It was actually a relief to leave Asia behind. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely place with so many things on offer but having being there since August, I was ready for a change. A change in both food and climate. The flight to Canada was split into two sections, first Bangkok to Hong Kong with a 5 hour layover and then Hong Kong to Vancouver. Hong Kong airport is actually quite nice but it seems to be more of a luxury / designer brand shopping centre than anything else. Lucky me, I managed to get an upgrade too which was really welcomed, especially for the overnight flight from Hong Kong.

I was a little disoriented getting off the plane in Vancouver in the afternoon as despite my best efforts of trying to sleep, I was still on Thai time which would be about 6 in the morning. It was grey, cold and drizzling and the temperature hovering around freezing. It’s a long time since I’ve felt cold like that and it went straight through me. Navigating the airport was easy enough and so was immigration. It was pretty much all automated but I am disappointed not to have received a Canadian stamp in my passport.

Getting from the airport to downtown Waterfront was easy on the driverless Skytrain, similar to the DLR in London. I bought a Compass card for $6CAD, put $20 CAD on it and it works just like an Oyster card. About 20 minutes later I had arrived at the last stop, Waterfront. I put my backpack on and began the 10 minute walk to my hotel which I had booked for a few nights. It was dark by now and I wasn’t entirely sure of the direction but I recognised a few street names and slowly checked them off as I went, so at least I knew I was heading in the right direction. When I travel like this, I always try and book somewhere comfortable for a few days when I arrive, to settle in, acclimatise and suss out the area etc. Then when I have an idea of the lay of the land, I can choose whether to stay in that area or move on. The hotel I had booked was the Pinnacle Harbourfront Hotel, with views over Burrard Inlet where the sea planes operate from. After checking in, I was pretty tired so had a little wonder around the immediate area to find some dinner (or breakfast) and then went to bed. I woke up about 10.00hrs the next morning and to my delight, the weather had cleared up from the previous day and it was clear skies and sunny.

One of the things I really like to do when visiting a new city is to go on those hop on/hop off bus tours. They take you to all the sights, have a running commentary plus the tickets are usually valid for 24 – 48 hours, often with a couple of routes on offer and with busses running every hour or so. I bought the ‘Park Route’ tour for $36CAD which picked me up from directly outside my hotel and it went to Stanley Park, English Bay, Granville Island Market, China Town and Gastown amongst others. One circuit took about 2hrs to complete and the driver was very good and knowledgeable, recommending places to eat etc.

I got off in Stanley Park and braved the bitter cold for an hour before the next bus came around. It’s a 405 hectare public park so it’s completely free to go in and explore.

I know I have been in Canada less than a day but I am already impressed. It so clean, especially compared to Asia. The views are fantastic and the people I have met so far have been nothing but warm, friendly and helpful. It has a sort of ‘Lego town’ friendliness to it.

In the evening I wondered down to Gastown, Vancouver’s oldest neighbourhood. It’s called Gastown as back in 1867, Jack “Gassy Jack” Deighton opened the first tavern here and he loved to talk, apparently for hours, hence his nickname. At least it was nothing to do with farting. One of the famous landmarks here is the steam powered clock. Many tourists flock here to see and hear to clock chime at 15 minute intervals.

Gastown was about a 10 minute walk away and is quite a nice area with lots of pubs and restaurants. There is a large locally brewed craft beer culture here in Vancouver which is nice and I say it’s always good to immerse yourself in the local culture. Needless to say I had a few pints of decent beer at the Steamworks Brewery and not tasteless, gassy lager which I had been drinking in Asia… 🙂

Yesterday I had a walk around the harbour front, watching the seaplanes take off and land and was something I was going to do today. Unfortunately when I opened the curtains, the weather had changed from the clear crisp skies to grey, cloudy and snowing. Never mind am sure there will be another opportunity.

I also changed hotels to Le Soleil and I must say the suite is even nicer than the Pinnacle but it does not offer sea views though. I have spent most of today looking at options on how to get across Canada, whether I’ll get the opportunity to head up to Whistler which is one of the worlds best skiing and snowboarding resorts, or begin heading eastwards to the Rockies towards Banff and Calgary. Some tours are ridiculously expensive, in the thousands of pounds. So I might look at hiring a car instead.

However, I am a little apprehensive as they are all automatics. I have never driven an automatic car. I have never driven an automatic car in the snow (we’re talking proper Canadian winter snow for about four or five months of the year at -20, not a piddly 3cm that lasts a week back home), nor I have ever driven an automatic car in proper snow on the wrong side of the road before… Although it’s mandatory to have snow or winter tyres fitted between October and April, some people say that a lot of rental cars do not come with winter tyres. So we shall see what happens…

The flight from Thailand was comfortable enough and on time. I used the low cost airline, Air Asia, costing only £45 with luggage. I had already arranged an eVisa on line for Cambodia but I was still apprehensive about the border crossing. I needn’t have been as it was one of the easiest border crossings I have done. As an added bonus, the immigration officer gave me an eVisa baseball cap. I think Cambodia is wanting to encourage tourists to visit to help boost the economy.

I changed my leftover Thai Baht into Cambodian Riels at the airport. I didn’t know at the time but in Cambodia they use the US dollar. Waiting for me outside the airport was the transfer to the Saem Siem Reap hotel. To my surprise it was a Lexus limousine and I felt very overindulged at this hotel. Once again I managed to get an upgraded room through Expedia and it was lovely.

The first day after breakfast I had a very lazy day relaxing by the pool not doing very much. It was too hot to do anything, except nip in and out of the water every 20 mins for so to cool off. I gather that around this time most of Europe was covered in snow, you lucky lot.

I used the time to plan a few activities and tours in Siem Reap. For $15 I had a tuk tuk for the day – it was more of a motorcycle with a trailer carriage than the tuk tuks I was used to in India or Thailand. I actually thought these were better, certainly more comfortable, roomy and the big plus is when it moves the air flow is so refreshing.

First I had to get a ticket from the one office that issues them. I paid $62 for a 3 day pass to be used on consecutive days within a 10 day period. They take your photo which is scanned onto the ticket to prevent people selling them on. At every temple and monument, the tickets are checked. You can get a one day pass for $32 but it one day is not enough time to see everything.

The tuk tuk would drive me to a temple, park up and wait for me while I explored. It was very relaxed day without any rush. He also had a cooler with bottled water which was included in the $15 and I got through a good few of them, including the bottles I had taken from the hotel minibar.

There are over 300 temples around Siem Reap, the most famous being Ankor Wat and Bayon (which was used in the Tomb Raider film). They did not disappoint. It would be near impossible to visit all of them in such a short amount of time. Some of the temples are overcrowded with tourists and tour groups jostling for position to take photos in front of various spots. I think the Cambodians could do a little more to improve the tourist experience here as there is no decorum or order which it comes to getting a photo.

It is amazing how nature is taking over some of these once deserted temples with trees growing in, through, and over the stoneworks. It is a sight to behold but after seeing about 100 trees growing through temples, the novelty began to wear off but still very impressive nonetheless.

One of the evening hotspots in Siem Reap is a place called ‘Pub Street’. It’s basically a set of cross roads closed off to traffic in the evening with plenty of restaurants offering every type of food imaginable and many have draught beer for as little as a $1 or $0.50, or buy one get one free offers all night long. Most of the food is reasonably priced and good quality. I had a beef lok lak which was really nice for $6.50.

There are also street entertainers (young children with tarantulas crawling on their faces and musicians etc.) Imagine a grown up, quieter version of Khaosan Road but with a New Orleans vibe instead. At the Chivas bar they have live jazz on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and it was actually good.

The thing that impressed me most though, was that they understand volume and that it’s not necessary to play at deafening levels like all the bars do in Bangkok. The night market was also a pleasure to explore as the traders were not harassing you to come in, look or buy. They left you to it which was a nice change and as a result I purchased a souvenir T-shirt for a few dollars.

One of the bars does the ‘Tomb Raider’ cocktail, obviously inspired by the film. Every 10th one sold is complimentary but every 500th one not only is complimentary, but also wins a T-shirt and $100. I figured I would order one just to see what it was like. I can’t remember what the full list of ingredients were, but it had Cointreau, lime and soda for sure. I was amazed to hear the bell ringing and claxon on going a few minutes after I ordered it. Sure enough, I was the 500th person to order one 🙂

Next day I did the second circuit of the temples which was really enjoyable and seemed a lot quieter than the previous day, certainly fewer Chinese tourists getting in the way. At some of the temples, I was the only person and it was a pleasure to have them to myself.

By the afternoon I was beginning to flag. At the ancient hospital temple there was a young girl selling drinks and with the temperature being so hot, I bought a can of sprite from her. It was in a cool box with lots of melting ice. Now am not sure where the ice was made but doing my bit for the environment and refusing a plastic straw, I drank straight from the can. It had a bizarre dirty flavour to it, like brackish lake water, but as it was so hot, I downed it before I realised what I had just done. Later that day back at the hotel I began to feel a little peculiar. At first I thought it was a little heat stroke and dehydration, but it was more than that. I began with a migraine headache, I couldn’t see much and my eyes felt bruised as if my glasses were completely the wrong prescription. My hair hurt so much I couldn’t even wash it and I had an upset stomach the likes of which I have never experienced before. Needless to say this knocked me out of action for more than a few days. I had to cancel the tuk tuk driver I had arranged for some other tours, including the war museum.

I was meant to head down to Phnom Penh around 4th February but I was in no position to travel. Thankfully I was able to extend my time at Saem Siem Reap hotel and re-arrange my accommodation in Phnom Penh to a few days later. The medication I had been carrying with me since the beginning of this Walkabout was now pretty much depleted including the antibiotics. I have hardly been ill on my travels and gave most of my pills and potions away to fellow travellers in need along the way, but I was needing them now more than ever. I finished off all that I had in a ‘one last hurrah’ attempt to cure me and it seemed to do the trick. Over the previous 5 days or so, I had only eaten about one slice of watermelon.

Feeling a little perkier, I made my way to the bus station and got the Giant Ibis Bus to Phnom Penh.

It was a pleasant enough journey but the landscape was pretty boring. Cambodia is about as flat as the Netherlands and there were some dried up fields as far as the eye could see to look at for 6 hours. The point of heading to Phnom Penh was to visit the notorious killing fields and the S21 prison camp where many Cambodians were tortured and executed in mass genocide in the late 1970’s, often beaten to death as bullets were deemed too expensive to use. Unfortunately once checked in to the hotel down by the Mekong River, my symptoms returned. There was nothing much in vicinity of my hotel in the way of shops or restaurants so once again I ended up just staying in the hotel room for most of the time. I did venture out a couple of times to try and find some food and supplies but the area wasn’t all that nice. There was a mini market where I found some drinks and instant noodles which I brought back to the hotel room.

I was there for about 5 days and all in all it was essentially a wasted trip as I didn’t get to see the things I went there for. However, I received an email from an ex-colleague who was made redundant around the same time as me, saying that he was also in Phnom Penh and by sheer coincidence we were booked on the same bus heading back to Siem Reap the next day. Martin and I met at the Phnom Penh bus station but sadly our seats were at opposite ends of the bus.

We agreed to meet up in Pub Street and have dinner over a couple of nights which was nice.

I had a few days spare and enjoyed the tranquil surroundings by the swimming pool at the hotel. As much as I wanted to revisit the temples or museums, I didn’t want to chance it, just in case.

I had booked an onward flight to Canada but it was £300 cheaper to fly from Bangkok than it was to fly from Cambodia, even using the same connection in Hong Kong. So I arranged another Giant Ibis Bus to Bangkok for $30 but it took 7 hours including just under two hours at the border.

I fly to Canada tomorrow morning which will be a bit of a shock to the system for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I have not really experience temperatures below 30 degrees centigrade since before I left England back in July. So getting off the plane wearing shorts, t-shirt and sandals in -5 will be a shock to the system. Secondly, I have travelled to some of the most polluted cities on earth, Marrakech, Cairo, Hong Kong, Beijing, Delhi, Mumbai, Kathmandu and Bangkok to name a few. The cool, clean crisp air of the Canadian Rockies will literally be a breath of fresh air, like drinking water compared to a McDonald’s milkshake.

Just a quick note to say that I have not been very well for over a week now and have been pretty much hotel room bound.

I managed to have 4 amazing days around Angkor Wat and Siem Reap but since then I have not been very active at all and barely left the hotel room.

I did force myself to get on a bus for a 6 hour journey to Phnom Penh, positive that the medication will work, but the reality is, I just haven’t had the energy or strength to get up and venture out. I’m returning to Siem Reap on Tuesday.

All being well I will update this blog in a few days time.