Watch out Midgit........

Hello all,

Once again I feel the need to apologize for being out of touch for sooooo long....but it seems that my body is determined to give me hell on this trip and have been sick quite a bit again. Ironically enough when you are sick you have all the time in the world to email....but not a bloody single thing you feel like emailing about.

My flight to Bali was hell....runny nose, cough, high temperature and a 5 hour wait in Malaysia ....I was definitely not at my best. There is nothing like trying to kill time while you feel like your body is trying to kill you. Of course at this point I, myself, knew that it was ALL my own fault.....it shames me to admit it, but on our Halloween night out in Vietnam my near celebrity status caused me to stumble, and I smoked 2 cigarettes. Success got to my head..... I would like to blame "Brut" my personal body guard but unfortunately I'm going to have to take FULL responsibility for that one.
3.5 months smoke free. I am ashamed...and then I was punished by my own body!

What is it about airports that make them want to put the air conditioning up so bloody high all the time. I couldn't even bare to sit next to my gate because I was so cold and decided to go and find some huddle of warmth somewhere. (It ended up being Dunkin Donuts) An hour before my departure I headed back down to wait for the boarding. I sat there for a while staring at the "boarding now sign"...wondering why it was, no one was actually boarding the plane. Eventually decided to ask if I could board, and got met with icy cold, death stare from unfriendly, evil man who informed me that my flight was already closed for boarding. My luggage apparently had already been taken off the plane and they had called me 3 times over the intercom. Seems that I had missed the fact that there was a time change between Cambodia and Malaysia. I of course did what any mature, sick and miserable Gayle
could do...burst into tears and started begging and pleading with the unsympathetic, ice man to please put me on the plane, and that I was very, very sorry!

Very pathetic......needless to say he didn't really care and informed me that they were not stopping the plane (Not even for me) and that the next flight left in an hour. And yes, I would have to re buy my ticket. He must have took some pity on the sniveling wreck in front of him because he told me the ticket would cost $60 but then only charged me $40. I could hardly complain. My newly bought ticket was however bright blue which was a clear indication to all the staff that looked at it from that point on ....that yes..."This is the girl who delayed the last plane."

Hell was not over yet as I still had to make the 5 hour flight on the cheapest airline in the world that doesn't believe in providing blankets for their customers (unless of course you want to buy one for $11- Who in their right mind would EVER want to buy an airline blanket?) and also loves having the air conditioning on full blast. And so past the 5 coldest hours of my life.

I suppose it goes without saying that once I arrived in Bali my luggage was lost. Was assured by nice, friendly, airline man they would bring my bags to my hotel the next day. I didn't care....I wanted to sleep. Arriving in Kuta Bali (The most touristy part of Bali) at 11.30 pm I found the cheapest, and probably dirtiest hotel I could, just so excited about the prospect of warmth and sleep. I thought it would probably be a good idea to quickly go get some water, seen as I had hardly drunk anything the whole day. As luck would have it I got caught in a torrential downpour on my way back to my room. It wouldn't have been so bad had I actually been able to find my room....but the hotel was like a maze......so I ended up spending about 10 minutes walking around, and around, and round.....in the rain....first trying to find my room and then trying to find the front desk.......I found neither.
Eventually found the hotels Internet cafe and asked him to please call the front desk.
By the time I got back to my room, absolutely drenched, I was delighted to find, no hot water, no towels and no dry clothes to charge into. Was not a happy camper to say the least!

I spent one day in Kuta Bali and had to get out. To say I absolutely hated it would be an understatement.......it was just soooo touristy and seemed to be filled with hundreds of surfers of the non smiling variety. (or maybe that was just me? I wasn't my best)
I decided to go to one of the Gili Islands, Gili Trawangan as I had heard great things about it and it was small. And this is pretty much where I spent my next 10days ....

I ended up sharing a room with a very sweet french girl I met on the boat for my first 3 nights there. Our first night out it became very clear to me that not only can I no longer smoke anymore but now I cant even be within 10metre of any one smoking. As a result of my night out I ended up with a really bad chest infection...and then spent the next 5 days on more antibiotics...and in hiding, from the evil smoke. Its true, I have turned into a human smoke detector.....and apparently every man and his dog smokes in Gili....

So on my last night on the island finally feeling healthy and more myself I met up with an Aussie guy who was basically doing the exact same trip as me the next day...i.e he was going back to Kuta Bali, flying to Singapore on the same flight as me then waiting for 6 hours before his next connecting flight.

He only arrived quite late in the evening, said he hadn't been drinking much and seemed like a pretty decent guy so we agreed to do the last leg of Indonesia together. I needless to say was very relieved that I wouldn't have to go back to Kuta Bali alone. We had different boats booked back to Bali so we agreed to meet up in Kuta.
MMMM...what can I say about meeting this man the next day? Never in my entire life have I EVER met anyone so serious and with such an aversion to smiling. I couldn't even believe it was the same person from the night before. But never fear I had more important things to worry about as it seemed that my fever was suddenly back with avengence! It felt like every single bone in my body was aching, even my little pinky fingers and little toes were in pain)
I sure as hell didn't feel like smiling.... so my new found travel companion and I were perfect together. We went out to get something to eat that night with a guy he had met on the boat. They had a "all you can drink for $10 beer special"...and I watched in amazement as he knocked back about a pint every 10 minutes. Needless to say after pint no 4/5 he began to relax and smile a bit.....which sincerely made me doubt his claim of "not drinking much" the night before

Anyway I felt awful so took myself home straight after dinner and left "Happy" and his friend to do the partying!.
At about 2am "Happy" comes home passes out and starts snoring louder than a bloody freight train. I tried to wake him but he was out cold. What to do? I tried sleeping on the bathroom floor but the sound echoed through the walls....so eventually ended up sleeping out side on the deck chairs by the pool, till 5am when we had to get up for our taxi. I was not happy.

And then it seemed like I was stuck in the most awful 'deja vu' ever.
Airport, freezing cold air conditioning, fever, body ache.....6 hour wait for connecting flight in Singapore. In fairness to "Happy" he didn't just leave me in the airport like I told him to and he seemed to not mind having me around even though I was the most miserable person ever.....so for that I am very grateful....I think having to do it all by myself again would have been even worse.
We did end up taking a taxi into Singapore just to have a look around...although I slept through the taxi ride and then passed out in a restaurant while he went and did some exploring. So all in all I saw Zilch of Singapore. Although Midgit has assured me it is lovely!

Boarding my flight to Australia I was pretty much dreading it......but it seems that God had taken pity on me as I ended up sitting in Business class with plenty of leg room AND free blankets.....I was in heaven. Small miracles!

Arriving in Cairnes I still felt awful and decided that It would probably be a good idea to let a Western doctor have a good look at me once and for all...even though it was going to cost me $60. He kinda muttered something about ' pneumonia' and suggested that I go to the hospital to have some IV fluids. At the hospital I ended up seeing another doctor who said that he didn't think the drip would make much difference and that it would just cost me more money. He said it was probably something 'viral' that I picked up and that all I had to do was go home and just drink lots of water.

And so I left and on my way out I was handed my hospital bill............$550. (350 pounds) For him to give me a 5 minute examination and to tell me to drink water ??? I only had $900 for my entire month in Australia...and they wanted $550 of it? Over my dead body!
They called a guy to come and speak to me....and he agreed with me that I should have actually been told the price before the consultation....
I then took myself home and spent the next 5 days drinking water and spewing over what I should do about this bill. They had let me leave without paying it.....
I eventually, after speaking to loads of different locals, decided to just leave it. My fear of Karma was greatly over thrown by my fear of having absolutely no money left for Australia!

And that brings me to the end of my first week in Australia.....Cairns is absolutely beautiful.....and if you are going to be down and out somewhere then this is the place to do it. My hostel was right on the beach front which was an added bonus.

My second week in cairns and I was determined to make up for lost time....Monday and Tuesday I booked tours to some rain forests and waterfalls. Yesterday I had a snorkeling drip planned.....but I woke up feeling completely nausea's. I lay there trying to decided what to do....I knew my body was just exhausted from the last 2 day trips and I just needed to rest for a day....BUT it was the GREAT Barrier reef! How could I NOT see the great Barrier reef? (And I was flying to Melbourne that evening...so this was my last chance!)So I dragged myself to the boat. Was greeted by gorgeous, green eyed dive instructor, who immediately asked if I was ok. He suggested I take some see sickness tablets as the water was going to be very rough that day, which I did. Rest assured we were all given a detailed description on the "use of the sick bags."
I'd be dammed if I was going to puke in public, in a brown paper bag. So I sat there for about 40 minutes feeling awful.....just wishing it all to be over! Cute instructor kept coming and asking me if I wanted to move to the back of the boat as I would feel better there! Eventually I decided to move only to discover that he lied....the back of the boat was full of all the sick people throwing up into those blasted little bags. It made my job of hanging onto my breakfast that much harder. But I was determined....ESPECIALLY not with cute instructor standing there. ..after about and 1h40 minutes I called cute instructor over to ask him how much longer........he said 10 minutes and then we started chatting about other stuff.....about 3 minutes into the conversation I was over thrown by the need to throw up. Had to actually push him a way to do it. Way to go Gayle.....nothing like throwing up when you are chatting to lovely man!
So yes. its true....I threw up in one of those little brown sick bags. And then had to hand it to him to throw away for me. Charming!
But that been said.....it was worth it. The Reef was absolutely beautiful. Dad I thought of you and wished I had a water camera to take photo's for you....you would have loved it!

And that brings me up to the end of my 2 weeks in Cairns.
I would be lying if I didn't admit that I have been really upset by how much of this holiday I have spent 'recovering' from one thing or another. You take it for granted how lucky you are to have a healthy/able body that pretty much does everything you want it to. The worst I think is the complete apathy I feel for days after being sick....just no energy and no desire to do anything. I know its also got a lot to do with the fact that I haven't been eating healthy, nutritional meals....so I am really starting to look forward to coming home and kicking this thing once and for all.

Anyway that's my news....not the most informative travel blog yet...but its the best I have for now.

Love to you all.
x

Angelina Jolie Step back!

Hello all!
I would just like to start by saying that I have just realized that I have TWO followers who I don't know.....TWO COMPLETE STRANGERS!!!! How bloody cool is that? Mum, dad I'm Famous! ;-)

Ok so I am currently in Bali, land of blond, dreaded, tattooed people all walking around with no shirts on.....some of which I would prefer them to put back on...but hey its a free world...

But as usual I'm back logged....and I will have to start with my night bus leaving Ho Chi Min city! Remember how my last blog ended of with me being mildly ashamed with my behavior...well then.....I would love to say that it all ended there....but noooooo apparently not!

For future reference for any one planning on traveling to Vietnam:
DO NOT: I repeat, DO NOT buy an open bus ticket! Basically you prepay all your bus tickets to the various places you are planning on going to, and they then come to you in a lovely little book. You are then 'sup-possibly' just meant to ask the hotel to call and reserve your place on the bus, whenever you would like to travel.
It all sounds so clean cut, so simply and so easy...until you discover that nooooo,
- the hotel can't phone for you and you actually have to trapes around the city trying to find the travel agent in question...
- which wouldn't be so bad if all the travel agent ticket addresses in your little book were actually correct.....
- which also wouldn't be so bad if all the the travel agents actually spoke English.
-If you are 'really lucky' the bus will be completely full for the next 2 days so you are either stuck in that particular city or have to repurchase another ticket.
-OR you end up getting some crazy women who confiscates your WHOLE open bus pass, (still with tickets in it) and refuses to give it back to you, adamant that she will re-issue you another one on the bus the next day............(trying to explain to her that SHE now had the only proof that that I had actually even bought the pass seemed to completely elude her!

And finally, you arrive for your final journey out of the country to discover that your pre-paid sleeper bus is NON existent and yes you will be sitting all the way to Cambodia, AND no you will not be refunded the extra money that you paid for the sleeper bus, because apparently you didn't buy the ticket from them.

So yes.....Open bus ticket...NOT a good idea! I ended up having to simply re buy at least 3 of the tickets just so that I could keep moving! So braced for our 6 hour ride to Cambodia (on our non-sleeper bus) we set off at 12pm. At about 2am I was aware that we had stopped driving....but thanks to my new sleeping pills...(For the record I do not advocate the use of sleeping pills....UNLESS you are traveling in UNCOMFORTABLE Vietnamese buses!! Don't worry mum I will check into rehab first thing when I am home!:-) ....I didn't wake up until 6 am. Only to discover that we were still standing still. We were meant to be arriving in Cambodia at 6am....and we had been sitting on the side of the road for the last 4 hours? I went to investigate and couldn't find the bus driver, the guide or their little helper anywhere!

Eventually someone pointed down to the luggage section......and low and behold ...there they all were fast asleep on top of our luggage snoring their heads off!!! Now far be it for me to ever make a scene.....(hhmmm;-) but it was at this point in time that my patience and frustration with this country seemed to just snap! I only had one week in Cambodia and these idiots had wasted 4 hours of my Cambodian time. Needless to say I mildly lost it and started shouting at them to wake up, demanded to know WHY we had only driven for 2 hours before they had all decided to take a FOUR HOUR NAP?......I wasn't the only disgruntled customer....but I was definitely that most vocal. 5 minutes later we were on the road again.....with me still mumbling under my breathe for at least another 10 min. (Yes Harvey it is at this point I should have been reading your favorite book, 'Dont sweat the small stuff! - BUT YOU FORGOT TO GIVE ME A COPY IN MY TRAVEL SURVIVAL KIT!;-)

At about 11.30am Nia and I finally arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia......and there standing outside the bus was the sweetest little man, with the biggest smile ever holding up a sign for us: Nia and Gayle!! Escaped at last, 5.5 hours late but we were finally in Cambodia!



And the best thing ever....this lovely little man called Peter OFFERED to carry our bags. Nia and I were both in shock. Not once in the entire time I was in Vietnam (or Laos , for that matter) did anyone offer to carry our bags) As far as I'm concerned feminism is dead and I was in heaven!

Ok I realize that I have only spent one week in Cambodia.....so its not really enough time to make an overall judgment of the entire country's population. (but I'm going to do it anyway) ... I absolutely loved all the people we met there. 98% of the time you are guaranteed to always get a smile. They are just such lovely, kind, friendly, sweet people....still so untainted by the tourist industry. Again men on bikes all over the place (Asking you for rides but there is never any pressure and they usually just end up making some sort of joke when you say no.)
Bike ride?
Aeroplane?
Helicopter?

Very cute!

So Nia and I decided to just spend 1 day in Phnom Penh and then move onto Siem Riep...as all I have ever heard about Cambodia is how amazing Siem Riep is!! Our lovely driver, Peter then spent the rest of the day driving us around. I was amazed at how good his English was, compared to so many of the Vietnamese we met, not to mention his hospitality....he was an absolute legend!

(Now Midget I know you don't like the historical parts of my blog...but unfortunately there are cultural people reading this as well so have kindly starred all the next section for you so that you can quite easily tune out and then back in at your leisure! This is also a little Gruesome.....so Irina babe....you might want to skip this too;-)

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OK so I personally had never heard of The Khmer Rouge before coming to Cambodia, but I picked up a book by called 'Stay Alive my Son' by Pin Yathay, while I was in Vietnam, which was absolutely amazing. Its basically about this man and his family that got forced out of their homes along with the 18 members of his family, and the rest of the entire city of Phnom Penh. He was the only one to survive. Its so mind boggling how many world wide atrocities there are that just never seem to be heard of. (well not by me anyway) Basically the Khmer Rough where an extreme communist guerrilla party led by Pol Pot that took over Cambodia from 1975- 1979. Pol Pots genocidal plans included arresting, torturing and eventually executing anyone suspected of belonging to several categories of supposed "enemies":
-Ethnic Vietnamese, Chinese,Thai and other minorities
-Cambodian Christians, Muslims and the Buddhist monks
- Professionals and intellectuals, (almost everyone with an education), or even people wearing glasses (which, according to the regime, meant that they were literate.)
- Anyone with connections to the former government or with foreign governments.

He basically turned Khmer Rouge into an efficient and ruthless killing machine of murder, and Cambodia into the "killing Fields".

In his book Pin doesn't talk about witnessing any murders or atrocities....but simply talks about how people where loaded onto trucks and taken away for "Re-education" or how people simply just disappeared in the night. What he did have to endure though was watching all his family members die from malnutrition and disease.

In Phnom Penh, Nia and I visited two places the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (also known as S-21)and the Choeung Ek killing filed, I still can't decide which one was more heart breaking.

The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum occupies the former grounds of a high school, turned into a prison camp. Classroom upon , classroom filled with a single metal bed, no mattress and chains. On each wall is a blown up black and white photo of the prisoners that were kept in there. Literally all you can see is mangled bodies covered in blood, chained to these beds. It seemed like each photo was more gruesome then the next. Some 17,000 people passed through this center to be tortured, including woman and children and of those only 12 have been known to survive!.....the Khmer Rogue were meticulous at photographing each and ever victim....so you have a whole ground floor of the school filled with photo's of the their victims. Also included in the museums was the the various methods of torture that they used.

After their time at S-21 was up the prisoners where then taken to sites outside Phnom Penh(also known as The Killing Fields), where they were executed (mainly by pickaxes to save bullets) and buried in mass graves.

At the Choeung Ek killing Field that we went to, there is a monument that has been built called the Memorial Stupa that contains the skulls and bones of 8985 of the victims they found in the mass graves. Although the graves have all been dug up, and most of the remains exhumed, incoming rains always wash up clothes, pieces of bone and even teeth. I think the worst thing there was "The killing tree" The Khmer Rouge executioners would hold babies by the their legs and then beat them to death on it.

It is just absolutely horrific what human beings can do to each other.

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So Nia and I returned back to our hostel pretty exhausted and mildly revolted only to discover that we then had the pleasure of sharing a room with the most INsaNE man (boy) on earth. Neither of us could remember his name afterwards, which in hind sight is probably a good thing. He came across just like a normal, friendly American and lulled into a safe sense of security so we invited him for dinner. How to explain this lunatic of a man?

The best I can do is give you a brief out line of his general beliefs.

He had just got back from spending time in South African and made the point of mentioning a couple of times how very "afraid" so many people living there were. When asked to elaborate, he simply stated that he can see it in our eyes, the eyes of course being the window of our souls.......blah, blah, blah....
But no that wasn't the REAL reason. You see on further discussion we learnt how the entire universe is wrapped up in the cryptic meanings hidden in words. (English words mind you...because according to him english is the most spoken language in the world......HA ...even I knew that wasn't true (its Mandarin Chinese).....AND IM BLOND!!!! Anyway...Im digressing....

FOR EXAMPLE:
- South Africans come from South Africa therefor they are very AFRaid.
- Nia comes from Whales.....so Welsh people, as a nation, wail a lot.
- For some reason American means "love I" taken from the word Amour? we couldn't quite follow that one.....
- We should never beLIEve in anything because its all a LIE
and then my all time favourite....his BeLIEf in Reincarnation ( Isn't he contradicting himself there????).....its all in the word reincarNATION. People are reincarnated into different Nations according to how good you are. On inquiring what Nation would then be deemed so unlucky as to to be on the lowest rung of the ladder...his answer was the SoMALians.....because MAL comes from the word MALicious! Thereby making all Somalians Malicious!

OOOOOOH and lets not forget that the world is going to end in 2012 ....(for those of you that don't already know.) (Kelly babe, we better get married quick!) Because there is going to be a NEW CLEAR war!
Honest to God that man had, without a shadow of a doubt, the Wierdest, most deluded theories that I have heard.....a couple of times he tried to goad me into a debate on religion, challenging my beLIEf in God, which I simply was not interested in.....as far as I am concerned God speaks for himself and he doesn't need me arguing his existence! Never the less Nia and I had loads of fun laughing at his website the next day....which is as insane as he is. (Bruce you might find this pretty funny......it even has star wars clips in it!;-)
( http://www.circusoflife.com/ )

So happy to say good buy to him the next morning (and cheekily promising to send him an email in 2013;-) Nia and I left for Siem Riep, where we have been for the last 4 days. I have to admit we didn't really do much here except go to the temples of Angkor Wat. Ever since I have been in South East Asia all I have heard about is Angkor Wat! How amazing, How beautiful, how breathtaking! Lonely Planet suggest doing these temples over 3 days, and actually says : "If you only have 1 day to do it in, what a shame!" So Nia and I were toying with the idea of 1 or 2 days....until of course we heard the price, $20 a day, and the decision was very quickly made for us... we would cram it all into one whole day.
It would be tiring
It would be tough....but we could do it!

So 5am we set off with our trusty new driver, Same (a friend of Peters ) all ready to catch this breathtaking Angkor Wat Sunrise. We stood around for about an hour with all the other sunrise junkies....waiting...um.....(im)patiently. We took a zillion pictures and then went for a much deserved breakfast. At about 7am we set off to see the various temples that are spread over a 17 km area. (Same driving us to each site of course)





3.5 hours later Nia and I were finished the entire lot! (Yes Aunty Stella its true! -apparently Nia is a 'scanner' too:-) Honestly though how people spend 3 DAYS there is beyond me......yes, its beautiful, but everything just seemed to be exactly the same. In our defense, I wasn't feeling to well, and Nia was still wounded from her near death /bike mugging experience, AND we couldn't afford a guide (another $25) But yes we were pretty pitiful....hell we were passed by old men with walking sticks and a women in a wheelchair! Maybe its the fact that everyone had bigged it up so much, but I just didn't feel that overwhelmed by the sights. I mean I remember going to Tikal, the ancient Mayan sights in Guatemala and been absolutely 'blown away' by that.
Of course Nia and I still had a an absolutely great time, it kind of felt like the more time we spent together the funnier we became. (Now I know that's hard to believe, cause I'm already pretty funny...but its the truth!) Ironically enough we always seemed to wake up in the mornings at pretty much exactly the same time...open our eyes look at each other and just pack out laughing. Its pretty great when you meet someone who just finds the same things as you funny, so much so that you don't even have to verbalize it. So yes my 'BIG Quarter Pounder double mac with cheese' travel mate and I had loads of fun at the temples. I swear people must have thought we were drunk the entire time with the amount of giggling and falling over ourselves we were doing. (Very mature I know....but so much fun!)

Take it from Nia's and Gayle's Lazy Travel book.....you only need 3.5 hours for Angkor Wat!


I have to say something about the street children in Siem Riep. I had heard that they could be pretty full on, but I figured, if I could survive India then I sure as hell could cope with Cambodia......once again I was wrong. Most of the stuff being sold on the street here, are sold by children. Pretty much most of our Angkor Wat experience was marred with children from as young as 4 years old holding up bangles, postcards all shouting! ONE DOLLAR! ONE DOLLAR! ONE Dollar!! (in ever so cute American Accents) Apparently there are as many as 1500 street children in Siem Riep alone. Those that are selling stuff are absolutely relentless, often demanding to know 'why' you wont buy their stuff?' Their faces are also absolutely heart breaking as they plead with you to buy something...but as soon as they realise it isn't going to work they walk away furious muttering and swearing under their breath. We had one boy that continuously came up to us during dinner and at times would just stand there watching us eat. When we firmly asked him to go he walked away pulling a zap sign at us. The sad thing is that most of these children who sell stuff have actually been sold by their parents to pay off gambling depts, or because they simply cant afford to keep them.
We found that the absolute worst time with these children was when we came out of a clubs. (Ummm yeh the other thing we did in Siem Riep) 2am, 3am...these kids are always there. They simply run up to you and jump into your arms, clinging onto you for dear life. The hugging I didn't mind but then the begging for food starts. One night Nia and I had 13 children around us aged from 3-11 including two babies being held by 5/6 year olds. We each had a child in our arms, while all the others where clinging onto various bbody parts, all begging for food. Its just heart breaking......(even Nia, who is less of a sap with the kids than I am seemed to wane) We planned to sit down and eat at our regular little stall and we decided to just buy a couple of fried rices for the children to eat.....but no sooner had we said we would get them something did the children start pulling us towards another stall insisting we buy from there.
At that point we both came to our senses and realized that we were just being scammed. We watched as a couple of another tourists came out of the shop and handed out some bread to the children, only to over hear one of the older boys snap: "We don't want bread!"
The next night, ( one would think I would have wised up by now) , the exact same thing happened, except this time it was just a 6 year old girl, holding a screaming baby and an empty bottle begging for milk. Being wise on this 'milk scam' I went into the shop to buy the 'milk' and not the $20 formula that she wanted. I bought her a some fresh milk and some bread...and she was absolutely fuming....quite clearly that was not what she had wanted and she wouldn't even let me put the milk in the bottle for the baby! She could barely bring her self to even look at me as she mumbled thanks and stormed out of the shop.

Once again I realize that giving in to their begging and demanding only makes matters worse......I thought I had learnt that lesson in India already? Clearly not!

On arriving in Siem Riep, Nia and I soon discovered that there was going to be a Hallaween Party... and neeedless to say we were both determined to put in the effort. Trying to decide what we wanted to go as was most doubtably the hardest part due to the fact that Siem Riep had a limited number of fancy dress shops. i.e NONE!
So we had a quest....we set ourself a budget of $20 for both of our costumes (everything is dollars here) and began rummaging through the markets for ANYTHING that vaguely represented blood, or anything else that might be deemed 'mildly' scary! Eventually we decided to go as 'Suicide Brides' - Grooms MIA (of course!).....due to the fact that I wanted to wear a bloody wedding dress and Nia...well being the Goth that she already is just wanted to wear black!!!
I can't imagine what the women in the market must have thought as she watched us measure and size up black bin bags against our bodies, but if she was confused she certainly didn't show it.....us foreigners are a weird bunch you know.
So armed with our black bags and 7 meters of black lace netting that we bought for $12 we set about designing our wedding dresses. Mum I think you would have been proud!



The night before our 'big day' we met some friends that we had shared a hostel with in Ho Chi Minh and they decided to join us the next night, subsequently becoming our body guards.



Now sad as it is for me to admit this ...I think October 31st 2010 is probably the closest I will ever get to being famous. As it turns out this Halloween party is quite the event in Siem Riep with the locals turning out in hoards to take photographs, and some of them even in costumes themselves. The party starts as a pub crawl going through the town, stopping at various bars for about 30min. So many of the costumes were amazing...which makes me think some travellers actually put some thought into this 'before' they left home. (sad, sad people;-) Anyway every time we stepped out of a pub there were people every where waiting to take our photo's! It was like having our very own Paparazzi!!!
The whole night was just so much fun ........and yes....it was at this point that I realized that yes, indeed, I was born to be the center of attention.....unfortunately God with all his wisdom (and humor) forgot to give my 'attention seeking soul' a single talent worthy of the adoration of millions. ....I plan on having words with him in 70 years or so!


And so all in all a great end to a wonderful time with my Gorgous Nia (AKA K.K). 11 whole days with the same person and I never once wanted to kill her....there is hope for me yet!
I have been in Indonesia for 5 days now...and I miss her like crazy....but I think thats for the next blog!

I cant believe I only have a month and a half left...but I am so excited about seeing family and friends again, that it hardly seems to matter!

Lots of love

x







The morning after photo's and the first words out of Nia's mouth were:
"Where our grooms?"

Where indeed? Where indeed? ;-)