Invasion of Asia

Well..... I would love to say it's truly great to be home, but I'm not sure I can wholeheartedly! ;-)

I have to say I have missed my family and friends loads (and Mia of course), but have had an amazing amazing holiday, and would give anything to be laying on that beach in Thailand right now, supping a Singha beer and eating squid and noodles... sigh.... Instead, I have arrived at work to find more than 300 emails to trawl through, it's cold and drizzling, and my tenants are moving out of my house, so I have to find new ones... oh, and our suitcases seem to be still sat in Thailand for some reason! Poopah.... For those interested, here is a very short rundown of what we got up to! Warning - look away now if you are easily bored as I am using this as a kind of reminder to self of what we did, so may be a little too detailed for most!

A big-thankyou again to Adele for looking after the house and cat so well (and stocking us up with essentials for our return - very very sweet), and Jane and Jamie for their stay too... Mia is in fact absolutely fine, and seems to have doubled in size in our absence...

Jez and Marta's apartment, Xi'an, China, - Friday 6th October - Wednesday 11th October
Friday
On early morning arrival here (we flew in from London, changing at Beijing airport), we thought that there was a bit of early morning fog around... however, as we flew across China to Xi'an, we realised that this was more than fog... it seems that the whole of China is covered with a thick layer of smog! Never again will I look at misty woodland scenes in China in quite the same way! ;-) Anyway... met at the airport by Mark's friend Jez, and his wife Marta (and their private driver!), and went back to their apartment to carsh out for a few hours (on the 17th floor of a newish block of flats in the "Hi-tech zone of the city"). We were welcomed by their crazy spaniel Frankie, and less enthusiastically by their cat Purdy (both very cute and VERY spoilt!).

After rousing ourselves later in the afternoon, we headed out for a few drinks in the bar street type area in Xi'an, and went for a very posh meal in the evening with some American friends (Marie and John) of Jez and Marta's that were in fact moving back home a couple of days later... felt a little sorry for intruding a fairly emotional meal for them all, but was too busy being bowled over by the menu to really worry about it... duck's tongues? Sea slugs? Chicken feet????? After meal went for more drinks in the bar street (got stuck into Tsing Tao, the local beer), and bizarrely bumped into Jez's mum by pure coincidence... she was on a two-week whirlwind tour of China (before staying a week with Jez after we left), and was in Xi'an a couple of nights to visit the terracotta army). Considering that Xi'an is about the size of London, was quite a feat!

Saturday
Next day, slept in again, and went to look round the Bell and Drum towers in Xi'an, did a spot of shopping around the Muslim market, and took a stroll around the mosque.

In the evening we met up with Jez's mum and went to a Portuguese restaurant, then to a cafe and a bar (ordered and drank an entire bottle of bourbon between the four of us - this is the chinese way apparently!).

Sunday
Another late get-up, but in the afternoon made up for it with a 14km cycle ride around the city wall. Gorgeous and warm weather and an amazing intro to the city... we loved this! Afterwards went for a quick shopping trip around a market nearby, and in the evening went for an 'interesting' vegetarian meal... this included false pork (including pork rind and fat made of tofu and jelly type stuff), false shrimps, and a bizarre pile of sausages hanging out of a conch shell?!

Monday
We climbed a mountain this day! Got the driver to take us out to a mountain range about 30km out of Xi'an (Hua Shan). This was a lovely, if exhausting day out... took us 2-3 hours to walk up this mountain, having got a cable car up most of it! We most have been four of around ten Westerners on the mountain that day, and we certainly attracted an awful lot of attention from the several hundred chinese there that day... the odd friendly shout of "Hello", lots of open-mouthed stares, and many many pictures taken of us (all very subtley). I think it was my shorts and sandals that did it... they had never seen such a massive expanse of white flesh!! ;-)

In the evening we went to a gorgeous Japanese restaurant. Guided to a private room with our own chef preparing our very fresh food on a hotplate in front of our table... this cost around $20 for the four of us!!! The beef here was sublime, as were the shrimps (alive in the dish waiting to go on the hotplate!), and the veggies... all cooked to perfection!

Tuesday
This was our last day in Xi'an. Went with Jez to see the terracotta army... which was great, but I have to say that I would have been disappointed if I had gone all the way to China to see it (I guess we were spoilt with Angkor Wat in Cambodia last year), and then we went to some hot springs. This was lovely... Mark, Jez and I hired a hot tub thing for part of the afternoon, and almost cooked ourselves in the boiling water coming from the natural springs! Marta and I went to a local supermarket on our return - I was bowled over by the range of goods on offer, and how much of it I didn't recognise! It made me laugh though, that an entire aisle of cooking oils contained just two small bottles of olive oil, that were about £10 a pop!

Our last night turned into something it shouldn't have, considering our early start to Shanghai the next day! Went for a meal with a couple of Jez's colleagues (this night I actually tried chicken feet! tasteless and jelly-like), and then ended up in a rather classy nightclub until 4am weds!!! (we had to be for our flight at 6am, and only made it because Jez's dog woke us up!). We had great fun in the club - drank way too much white rum, and then got involved with a drinking game with a bunch of Chinese businessmen.. "Gambe!" means bottoms up, and they really do expect you to stand by it once you have said it! Man...

Was really sad to say goodbye to Jez and Marta - really enjoyed their company... Marta was a real scream - we exchanged our own brand of English, Spanish (her native language) and Chinese, and really seemed to hit it off...

Peace Hotel, Shanghai, China - Wednesday 11th October - Friday 13th October
Wednesday
Got to this amazing and very famous hotel feeling like crap, and slept most of the afternoon... ;-) Our journey to the hotel was made interesting by the Maglev train, which travels at something like 500km/h... would have been better without the hangover. I closed my eyes...

Later in the afternoon we went for a stroll along The Bund and spent a considerable amount of time looking for a famous department store, which seems to have been demolished (there is re-building going on everywhere here!). In the evening, had the most amazing meal on the roof of one of the banks on The Bund. This was like eating at the Oxo tower in London, and despite being expensive by our standards (and deffo by Chinese standards), you would easily have paid more than four times the £70 we paid for anything like it in London. The restaurant was called M on The Bund and I highly recommend it for the views and the food... the slow cooked lamb that I had was delicious.

Thursday
Went to a bazaar and ate gorgeous steamed dumplings (and unbelievably bumped into Jez's Mum down a side street, on another leg of her tour!), sat in a tea house in a park (and got stared at plenty, again by the locals), had a look around the shopping district... did a spot of shopping in a weird arcade full of fake western gear, which was deffo there for making money out of tourists... prices had to be haggled mercilessly, since prices can be cut by 80% from your arrival in a shop to your hurried departure... we did lots of shopping here!

In the evening we went to another veggie restaurant specialising in fake meat stuffs, and got a reasonably early night in the rather lovely Peace Hotel (ready for our flight to Cambodia the next day!).

I really liked Shanghai... less polluted than Xi'an, but very much a 'big lights, big city' kinda place... not as 'old china' as Xi'an. I suppose it ties in with the way I imagine Tokyo or Hong Kong might look? I think though that two days was long enough there really...

Andy and Srey Neath's house, Phnom Penh, Cambodia - Friday 13th October - Tuesday 17th October
Friday
Spent most of the day travelling to Phnom Penh via Bangkok. I thought that the Friday 13th omen was gonna kick in for sure on the taxi journey to the airport in the morning... I closed my eyes and said my goodbyes to you all (the driver was a maniac, and ripped us off money-wise on arrival). We were met at the airport by Andy in a taxi, and went back to their place for a few drinks... went for a delicious meal in the evening in one of their local fave restaurants (including squid, eel, and heaps of steamed prawns), and had drinks in the Green Vespa bar and Zeppelin bar (a little Korean man with a huge retro record collection runs this one!).

Was lovely to see Andy and Srey Neath again, and felt like yesterday that we were there (last year!). They seem to have been adopted by a tiny skinny little kitten that we christened "Pky", which is Cambodia for "star" (as she was all black with tiny white socks and a star shaped white splodge on her chest). Pets are not entirely embraced in Cambodia, so her chances of survival may be remote... but we enjoyed making a fuss of her. In a bid to make her into a rat catcher of sorts though, it is unlikely that she will be dining on Whiskers or Felix...

Saturday
In the morning we ate a thai breakfast (pad thai for me!) and went via motorbike to the killing fields (Choeung Ek) just outside Phnom Penh. Words cannot describe this place, and I'm not sure I could do it justice... you would have to see it to believe it really. There are still teeth, bones and bundles of clothes in the earth as you walk around it... its not really like any Western museums of the same ilk, but then again I guess this place is pretty unique... In the afternoon, Mark, Srey Neath and I let Andy do some marking (he is a local teacher), and went to visit the Russian Market in Phnom Penh. An amazing place... full of bargains!

In the evening, we attempted a Korean restaurant that Andy had been recommended, which proved expensive and full of Koreans listening to a woman doing some form of terrible singing! On that note we duly downed our Anchor beers and took a tuk-tuk back to the delicious restaurant we had been to the night before!

Sunday
We took the motorbikes some 40km out of town to a lovely mountain area (a very sore bottom from the bike seat, and sunburnt legs!), with some temples on top (the name escapes me right now).

This was a pretty unique place, which attracts hundreds of Cambodians on a Sunday. The whole area is covered in food stalls, selling a bewildering array of freshly cooked foods (some recognisable, but many not), with 'picnic platforms'. These platforms are shaded areas off the ground, which you pay to use - they give you bowls of rice and cutlery to eat with your picnic food, and serve you drinks... you also get the use of several local children for free - who will fan you while you eat, and generally hang around and threaten to sing or do comedy shows unless you give them food... ;-) On the platform next to us, a large local family were paying two very young kids to put on a singing show (the actions were amazing), and they paid them in beer and rice... this obviously made the performances more enthusiastic on the children's part! It was at this meal that I sampled one of the most delicious things I ate whilst away; stuffed frogs! I kid you not, it was delicious! We also had grilled fish, some sort of whitebait stuff, and a whole roast chicken (head too!). Thankfully, Srey Neath couldn't seem to find the deepfried 'ants' she was looking for (I kid you not)...

After lunch we sauntered up the mountain to see the temples on top (kids in tow), one of which was being heavily guarded by a rather furious looking monkey. Mark had the kids in stitches by playing them fart noises on his phone, which increased our crowd of child followers...

In the evening we ate at a more western-style restaurant (I actually had roast chicken dinner - my first spuds in days!) and had a few sedate drinks in The Stranger Bar.

Monday
Andy had to work today, so we spent the day with Srey Neath which was lovely. Had a few rain showers, but did not stop us from making the most of the day. Went to the Russian Market again for a few more last minute bargains (and some beef noodles for brekkie), then hired a tuk-tuk driver for the day (just $10!!). We went to visit Srey Neath's parents and family, Mark had his haircut in a shop on the river front whilst I had a manicure there (I even look like I have girl's nails!), we bought Srey Neath an English dictionary as a leaving pressie from a bookstore, and then went to the Central Market for lunch (khmer style fishy noodles, which were amazing), and bought fresh fish from the market for a bbq we had in the evening in Andy and Srey Neath's garden. Fresh squid, live crabs, prawns, mackrel, and fresh sweetcorn... delicious, and not quite like the fish counter at Tesco or even Lowestoft fish market.

In the evening we had said bbq, and went for a cruise down the Tonle Sap river for an hour or so - very civilised!

We were VERY sorry to leave Cambodia, and would have liked to stay longer...

No more time to update this, will update this with our Thailand trip tomorrow! Sorry for being so boring!

Much love
Hayls
xxxx

PS. If you know of anyone that wants to rent a house in Norwich, please let me know ASAP!