Marin County by Bike

The plan for the day was to walk from the hotel, via Chinatown and North Beach, to the Coit Tower, to get a view over the city.  Unfortunately the nighttime fog had not cleared by 10:00 so we decided to skip the tower and proceed to the next part of the plan, which was to hire bikes and cycle to the Golden Gate Bridge and beyond.  Cycling turns out to be an excellent way of seeing a lot of SanFrancisco in a relatively limited amount of time.  It did not take too long to get to the bridge, with its numerous photo opportunities.  I had to contend with a puncture before we could continue on our way.

It is an easy ride across the bridge into Marin County and then down into the quaint bay-side village of Sausalito, where we had lunch in a very pleasant seafood restaurant.   After lunch, we continued around the bay, mostly on cycle tracks, taking in the scenery and enjoying the perfect weather. 

Arrived at Tiburon with plenty of time to catch the 5:00 PM ferry back to San Francisco. A great day out.  Highly recommended.

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San Francisco

The flight to San Francisco with Virgin went OK, although I was feeling pretty rough all day after picking up the bug that Jessica had been suffering from over Christmas.  Arrived to beautiful sunny weather.  I was quite pleased that I successfully managed to navigate the hire car to our hotel without the use of a map

We spent what remained of the afternoon doing the standard tourist cable car ride from Market St to Fisherman's Wharf, and then wandering around the various piers and shops there.  It was noticeable that many of the up-market shops that had been around on previous trips were no longer there, and several others had closing down notices.  So the recession is really biting here it would seem.  Had an early night as still not feeling too great.

Topsham Christmas

Nick did a great job of hosting the family Christmas get-together in his cottage in Topsham.   The large new kitchen/dining room was perfect for accommodating the 12 of us, and he succeeded in serving up not only a perfect Christmas lunch, but also kept us all well fed for the days either side of Christmas Day.  

Dublin

I spent an enjoyable 24 hours in Dublin, courtesy of i-conX who were hosting their Christmas Party in the city.  No work to do so I spent an afternoon looking round the city centre and revisiting many of the places I had last seen over 10 years ago.  Compared to London, Dublin seems to be almost unaffected by the recession, with lots of activity in the shopping streets.  I was also impressed by how clean the place is compared to London.

The Christmas party was held in the Ocean bar, which is in the new Grand Canal Square development.  Very impressive ornamental lighting.  It proved surprisingly difficult to find any bars open late, in spite of Dublin's' reputation as a place to get a drink.  As a result, no hangover the next day, and an uneventful flight back to London.

Muang Boran

Muang Boran - meaning Ancient City - is in reality a sort of historical theme park an hour's drive outside Bangkok.  It contains reproductions of many actual buildings, or styles of building, that are to be found elsewhere in Thailand.  Even though the set-up is somewhat fake, it still makes for an interesting day out. Renting a cycle enables you to get around the park, which covers quite a sizable area, relatively easily.

Tomorrow, flying home at last.

Ayuthaya

To fill in the days before flying home I decided to visit some of the more interesting sights within easy driving distance of Bangkok.  Ayuthaya used to be the capital of Thailand when the country was part of the Khmer empire, until it was sacked by invaders form Burma.  This explains the similarity between the temples here and those in Angkor Wat in Cambodia.  In fact if its temples you're after, then there are actually more to be found in Ayuthaya than in the immediate vicinity of Siem Reap.

Bangkok is like a ghost city now.  Tourists stranded here after the airport closure are gradually being flown home (I seem to be at the back of the queue), and with no new arrivals over the past two weeks and many people put off by the ongoing political instability, the tourist industry is looking pretty sick.  The end result is that a walk up Sukhumvit which used to take 15 minutes because of  the tourist throngs can now be done in less than 5. Bad news for street traders and bars.

Back to Bangkok

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With my return flight from Phnom Penh to Bangkok cancelled, as well as my flight home from Bangkok, I had to find some other way of getting out of Cambodia.  Because of the many cancellations, all the flights to Singapore and Malaysia were full for the next 2-3 days.  I was not very keen to stay in Cambodia, so the only alternative was to travel back overland by bus.  This was not a particularly appealing prospect as the journey time is >12 hours.  

In the end, it proved not to be too bad.  Of course the bus company, like the boat company, showed pictures of luxury coaches on their promo literature, but the reality turned out to be a rather battered standard affair (at least with air con). Plugging in the noise cancelling headphones and listening to relaxing music, interspersed with sleeping and gazing at the scenery out of the window, made the time pass reasonably quickly. And at least the road from Phnom Penh to Piopet was surfaced, even if not up to western standards.

Crossing the boarder back in to Thailand made me realise just how much more far advanced this country is than its neighbours, in terms infrastructure, cleanliness, etc.  I guess civil wars tend to set a country back somewhat, and American carpet bombing probably does not help much either.

I arrived back in Bangkok on 5th December, the Thai king's birthday.  The big news in town was that he was too ill to appear in public, so another crisis is looming.

Phnom Penh

With most of the family having been here before me, it is going to be difficult to come up with anything particularly new to say about Phnom Penh.  Over the past couple of days I have done all the usual stuff, including the Royal Palace, National Museum, S-21 museum, and the Killing Fields Memorial. This has been interspersed with lengthy periods spent on the Internet trying to sort out my ever changing travel arrangements, which has soaked up much of my time here.   The only consolation is that this can be done whilst in a bar, so rather than just drinking, I can drink and surf.

Having completed the usual tourist’s tour, I have to say that Cambodia, and Phnom Penh in particular, is one of the few places I have been to that I would not particularly want to revisit.  The city is a total shambles.  The traffic here makes Delhi driving look positively organized in comparison. I believe that Cambodia inherited driving on the right from its French colonial masters.  However, no one seems to have told the locals about this system, so they drive on both sides of the road.  At the many traffic-light-free crossroads the flow of vehicles would make the average motorcycle stunt show look tame.   Nevertheless, it all seems to work somehow. Actually (and Jessica may know more about this), I recall reading somewhere that the latest urban traffic flow theorists are actually proposing doing away with traffic lights as this paradoxically results in greater traffic throughput and lower accident rates.  So the Cambodians can claim to have got there first!

One of the few positive things I can think to say about this country is that the people are some of the most friendly that I have come across anywhere.  OK, there are a lot of beggars, and many of the casual workers are trying to extract the maximum number of dollars out of you, but I guess you can not blame them for that. But in general, they seem to genuinely be happy to see you, and their standard of spoken English I found to be surprisingly good.

My travel situation is changing by the hour.  In spite of Bangkok Airport supposedly having reopened for service on 4^th, my flight from Phnom Penh to Bangkok has been cancelled.  But no problem, because the BA flight from Bangkok to London has also been cancelled!  A nice lady from BA tells me that the earliest flight they can put me on departs on 10^th December.  I tried to get a flight from Phnom Penh to Singapore, from where I could pick up an earlier BA flight home, but these are all fully booked for several days.   Having escaped from Thailand, I now find myself about to get on a bus for a 13 hour journey back to Bangkok.  I can’t face any more nights there, so I will be looking at flying on to Singapore somehow.

Killing Fields

Royal Palace

Wat Phnom

Sap River to Phnom Penh

My original plan had been to travel from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh by bus, but my driver pointed out that there was also a direct boat service on the Sap river.  I opted for this as it sounded more interesting and, at 5 hours, was no slower than the bus option.  When we arrived at the boat terminal, I did wonder whether this was a good decision. The boat looked like a Central Line carriage, both inside and out, and was really cramped.  The engine noise was deafening once it got started, but it did at least travel at quite a lick.    

The first part of the journey was across the Sap lake, which is so large that you can not see either shore from the boat.  It becomes more interesting once the boat enters the Sap river itself, with views of fishing villages perched over the water, and fishermen tending their nets.   The whole trip became much more pleasant when I ventured out on to the boat roof where many of the other travellers were perched.  Great views and a nice cool breeze improved things considerably.

After arriving at Phnom Penh and checking into my hotel, I did some wandering around before the usual bar/restaurant/bar end to the evening.

More Sap River photos

Ankor What?

Managed to get up in time for my 5:00 pick-up at the hotel, to take me to Ankor Wat in time to view the sunrise – and hopefully miss the crowds.  The spectacle was certainly worth getting up early for.  I was able to do pretty much all of the central group of temples before flaking out at 1:00 pm.  Certainly one of the great sites of the world that should be on anyone’s must-see list.

Afternoon spent relaxing by the hotel pool before another evening exploring Siem Rap and sampling more great Khmer food – the amok coconut curry is now one of my favourite dishes.  Booked ticket for boat trip to Phnom Penh.  Watched news on TV – Thailand seems to be heading for civil war, so glad to be out of there.

 More Angkor Wat photos

Goodbye Thailand, hello Cambodia

The first part of my overland trip to Siem Reap – the Thailand bit – was not too bad, taking only 4 hours to get to the boarder from Pattaya. The Cambodia immigration process was as tedious as everyone had warned, but eventually we were in. I had decided to upgrade from minibus to taxi for the Cambodia part of the journey on the basis that this would be quicker and perhaps more comfortable. The first hour or so of the drive was reasonably OK and I was starting to wonder what all the fuss had been about. Then we hit the dirt track that passed for a road for the remaining 3 hours of the journey to Siem Reap, and I was wishing that I had been able to fly in as originally planned. At one point we hit a bump so violently that my head hit the roof of the car quite hard.
The hotel I had booked at the last minute was, as I had feared, some way out of town so I had to get a taxi in to the main eating and drinking places. Had a great Khmer meal and a few beers, then walked around a bit before heading back to the hotel for an early night, ready for a 5:00 am start the next day.