Learning to ride

Back from the island we decided to stay in the local town for 1 night before driving to Cambodia's capital city, Phnom Penn.

So what to do......hire motor bikes! A little bit of bartering later and we had two bikes for $5 each for 24 hours. That means we can have them for the afternoon at 4pm and drop them back the next day at 4pm!
But....we don't have motor bike licenses.... Who cares!

We went out to town and we had dinner on the beach with a beautiful sunset. On the way home on the motor bikes we got lost in the dark.

Sonny fruit shakes

Today we went to Sonny Fruit Shakes to have breakfast.  He makes anything to do with fresh fruit like shakes and fruit platters. I had a mango fruit platter, it was so good.
Sunny used to work in a restaurant for 10 years but stopped because he got frustrated with his boss not caring enough about providing great service to his customers so he started his own business a month ago.

In New Zealand our mangos are expensive but here he can buy three for a dollar on the mainland and then sell them for a dollar each out at the island and his stall is right on the beach... perfect!  He said he used to make 20 dollars a month to live so here he can make up to 20 dollars or more a day...amazing aye!

Later we had to catch the ferry back to Sihanoukville and on the way we met the two girls from Sweden and Switzerland again from yesterday and sat with them on the boat ride home - Briarley and I talked and laughed with them the whole way.

Here's a picture of the bungalows we stayed in of the beach...check out the shape of the bed!

Cambodian snorkeling trip

What do you think of this view from our boat - we went out on a snorkeling trip with a Cambodian captain and with our 12 year old guide Masa!

We loved hanging out in the water and learnt to dive down deep and even swim under the boat!

That night we met two other backpacker friends - Gabrielle from Sweden and Beks from Switzerland....they met while they were travelling and had been to lots of amazing places - like us they were going home to their countries soon

Sihanoukville - beach time!

 Today we arrived in Sihanoukville - a town on the coast.  We stayed in a small bungalow over the road from the beach.   You can see the view out of our window above


There were lots of kind of cafes by the beach with beanbags, deckchairs and umbrellas.

Outside it was 38 degrees and in the water it was 33 degrees!

We spent the day swimming, chatting to local people and booking our trip to the islands..

We caught the ferry to Ko Rong Sanloem island with lots of other people...we sat next to 2 two backpackers from Sweden - their names were Natalie and Peter.  They had been travelling for 3 months to Bali, Malaysia, Thailand, Phillipines and Vietnam.....what a life! Briarley and I talked with them the whole 45 min boat ride - they were super friendly!

Visiting the New Hope Project

Today we went to the new hope project. It is a school that is free to provide education to children from age 3 to 20 who cant afford school. They can help up to 300 kids and the money just comes from donation.
The girls on the right are 12 and 14 they
really wanted to get a picture with me.

We started at the school and watched their assembly, they can all count to one hundred in English.
Then we went to the village where most of the kids at the school live.  It was really dirty and their houses were very small.


Then we went to the old School where quite a few families live who have experienced family problem.....there were lots of kids around it was so cute.

The real temple run

Today we went to three famous Cambodian temples.

Our guide was called Chanada. We woke up at four in the morning to watch the sun rise at the second biggest temple in the world Angkor Wat!!!


We walked through the temple and up lots of stairs. There are lots of kids coming up to you trying to sell you stamps, recorders, magnets and stuff.


I learnt not to buy from them because it makes them think they don't need to be educated and go to school they think they can already make money. But they really only make up to five dollars a day at the most which is not enough for a family to survive.

The last two nights we went to the night markets - spot us having dinner in a roadside restaurant

Siem Reap - Cambodia

Yesterday we arrived in Cambodia. We went to this place called Angkor Artisans that helps people to learn handcrafts such as sewing, painting, woodwork and a lot of other stuff. They then sell all the crafts in a shop to put the money towards their families.

We also went to cafe called Sister Srey - there's not many cafes in Cambodia just stalls on the side of the road. When we were walking out of Sister Srey there was a man with no arms selling things on the side of the road. He said he lost them from the Khmer Rouge (the Cambodian fight where if you did have a good job or good education you got shot - they shot over 100,000 people).  He was selling books to help to afford him to get fake arms so we bought some books off him.

That night we went to the Cambodian circus...where young people are trained to be amazing acrobats. The story they told was about life before and during the Khmer Rouge - it was really sad but they were amazing - here's a video of them!!!

Zoe Project

Today we went to a place called Zoe. It is a project that rescues kids that have been kidnapped and don't have homes.There was over 80 kids and all the staff are volunteers. The kids were aged five to twenty and had a 30 acre property to learn how to live with others like themselves.

Zoe is far away from the main road and no one knows where it is. I haven't got any photos because they don't allow photos for safety of the children. It was really sad to know had happened to the kids and at such a young age.  Its amazing how so many people have offered to work for free to save all these kids too.

Skyline zipline

Yesterday we travelled from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai.  On the way there we stopped at the White temple which was huge.

We then went to Skyline Adventures. There were 43 small and large zip lines that fly through the Thai jungle.  As well as zip lines there was also abseiling down trees.   I asked our guide Nut to go slow but he was teasing us so instead they dropped us really fast.....

The Last zip line is 900 metres long and flies over water and trees. I rode with Nut and he pulled my legs back and told me to put out my
arms.....we were so high and it felt like I was flying.

On the the shuttle home we met three Swedish girls who were here on holiday and were staying in Chiang Mai too... they recommended the night market which we checked out that night

Thai cookery..."stirring up success!"

Yesterday we did a Thai cooking class. Our instructor was Aun and  we started of at the local market and got showed all the food.   We then went to the cooking school. We made a 3 course meal first, a soup then noddles and then curry. My favourite was the soup. We were in a group with a girl called Nora she was from Norway and with anther girl called Lena from Israel.

Later that night we went to the night market we got pulled in to doing the Thai Fish massage. You put your foot into a small glass aquarium and the fish nibble on your feet it feels so weird.


This is the view out of our hotel window. In the background it looks like lots of grass but it is rice paddies where they make rice.

Seeing Maijer again...

Yesterday we went to see our sponsor child Maijer - she lives about an hour and a half from
Chiang Mai towards the border with Laos. She comes from the Mhong tribe who used to live in the hills in Laos.

Because the family doesn't English and we don't speak Thai we had to get a translator.  His name was Charlie, he was awesome and he was a tour guide and was so funny.

She's in a family of five, her mums and her dads and she's got two brothers. She also has two nana's - the one who was sick last time has recovered

We went to maijers house, its a dirt floor bamboo and hay house. It's as big as a kitchen, it's got no chairs and cooks only rice on a small metal stove on the ground using a lot fire.

Most people after year eight don't get to go to high school which makes them have a bad education and that makes them get a bad job so they don't get much money.

Maijer has really good grades in her end of year test. She got something like 97 out of 100 and I reckon she would easily get to university to get a good job. The problem is her mum and dad work in Bangkok and don't see her for months.

We talked to Maijers mum and dad about the high school they want her to go.  Its quite expensive for them to send her to high school so we are helping them to get her to high school. This is with the money we are making from selling scarfs and doing Maijer meals back at home.

It was amazing to see her again two years since last time....her dad ended up inviting us to come to her high school graduation which would be amazing!

Chiang Rai - Thailand

Yesterday we traveled on two plane trips from Singapore to Bangkok and Bangkok to Chiang Rai.

I learnt the difference in money so if you take the 0 of 100 Bart its 10, then half ten so that is 5,  and take of a bit of so its 4 dollars for us.
We then arrived in Chiang Rai - it is right up the north of Thailand.....

We thought it would be a bit cooler in Chiang Rai but......no......it was so hot outside.....40 degrees at 6pm at night!

 That's not going to stop us - that we jumped in a blue truck for 100 Baht and went to the night market.....lots of lights, clothes, music, food .....  lots of cheap stuff......

Little India

Yesterday we met my mum and dads friend Selvathi who lives in Singapore.  She is Indian

and took us shopping at China town and little India.  In China town everything was so cheap. We then took the MRT (underground train) to little India.

Selvathi bought Briarley and I an Indian costume each. First she bought the dress pants and scarf then she bought the bangles to match. We also got henna art on our hands.

For lunch we went to the local food court she wanted us to try things that she liked. So we got  coconut milk very spicy curry and garlic naan.

We also went to a Temple where you had to wear long pants, long top and no shoes. When you walk round every one is praying.

That night we had dinner at my mum and dads friend Danny's house and his wife Allie and their two boys Luke and Jack.