Phnom Penh (last stop in Cambodia)

From Siem Reap we took a bus to Phnom Penh and on the bus we watched 2 movies. One of them was The Expendables 3 with terrible English subtitles. It is as if they had translated the original subtitles to Cambodian and then translated it back to English with Google Translate. (E.g. The subtitles wrote "my friend" while they said "buddy" in the movie) the other one was a bollywood movie. The name of the movie was Magaheera (in English it is Great Warrior). The movie was surprisingly good even though the beginning was out of context. In Phnom Penh we visited Tuol Sleng museum which is a museum in what was previously a prison during the Khmer Rouge (1970-1975). Before that the buildings were a school. Of the 20000 prisoners (often innocent people accused of being CIA og KGB) only 7 survived. Else we have seen the independence monument and a free movie in a café. Linda had one night out and met Americans, Norwegians and Germans.

Siem Reap - Cambodia

Finally, we have been to Angkor Wat 7 km  north of Siem Reap. The building is the largest religious building in the world. We got there early in the morning (5:30 AM) before sunrise and saw the sun emerge from behind the temple but it was cloudy so we did not see that much sun. Afterwards we spent some hours in each temple in the area and spent a great deal of time bicycling to the next temple. Most of the temples smelled really bad inside. We think it is because of the bats and monkeys that live in and near the temples. We loved the monkeys. It was so epic when a monkey came sliding down a pillar half a meter beside us. In total we have bicycled 40 km that day. Siem Reap offered more than just Angkor Wat. There were cozy café/restaurant/bars and of course it had a night market like so many of the other cities. Because we rented bicycles we could see much more of the city such as long distances near the river and we were less disturbed by the the endless amount of tuktuk drivers. We visited workshops which made traditional Khmer handcraft such as woodcarving, silk painting and stone carving. We had some time for wellness so Linda got to try fish spa/massage. It tickled a lot in the first 10 minutes but then afterwards it just felt really good in a weird way. But Linda's feet did not feel like a baby's butt as promised. We have now tasted "fried icecream" but it wasn't fried, just freshly made on a cooling pan. It was really cool to see the progress which turned a liquid so icecream. Also passion fruit is a really great favour for icecream!

Been there Don Det

Then we went to a place in the Mekong river called 4000 islands (Si Phan Don). The area consists of a lot of small islands, hence it's name. We went to the island called Don Det. The island it self was nothing special, but the view from the island over Mekong river was something one could watch for hours.  During the days we were there we swam in the river, relaxed with cold fruit shakes, and just explored the small piece of land. One of the days we walked the island round.. It only took like an hour or so. A lot of people on the island rented out tubes for bathing in the river and of course we had to rent one and drift around in the water. Linda was out on a one day trip on kayak to the waterfalls and to see dolphins near the Cambodian border. There were many cozy restaurants and bars on Don Det and one of our (ok mostly Linda) favourites was showing Friends every day. Else we loved our hostel and the volleyball matches on tv with our host cheering for Thailand.

Vientiane

Vientiane is the capital of Laos but the city still seemed so small because we could bicycle to most of the places we wanted to visit. We lived literally beside a temple and 100 meters from the famous night market with the characteristic red tents. We found a shopping mall (the only shopping mall in Laos with air-con according to some website) the mall was in fact only 2 floors of which one of them only sold gold and jewellery (not sure if it was real gold). We asked for the price of a silver necklace and was told it costed over 1000$. The night market was much better and we could find cheap meals. We also rented a bicycle one of the days and visited a park, saw the Lao victory gate built like the French one, and a temple with more than 6000 thousand Buddha images. (We couldn't find that many). We also visited the national museum which gave us a overview of Laos' history in general.

Thailand last stop - Chiang Mai

First, to avoid confusion, we'd like to point out that both Linda and Adrian writes this blog, and that it is a product of their shared thoughts.
When we landed in Chiang Mai International Airport we chose to walk the  6,3 km to the hotel. Partly because we didn't want to pay for an overpriced taxi and partly to see the city. There was a lot more space in the city compared to the compact Bangkok, and that was a huge contribution to why we really liked it. The city had multiple shopping malls and around almost every corner there was a new temple (The place was crawling with cool temples). And we kept being impressed by the awesome mythical animals guarding them. The inner city was pretty cool too. It was surrounded by what was most likely once a city wall and a city moat around that. So the inner city is inside this rectangular area of has-been city wall, and what we assume to be the city moat is now just cozy fountains with lots of fishes (and rats). The city also had a card game shop, which I (Adrian) of course had to visit. We went zip lining one of the days and got some adrenaline kicks. Our resort was great, but expensive
They had a swimming pool and a great breakfast buffet (though the fruit could have been fresher.) And we found soy milk with deep fried twisted doughs ticks (yóutiáo) and a lot of other kinds of street food. Finally we got to taste the famous Thai dessert, mango with sticky rice. The dish also came with coconut milk and.something yellow and crispy. All in all Chiang Mai was a great experience, and a very nice city.

Luang Prabang (welcome to Laos)

From Chiang Mai we got picked up by a minivan with two other Danish girls and driven to Chiang Khong which is a city near the Thai-Lao border. The Danes in our group (every body exept me, Linda) had some troubles at the Thai border because our trip which was planned by Jysk Rejsebureau made us stay 32 days in Thailand in total and the Danes could only get 30 days in Thailand without a visa. Therefore they had to spend a lot of time on the paperwork because they had to pay an overstaying fee. That also meant that we afraid that the slow boat from the Lao border to Luang Prabang might leave without us. Luckily it didn't and we all got visa on arrival in Laos without any problems. The slow boat had passengers from all over the world and some of them where very noisy and smoked while others were kind and played cards with us. We spent 2 days sailing with a night in Pakbeng. In Luang Prabang our programme was to visit a local weaving and dyeing workshop in which we learned about how to make silk, dye silk, and weave. We also dyed our own silkyarn and scarf. The next two days we actually were in the mountains near Luang Prabang on a trekking trip to a village without electricity or water supplies. The trek up and down the mountain was physically exhausting but the view on the trek was amazing. We saw burnt areas, farmlands on the mountain side and of course the forest. When we came back everybody were tired but that did not stop us from visiting the beautiful Kuangsy Waterfall 35 km from Luang Prabang. Oh and Laos is genrally a bit more expensive than Thailand which we didn't expect. The food is definitely better!

Koh Samui

We have had some cozy days on the island Koh Samui. It is a big island (diameter = 10 km ...ca.) so we stayed near Chaweng beach at the eastern part of the island. The beach there had nice sand but as Patong beach there were many waves which made the water more difficult to be in. The days were almost like eat beach sleep repeat but we also went around and talked with the other backpackers. Many rounds of 500 (a card game) were played and sometimes we got a bit too emotional when ending the round with negative points AGAIN! The island had many stands which offered fruit, fruit shakes, roti (local crispy and greasy pancake) and crepes. Yeah we had a hard time trying not to be tempted by yet another pancake. Some evenings we hang out somewhere with drinks and music and one night we went to see a "free" ladyboy show but it turned out otherwise. The entrance fee was 0 baht as told but every guest had to buy at least one drink for 410 baht. Then we decided to leave also because I wasn't sure that I actually wanted to see those ladyboys.