Cambodia can be taxing!

Wednesday 15th december

A few mere months ago I used to travel quite a lot. In general this usually meant picking up a business class air fare to some distant shore, jumping into a taxi on route to a five star hotel and dining in some of the best restaurants the country had to offer.

I choose to reflect on this now as I sit here in our dorn room which is furnished with 4 very old wrought iron beds with wafer thin matresses, two windows (without curtains or blinds) that close half way and strip lighting that flickers slightly throughout the night.

Having just had a freezing cold shower in one of the 4 available shared toilets (the shower is located directly above the toilet to save space but means you get soaked any time you just need to pee) and still slightly hungry after eating in one of the local cheap food courts, I cant help wondering where it all went wrong :-)

In all honesty though, I love it!

We have stayed at so many different types of accomodation on this journey and I think over time it has hardened us slighty to the point where we now just take it all in our stride.

The people have been amazing without exception and instead of the air of protentiousness that one finds in many of the high class establishments there seems to be an air of anticipation amoungst those we have encountered.

In general most people are survivng on less than minimum wage yet still manage to have the most amazing experiences cultrurally, culinary and emotionally.

Anyway, sorry for that monologue, back to the blog :-)

Although it surprises me to say this we were all very sad to leave Cambodia.

However in order to ensure that you remember it the local government has devised a cunning goodbye present for everyone in the form of a leaving tax that each traveler has to pay at the airport.

I hadnt been aware of this ahead of time so the $65 charge for the three of us came as quite a shock and basically equates to 3 nights accomodation in most of the places we have been.

Our last few days in Cambodia were pretty uneventful, we made our way through to Kep which is a quiet sea side resort and after trying multiple hotels which were fully booked managed to find the optimistically named Kep Seaside Resort.

Rooms were $10 a night which included a cold shower and as many mosquitos as you could handle but it was comfotable and had a great view over the sea.

We met a few travellers there who were in love with Kep but to be honest there wasnt a great amount there except for a spattering of local bars and restaurants.

I had originally wanted to go to Bokor Hill the site of a once majestic casino and hotel that was heavily hit by the war and has been turned into a ghost town, apparently it was the location for the final scenes of "City of Ghosts" so every traveler that we met informed us, but not having seen the film it means nothing to me.

Its meant to be real spooky and unfortunately will be knocked down in a few months as the local petroleum company has brought the land and intend to build another faceless resort there.

Also unfortunately, although we had been told by multiple travellers that it was located very close to Kep its actually a pretty long way away and we should have stayed in Kampot, a city that we had passed 2 hours earlier which is much closer.

So instead we decided to head out to Rabbit island which was great and well worth the visit but unfortunately because we were pushed for time we only stayed for the day before heading back to Phnom Penh in search of a copy of "City of Ghosts".

We have now made it into Kuala Lumpur for a few days and the hostel is in a great location in the middle of chinatown right next to the nightmarket where you can by "genuine" fakes of every brand imaginable.

Last night we headed for Asia's largest indoor theme park (for all I know it is probably Asia's only indoor theme park) which was located in one of the cities many shopping malls.

Once again Tyler was about an inch too short to go on any of the really decent rides but Pauline and I took turns to do the roller coaster and a couple of other thrill rides whilst Tyler was content with the bumper cars (I think I may have to get him go kart lessons as he is a natural), and some spinny round thing that reminded me of the tilt-o-puke from the simpsons.

We are going to go exploring today before heading out to Brunei in the morning for our 2 day jungle trek!