TO THE VIETNAMESE BORDER 23/03/09

Kampot - Kep road, southerm Cambodian coast

Crab fisherwoman in Kep

Cooked with green peppercorns, stunning, a taste sensation

One of many gutted houses in Kep sur Mer

After Phnom Penh, a city we really enjoyed, we headed to the south coast, to Kampot, an area with 'world' famous pepper, and here we ate crab, absolutely delicious. The area around Kep was destroyed by the KR in the late 70s as it was filled with the elites holiday homes. It's now slowly getting back on its feet, though the coastline is dotted with burnt out classic 30s houses.

The border crossing into Vietnam at Ha Tien was opened a year ago - you travel on a pot holed unsealed dirt track on the cambodian side, but hit asphalt on the vietnamese side. We were expecting the usual demand for 1 dollar so common on border crossings here, and indeed John & Leanne, the only other 2 westerners to switch countries here that day, had to cough up this amount for not having an 'International Health Passport' - when we were asked, we took out our booklet from our GP, the unreliable Dr Ruth Jones of the Garratt Lane Surgery, and hey presto it was recognised at the border - we celebrated this small victory by having extra 'Saigon beer' in the evening....cheers Ruth!

VIETNAMESE PASSPORT OBTAINED

Our Vietnamese passport was issued in Phnom Penh, dropped off the appropriate paperwork in the morning, and returned at the end of the day to pick up the stamped passport. It still surprises me how scruffy some travellers are when dealing with situations like this - again I am talking singlets and cut off shorts....at an embassy?! Still, they get their visa, staggering. I had trouble making myself understood when enquiring about single or multiple entry options and was really surprised when an elderly frenchman behind us in the queue (think Allo Allo) was able to make himself understood with little difficulty.

MASTERCHEF REACHES PHNOM PENH

Pumpkin stuffed with coconut milk custard

steamed fish amok - pre chilli garnish

Fanny (on the left wearing a souffle from earlier in the day) & Heston

Phnom Penh market

Fanny & Heston took a days cookery course in Phnom Penh, this started with a trip to the colourful local market to buy the produce, before returning to the school to cook spring rolls, steamed fish amok in coconut leaf, chicken with ginger and pumpkin stuffed with custard - it was all very palatable and though I think Ell held me back a little, it was a successful day. Actually, if truth be known, the kitchen staff came out to admire Ells knife skills as she sped thru the slicing of a lemongrass, she was putting the finishing touches to her dish as I was still wrestling the seeds out of a red chilli.

LAST DAYS IN CAMBODIA 16-23/03/09

Whilst walking around Tuol Sleng genocide museum, Dave 'the melting man' struck up conversation with a monk, keen to practice his english. After a brief discussion about the museum and the horrors within, the subject changed to football - his favorite sport, and one that is even harder to avoid here than at home. "Which team do you support?" we asked, the answer "Liverpool, Man Utd and Chelsea", that should just about guarantee silverwear this year.

Whilst we are on the subject of football, & in particular the premiership, these big 3 have their own stations that provide you with such gems as Man Utd youth games live, and "An hour with Ian Rush". They also show classic old games, now I am sure most of you know this anyway, but there are now a host of SE Asian fans who still think Brian Mclair is knocking the ball in for the red devils, and that Bruce Grobelaar is performing heroics between the sticks.

TRAVELLERS OF THE MONTH AWARDS

Marijke, 68 & still cycling, in this climate

David Bootle, husband, dad, musician, and now fully fledged traveller...top effort

October – Kanak Dixit, inspiring Nepalese publisher and curfew breaker

November – Sven Grein, for trekking across a series of 5,000 metre passes with a heavy cold!

December – Jon with no ‘h’, organiser extraordinaire for giving us an excellent Xmas and New Year

January – John & Erin, so level headed for such a young age! And damn good fun.

February – Marijke, the 68 year old, spider-eating, Dutch cyclist – What an inspiration!

March – Joint honours to Dave ‘the Melting Man’ Bootle and Steve ‘I don’t look like Ryan Giggs’ Masters

PHNOM PENH 13/03/09

One of the torture rooms in Tuol Sleng

Inoccuous enough from the front

Profile shots kept on record by the Khmer Rouge, meticulous in their cruelty

Cheers chaps, thanks for coming to see us, Mind the Gap Cambodia 2009

"Reservoir Monks", "No, I want to be Mr Orange"

A view of the Grand Palace, from the Mekong

The capital, what to say about the capital. The name conjures up so many powerful and often negative images. The city was emptied by the Khmer Rouge in the mid 70’s where all apart from the leaders were evacuated to the countryside for the agrarian revolution. 2 schools were used as interrogation centres before people were carted off to the killing fields 15 kms away. The schools are now museums, some of the rooms are filled with black and white pictures of the detainees – official photographs from the KR who documented their arrival and torture. When you arrive, the first images you see are of the perpetraters – from Pol Pot down to the head of the camp – its only 35 years ago you realise that this chapter touches most people – from our guide whose parents worked in rice fields on a diet of low quality soup for years, to those who were involved with the killing machine – Kill or be Killed – complete fear and no trust. Families were deliberately split up and anyone with an education, or a link to the previous administration, or were practising buddhist monks were just wiped out. Whilst Ell and I were struggling through our ‘o’ Levels, youths of the same age were deciding who could live or die.

CRUICKSHANK HERE

"Tomb Raider" tree

And again

Making it look so easy, Steve & Dave

Siem Riep's cheeriest Tuk Tuk driver - Sopen

Steve aka "Giggsy" coming under pressure from the "One Dollar" sellers

Working on Ell too

Just adorable "One Dollar" kid

The Landmine Orchestra

The Japarazzi at Ta Prom

Nature reclaiming the temples

Kwookshank here, studying bwests

"Your names not on the list....you're not coming in"

The Bayon at Angkor Thom

Sunrise at Angkor Wat

Ta Prom, Cruikshank with La Petite Generale

The Bayon

Writing from a pleasant room in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.
Its time for a catch up. Today, we have bid farewell to Dave aka “the melting man” who returns to the UK after a whistle-stop 9 day trip to Siem Riep and Phnom Penh. Dave takes our ‘Traveller of the month award’ for March, after dealing admirably with the heat and the gruelling itinerary that Western and Kiss set for him. An itinerary that would have broken a man half his age – 85.

We have spent days exploring the glorious Khmer temples in and around Siem Reap before taking on the grizzly reminders of the Khmer Rouge regime – with visits to the killing fields and the Tuol Sleng school/prison in Phnom Penh. We are really enjoying the company of the Cambodians – there’s much laughter and mischief though it is perhaps best not to know what is being said.

Before Dave the bass and Steve the sticks arrived, Ell and I took a bottom breaking 7 hour motorcycle round trip on an outrageously poor road ( we were on the back) which got us to some of the more remote temples, these whetted our appetite for the show-stoppers at Siem Reap, and they also enabled us to enjoy the sites without any other tourists – quite a conrast to those around Angkor – where you are often up at 6am to experience sites before the coach-loads arrive, or as we labelled them “the Japarazzi”.

So the vanity of the self appointed Khmer God Kings provided us with terrific temples to explore, some where nature has reclaimed the temples and others where carved stone faces looked down at you from every angle. We travelled around the sites on tuk tuk – driven by the ever laughing and smiling, Sopen – We must have been overpaying him. The Pavillion Indocine proved to be a great place to stay – it had an essential swimming pool and a classy breakfast. The temperature during the middle of the day was seriosuly hot, so we’d visit temples from 6am to 9 am, then take leisurely breakfasts, before grabbing some pool time and lunch, before heading out again at 3pm. Siem Reap or as it should apparently be pronounced See –em Ree-ep ( try saying it withoout sounding like a Geordie) is developing rapidly. It offers comforts a-plenty with great and varied food and accomodation but was not as charming a place as we were expecting – there is so much building work going on – that being said its still a good base for the glorious temples.

“One Dollar, one dollar”
The kids who sell books, bracelets, and cold drinks near the temple sites are some of the shrewdest sellers around. Everything though seems to cost “one dollar” and they sound American for that one word, imagine a John Wayne drawl on an eight year old south east asian.

A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP

Further evidence of our special relationship with the US, whilst watching CNN last week . . .”British Premier Jordon Brown is in town . . .” Anyway, we say good luck to you Barry Obama - This part of the world would also appear to be completely relieved by your victory!

BREAKING NEWS

From the new album 'More Old Ruins'

Seminal 80’s boy band ‘Mind the Gap’ meet up in Siem Riep – A marginally more welcome return to Cambodia than Gary Glitter.

IRRAWADDY DOLPHINS

75 to 100 of these Irrawaddy Dolphins left in the Mekhong delta and once we’d convinced ourselves that this was not a man in a dolphin suit from the tourist office, we felt rather chuffed that we had been fortunate to have seen at least half a dozen of them. Hunted for their oil by the Khymer Rouge, and accidentally caught in fishing nets, they are in a perilous position, but this eco-tourism means that fishing is being tentatively replaced by tourists taking boats out that would otherwise be fishing.

HOLIDAYS IN CAMBODIA 28/02/09

The Laos/Cambodian border at Dam Kralor is an interesting way to switch countries. Even though we had our visas already, it is still possible to arrive and be issued a visa there and then, but you have to pay a dollar on both sides for overtime! Straight into the pockets. The first Cambodian experience was not the best – I was a few pence short of the fee needed for the border toilet, and the over officious bog-lady would not let us use them, I took her name and will be contacting the embassy. It is right up there with the poorest of welcomes, along with LA International, Tel Aviv and Holyhead.

OUR QUESTION TODAY... 27/02/09

“Are wildlife photographers overrated?” Over the years we have watched many programmes that have told us of the patience and dedication needed to get ‘THE shot’, THE moment, well , I ask you to judge for yourself the 2 pictures below that Western and Kiss have taken in the last couple of weeks.

Photographic evidence