NOT SETTLED... STILL..

It's been a while since my last post, and even I forgot the web address of my blog for a moment.. ha~
Looking at my posts, turns out I've actually started two posts before and didn't finish them, probably because I was either too busy, or internet was too crappy, or I just couldn't be bothered with it. Lots of happened in this 3 months.
The biggest one is I guess that we had our last second wedding with all the close relatives coming all the way from NZ and a couple of friends from the States. It was tiring but special. Definitely no more weddings, as sometimes I get asked, "So, are you going to have a wedding in New Zealand as well?". The wedding itself went fine, with no major hiccups except that my best man was absent in the second half of the celebration, due to the long "talk" of life and death with the squat toilet in the restaurant. haha~~ I hope he reads it too, because I promised him that I would remind it to him for many years ahead. And yes, you read it right, surprisingly it was a squat-toilet, even though the restaurant wasn't a cheap one. But I guess it sort of fitted the traditional theme of it. I got quite drunk myself, but hung on through it all, and managed to not to embarrass myself in front of my lovely in-laws. I don't have the photos here now, so, I can't post them, but I will some time. After that, the next day early in the morning, still hungover from all the vodka, we took off to Samarkand on a train. The whole trip of just about 5 days went with no major accidents as well. It was interesting for me as well, since I haven't traveled around my country as well. Soon after that I had to go to St.Petersburg on work related matter (which is another big news I guess), so, Katy with her parents and I flew to St.Petersburg for 10 days.

Whenever you visit a new country, the first thing you see and experience is the airport, and, consequently, its staff. Pulkovo airport is horrible, I'd say on par or even worse than even Tashkent Halqaro airport. Why?. The stereotypical opinion about Russian rudeness and unfriendliness is a given factor, (although, I must admit, it's getting better), the inefficiency with which the passport control is working is appalling, the facilities are so inadequate that it's really embarrassing for the such a great city as St.Petersburg, to have it. You feel yourself when you go through the Pulkovo-1 airport's passport control as if you're in the Zoo, you know one of those pits you see in the zoo, made specially for dangerous animals when you look at them from above. Robin said it, too.. Of course, we were surrounded by tens of pushy and impatient Uzbeks who have no concept of a line and just trying to get to the customs lady from all directions. Wendy (my mother-in-law) adapted very quickly and wouldn't have any of the BS like pushing and cutting in from the surrounding Uzbeks, so, she started to push and elbow them back and tell them off with that stern look on her disapproving face. I loved that moment. Robin, as always, suffered in silence. :)
It took us a few thousands of dead nerve-cells, about 2 hours and lots of pushing and elbowing to go through the line and pick up our bags. We arrived at about 22:30 at night and only got out at 1am or something like that. By the time we got to our place of stay (an apartment that I rented), we were exhausted.
St.Petersburg was boring and all-business for me and lots of excursions and sightseeing for the rest of the group. There was an incident in the subway when someone lost his wallet, well, it got stolen, by the notorious Uzbeks apparently, who works the subways and target foreigners. Luckily the only thing they stole was credit cards, and we managed to quickly cancel them before any damage could have been done. On one of our last days, we went to Petergof, the summer palace built by Peter the Great and finished by Kathrine the Great, a beautiful place but very expensive to go to (if you count the transportation and entrance fees and light snack and stuff). Better to take enough money, because we apparently didn't and had to sit and wait outside in freezing cold waiting for a boat instead of enjoying a cup of hot tea and a cake.. :) It was a good sport though, and I have a picture of the three poor kiwies stuck in Petergof waiting for a boat on a cold metal bench looking to the sea. :) (will upload it as well).

To be continued.

SOME PHOTOS

The mayor's office ordered to the kindergarten that is located in front of our apartment to beautify its surroundings by creating some sculptures or other things in front of it. I guess so that it actually looked like a kindergarten. So, one day we had uninvited visitor who wanted to simply take (READ - STEAL) our sand. They got caught by our workers and told off for it. The workers got in contact with me and the lady asked if she could borrow two sacks of sand (about 100 kg), after the fact that they were trying to steal it. She was Good. "We need it for the kids to play, bla-bla-bla... and the mayor's office gave this order, but didn't offer any funding or help." Okay, I gave them one sack, and told them to look else where if they need more. What do you think? Later on, they come again and try to bribe my workers with $1.2 to steal more sand. Little SOBs, it's good we have honest workers who told them No. That is a Seal that is made with our sand. Behind it lying is crocodile. As you may guess they are unfinished here. Now they are all painted and have faces, so, actually they look like the real ones.








Our apartment block from the road. This Kamaz (Russian truck) always parks in front of our gates, blocking the entry way. I tried to be not too loud about it, though I several times explicitly told the owner not to park it there. Now he got the message.








Swimming pool at my aunties. Katy's jumping in with my cousin's son.








We went to the old apartment, and it was so weird to see old structures in the play ground still standing. Of course these days kids don't play with them at all. Now they've got the computers. I even remembered a rock sticking a bit from the ground, that used to trip us up. Some windows on the first floor still had the protective window grids from the 80s. Katy liked one with the old Russian GAZ Volga on it. She wanted to take picture but there were people standing in front of it, and I felt embarrassed to take a photo. We'll take it next time.












This is our gym, about which I wrote in my last post. There are even some self-centered guys who flex their muscles each time they pass the mirror.








I believe this Russian motorcycle Ural belongs to my neighbors in our old apartment where we used to live in late 80s. That makes it at least 20 years old. It's an odd feeling to see old things from the past. Those garages in the background, we used to play Tag (a game where you have to catch someone by touching them on their back and then that person have to catch others) on their roofs, when we were little, and when owners saw us they would yell at us for ruining the garages and even some throw stones at us... ha~








Our puppy, Kuzya. We didn't buy him and didn't name him. We rescued him from under the pipe he was hiding behind at my cousin's office. His original name when they bought him was Sam. But comon, he's so much not Sam.. Kuzya he is... A bit naughty and dumb, but becoming smarter day by day, and hence cuter.








Our apartment, which so many people wanted to see. This is actually from behind. The main communal entrance is on the other side, but we made the door from behind, fenced and claimed a backyard and voila, it's like owning a house. Renovation in full swing. We're close to an end, by the way. Supposedly they will finish in one week time. It's hard to believe it's actually coming to an end.












Katy's having fun in the swimming pool at my aunties. It's quite deep, absolutely not suitable by NZ's safety standards. An adult can dive in without any possibility of hitting a bottom with his/her head. The water was very cold and thus very refreshing in 40 degrees heat.








My 40 plus year old cousin has hamsters at home. Of course they bought them for their son, but as it usually the case, the parents end up taking care of them. Being truly rodents, as hamsters are, just a bit cuter, it didn't take a while for them to multiply. Now they have like 10 of them. And here Katy's playing with the newly born one. Blind, red, not cute at all!!! She had even suggested once to barbecue them, since we already had rat meat and a whole squirrel in Laos and Thailand.

25 DAYS: COPS, HEAT, BUREAUCRACY, ETC.

For those of you who was and still is coming by this page, I'm sorry for not writing more frequently. We've been quite busy these day, eating, drinking tea, going to Parkentskiy market (where we can buy renovation materials), finding out about lots of stuff, educating my younger brother how to live healthily and save money, and many other things. If your head is spinning just from reading this, imagine mine from doing all that in 40+ degrees heat. Vertigo....

Many times I think "Oh, I should write that in our blog", but then because I don't write it down, I kind of forget it. Okay the first subtitle would be...............

COPS!
Almost since our arrival we've been driving our car. It's nice and big... and pretty for these surroundings. I've seen and heard a lot from my cousins and friends about the cops problem and their milking. Milking meaning we, the drivers are cows and they, the cops, are the "milkers". I was somewhat unprepared to deal with all of that, but steadily and slowly I'm getting used to it. I must admit that we get stopped for minor violations of traffic rules, but what I don't get is that it is almost impossible in my mind to avoid these violations, because the environment forces you to. Imagine driving on the road with many potholes. This will make any sound driver who cares about his car's suspension and other important parts to weave around them, which can be quite tricky on a busy road. Then I'm talking about broken traffic lights, which are just that: broken. And everyone goes everywhere on the intersection. Then there are obscure road signs or one, which I haven't seen in Korea or New Zealand, and I just don't know what that means. Then there are of course crazy drivers who never ever uses their blinkers, so, you never know if they're going straight or turning or what not. We've been stopped because of these factors or so I want to believe. :( Each time, I was let go with a relatively small amount of fine paid to the personal pocket of a policeman, who was lucky to catch me. Once I was stopped just because I was driving our car, which looks flashy here, and they wanted to check if there was anything wrong with me or my car to get some dough out of me. Unfortunately there was some problem with my documents, so, I had to part with my $10 that I had in my pocket in exchange for my freedom to go. Don't get too shocked. It's a reality here. We're learning how to deal with it. Every cop assume that we have lots of money because we're driving a car like that. So, recently I started to pretend that I'm just a driver who's driving a rich foreign lady. So, that brings down the plank of amount considerably downward. I played that trick ones, and it worked. I only parted with half of what I was "normally" giving out before. (Now "normally" here, of course doesn't mean it's normal to give a bribe to a policeman, although here it kind of means that. ^^). Anyways, other than corrupted policemen, potholes, and crazy drivers in their beat up Ladas who don't care if their car will get scratched or whatever, it's very nice to drive out here. Several times we noticed a difference in attitude when people saw us getting out of it because they'd assume we're rich. How funny and sad at the same time.

Thinking about the subject of this post, I think I've written enough about the heat and bureaucracy here, so, I'll write about my gym.

GYM!
We started going to the gym about 10 days now. It's good to be back with the iron. Our gym is not near as nice as the one I used to go in Korea in our HYundai building, but it's adequate for the price. I only pay about $12 a month and Katy only about $9. They give a discount to ladies. Katy also was offered to lead a group of ladies in the gym. I suppose she looked quite professional teaching my very unfit cousins. The gym is in the regular school in the old hall where I remember as a kid having our PE (physical education) class. It's stuffed with the old-ish machines and bellbars and dumbbells. Most of it still quite usable. What I thought was interesting compared with my nice gym in Korea, in Korea gym facility was awesome, members on the other hand were in a quite sad shape, for most part of it. Here, the facility is quite sad and run down, but the members are just in great shape. I'd even say too great shape. They are huge. I'm a skinny chicken compared with them. Not that I feel any inferiority about that. HA~ But one thing that kind of makes us laugh in the gym here is that most of the big guys here are very self-centered. They would walk around torso naked and every time they pass anything slightly reflective they would look and I'm almost sure sing with joy inside, liking what they see. It's a very funny behavior for adults in my opinion. We saw one guy the other day walk into the hair salon where Katy was getting her hair cut. He looked very funny with his 80's a-la Shwarzenegger (spelling?) hairstyle and his way too small shirt showing his belly and also his 80s style break-dance narrow sunglasses. And he was all important and very aware of his "fine" physic. Forgive me my bitterness... it's just funny...

Anyways, Katy's waiting for us to leave, so, we're better go.. I'll finish some time later...

FIRST WEEK FLEW BY.

It's been a week and a day since we landed here. A week long impressions?. Desert-like hot (for instance today is about 41 degrees celcius, yesterday when I look at the thermometer in the car for the temperature outside at about 6 something Pm, it was 39 degrees. Note, all these numbers are for the temperature in the shade; out in the sun add 5~8 degrees more. At least it's dry here, so, it's livable. If it was as humid as in Thailand or other similar places, it would've been hell on earth. No kidding.), desert-like sunny, not a glimpse of clouds, my relatives met my expectations in being hospitable, helpful, and food-giving & "feeding" (here they would be feed us, of course).
We've moved into our apartment with our bags and nothing else on past Sunday. My mom gave us some mattresses and pillows, a bunch of unmatching curtains, and some kitchen utensils, my aunty gave us my grandmother's chairs from 60s and a low dining table, which my dad made years ago. The chairs look cool, we like them, so, we will keep them for our new apartment. We bought a small old Soviet fridge off the previous owners of the apartment, and they also left a couple of old furniture junk, which is still usable, as long as you don't move it, for the risk of it falling apart during movement. ^^ We hired 2 girls to clean the apartment before we moved in, when I saw them, I didn't think they'd do a good job, they did okay with windows but with the rest of it it was as I expected - SO-SO. Oh, well...
After getting done with all the paperwork we started looking for a crew to start renovation in our apartment. Through someone and someone of that someone we found a crew and they started renovation on June 10th. According to the plan, they should be done in 2 months. My super-cautious cousins and other relatives kindly told me to forget about the time-frame I was given and amount of money I was quoted for. "Think double of whatever time and money they told you, for your renovation"- said my cousin. Well, I don't want to. I will try to stick to whatever budget we have in mind. Of course plus-minus 10% maybe. Anyways, today we went into the apartment to look at the progress, and we saw a couple of walls gone, almost all windows frames laid outside, old doors taken out, the wallpaper and flooring ripped off. From tomorrow they will be needed a lot of cement, sand and other stuff, which will make our saving less and less day-by-day. Oh well, what wouldn't one do to live in a nice house. We're still deliberating whether we want good wooden floors or just linoleum, nice doors or re-use the old doors, and stuff like that. A lot of decision-making needs to be done... On top of that my hands (and my butt) are itching to do something to turn the renovation money drain into money-making machine. Here's the million dollar question, "What kind of business should we start?" Ideas are there, but the process of picking the one that will make us millionaires is painfully slow. There's a good chance of you benefiting from us becoming millionaires, so, pray for us, think with us... hahaha~~~
Today we've decided that we need suspended ceilings, because the ones that are there are very uneven. We also had a few classes of Russian and Uzbek language. Katy had Russian and Uzbek and I had Uzbek. I guess I did study it in school, because it sort comes back in a very slow and rudimentary way from the back of my brain.
We also have a little dog called Kuzya. My cousin's husband bought him in the market because he felt sorry for him and took him to the office, where he became a little nuisance. So, when we showed up, everyone wanted us to have this dog and rescue from whatever would've happened to him otherwise. He's a little bit bity at the moment. So we have to scold him and distract him with his toy all the time. Otherwise he's very cute and somewhat looks like Ivanka.
One of the frustrating things here is the internet. You can't find it readily available everywhere even in Tashkent. And also the speed is just what we call in Russian "a turtle speed". In order to get decent internet speed you need to pay helluva lot of money. I don't know... Maybe latter, when we have some income we'll do that. For the moment we use either free wireless internet in cafes or my cousin's office, or go to Hyundai distributor, who knows me and kindly lets us use internet there. Now, they have very good and fast internet. I wanted to upload some pictures here, but my guess is that it will take 2 days to upload one photo, sadly.

I'm also happy that a few of our friends have confirmed their coming to our wedding in September.

TRAVELS ENDED.. BUT THE BLOG WILL CONTINUE

After hectic Bangkok we arrived in Tashkent 3 days ago, on June 5^th. Opposite to my expectations the arrival and going through the passport control and getting our luggage out went very smooth. Neither of us had any delays or problems. In fact our luggage came out amongst the first bags, so we were out fairly quickly. But what an idiotic time of departure and arrival; we departed from Bangkok at half past 10 at night and arrived in Tashkent at 3:05. Maybe it’s because the Uzbek airlines is not prestigious and well known airline, so the time of departure allocated to it in the very busy Bangkok new airport was that weird time. By the time our luggage came out it was 4 something and by the time my cousin, brother and cousin’s son met us at the airport it was something past five in the morning. We came home, had tea, talked a little bit, and it was almost 6am before we went to sleep.

As I said last time, this time Bangkok was kind to us and we didn’t have major piss-offs with all sorts of idiots you can find anywhere. But on our way to the airport there was an incident, which frightened Katy and pissed me off. You see, the way Thai people drive is crazy. Despite the crazy traffic they manage to weave between the cars like a mongoose trying to kill a snake, and they do it at a speed of over 120 km/h. I admit it is very unsettling to watch especially in the front windshield, but you just get used to the idea that this is the way they drive. At least we’ve experienced it many times. So, we had this one Dutch guy, who turned out to be a real psycho, although understandably. He had some altercations with the local guys who were loading our bags into the car in the beginning saying nonsense I won’t you bother with here, and then I thought “oh, god.. who’s this guy? Looks normal and acts like a defensive ballerina”… whatever the last two words mean. Then as we drive to the airport on the highway and we drive very fast, all of a sudden he gets up from his seat leans over from behind us and slapping the driver on his shoulder as he is driving a freaking minivan full of us and our bags on the highway at 130~140 km/h. And then yelling starts from all over, driver in Thai telling something like f*** off to him, I’m sure, the Dutch guy yelling are you crazy? Go slowly.. you want to kill us, and us yelling at both the Dutch guy and a driver to calm down. It was good that the driver didn’t flinch much and didn’t turn the steering wheel as a knee jerk reaction one way or the other, otherwise you could’ve read a news about a minivan full of foreigners and a crazy Dutch man crushing off the elevated highway in Bangkok. Then the driver started calling someone and complain in Thai and the Dutch started complaining to us and generally asking if everyone was okay with that and so on. One Israeli guy calmly explained to him to relax and not to cause any more trouble than he already had. Anyways, this incident in a cramped little minivan frightened Katy, so, she couldn’t quite relax until we arrived at the airport.

Now that we’ve been here for 3 days, we actually didn’t waste our time and did a lot. We registered the car to our name, actually we rather got the sort of permission to drive, we registered Katy, applied for a driver’s license, got cell phones and have seen all major relatives. The only ones left are my grandparents who we will see later today.

Driving our car is so nice, because it is so nice.. haha~ It’s a little bit flashy here though.. so, we will sell it within a year probably and buy a smaller one.

I also thought what to do with my blog, since our travels have come to an end, but since it is so popular and I have a little base of the fans who read it, I decided I will keep it and update you on our life here in Uzbekistan. Hahaha~

It is very hot here by the way, about 40 celcius... It becomes hot already at 9am, so hot that you don’t want to do anything. And finally we can eat nice cherries and apricots and other fruits without making a big dent in our wallet.

LAST DAY: BANGKOK.. TRAVELS...

Today is the last day of our stay in Bangkok before we heading to Uzbekistan on 22:35 flight to Tashkent. The hours of departure and arrival are pain in the butt, because we arrive at 3am. Today would be also the last day of our travels. Looking back it doesn't seem such a long time. We practically started going around in Asia on March 16th, today is June 4th, so, it's less than 3 months really, but we feel like we've had enough, and DEFINITELY spent enough. All my budgeting for our travels for about US$50~$70 a day went out the window. It was absolutely impossible for us. And all this shopping for this past week in Bangkok.. woohoo... Money just melt here in this heat and going through your fingers. Anyways, aside from our financial reasons, we're just really sort of tired of moving around and just want to settle.
Well.. the message just popped up that I have less than 3 minutes left, so, I'll finish here.

See you in Tashkent~~ ^^

BANGKOK: REDISCOVERED....

Or... shall we say we're hoping we'd rediscover it this time. :) We got to Bangkok last Monday after a very nice and relaxing 7 days at Koh Chang island. Even though it rained almost every day, it didn't rain all day. It would pour for a couple of hours and then clear up and the sun would be out again, hot and scourching, the type that makes my skin look almost black and Katy's bronze... We feel that after shorter (time-wise) but no less interesting or challenging than we expected backpacking, or again the correct term in our case would be "trolley-packing", this very relaxing week in Koh Chang is a good closure. We expect that the next week we might well be in Uzbekistan in our apartment figuring out what should we do first among many many things that we have to do. We are very excited and anxious about going there, but believe that it will be all good.

So far, Bangkok is not as stressful as it was last time we were here. Although upon arrival one taxi driver approached Katy trying to get us into his car and of course rip us off, but after we declined he did this airy kiss to Katy while I was grabbing our bags from the bus. I wish she kicked in his puny balls and I'd have added a few punches to his ugly greasy face. But I wasn't there when it happened and Katy is too classy for kicking an imbesile in his "punies". Aside from that we're good. The accomodation, which our friend Janice recommended is very well decorated. It wouldn't have been our first choice because we don't really care about it, but it's nice for a change. It serves all organic food and has many rules for the guests in order to keep it clean and estheatically pleasing. For example you're not allowed to have any food in your room, except for plain water to keep roaches and rats away. But of course we've been naughty and we snuck in yogurts, cakes, breads, a can of tuna (which we brought from Koh Chang, because we didn't have time to eat it there), and even fresh carrots, which Katy bought thinking she'd snack on them but because it's freaking 33 degrees in the room the carrots went rotten in one day, so we threw them out today. Anyways, we took all the naughty garbage, which would indicate that we're violating the rules of the guesthouse, out with us and disposed of it outside in the bin. haha~

In order to not to deal with the tuk-tuks and shameless taxi drivers who don't want to go by the meter, but want to negotiate the inflated "tourist" price, we bought a map of Bangkok with the bus routes and are planning to go around the city by bus to save us nerves and money. Honestly, it makes a big difference if you don't have to deal with the tuk-tuk mafia. Bangkok actually can be enjoyable, although still hot and sticky. We don't have really much to do here except for just hanging out and maybe going on some trips around Bangkok. We also have this idea of visiting the BangKwang prison for men about which we read a book, and which is a terrible terrible place. Of course all prisons are, but this one in particularly. Apparently you can visit the inmates and just talk to them and give them some food or money. And there are many foreigners there, so, we're thinking maybe we will find some Kiwis or Russians or maybe even the Uzbeks. Who knows...

Now, in order of appearance:

1. Our view from the bungallow we stayed in Koh Chang.

2. Our bungallow

3. Beaches and sunset shots

4. The dogs seem to enjoy the sea view as well as humans.

5. Mangrove forest and a man packing his daily catch to sell at the market.
6. Oh.. well.. just us.. I thought we looked cute here... ha~

7. Some food that we ate for about 3 days in a row... BBQed stuff... very good.. The garlic bread was so good~

8. After about a couple of days in bungallow Katy discovered a poo on our mosquito net. It didn't look familiar to us, i.e., didn't look like a poo of a rat or roaches or some other animal. I did some looking and searching around and we found a perpetrator. It was a huge gekko that was hiding behind some of pillars in the ceiling next to the wall. Towards the end of our stay this beautiful blue with orange spot sonofabitch (you'll see in a moment why I call him that) got so comfortable with our presence that he chose to pee all over my clean thighs and my silk-sack right about when we were going to go to bed. It just felt like sudden sprinkle of stinky uriny water. I looked up and what do you think he was sitting there looking down with his beautiful big eyes... little blue SOB!!!

9. In the department store we went yesterday with Janice. Katy liked that shirt but it was too expensive to buy so we just took a spy foto to copy it later... ha~

10. Contrast of buildings: slum, modern and artsy (weird?) and traditional Chinese... all stuck to each other.

11. Speaks for itself. I also had a foto of a cat sleeping in another phone booth, but somehow it disappeared from here... hmm.~

BACK TO THAILAND...

After having spent 10 days in Cambodia we felt that we've seen enough of it and spent enough in it. Compared to the neighbouring countries, even rich Thailand, Cambodia is SO overpriced. One reason being that all prices are quoted in dollars, and the others... who knows... maybe because stupid tourists still pay those prices, so, why lower them?... And it seems that one dollar bill is the most used one. Everything is "ONE DOLLAR~ ONE DOLLAR~". Even beggars ask you not for pennies but "One dollar~ One dollar~".
Anyways, the Angkor Wat was amazing. On our last day of a 3-days ticket, closer to sunset we wanted to get up in the air on a hot-air baloon, but because the rainy season has already started, the weather didn't permit us to get on it. So, we went back to Angkor Wat just to see it for the last time, and as we were walking in, everyone was walking out because of the expected rain, which poured regularly once a day, very heavily for about 2 hours and then would stop. We didn't really worried because we had our rain-coats with us, and it was worth staying a bit longer, not too much. When it started pouring down like "from the bucket" (word-for-word translation of Russian expression ha~), the Angkor Wat looked very mysterious and overwhelming. The moat surrounding it was absolutely beautiful too. It is a pity that I cannot take pictures in rain, otherwise it would be excellent shots.
The way back was windy and rainy and wet. Despite our raincoats we almost got all wet. Of course, as anyone knowing us, I was almost dry and Katy was almost soaked with water. It's a mistery to me how she can do things like that. :)
As we expected once we got to our guest-house, the rain almost stopped. The next day after that we wanted to go to see floating village on Tonle Sap lake, but we spent too long time in the Internet cafe and were too lazy and it looked like it was going to rain again, which it did and a lot, and so, we just stayed inside all day and bought tickets for Thailand for the next day.
Road to Thailand was long and bumpy. Cambodia has the worst roads in the world, oh well, of all countries in the world that I've seen. Katy says they are as bad as in Uzbekistan, (which is a personal insult to me), but Uzbekistan has far better roads than Cambodia, come and see for yourself. (A bit defensive here, huh? ha~).
Anyways, the driver who picked us up said that because it rained a lot yesterday the road to Thailand is all muddy and it will take ages for us to get to the border that we might miss our connecting bus and then ferry, so, we hired a sedan to take the four of us (another American couple) in old Toyota Camry to the border for extra charge. It was quick, but useless because although we got very quickly to the border, we had to wait for other people at the border to go to Koh Chang (the island) who was on that bus that we didn't go on. So, we waited for 5 hours on the bench and then in the minibus. We could as well take the regular bus to the border and save $10. Well, who knew. From there, it was fairly quickly ride on nice and smooth Thai road network to Koh Chang Island.

Koh Chang island is freaking huge. We spent one night in a nice room with the fridge and A/C and hot shower and TV and Coffee and Tea pot, and motorbike included, BUT.. no beach. So, the next day we took the bike and went around looking for the beach-front bungallows. And we found one right on the beach about 5 meters from the water, but no hot shower, no A/C, no TV, no fridge.... Just a simple hut, but with the view and sea breeze and the wave noise. The waives sounded very nice the first day and now it's just constantly noisy. But, probably pleasantly noisy.
Anyways, because it is raining season, not many people here, and the weather is not cooperating, although the sea is very warm and you can still swim, if you're not afraid of quite strong waves. I swam yesterday and it was nice.
Thinking that these are our last few peaceful days before the chaotic and people-swarming months and years in Uzbekistan, we just take it easy and do nothing but read and sleep and eat. Maybe today we'll drive to the other side of the island and maybe will do a bit of trekking to see a couple of waterfalls.

KBAL SPEAN & BANTEY SREI

Motorcycles are the major mean of transport in this part of the world and are used for transporting everything from chickens to babies.

Children going home from school ride their bycicles dangerously close to the trucks, motorcycles and cars.

A path to the Kbal Spean was very picturesque as opposed to the road leading to it. The road was basically firm clay, which turns into mudy slush I reckon during the rainy season. It had so many holes and humps in it that every time our tuk-tuk went over one, we felt like we were being punched into our kidneys.

Kbal Spean - arguably the most fine carvings in the world. What makes these ones unusual as well is that they are carved into the river bank. At first we didn't even notice them because we were looking for them on the big rocks around the river.

Of course there was a waterfall down the stream and of course I couldn't resist getting in it. And please don't mind my underwear. At first water felt a bit cold but once you get in it it was very refreshing.

It was so hot when we came down from Kbal Spean, which is by they 1.4 km up the mountain, that even cows were looking for some shade sharing it with waiting tuk-tuk drivers.

Bantey Srei - is one of the oldest temples in Angkor Wat and was built by the Hindu teacher to the king. This temple also has very finely preserved carvings in Hindu style. If only I could appreciate it for its historical value and not its esthetics. Unfortunately, I'm not a history buff and not an artsy type of guy to appreciate in full its meaning.

A few photos of people around Bantey Srei: a girl running around, the girls in uniforms who are present at each temple, but whose exact purpose still eludes me. All they seem to do is chat, talk on the phone and laugh at some jokes. And an older monk and a grandma with her grand-daughter?.

The Khmer scarf left by someone. When they use it the proper way

wrapped around their heads entirely, it looks sort of "guerilla"-cool.