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Now THIS is the life!

Some mornings I wake up wondering what the hell we're doing so far away from home, spending all our savings, and dedicating way too much time seeking out decent hostels or bumping around on awful buses.

But then we find ourselves on a beach like this and remember exactly why we're here. The past week has been spent chilling out in Sihanoukville in the south of Cambodia, eating fresh seafood, drinking iced coffees and cold beers, lazing around in awesome swinging satellite chairs and playing in the sea:

It wasn't all fun and games, as I did manage to get a jellyfish sting one afternoon. Nothing too serious, just a minor sting from when I must've brushed past a tentacle, but it bloody hurt - half an hour later it felt like i was still being stung, and I had a bunch of raised bumps trailing across my upper arm in a kind of 'S' shape. Our hotel gave me some vinegar to dab on it, which helped a bit but it was still quite sore. So yes (and I know this is what you've been wondering since I mentioned the sting) - I put some wee on it. It actually helped a lot, and started feeling better almost instantly. And then, as my arm was now smelling of vinegar and wee, i had a very thorough shower.

We also got our Vietnam visas whilst in Sihanoukville - it was from the town's Vietnam Consulate, which sounds way more impressive than it was, considering it just looked like a big blue house. We filled out a badly photocopied form, handed over $45 each, and received the visas within about 5 minutes. All this left us feeling slightly suspicious as to their authenticity, but thankfully we managed to successfully cross the border into Vietnam a couple of days later. Although not after being asked by border officials to hand over $1 each for a health form - what a scam!

We were only on mainland Vietnam for about 30 minutes, before boarding a ferry bound for the beautiful island of Phu Quoc. It isn't too overrun with tourists yet, with just a few resorts and guesthouses along the beach. So not only is it absolutely stunning, it's also fairly peaceful. We only stayed for a couple of days, as we were keen to get back to the mainland and see the rest of Vietnam, but it was a verrrrryy chilled out few days.

The first couple of days were spent on Long Beach, near our guesthouse.


There are a few places along the beach offering massages and hair removal, but this place in particular caught our eye. What (or who) is Bear Trinming? And dare you order a Foot Love session??


On our last day, we hired a motorbike and travelled 30km to Bai Sao beach in the south of the island. Now, I'm not exaggerating when i say that this is the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. Goa doesn't even compare! Bai Sao was like something out of a magazine - soft white sand, clear blue sea, fishing boats and fluffy clouds. Just look at this and tell me you're not jealous!

The roads on the island are pretty bad, and on the way back to our guesthouse we managed to get a puncture and had to be escorted by a traffic cop to a nearby garage. Well, I say garage, but it was really just someone's front yard with a motorised air pump, puncture repair kit and a basket of tools. Oh, and a bunch of cockerels in various cages - a side business, I guess. The repair cost around 50cents - that's less than the price of the ham and cheese toastie we had on the way home (I miss cheese so much!).

After a two hour ferry journey - on which they showed Tom & Jerry and some Vietnamese comedy show - we're now back on the mainland. We weren't quite ready to leave paradise, but luckily the Vietnamese coastline promises more beach fun soon.

NEWSFLASH: Sheena Learns to Ride a Bike!

Yes, that's right, I've finally done it! I've finally learnt to ride a bike! I know a lot of people probably think it's appalling that I've managed to hit the age of 24 without ever having learnt, but it just happened. I was just never that into bikes.

On this trip though, I decided that it would be pretty cool to be able to hire a bike and go exploring, and I know Karl likes the idea a lot too. Of course, this would mean figuring out how to actually work the damn things. It took two sessions, and it was both harder and easier than I thought.

It kind of went as you'd imagine - Karl held the back of the bike while I pedalled and tried to get to grips with keeping balance and controlling the bike. It's one of those things where the less you think about what you're doing, the more successful you'll be. For a while, I wasn't very successful at all, but eventually it began to get a bit easier, and the bike felt more stable. We got to the end of the lane, and I looked back to realise that there was no 'we' at all - it was just ME! On my own, on a bike! A bunch of locals, who had previously just looked on in bewilderment, even cheered for me!


I've been practising a bit now and then. I'm still a bit wobbly and I'm not too great at turning yet either. So far, I've almost run into a stationery ruckshaw, a pile of wood, a dog, a cockerel and a wall. We were going to try and cycle to the nearby Angkor Wat ruins one morning to watch the sunrise, but I'm not sure I can be trusted on an actual road with other people just yet, so we abandoned that plan. Anyway, I'm very proud of me, and I hope you are too.

Exploring Angkor Wat

I think Cambodia is my new favourite place. We're in Siem Reap at the moment, and we're being typical tourists for what feels like the first time on our trip. Even though we spent 6 weeks in India, we never really visited a place just to see a particular sight, and the only temples we saw were the ones we stumbled across rather than specifically set out to see. But you really can't come to Cambodia and not visit Angkor Wat - the Cambodians are so proud of it that it features on their national flag, currency and even their beer bottles. And it doesn't take long to see what all the fuss is about - the ruins and temples of Angkor are stunning. We spent a couple of days this week exploring them and taking loads of pictures, including a few cheesy ones for good measure - you know the sort I mean... 'Karl gazing thoughtfully out of window' and so on.

The most popular ruins are the Angkor Wat temple, which have beautiful engraving and windows perfect for posing in:


Meanwhile, Angkor Thom used to be the capital city back in the 12th century:


We also visited few jungle temples. They generally tend to have great big trees growing over and around them, so they're not in the best condition, but they look very cool and are excellent for exploring. In fact, we spent quite a while climbing around and playing at being adventurers (I was Indiana and Karl was Jones). Lots of fun, lots of pictures and lots of sunburn for Karl. Oops. Here's the pics:


To balance out all this cultural activity, we've also been lazing around in our lovely hostel and making new friends. We didn't seem to come across other backpackers very often in India, and it's really nice to finally find other people to both interrogate about their trip and bore with tales of ours. The other day, we joined a group from our hostel and went to a pub quiz, and came 3rd! (yes, there were more than three teams) This success was largely down to the fact that a LOT of the questions were about the US, and we had two very knowledgeable Americans with us. We celebrated by heading down to a bar called 'Angkor What?' and drinking buckets of vodka & red bull, dancing in the street, and spending the whole of the following day being too hungover to function. Yay, holiday!