Christmas time, no mistletoe, but wine. (and lots of it!)

So we spent Christmas at Coral Bungalows. (Your home away from home (tm) ) A lovely bungalow complex on Koh Phangan run by a shady gun-totin', bungalow robbin' gangster called Ping Pong. And home to the friendliest staff we could hope to come across.

Our Christmas really started with a trip to Tesco on Koh Samui, to pick up supplies. Unfortunately, they were out of Afternoon Tea biscuits, Cadbury's Roses and didn't even have our second choice of Quality Street. However, we made do with a boatload of Danish butter Cookies, some assorted sweets, a nice bottle of wine and a good old fashioned bottle of Jameson. (because it's christmas and we're irish)

Of course then, we had to do our christmas shopping (so difficult when you've so many people to buy for!) And strangely enough, we all got exactly what we wanted! it's almost as if we had picked them out ourselves...

Christmas day kicked off with breakfast and some quality time out in the sun, under the palm trees, watching the sea lap in gently. I found out that my name was on the sign for a 'Christmas Jam' -
MC Xander (uk) - Human beatbox
Ender (USA-nti Bush) - Didgeridoo
Andy (Ireland) - Guitar.

So I spent the morning practicing chrismtas songs (concentrating on ones about the NYPD band still singing GALLLWAY BAAAY!!) Unfortunately, it started to rain really heavily, so we were forced indoors, and consecutively, really, forced to start drinking irish coffees & watching films for the afternoon.

Christmas dinner was a buffet, with everything you'd expect, as well as a whole roast pig, seafood and spring rolls. We were sitting at a table with some English Lads and Pejman, an Iranian/French painter we'd met before. (howyis!) The Christmas concert was a middlin' affair, although there was some excellent singing from the english lads (well done guys) during the fairytale of new york. Add some freeform improvisational hip-hop jamming (which i really tried not to, but MC Xander was all over the idea) and we had our concert.

Then, the good folks of Coral bungalows topped it all off with a festive rave. Hooray! Merry Christmas.

Quick Update

Hi everyone. Sorry. I know we have been doing a rubbish job of keeping this blog up to date. We'll make more of an effort from now on. So just to bring you up to date, this is what we've been doing: Feck all. We've been on this island paradise for about a month in all and to be honest it's a bit boring. The place is beautiful, the staff here are lovely, but it's boring. Australia is just a 28 hour bus journey, a night spent in an airport, and a 6 hour flight away however, so fingers crossed we'll have more action to report from now on!

backlog - Cambodge!

Ok, yes, i know - it's been a while. But hey, here we are again.

So, you've seen our photographs from Cambodia, now hear the stories.

We booked a trip as far as Siam Reap in bangkok. Aircon bus as far as the border, then a mysterious 'other transport' the last 130 km to Siam Reap. The 'other transport' turned out to be a pickup truck, with 16 people on board. Not a modified one, just your average builder's pickup, with 16 exhausted tourists and their rucksacks bouncing around the back, for six hours. On a dirt road. In Cambodia.

At one point, we decided to try and lift the spirits, it went something like this.

Welcome to the hotel Califor-
*we hit a particularly bad bump, and Laura and sinead nearly go flying off the back of the truck*

Eventually, we arrived safely at the driver's brother's guesthouse (funny that), and spent a very pleasant few days in Siam Reap exploring Angkor Wat (home to ruined temples!) And feeling very colonial, drinking gin overlooking the streets, unyil it was time to head on to Phnom Penh. But Cambodian travel seems never to be uneventful!

Motoring along one of the main highways in Cambodia, happy as larry, and we hit a huge traffic jam. It turns out that about 20 minutes before, the entire bridge across a river had collapsed. The road was...not there anymore. Our bus driver herdsus off the bus,and starts waving up the road, towards the river as in 'yes, whitey, walk that way!' Sheep as we are, we did, only to find that a local man had started to build a footbridge across the river with bamboo and twine. Crossed over, caught the bus going the other way on the other side, and headed on. No one passed comment.

During the time in Cambodia, we'd been hearing and reading about the killing fields, and the terrible regime of Pol Pot. So, we decided to book a tour to go see them. The tour also included a visit to the S21 prison camp and to a Shooting range. So we trooped off (anyone ever seen 17,000 human skulls? - or had a guide pick bones out of the ground to show you?) And once we were suitably down on man's inhumanity, we arrived at the shooting range.

This was a disused army base, where they had a menu:
-Ak47 (30 rounds) $30
-M16 (30 rounds) $30
etc, down as far as

-Hand Grenade $20
-Rocket Launcher $200

So, just because it seemed like the done thing, we fired an Ak 47 and an M-16. Now we have a collection of photos that are sure to show up should any of us ever choose to work for the UN.

Apart from that, Phnom penh was pretty tame, we spent evenings drinking cocktails in the Foreign Correspondants' Club (or the 'F' - for those in the know), before taking the bus To Vietnam! (on the way we got a puncture - no such thing as an uneventful trip through cambodia)

More later!