other meals of similar complexity and delight and both of those were in Italy. I cant describe all the courses of this menu in the detail they deserve, I really wish I had taken notes! Course one appeared in a little blue and white three tiered china box with tiny tastes of delicious things in each box.

Altogether there were 15 courses, sometimes just one thing arrived, other times things arrived in sets. The most dramatic was a bowl with tofu blocks wrapped in something and placed in water. The dish was then placed on induction loops which were at the centre of each table and we had to let the water come to boil and cook for 8 minutes. The water was from a mineral spring and on boiling turned white - very health giving apparently.

Brian and I got two tiny but so delicious squares of steak to cook on hot stones brought to the table when everyone else had raw fish. There were tiny dishes on cooked vegetables and dishes of pickled veg. Finally we finished with a choise of deserts. I had soy ice cream with what tasted like balsamic soy sauce - if there is such a thing - as a topping.

It really was the most delicious, beautifully presented meal I have had and such a treat to eat with our Japanese family including the wonderfully well behaved Michiru, not yet three.

Immediately afterwards we were off to the station by the metro. We bade fond farewells and away we swept to Tokyo station and our first Shinkansen or bullet train, one with a few stops on the journey to Kyoto but still pretty fast. We knew the train was due when the gang of ladies, smartly dressed in pink - right up to their sun visors arrived on the platform. The train comes in,pasengers off,pink ladies in with a notice across the doors saying no entry cleaning. They clean two or three to a carriage, turn the seats 180 degrees so you face forwards, collect their cleaning stuff after every surface is cleaned, exit the carriage, bow and then the neatly queuing passengers alight.

The journey was fantastic, quick, quiet very smooth and WE SAW MOUNT FUJU! It was a lovely sunny day, blue sky and there she was, very close to the railway line and we got a good view - actually got some of the Japansese passengers to take notice of their national mountain and we got some pictures.

Tess

ps photos to follow - another of those PCs that refuse to recognise our card reader.

Fuji Come and Fuji Go

The final photo shows the famous view of Mt Fuji across the lake, so if anyone can photoshop it in for us and email it back we will be grateful!

Seeing Mt Fuji is of course high on our list of things to do in Japan. But its not so easy, as we have discovered.

Actually I have seen it already, from the window of our 747 as we approached the Tokyo area (aircraft have a rather wonderful GPS system which they display when they are not showing those ludicrous films they select so you can see where you are etc). Gazing out across the coastline in the early dawn light I saw Mt Fuji rising snowy above the low clouds, a rather magnificent view but a fleeting and distant one.

And on our first day of sightseeing in Tokyo, which was clear and bright, Junko announced that she had seen Fuji clearly from her third floor bedroom window early that morning (at all of 100km distant), only for it to rapidly disappear.

So on Friday we set off for Shinjuku station to catch a train to the Hakone National Park below Fuji. You buy a Free Pass ticket for about 35 pounds which takes you there and back and allows you to ride an amazing array of trains, mountain railways, buses, cable cars, funiculars and even a fake galleon to cruise the lake (which provides one of the most famous Fuji views).

As we approached the Park however the weather became ever more cloudy and by the evening there was a distinct feeling of rain in the hills. No matter, we had a wonderful journey there ending on a bus which announced every stop in English, even adding the name of our Ryokan, or traditional Japanese Guest House, at our stop. It was a great friendly place, lovely traditional room, no en-suites but with both an indoor and outdoor Onsen, a bath fed by natural hot springs and with water heavy with sulphur and minerals in which you gently broil yourself pink. You book a private half hour session so you can be outdoors and naked!

A group of Australians/Canadians/Swiss arrived a little later, travelliing around the country as Intrepid Tours, and we spent the evening in the sitting area chatting and playing Chinese Poker.

We began the next day with another go in the Onsen before breakfast, out in the now heavy rain! And then set off to explore the area by every mode of transport on offer and of course realising that a view of Fuji was absolutely out of the question, with the rain and clouds thickening by the hour. But it was great fun, such an amazingly beautiful, wet and green area, even passing in a cable car over one valley thick with sulphur mining (by the look of it). And the transport system has to be seen to be believed, full of course of elderly Japanese and others pouring into the area despite the rain.

Brian

ps Success! Mt Fuji clearly visible from Junko`s bedroom window this very sunny Sunday morning.

Hai!

Hai just means yes, but its how you get energetically greeted, said quickly and with emphasis. We had our first Hai as we bought our Tokyo Free tickets for roaming the metro and urban rail system. Its looks fearsomely complex but with great signage, colour coding of lines, numbering of stations and announcements in English on the train we have only made some minor errors.

Its the small things you notice (Tess will no doubt report on some of the fashion) but most of what we hear about Japan may be fairly accurate, its a well ordered, efficient and extremely polite society. Yes, everyone under our age enters the metro with their flip open mobiles and earphones firmly in place, there is a signal everwhere underground evidently, only the elderly are excused mobiles in constant use.

Getting back from our evening out in Shinjuku last night the metro was still crowded at 9.30pm with returning (mostly male) commuters and the very distinct smell of alchohol showed that most of them had been attending those urgent evening business meetings!

But its the politeness I love. Waiting for a metro I noticed the stationman, smartly dressed in cap and uniform and white gloves come to attention and bow to the approaching train. I could not see how the driver responded, I hope with just a nod. And as we explored the suburb where Junku and her husband Morimichi live with two year old Michiru we came across some pavement works which necesitated using a coned off section of the road. At one end a smartly dressed flag man flagged us to wait for a cyclist to come through before waving us on. Half way along a further smartly dressed man in hard hat bowed us through. Now when was the last time you were made to feel like royalty at some road works?

And I have yet to tell you about the wonders of electronic Japanese toilets and large screen HD television! Hai!

Brian

Yes Japan seems, quiet, blessedly cool. We had a lovely day yesterday, breakfast with Junko and Michiru and then after they had gone off to work and nursery we set off to the centre of Tokyo, first to get our Japan rail pass activated and book our train tickets and then to look at the Imeperial Palace and on to the National Museum.

The Imperial Palace is in the finacial district and we had a coffee at a very smart cafe (at the sort of price that made you feel you ought to be working for a merchant bank) and watched smartly dressed workers having their lunch. Women wear high heels, tights, very neat skirts in dark colours some sraight some quite full and a bit flirty, a neat blouse and a little fitted jacket or a fitted cardigan, all the young women carry nice bag some of which are quite colourful and the smartly suited men carry briefcases.

The museum is set in a large park, in an area a bit like the south bank with several museums, an art gallery, concert hall and the Tokyo Zoo. We had a curiously insubsantial sandwich at the cafe of the concert hall and watched loads of Tokyo OAPs out for a cultural day and also having sandwiches and tea. The typical Japanese elder is really quite tiny and fantasticly neatly dressed, no Nora Batty stockings for them! Many wear hats (men and women), the women can be in trousers, skirts or traditional Kimono ( we saw several kimono wearers) but they all wear very sensible shoes and walk briskly in pairs or small groups, chatting ernestly together. Older men take every opportunity to have a short sleep, we saw several streched out on the museum sofas , fast asleep.

The young are of course not such conservative dressers, wild hair, jeans so tight you think they must have been born in them, hats and tshirts with slogans and winkle picker shoes so long and pointed that it makes walking difficult. Lots of the girls wear silver shoes and so far we havent seen any outrageously dressed girls, though having seen a lot of teenagers in very formal school uniform you can imagine that both boys and girls must long for the time when they can express themselves with what they wear.

Tess　

Moats, Markets and Massage

We are about to leave Chiang Mai but I think have told you very little about this rather remarkable place. Its a 700 year old city within a moat and what remains of its walls - of course it has now spread beyond its original 1km plus square moat aligned with the compass but the moat is still intact and contains the central part of the city - a place of roads runing NS and EW joined by numerous Soi s or Lanes.

When we were visiting the temples at Angkor Wat the most difficult thing was to imagine that they formed the centres of large cities - built of wood and surrounded by walls and moats, since they had long since been abandoned to the forest with everything but the temples disappeared. But at Chiang Mai the city has survived (no water supply problems as at Angkor), there are the centrally placed old Buddhist temples, still in use, to which have been added about 100 more - you find them just about on any corner and down any lane. For the rest the present day city is just a collection of mainly low rise buildings, loads of cheap hotels, guest houses, shops, stalls, second hand bookshops, restaurants of every kind and internet cafes everywhere. Its not particularly pretty but with most of the traffic on the roads either side of the moat the other roads and lanes are pretty quiet. Its a nice place to visit, we have enjoyed it a lot.

Brian

On to markets and the massage.

We went to the Sunday walking market, setting off from the hotel in baking heat at about 6pm, the sun was going down and there was the promise of a slight cooling to come.

We walked about 15 minutes alongside the moat to the begining of the market street, during the week it is an ordianry street, open to trafic, but on Sunday afternoon and evening it becomes a pedestrian only place and is lined with market stalls of all types. We wended our way through, negotiating round the thousands of other people, tourists and locals who were looking at things, disscussing price with vendors and generally gawping and chatting. The centre of the wide street was taken up with groups of disabled musicians, dancing children in various sorts of traditional dress, a beautiful girl doing traditional Thai dance and at one junction a green glass (Emerald?)
Buddha with attendants, being venerated by passers by.

There were so many people and stalls (and the stalls went off to the left and right along side streets too) that it must have taken us about two hours to see about half of what was on offer. We didn't buy much, too much choice, but I did get a new diary and a gift for the friend with whom we are to stay in Tokyo, we also had an iced mango drink and finished up with a very inexpensive supper at May Kaidee's where we were greeted like old friends and were able to show Duan her photo on the blog.

The massage was yesterday and given to me by a soon to be released prisoner at Chiang Mai's Correctional Institute (Prison) for Women. I dont know if any of you have had a Thai massage, I hadn't and it is not a bit like a gentle aroma therapy massage. You are dressed in very modest baggy trousters and a loose top, lie down on a matress and your masseuse goes at you with her forearms, feet hands and at times whole body whan she kneels on bits of your body in order to pummell other bits. There is also quite a bit of having your arms and legs pushed into yoga like positions and at the end she is behind you, holding your arms and sort of pulls you backwards onto her legs and stomach, oh and there is quite a lot of being slapped as well. I'm not sure if I would have another Thai massage, but at least if I do it won't be quite so suprising, the masseuse didnt have much English, but she had mastered "relax madam" and will have earned some money for her release with her skills.

Tessa

ps photos to be added when we can as we are about to fly to Bangkok and then onto Tokyo - we have just reached Day 1 Week 16 of our trip and still going strong!

Blocked? Unblocked now!

We appear to have been blocked - lost all access to blogspot.com for some days and we also think we suffered a road block yesterday on the road back from a National Park when the highway traffic ground to a complete halt about 30km from Chiang Mai. We only got away through our minivan driver taking a u-turn and then some rough country roads. Even so we were held up again near Chiang Mai airport and there were large numbers of traffic and other police about and a lot of police cars. Not a normal road hold up we thought and I read in today's paper that three of the 'Red Shirt' protest leaders have been arrested in Chiang Mai so maybe it was connected with that.

And the blog block? Well blogspot gets blocked in China and sometimes in other places as people use it as an alternative means of getting the news out. It was certainly a major source of information on the corruption in Sarawak.

But apart from these inconveniences we have been enjoying life in Chiang Mai- its too hot by far, despite the fact that we are at least partially acclimatised to the tropical heat, we do find ourselves looking forward to the relative cool of Japan next week. But yesterday we experienced some real cold right here in our minivan trip with a small group to a national park containing the highest mountain in Thailand. We first viewed waterfalls, a really interesting small Burman village (where the residents did not appear to mind us poking about their place of living and work) and then a very impressive Royal Research Station where huge amounts of flower and other crops are grown to get everyone to stop growing opium poppies and then up to the highest peak at over 2,500 metres. And course it was into the cloud, thick cloud which then became a howling wind and driving rains. We at least had our cagoules (the first time we have actually had them with us when needed!), the visit to Buddhist stupas became virtually an impossibility, we could barely see them in the clouds and rain.

We treated ourselves in the evening to an excellent Italian meal (having had our more usual vegetarian Thai meal for lunch on the trip), real gnocchi and our first glass of red wine since leaving the UK! It must have encouraged Tessa to dream as she complained this morning that She had been dreaming of roast beef, gravy etc. Still she did do some cooking the other day at May Kaidee's vegetarian restaurant here. We met May at her Bangkok restaurant but there was no opportunity to take a cooking lesson there but she told us her sister, Duan, did classes at the restaurant here which is nearby. I will try to upload some pics including the array of dishes that Tessa cooked and which we both tried unsuccessfully to finish.

Nightrunners of Chiang Mai

Thai Railways certainly have the mighty Indian railways beat! We travelled last night from Ayutthura to Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand by overnight sleeper - catching our train about 9.30pm last night and arriving (about a hour late) here by 10.45am today. We were well looked after, the platform guy came up to the European travellers a few minutes before the train arrived to check our carriages and get us to to the right part of the platform and Tessa's rapid ascent was ensured by a cry of 'Madam, Madam!' and a polite shove of the backside to mount the steep steps with pack on back.

We were met by the guard inside the carriage, shown to our seats and our bunks made up immediately - followed rapidly by the very smiley lady waiting for our beer order (a large bottle of Singha beer was ordered, we are celebrating the final completion of my Indian hospital
anti-biotics).

Not a bad nights sleep all in all, Thai railways only get in four bunks whereas India gets in six or even nine -it makes a big difference, imagine the layout in 'Some Like it Hot' but without Marilyn and you have it.

Getting up for the inevitable pee in the night I entered the corridor to see a French kid tumble from the top bunk - I think he was hardly aware of what had happened and his father was on the spot immediately. But apart from that it was an uneventful trip.

We woke quite early to find that we had fnally left the plains behind and were climbing through forested hills and we were cold! - the ac was rather too effective. But soon the coffee man came and then the breakfast man. All of this and the tickets were only about 15 pounds each for our14 hours on the train.

Arriving we were supposed to be met by a driver from the hotel, well after 40 minutes of waiting for a young English couple to sign up for trips and to do some food shopping at the station (what is it with young people?) we set off in our tuk tuk - but of course it is Songkran with a real frenzy here and our open sided tuk tuk was a perfect target at all junctions - we arrived at the hotel duly soaked and a bit grumpy after our long journey!

Chiang Mai is a moated place and its moats were full of people and those not in the water were dipping buckets or even hoses attached to pumps to get even more water out to soak themselves and passers by - quite impossible to stay dry.

Just back now from a lovely meal in a posh restaurant to celebrate Tessa's birthday!

Brian

ps this blog owes its origin to the fact that having blogged about our trip in Bengal on the North East Frontier Railway taking the Darjeeling Mail to Kolkata we totally forget to use the title 'Night Runners of Bengal' - finding an old copy of the book in Bangkok reminded us and short of returning to Bengal to do it again you have to accept this attempt.

Songkran: Happy New Year!

Scenes from the New Year street celebrations plus Tessa trying to send a few emails with a rock band just a couple of metres behind her in full pelt!

It is really hot here, mid 30's or above today so a New Year custom of hurling water at each other makes perfect sense. It did get really wet in the streets of Ayutthaya, where we arrived at about 2pm after catching busses from where we were yesterday.

We saw the celebrations of New Year in every town and hamlet we passed on our five hour journey, young people with buckets, bowls, vast tubs, hose pipes and water pistols hurling water at each other and smearing faces with a clay and water mixture.

By the time we had found somwhere to stay, unloaded our packs, had a shower and got out to explore Ayutthaya the action was really hotting up, there were loads of pickup trucks packed with very wet young people determindly getting even wetter. We strolled around, trying to look as senior as we could (there is supposed to be the honouring of older people at New Year too), but we still got a bit wet and quite clay covered. People come up to you and gently wipe the clay on your face, its not at all aggressive, but the water hurling is just quite general and if you don't want to get wet, stay indoors. There is also a good deal of beer drinking and very loud music and the patrons of one cafe we had a drink at was having a very amusing tug of war competition with the patrons of cafe next door, every one was fairly drunk and a lot of both teams fell over at the first tug. There was also very drunken street volley ball, but it was all jolly, with lots of hugging going on and the Thai equivalent of ' I really love you' being shouted, anyway ' Happy New Year' to all our readers.

Tess

A quick note on our plans. We came here (and have been very glad to have done so) to avoid Bangkok which is the FCO advice. We also hoped to pick up our sleeper train (already booked from Bangkok) tomorrow night to Chiang Mai in the north. But we learnt this evening from someone else in the hotel (and now confirmed on the FCO site) that no trains are running. We can try to book a coach but the FCO site also mentions road blocks in Chiang Mai.

So we think tomorrow is decision day - do we travel north (if we can do so) in the hope that things will settle down or do we try to leave Thailand as soon as possible? There are a number of people in the hotel (a nice cheap and friendly backpacker place) in the same boat so I daresay there will be some discussion tomorrow morning. None of us want to over-react but on the other hand the news here is consistently getting worse.

Brian

Brian

Bridge on the River Kwai

Just for the sake of being absolutely clear - those dogs at the station in Bangkok are just sleeping - examples of the ability and propensity of dogs to sleep in the most akward places and yet be certain no-one will tread on them.

Now you may be a little disappointed by the picture of the actual Bridge on the River Kwai. There was indeed a temporary bamboo structure built and used by the Japanese to transport construction equipment but the actual bridge was always metal - and those curved spans are part of the original bridge.

We are in Kanchanaburi which is west of Bangkok towards the Burma border and is on the infamous 'death line' of WWII. We got here on a rather charming (not quite comfortable enough) third class train through some lovely and interesting countryside.

We have spent the day on our hired bikes riding around Kanchanaburi, visiting some WWII museums and the extremely moving war cemetary where most of the servicemen who died on the death line are buried. We set off for the bridge itself, just at the northern end of the town late this afternoon and managed to arrive a little damp just as a major thunder storm erupted. This did not stop many Thai families making their way out on the bridge. We went a little way out on the bridge ourselves to discover that there were many ways to slip and fall into the fast flowing river below!

You may have heard that the political situation here is febrile, we are checking the FCO web site as we are currently committed to being in the country until the 21st and are due to return to Bangkok on Monday to then leave the following day for Chiang Mai in the north of the country. Its the major New Year Songkran festivities which start today and end on the 15th which we hope to see something of (this involves getting wet apparently!).

Brian

The Road to Bangkok

A picture of the Cambodian rubbish bin, this one painted white but most of them left in their natural black. Cleverly recycling all those old tyres, they are seen everywhere you go. And a shot, not too interesting, of a stop during our bus ride to Bangkok.

We are in Bangkok - not at a good time it seems. Britain, among other countries, has just advised against being here as the former Prime Minister, Thaksin (the one deemed fit to own a Premier Football Club) is stirring up his followers, calling on the police and army to disobey orders and has just got his family out of the country. A very large red t-shirted demonstration is underway and violence is feared (we are due to leave tomorrow).

We got here by bus, it took almost 12 hours and included a lot of hanging around in the heat at the border crossing, but in terms of discomfort was a doddle compared to some of our India trips. And it cost only 15 dollars each - a tenth of the airfare costs. We decided on coming straight to Thailand having reserved seats on a flight to Laos but having second thoughts - even on Vietnam Airlines it cost a lot and road travel from Siem Reap to the north of Laos was a challenge we were not prepared to meet. In fact a woman on the Bangkok coach had tried the land crossing only to be told she had to wait three days for a visa when she reached the Loas border.

Our trip was uneventful, nice in some ways to be travelling overland, it gives you time to look and think. We were surprised to find huge modern multi-story buildings at the border. Having got our exit stamp we trudged through no-mans land to discover that it contained three large casinos! Given that this was the most utilitarian crossing point imaginable, handling just a stream of trucks and trailers and backpackers, it seemed incongrous. Who on earth would turn up to gamble here? Oh and Tess and I managed to lose our bus group for a very worrying hour before discovering them again languishing by the immigration exit.

Our journey through Western Cambodia was across an extremely flat landscape, much as at Siem Reap, yellow with nothing growing until the rains come - a sort of Fens with coconuts although the green mango trees give a bit of an European look to parts. As we got into Thailand it gradually changed to green - they obviously have a lot more irrigation from the rivers.

We got to the outskirts of Bangkok as night fell. As we swept in along the elevanted highway we felt a little like peasants wondering at the immense billboards (bigger, higher and more brightly lit than any you have seen) and the scale of the multi-story buildings in the centre. Surely we have not been out in the sticks so long?

Brian

We have landed up at a hotel that seems to be run by a selection of very decorative young men and we are just round the corner from the big market, bar and all night party street Khoa San Road. Brian had to get some cash to pay for the hotel and at first couldn't see where it was because it was located in a van parked in the crowded street. We went for a walk and a look about us last night and it was very entertaining. There were endless t shirts, beads, bags, cd's and DVD's to buy and loads of bars offering 'VERY STRONG COCKTAILS' or 2 for 1 drinks etc and hoards of young people and a group of tourist police offering to be 'your first friend' some dressed in blow up uniforms and funny cartoon heads in the style of a Disney character, perhaps the one who wears that suit has done something bad in the previous week.

We were back at the hotel and in bed by 10 pm and I should think we were the only people in this part of town in our beds at that time. I woke a couple of times in the night to the distant thump of loud music, but our hotel seems to be quite quiet. It does offer breakfast till 12.00 mid-day though and one of the breakfasts offered is a cheese and ham sandwich, so it obviously caters for the party animal.

Tess

Baguettes I've seen a few

We are back in the land of the helmetless and 'how many people can you squeeze on a motor bike' competion land. So far the highest number has again been five, though four of them were children under ten, two at the front between the drivers legs (it was a scooter, so the taller child was standing and the tiny one was wedged onto the front tip of the seat) the two behind were clinging on with the concentration of the baby Ouran-utang we saw, but their arms were not as long.

Beside the road on the last two mornings heading out of Siem Reap towards the Roluos group of temples we have passed a huge market on the edge of town. Loads of vegetables and fruit, bikes, motor bikes & scooters, baskets, glittery things to take to temples, baskets of incense sticks and masses of people. All along the road there are small shopping opportunities including stalls with offering a strange yellowish liquid in old gin or whiskey bottles. We don't know what it is but assume its some kind of home brewed liquor, it looks leathal and I have never seen anyone drink it but they must do because otherwise no one would spend their day trying to sell it.

Early morning is also baguette time, bikes with bags and bags of them tied to the handle bars, stalls with mountains of them piled up. It must be the French influence, but we have had the best European style bread here much better than any bread we have tasted since Jordan/Egypt.

We have also seen less lovely things going to market on the back or strung all round motor bikes - live stock, well actually ex-livestock. Yesterday on our trip out to a very interesting silk farm we were passed by motorbikes with a very large oval basket on the back in which, reclining peacefully, with little trotters in prayer possition, was a recently deceased pig! We also saw at least two motor bikes with a frame round them and suspended by their feet about fifty, fully feathered chickens, dead of course! Even buying a watch battery in the market meant having to avoid fish, not so deceased, leaping out of an enclosure onto your feet

On a political note, we looked at an exhibition of paintings in a hotel and one of the artists had the unlikely name of Mao Soviet!

Tess

A Road Less Travelled

We are in a completely open and treeless landscape of a few paddy fields and scrubland, miles from any human habitation. Tess is about 50 metres ahead of me and we are each clinging to the back of a bounching twisting motorbike. I am amusing myself thinking of Richard E Grant in 'Withnail and I' where they find themselves in the inhospitable Lake District countryside and are seeking help
"We have come on holiday - by accident!"
We appear to have got engaged in some extreme form of moto-cross - equally by accident.

This was our second attempt to reach Tonle Sap a large lake in the centre of Cambodia. Yesterday we were visiting some temples nearby and hoped to carry on to the Lake but we misunderstood our tuk tuk driver who appeared to be unwilling or unable to get us there. Today all was sorted out, we would go with the tuk tuk until we reached a boat landing stage to take us onto the lake.

There is an easy way to reach the lake, very close to Siem Reap, but that was too touristy for us of course, we were encouraged by William Beavitt from Sarawak and by the guide book both of which suggested that our tuk tuk would get us to Kampong Phluk and the lake, here was an area 'little visited by tourists'.

Well as Yang wrestled his tuk tuk on an increasingly difficult dirt road we finally reached the Kampong after about an hour. A couple of motorbikes had come alongside and spoken to Yang as we went along and one of the motorcyclists drew up as we stopped. In the limited English he had he explained that the tuk tuk could now go no further and we had to go by motobike. For a moment I thought that both Tess and I plus small rucksack were to fit on the back of his 125cc machine but he quickly explained that another bike was on his way, checked on his mobile and it appeared soon after.

How far is it to the boat? It was 8km further! The problem is the lake shrinks in the dry season and clearly it was in a shrunken state now. Tess and I looked at each other - well we have come this far so lets carry on. So off we set. But anything resembling even a country road rapidly disappeared and the route became a sandy rutted surface you could hardly call a track. We passed local people transporting various goods manouvering their motos around us, waved to women working the paddy fields but there was nothing else to see in the utterly flat landscape that I guess is inundated by the lake in the wet season.

After half and hour I called a halt. The lake, supposedly only 2km further was still not in sight and I had to reckon that this sort of high impact twisting and bouncing was exactly was I was supposed NOT to be doing if my Indian hospital 'fix' for my kidney stones is to get me the rest of way around the world. We turned back feeling satisfied that we had had a good look at a rural area and one hell of an exciting bike ride!

I know, I know - serves us right for not taking that nice world cruise with the rest of the pensioners!

Brian

Sunarise early in the morning

The thing to do here is to see the sun rise behind Angkor Wat so we were off in the tuk tuk at 5am. Tessa's query to the hotel guy as to whether the strong breeze and lightning in the night sky might mean rain was met with a dismissive laugh. And we said to each other íts the hot dry season afterall!'

And of course by the time we got to Angkor Wat the rain was pelting down! Another sales opportunities for the kids who try to sell you guide books, postcards, penny whistles and what not - they were now chasing every tuk tuk with armfulls of pac a macs. So you can see the result in one of the photos - Tess has the fetching pink one and me the billious green one - and the sky behind is looking steadfastly grey, untouched by those rosy fingers of dawn! Oh well someone may photoshop it in for us.

This reluctance to ever give you bad news is of course a common problem for us travellers. Either people don't understand your question and a smile and nod of the head is deemed so much more acceptable. Or they understand your question but don't want to discourage you with bad news. As a result when you really need some information asking people often leaves you even more sceptical about whether that bus will arrive, whether seats are available, whether its going to rain etc - you get the distinctive feeling you have just been told what they think you would prefer to hear.

But despite the rainy start and the appalling apparel we were forced to wear for a while we have had another good day at the temples, with such an early start once again (apart from Angkor Wat itself of course) we found ourselves alone or nearly alone at many of them. One of the temples has been left in its ''original" state of discovery in the 19th century with great trees growing out of the walls and huge numbers of fallen stones. Many walls look like they are about to collapse and it was at this site that we found ourselves surrounded by a large tour group and I admit to hoping for a wall collapse as soon as I heard that American child whining about not bringing her camera and what a rip off it was!

Brian

My legs feel as though I have done several hours of step areobics, the muscles in my calves are protesting and the fronts of my thighs ache too. Its called 'Temple leg' (I just christened it) and you get it after two days of climbing up steps and then going up and down over the very frequent lintles between bits of every temple you visit. An Australian woman I was talking to yesterday who had done about seven hours of temple visiting has just hobbled past, suffering so much she could barely walk.

I am still laughing when I think of the two sweet Sweedish girls we met in Kuching, you probably need to read this next bit in a Sweedish acent. They had been to Siem Reap and said it was wonderful, but they hadnt really known what they were coming to see. They were made to get up at 4am and driven out to Angkor Wat, 'We sat there with many, many other people. What is going to happen we thought? We sat there some more and nothing happened and then the sun came up, oh! thats why we were sitting here, its a temple'. They spent the morning looking at temples and then decided they had done enough of that. There were ten of them then, we only met two and they had a lovely time in Kuching looking at wild life and then were off to Bali to meet up with the other 8 and PARTY.

Tess

Cambodia

We had a couple of easy flights with Air Asia to get here. We had to overnight in Kuala Lumpur to catch an early morning flight (the only one) to Siem Reap in Cambodia and KL's airport is 70km outside the city - Air Asia have the answer, they have opened a brand new hotel so close to the terminal you can see it across the car park as soon as you exit the terminal. About 30 pounds for a smallish room (rather like Ryanair you pay extra for everthing, 12 hours of air conditioning, a towell etc) but it provided all we needed (even a small green arrow on the ceiling pointing to the direction of Mecca - although you would have been hard pressed to find any floor space for a prayer mat) and we only needed a few minutes to get out of bed and to the check in desk.

Siem Reap is the town next to the Ankor temples - many, many of them scattered around mostly to the north of the town. The hotel managed to get a driver to meet us at the airport (this is a first for us, its never worked before) and our cheerful driver Yang showed us to his tuk tuk - a sort of cart with roof attached to his small motorbike. They are all like this here and it provides a stately ride in great comfort at about 15mph.

What did we immediately notice about Cambodia? Well this place is developing like a gold rush town (as described to us by an Australian woman we chatted to last night), building work is going on everywhere. All the cars are flash, I have seen only two small cars which are not large saloons or Land Cruisers. Having equipped ourselves with about 50 pounds worth of local currrency (which translates to over a quarter of a million Riels!) we discovered that everyone uses the US Dollar and they look ascance at you when you try to use the local currency - that seems strange but there you go, there are several such places around the world.

Brian

We were up early again this morning, we were off in the tuk tuk by six am and at the first of the temples on todays list by about 6.30. It is cool then and there are relatively few people around so after going through the very impressive gateway, preceeded by lines of figures holding a cobras tail, we were able to clamber over Bayon Temple almost on our own. Bayon is the temple in Angkor Thom that has faces on each side of all its many towers and turrets, so many beatific, Budha faces that you would be hard pressed to count them all. There are also many comely dancing girls and a sprinkling of mythical beasts, the whole place looks as though a giant had got bored when building it and given it a bit of a swipe with his hand because it is all a bit wobbly looking and there are many many fallen bits arranged around waiting to be slotted back by the French and Japanese, who are restoring many of the temples in the area.

We went on to the larger Royal Palace area and goggled at the 300 mtrs of elephants carved into the wall that carries the platform entrance to the palace site. All the sites are set in jungle which has grown up arround and through the ancient ruins that are all that remain of the very large cities. The royal and temple buildings are monumental and of stone, but all the long since disapeared dwellings of the people were of wood, bamboo and other perishable materials.

Tess