Singapore

Tuesday 18/11

Because it was 18th of November I put Latvia's flag ribbon around my arm, that's the least I could do.

Today was going to be the day when we explore Singapore. As we were far from the centre we had to take the public transport to get there. Sharon, our host, was super helpful and gave Pedro and me two spare transportation cards. We just needed to top them up when possible.
We left the place with Jose and David, and we spent the entire day with the two of them. I had met Jose when he was in Riga, and I knew for a fact that he loves to walk about a lot! So I mentally tried to  prepare myself for some walking. We took the bus to the metro, and then the metro to the other metro line, and then finally we got to Little India. Singapore is said to have one of the best public transportation, maybe that is so (but as they don't allow bicycles on board, I hesitate to agree). We walked and walked, took some pictures (while Jose took a lot of pictures). We got to see a lot as we walked pretty much the entire day. The highlight, of course, was Marina Bay Sands. I recall that I wanted to sit a lot as my legs were not used to so much walking. The city is, in fact, very lovely and organized. And compared to Phnom Penh where we had just spent the entire weekend, the city seemed to be like from another time. Also, the cost of everything was much higher, which for us took some time to get used to. As I'm looking at the differences, I'd like to note that most of the population here know English. And the streets are much cleaner than in Phnom Penh where one would actually need boots to pass through some of the trashed streets of the city.
In the evening we met up with our host and another guy, we were all chilling on a bridge in city centre. Apparently that's what youngsters do, because going out to bars and restaurants is much too expensive. So they buy some snacks and drinks in the store and enjoy the nice weather while sitting outside. Later on more and more couchsurfers showed up, I lost track of how many they were, but we were a big company. We left quite early (around 22:00), Sharon had to work the following morning. Portuguese brothers were going to spend the day still in Singapore and later take a night bus to Kuala Lumpur. And as for us, after some doubting whether to stay another day or not, we decided to head for Malaysia the next day. As we were entering the metro station, I realized that I had lost the metro ticket/card. This was silly of me, as the card was not mine, it had about 8 Singapore dollars since we topped them up, and now I needed to buy a new ticket to get back to Sharon's place. 
We finally got back, it was late, and soon we all headed to sleep. 

Flying Into The Future

Monday  17/11

Phnom Penh, it was finally the day to leave the city. Since we had spent a quite a long time there, we were more than willing to head away. We had our flight to Singapore at 15:30 from Phnom Penh's International Airport. As planned, we had hot dogs for breakfast, and Maria joined us even though she was about to leave for work. On Friday we had arranged at one of the bike shops that they would pack our bikes into bike boxes. It was very pricy, $30, but the guys at the bike shop did a good job, wrapped the frame with newspaper, and found boxes that could fit the bicycles. One of the guys then found a tuk tuk driver that agreed to take us to the airport. As expected, we had to bargain about the price, the driver first said 20 dollars(!) but we ended up paying 10.25. Our bike boxes could barely fit in the tuktuk, leaving very little space for us. The ride was quite long, and mostly went along the Russian Federation Street. When we arrived to the airport it was early and the check in for our flight had not even started yet. So we set our things on trolleys and sat down to wait. It was around two when they begun check in. We had purchased luggage space 25kg each, so total of 50, once we had the bikes placed there was still some weight left, so we also checked in my big black pannier, and took Pedro's panniers with us as hand luggage. The security line was quick and we got to our gate fast. Again, it's a small airport, so not too many flights or people around. At the waiting area we seized the time to have a meal, some nice warm chicken sandwiches. Those were also overpriced, just because it was an airport. We got to the plane, and after everyone was aboard the pilots took off into the cloudy sky.
The flight was roughly two hours long. We arrived in Singapore, there was zero problems at the immigration, both of us got stamps that we could stay 90 days in Singapore. We stopped after to assemble our bikes and then it was quite late, but we had to get to the city!
We had found a host in Singapore, Sharon. We were lucky that she was hosting two Portuguese brothers, Jose and David, who happened to be Pedro's Couch Surfing friends. So them two and the host did not mind if we surfed the same couch. The thing was that Sharon lives close to the border to Malaysia, which is pretty far from the airport, so now we had to figure out how to get there. To our surprise, the city is extremely bicycle unfriendly, there is no bikes allowed on the metro or buses, and a regular taxi would not only not fit the bikes, but it would cost a fortune. We were advised to hire a special big taxi that had a fixed rate of 60 Singapore dollars! Very expensive, but it was really to only real option, as cycling would take ages, and there were only highways, and it was dark already. We managed to fit the bikes in the big taxi. The ride was long, about 40 minutes, but the driver took us to the right address, so we knew we wouldn't have to wonder about searching. We soon found the right apartment, and we were glad our host was home and awake. Soon Jose and David arrived, we were charting a bit about our trips, and what to see the following day, but then it was time to sleep.

Phnom Penh Weekend

Saturday 15/11

Wow, time sure passes quickly. We begun our trip two weeks before this Saturday, can't believe that two weeks have already passed. But luckily this holiday of ours will keep on going for a while longer! :)
On Saturday we seized the time to sleep in and rest well. When we finally woke up it was close to check-out time. Since we had no replies on CS we asked if we could stay another night, and it was no problem. So we slept in a bit more and in the afternoon we realized that we are getting really hungry! :D
So we finally got out of the hotel took our bikes and went out to the city. We cycled a bit around, then cycled a bit along the river. The water was not very clean, but the riverside was pleasant. Later on we stopped at a place called Variety, the restaurant had a lot of seating places, and many waiters were sitting about. We got off our bikes, 'parked' them, and sat right by. We assumed that one of the bored out waiters or waitresses will bring us some menus, or at least tell us what they have that we could order. But as it turned out, none of them spoke English, yes, out of about 10 people, none spoke any English at all. They ended up calling another girl from the kitchen, I assumed, as she didn't have the same T-shirt as the rest of them. We told her that we wanted to eat something (which should have been obvious). She asked one of the waiters to bring a menu, she apologized that it is not in English, but it had some pictures and she stayed around so we could asked her what was what. We ended up ordering some stake and vegetables for the two of us to share. While waiting for the food, all the waiters and waitresses where stating at as. Also, while we waited we were thinking what to do later on. We decided to go see a movie - Before I Go To Sleep. It would start only at 22:10, so we still had plenty of time. We had our meal, the stake arrived and it was much too rare for us. So we asked for it to be cooked a bit more. After the meal we decided to head back to our hotel to rest a bit and blog a bit. Then it was time to go back to the movie cinema. We decided to walk there, the air was nice, not too hot, and the distance was about 2km, so less than 30 minutes to walk. Cycling did seem as an option, but we decided it would not be safe to leave bikes outside while we watch the movie. We were maybe half way there while crossing a smaller street a scooter passed right behind us. It seemed to be very close, but nothing unusual..until I felt that the back person on that scooter had grabbed the strap of my bag and was pulling it as the scooter kept going. I was pulled sideways as the bag was across from one shoulder to the other side. Luckily the man let go fairly soon after realizing that he could not get it. Was also lucky that he didn't have a knife to cut the strap. Would've been a big loss for me as my wallet and passport were in the bag. After all it also contained tickets for the movie, so the trip to the cinema also would be a waste. We kept on walking and only then we realized that we were pretty much the only people who were going by foot in the streets. We were glad to arrive to the cinema. The movie was nice, I liked it, as it was a mystery. But Pedro found it a bit too scary. :D
After the movie we decided to save yourselves from the streets of Phnom Penh and took a tuktuk back to our hotel. It was late and time to head to sleep. 

 

Sunday 16/11

As we had had a late evening, and not many plans for the day, we were sleeping in again! When we finally woke up Pedro was checking his email where he had a response on Couch Surfing that a girl called Maria was willing to host us! Oh the joy!!! At around 11 o'clock we called out potential host to ask if she is still OK to host us for the night, and she said that she could! We agreed to meet up at 13:00 near the Russian market. So we packed our things, went for a quick lunch (breakfast, really) and the cycled our way to the meeting point. There we greeted Maria with hugs, and with all three of us on bicycles she showed us the way to her place. It was a few narrow stairs to go up, and then we arrived to her cosy place. She said she had moved in there just about a week ago. Her flatmates, a French couple, had been gone for the weekend. We sat down and had a great chat with our host. Maria is originally from Argentina, but had lived in Australia for quite a time, and in Cambodia for a bit less than a year now. She also just returned from a holiday in Indonesia.
Later on we went to the market, there we got some nice pants for Marta, and two t-shirts. We managed to bargain with the seller. He firsts said that the pants alone would cost 5 dollars. Of course, I did not agree, but in the end we paid 6 dollars for the pants plus two shirts. We then met up with our host, she had not been feeling too well, so we decided to make her and us some dinner. We were super happy for the opportunity to cook, and she could rest a bit. We cycled to the supermarket where while shopping for groceries we decided to make some pasta salad, and for breakfast we got some buns and sausages to make hot dogs.
The dinner turned out to be OK, we mixed a lot of ingredients, and covered the dishes with a nice salad dressing.
We stayed on the balcony eating and talking about all sorts of things! It was very nice to stay with a couch surfer after having spent a lot of nights in hotels and guesthouses. Night came, we all were tired and it was time to sleep! 

Honk, Honk, Honk, Beep, Beep, Beep...

Friday  14/11

Friday arrived! The day people are usually extremely excited about. However, since we're on a holiday, for us it makes very little difference - every day is exciting! Today we were going to arrive to Cambodia's capital city Phnom Penh. The distance left was only about 50 km, which was half of what we had cycled the day before. Therefore the plan was to get to the city before we stop for a break.
There was only one BUT, we had no idea where we would be staying until our flight that is only on Monday.
The way was straight forward, and more and more signs indicated that we truly will be arriving to Phnom Penh shortly. But that's not the only thing that was more and more, the traffic! Scooters, cars, pickups, trucks, ... seemed to appear out of thin air. There was noise everywhere. By now we were used to them all honking like crazy, but this was a whole new level. There was also some road construction work going on in some fragments of the national road nr.5, so this made the traffic even more hectic. But being cyclists we had some what an advantage since like scooters we could pass cars and trucks that were stuck. Good for us.
We had not yet arrived to the city centre area when Pedro saw a restaurant that had WiFi. So we decided to stop there and see what our plan for the rest of the day will be. We ended up spending a lot of time there. Pedro was eagerly searching for a Couch Surfing host for us for the current city. And I sent some requests for Singapore. During our stay at this place we had some drinks and a meal. We did some blogging and facebooking.
At this restaurant they had two TVs. Each was showing something else. But on one of them they played their own DVDs which where either strange Cambodian action movies or Cambodian karaoke.
We had spent literally hours at this place, so finally we searched online for a hotel where we could stay as there were no positive responses on Couch Surfing. We found one with a pool, online the price was 20$ per night. We thought about booking it, but since it required card details, we thoughts it's better to wait till we get there.
Then Pedro also found online a bike shop that we could go to for some tips. So off we went to this shop. We found it easily. There Pedro asked if they had bike boxes; we'll be needing them for the flight. They said that with them disassembling them and putting them into the boxes it would be 9USD each. They also offered us their own transportation. The guy at the shop said that it would total cost us close to 50USD. They'd pack our bikes and bring us to the airport. It seems a lot, but it's pretty much a hustle free option.
After the chat at the bike shop we wondered through the traffic to the hotel we had picked out for us. We asked the receptionist what the price was for one night, he said it's 15$. Great! So we took a room for us, at firsts just one night. We were allowed to bring the bikes inside the hotel and we locked them together not far from the reception. Seemed safe enough!
It was nice to settle into our room. It's quite small, has a desk and a bed in the room, and a small space to turn around. And there is also a toilet/shower. All together not so bad. Of course there is dust in many places, and the corners have clearly not been cleaned in a while. But it has air conditioner so we can stay cool! :D
Once we had our showers and rest time we went out to the city for dinner. The city, or at least the area where we're staying seems quite vibrant. There are many bars, cafes and restaurants around here. Always buzzing with peoples' chatters. We ended up looking like typical tourists because for the meal we had burgers with fries. But I really had a desire to have a juicy sandwich of some sort. And we also tried some Cambodian beer, which turned out to be nothing very special. Then we headed for the hotel and went to sleep!

They See Us Rollin'

Wednesday 12/11

We woke up early, as planned, and as usual. Again, we wanted to start cycling early so that we could do a good distance before the sun was too hot. Surprisingly it was not so hard. Guess it was because we had gone to bed early and had had a good rest. We got out of the guesthouse and went across the street where there was a market and there we purchased some snacks for breakfast. We had several different kinds of sweeties and salty things, most of which we could not figure what they were. The best one for both of us was the banana fritter. Yumm!

Pedro and Marta picking what's for breakfast.

After breakfast we kept on cycling and Pedro stopped at the barber's place and said that he was ready to get his hair cut! He seemed very excited. :) The barber cut his hair and gave him a good shave, all for one dollar! Pedro was happy and very pleased with the result.

Pedro at the barber's.

It was then time to keep on rolling.. Until Marta got a flat tire! Yes, I had cycled over some tiny needle like object that happened to puncture through the tire and make a hole in the inner tube. Good though that Pedro had taken with him from Portugal a repair kit. He fixed the inner tube and found that little object that had caused the problem! Saved the day! Thank you Pedro!!! ;) 

The flat tire time.

We then continued to cycle till a town called Pursat where we stopped for the market. There Pedro went to get some bread and muffins for lunch.

Market in Pursat.

Once that was done we cycled a bit more until we found a decent place where we could hang the hammocks for the break of the day. It was further off the road near some houses, there were some perfectly aligned trees waiting for us.

Though at one point my hammock was invaded by the sun and I was forced to move to another place, then Pedro did the same.
After the rest we continued to cycle a bit more, not too long though, it had been an eventful day and we both were tired. We stopped in a town in a guest house called Paris. There we stayed for a while to blog. Once we had rested a bit we were ready for dinner. Next door to the hotel was a nice 'restaurant' where we asked for some rice with some meat. The man got us big dishes of very nice fried rice mixed with some greens and meant. The taste was awesome! One of the best dinners so far. And the price was only 2$ per plate.
After dinner we went to a market where most sellers were packing everything away. But we managed to buy some very tasty cookies for breakfast. We also got some strange green snacks.
Then it was late already and time to go to sleep, after all we had to wake up early again!

Thursday 13/11

As usual the alarm went off at five o'clock in the morning. We had gone to bed quite late, so it was much harder to get up! We had WiFi there so that made the morning even longer. For breakfast we had the cookies we had purchased previous day. We left the hotel much too late, at close to seven o'clock. The sun was long up and heating the streets we were about to roam. I was very dissatisfied with the late start, because for me it is very hard to take the heat. So the say started off with me being Miss Grumpy. We cycled in the sun and I wanted to stop way too often and could not cycle fast at all! Finally it was time to rest! Pedro found an amazing place for us to hang the hammocks. It was under a house (as many houses here are built on tall 'legs' to avoid flooding). What's the best part is that the house was in the lake Tonle Sap. The view was beautiful!

Peter Lamb tying hammocks.

Marta resting.

We stayed there swinging above the water for the whole resting time. A few times some kids came by to go swimming. The place is not really suitable for that, but they still seemed to have a lot of fun. Some of them wanted to come and chat with us, but unfortunately the language barrier exists. So it was smiling and saying: "Hello!"
During the rest time I also tried the green strange snacks we had gotten yesterday. The texture was like it was play dough, the smell was sweet. But the taste was not good at all!

After the nice rest on the breezy lake it was time to keep rolling! We got back to the road and kept going. Soon I got really hungry since all we had had was cookies all day, so we stopped in a place where I could eat. It was rice with green beans and meat. Pedro claimed that he was not hungry. Again, it was time to roll. The more we cycled the easier it was for me because the sun was slowly setting. The air got lighter and soon there was no need for sunglasses. And soon we had to use some lights to see the road. Pedro gave me his headlamp so I could see the way. Then Pedro got hungry, so we stopped again, so he could eat. In that place there were some cute kittens that were a bit frightened, but wanted to cuddle. And AGAIN it was time to keep going, at some points we stopped to ask people where was the closest place to sleep, and they just indicated that it's very far. So we kept going and going and going. Finally we reached a town called Sala Phlov Veay where Pedro quickly spotted a guesthouse! The price for it was 5$. She gave us a room that had not been cleaned. But it would actually make no difference as evey hotel and guesthouse we had stayed so far had always been poorly cleaned. She was nice enough to give us clean towels and blankets. But later on I found out that the shower was broken, so I ended up washing under the tap. Pedro went in the shower a bit later and claimed that he was able to fix it. Oh well! It was time to sleep as the next day we were going to arrive to Phnom Penh.

Pedro & Marta on the road.

Let's Swing Baby

Tuesday 11/11

Tuesday morning. The sun was not up yet, but we were. We woke up at 5:00 and went down to the bicycles within half an hour. When we went downstairs, the two receptionists were asleep on benches. And outside the guard was sleeping in a hammock right next to our bikes. At least he woke up the moment we approached the bikes. This all seemed very unsafe that there was total three of them and all sleeping. But it's their choice!
We set our bikes ready and off we went. But not for long, soon we stopped at a place for breakfast. They had just opened for the day. They said that they don't have any breakfast food. So we asked for some scrambled eggs with meat, and they also added some rice to the dish. It turned out to be a grand breakfast! We seized the internet for a bit and then we were ready to cycle.

Our grand breakfast!

The hot morning sun came, but not for long, soon clouds appeared and it started to rain! I was very happy, not only the crazy heat was gone, but it was raining! I love rain!! Needless to say, we kept cycling in the rain. Some woman that was passing by on a scooter was indicating to her back. I asked Pedro if my back was just wet or wet and dirty, and dirty it was! But I was not bothered much. :D
It was soon coming to break time and Mr Peter Lamb had an idea to buy hammocks that we could rest in during breaks. I was very sceptical about thus idea, because finding a place for hammock is hard, and would be even harder for two. We turned into a temple and there Pedro found a nice tree where we were able to hang the hammocks. It was brilliant!!!
At the temple area there was also a school for monks. One of the young fellas thought us how to tie knots for the hammocks so we would not fall, and also so we could easily untie them when needed. 

Peter Lamb resting.

We rested for a very long time, had some snacks to eat and blogged some bit. While sleeping a big bug landed on Pedro's neck. He threw it to the ground. It looked like two leaves stuck together. Very strange creature. 

The strange insect.

At one point a few kids showed up, they sat on benches that were right next to us and just stared at us like we were animals in a zoo. The feeling was very unpleasant. Actually the staring follows us everywhere we go! I think after this one would be ready for a reality TV show where filming goes on 24/7.

When it was about three o'clock in the afternoon it was time to keep rolling, we both knew that it would get dark before six. And so it did. We were in a town Boeng Khnar and asked people where is a guesthouse or a hotel where we could rest in, but again most people did not understand or did not know.
Then Pedro asked some kid if he knew where we could sleep, and the kid pointed back towards where we came from, Pedro kindly asked if he could show us, and the kid gladly did. It was less than 100 meters back. Lucky us they even had a room for us! The price was 6.50$. We took the bikes inside the room, so we did not have to worry about their safety. We then went to the next doors 'restaurant' for some dinner. And then it was bed time!

Marta and Pedro. :)

On a Bus to Battambang

Monday  10/11

Finally a day we could sleep in. Very strange for a Monday morning! But heck it was nice!
However, Pedro was upset because he had some issues with his Garmin GPS cyclo computer. Since we had wifi we tried our best to find the solution online. With some button pressing we at least got it to turn on. Apparently there were some corrupt files. And we're still not able to access some of the day info. But the device is working now, and Pedro's happy. :D
After the technology problems we still had an hour to go up to the swimming pool and have some breakfast. But then noon came and it was time to checkout from the hotel.
We then cycled to the ticket office we were at yesterday. They still had seats for the last bus that goes to Battambang at 13:30. The price, luckily, had not changed over night. Which could easily happen. We asked where the bus station was, but the five people working there could not tell us. The truth is, we had a map the previous day, and one of the guys showed us where the bus station is, but today the map had magically disappeared. I was also very surprised that so many people where working at this one place. Customers didn't come so often, and most of the time they were doing their own things. 

Anyway, I asked the guy if he could tell me the password for internet, then I could load the map and find the station. So we did that. But finally Pedro decided that we'll wait for a car they provide for other people going from ticket office to the bus station, and follow it. This turned out to be a success. 

Now when we were there, we just needed to still buy tickets for the bicycles. Pedro took of the front wheels from the bikes and placed them in the baggage section of the bus. While I got on the bus he went to buy some water and snacks to munch on on the way. The ride was long, about four hours, odd considering the distance was roughly 150 km. The time was ten minutes passed the departure time when the bus finally left the station. It stopped in some other places still in the city. The bus was like any usual one, and it had good air conditioning. Everyone aside from us was sitting in long sleeves, some even in sweaters indicating with their body language that it's very cold for them.
We seized the time to chat and to blog a bit. 

Soon enough the bus arrived to it's final destination for this trip, Battambang. When it arrived in the station there were several tuktuk drivers waiving their prepared signs outside our window. They were offering a ride, a hotel, or both. When we went out of the bus, they literally attacked us with their services, trying to make us choose them. To have the right image, imagine a group of fans trying to get close to a famous musician that's getting out of his/her ride. I had to push to get through them. But then they got to see that we're with bicycles and one by one they disappeared. Now we had to find the guesthouse we booked earlier that day. At first we did not worry so much, because how hard could it be to find a guesthouse. We cycled about asking people if they knew the place, the street or at least which direction to go for that area of the town - nobody knew. One girl though said to go straight on the road we were on. We stopped at a pizza place, which supposedly had wifi, but turned out it was not working. But at least we had a dinner. The sun had gone down by now. We were glad that the girl serving us food spoke English and was able to tell us which way to go. Once we arrived to the correct area, a man on a scooter said that he would lead the way for us. But sadly this was the wrong place. We asked some young guy, he called out his friend to assist. Then we went inside a driveway where we thought the guesthouse could be. But it turned out to be some martial arts school, the teacher there was nice to call the guesthouse to ask them how to find them. The young lad then said that he knew the way and that he would show us, but again it turned out to be the wrong one. We cycled some more metres, then asked a street food seller if he knew where the place was. The young boy listens to instructions and lead the way again. BUT again this was not the right place. By now we were tired and upset! We know they all tried to help, but in the end we were nowhere. At the last hotel we were lead to we asked for wifi password so we could find the directions to our guesthouse. Turned out it was not far, in fact very close to the street food seller who directed us to the wrong direction.
We finally got to the place and the receptionist said that the place is full! How is this possible if we booked a room online??? We were now more upset!
The guy made some calls and finally said to follow him where we would have a place to stay. It was a hotel almost just across the street. And he also arranged for the price to be the same as on our reservation, so we stayed at a 12$ hotel for 6$. Ufff what a day it had been! We were glad to get to bed!!