AARON & GEORGIE HAPPYTIME!

"It Takes Two" Aaron & Georgie featured in Hip Compass Escapades

Hello everybody, just a quick update to let you know that our super duper article featured in the online travel magazine HipCompass Escapades - “It takes two” is now available for your viewing pleasure. It’s a feature packed travel magazine with lots of useful info and interesting articles (especially mine!!!) so click the cover below to take a look-see... Thanks you beautiful people.

                        

        

10/07/09 Sihanoukville... Goodnight, God bless and safe journey home.

As you may or may not know we did eventually come to a decision about what we were going to do - either stay in Sihanoukville with all our mates and work on Koh Ru or go back to the UK... Well we are going home!

It was the sensibly choice really (not that we really do sensible) and a few things swayed it for us, if it hadn’t been such a quiet low season and we could have got more work then we would have probably stayed but as it is - there wasn’t and we’re not. So if your reading this from the UK then see you soon!!!

Armed with our decision we spent the last few days setting the homeward bound wheels in motion, flights needed to be changed and things needed to be planned. It was actually a day of mixed emotions, we are very attached to the people and places in Sihanoukville and after a week or more of thinking we were staying, suddenly going home was a hard thing to tell everyone there. But we then had the elation of being able to tell everyone back in England we will be home for the summer... Despite the sadness of leaving Sihanokville and all the amazing people there we knew instantly that we had made the right decision and put it away so we could carry on having fun with them all before we left.

With only a few days left we spent them wisely - top daytime priority was to get oily and horizontal on the beach so we could return to the UK golden brown - texture like sun. Sessions had another re-launch party, this time for the all new menu so that was a must and just like every other night at Sessions bar we all ended up completely pissed and having a large one. Oh and for the record the food was absolutely superb!

The next night was a slow starter and with no real plans we all sat about at Monkey Republic having a few jars. Jimbo (of Sessions fame) was working and that’s a man that likes it lively, so faced with a bar full of people half asleep he decided to have a cheese night, cheesy music that is. 1000 riel per song request and within half an hour shots were being lined up, people were dancing on the bar and we had already heard such cheesy classics as Meatloaf - Bat out of hell, Duran Duran - Rio and the theme tune to Cheers... 

The night ended with Georgie cuddling the bin next to the bed, trust Jimbo to be able to drag a party out of a half dead bar with only a handful of ex-pats in it... Top night!

That leads us to yesterday, or last day In Sinhanoukville for the foreseeable future. We spent most of it on the beach and it was a scorcher, not a cloud in the sky and the sun was beating as hard as we have ever seen. We had Otres beach almost to ourselves and the sea was warm, sparkling and crystal clear. A beautiful last day on a beautiful stretch of white sand... What more could you want. Georgie was a bit over keen and when we got back to Monkey in the late afternoon she started to feel as she put it “strange”. Nonetheless we had things to do and places to go, first stop was the pharmacy for all those things that require a prescription back in the UK but in Cambodia are easier to come by than a newspaper. Next up, return our moped (shitty little thing wasn’t a patch on the beast I had in Laos) and get started on the arduous task of packing, something told me we’d be in no fit state to do it by the time we went to bed. 

In fact I think it was the fact we were headed down Sessions again for dinner... Dinner turned into a few beers and then people started getting silly, mainly our friend Kate and Georgie, they gold of a bag of tinsel and bin bags and for some reason made me a bin-bag suit complete with a tail, wings and a tie... I think the idea came from a drunken conversation the two had had the previous night and for some reason I fell foul to it... But I will say this - I rocked that bin bag suit all the way back to Monkey, I looked damn good! If not a little like a rubbish covered Fred Flintstone.

We went back to Monkey for a few more beers and a few shots then Scott finished working and we all went back to Sessions where once again things got a bit messy... We staggered out around 2am, had a few teary goodbyes with lots of hugging and handshaking and then we were gone...

We will definitely go back and it will be for a longer period but it just wasn’t the right time this time round. 

Once again we have had the time of our lives in Sihanoukville and it’s all thanks to one of the best bunch of people we have ever met, they are all so warm and welcoming, friendly and fun and it was really hard to leave that all behind yet again, but we made a decision, the right decision and we can’t wait to get back to the UK to see everyone again and start planning our wedding... 

Our bus left this morning at 7:15am we managed four hours sleep, were still rather pissed and feeling very much worse for wear but trust me it was all fucking worth it!

If anyone in Sihanoukville is reading this then thanks again and thanks for everything we actually love you all with all we’ve got...

Thanks Lee

Thanks Scott

Thanks Duncan

Thanks Lucy

Thanks Grumpy Dave

Thanks Stuart

Thanks Clare

Thanks Kate

Thanks Eddie

Thanks Dave

Thanks Mr Thy

Thanks Tac and all the others at Monkey

And last but certainly not least thanks Jimbo, for me at least it was hardest of all to say goodbye to one of the soundest blokes I’ve ever met - top lad!!! MAD FER IT! 

Because there are just too many pictures of our last days in Sihanoukville I have slapped a slideshow up for your viewing pleasure... Enjoy.

Help get Gery to the Antarctic...

I've been keeping up with a few travel blogger friends and this morning I read a post from one of them asking for help to get him to the Antarctic... Now thats an amazing thing and Gary Arndt from www.everything-everywhere.com is a fitting fellow for the task, all you have to do is register at Quark expeditions and cast a vote his way visit Gery's page on the Quark Expedition contest site. You can read more about it on his blog HERE... 

Get involved people...

06/07/09 Sihanoukville or bust...

Life in Sihanoukville is going pretty good, we have been struggling with plans on what to do next and it’s been hanging over us for a while now but finally we have some stuff set in stone. The very very original plan from way back when was always to end up here in Sihanoukville and try to find some work... But of course that all changed all over the place. With all sorts of ideas flying around somehow we have managed to come full circle and ended where we planned to - in Sihanoukville looking for jobs, we have a sort of interview later today for both of us to manage a small Island resort an hour off the coast called Koh Ru on Bamboo Island, we have been there before and to be honest it’s a paradise. We are still at a bit of a crossroads as to what we actually want but if we get a job offer we can then make a proper decision... If we don’t, then its back to the UK with us. So thats the final plan of our whole trip - fifteen months and the end is very possibly in sight.

As for life in Sihanoukville we have been hob-nobbing with the ex-pats and travelers alike, Sessions bar had a re-launch party after a recent facelift and teamed with an afternoon of free beer it ended as most nights down at Sessions ends - in a big mess. I blame the free beer at 5:30pm, I mean what’s a man to do, all self control goes out the window when someone re-fills your glass and asks for no money! 7:00pm came around, by which point Grumpy Dave and I were well leathered (Georgie apparently has self control when it comes to beer) the free beer dried up and so did our interest. We popped back to Monkey Republic for some big food to soak it all up then headed down the beach to tackle the free BBQ and new shot bar at Sessions... Georgie had to put me to bed by 11:30pm, I had watched a rather large Russian sink six shots in a row and decided I would show him who was boss, bear in mind I had already had a few too many courtesy of Jimbo, Mike (Canadian friend) and Grumpy Dave but I got seven lined up and sank the lot... I’ve never drunk so much that I can’t remember anything the next day and let me tell you I’m not really a fan, apparently the shots were a cocktail of absinthe, tequila and whatever else was to hand and the next day I was rudely awoken by my very first proper hangover. I can’t even remember leaving Sessions but it’s OK because luckily Georgie filmed the whole walk home and everything for a giggle... She has since shown most people we know.

The hang over lasted a whole day and most of the next and the only time we really managed to get out of Monkey was for free beer time, this time though I exercised some self control in the name of self preservation!!!

Apart from that we’ve been busy on the job hunt and trying to get to the bottom of what we really want to do. We had a nice afternoon with all the ex-pats at a BBQ yesterday and I thought maybe after that we would be much more eager to land a job but I don’t think it worked, once we knew we going to head home we both started to get excited and now there is a possibility of a job we really don’t know what to do... We will wait to see if this fella wants to leave the running of his business in our hands and then decide but to be honest if not then we will go home happy as Larry to see friends and family again and happy in the knowledge that - we’ve seen amazing things, been to beautiful places, met the best bunch of people and blown a lot of money having the time of our lives...

July 2009 desktop wallpaper now up for grabs...

Get it while it's hot folks... DOWNLOAD THE JULY 2009 DESKTOP WALLPAPER now! right click on the beauty and "save target as"...

02/07/09 Toby and Lee leave us but some idiot gives away free beer!

With almost a week of Sihanoukville monkey business now behind us it feels like we never really left. The days following our glorious return were spent out on the very fine and well kept Independence beach, although it’s technically a private beach owned by a very flashy hotel we have never had to pay to use it and we never get any hassles there either.  

The nights however were a different story - beer fueled rampages, tower after tower of Anchor beer and for Toby a couple more nights sat around the blackjack table. Georgie and I left the casino to Toby and a few other people we have met and instead soaked up that Monkey Republic atmosphere we have been so very addicted to. 

Toby had to leave and head back to Bangkok early Tuesday morning so of course we had to have a real bender on Monday night to see him off proper, it’s a shame he had to go so early and we will miss having him tagging along but he has places he needs to go and if we were to back to Thailand again we would be broke... So we’re going to stay here in Sihanoukville for a while.

Sadly though Lee is off on a mammoth ten week holiday and last night was his last night with us, we started the day as usual... Coffee and recovery breakfast but by the time the afternoon came around we’d recovered just enough and caught wind of a local rival bar offering free beer (100% free no catch) between 5:30 - 7:00pm... I have only ever seen two free bars in my entire life but I have never had the chance to  take full and proper advantage of them... I felt if nothing, that I owed it to Toby to drink his share too, also it worked out perfectly with Lee’s leaving party which was arranged in town for 7:30.

Georgie took a little longer than usual getting ready and I sat at the bar talking to Grumpy Dave (the sausage king of Sihanoukville) working up a very unhealthy thirst.

Dave headed off to go and get started and I rushed Georgie along, by 6pm we were there and the beer began to flow. Bless them, I don’t think they anticipated the thirst of a bunch of tight arsed backpackers and expats to be anything like it was and with  everyone shouting at passers by “Oi you... Free beer” the place was soon rammed and I don’t think the tap stopped once until the first barrel was empty... Thats when things started to heat up because in the time it took to change the barrel everyone had finished off their beer and was demanding another - they had created a thirsty, beered up mob and the only thing to calm us was more beer. 7pm came around a lot sooner than any of us would have liked and with that a good slice of customers who had just been walking down the street to do laundry and stuff staggered off to finish whatever they were up to before we dragged them in. By 7:30 we had all finished up our freebies and it was time for us to get to Lee’s party.

Georgie, Grumpy Dave and I staggered down to a tuk tuk and rolled into the Khmer restaurant Cabbage Garden spot on time but thoroughly pissed. All the Monkey staff were there as was half of the Sihanoukville expat community, we kept the beer coming and ordered far too much grub but it was a cracking meal and it came in at only $6 a head... Somehow it didn’t seem fair - having drank and eaten our own weight in beer and excellent food but only forked out $12...

Back to Monkey for a few more drinks and last goodbyes to Lee which had Georgie welling up and then off to bed, as Grumpy Dave left he slid over to me and said “same time tomorrow boy” 

to which I replied “of course sir”...

The Top 10 budget guesthouse/bars in Southeast Asia...

Seeing as we are hanging about for a while we make grand plans I thought I may as well provide you the loyal and beautiful readers with a slice of quality content (not the usual tales of beer and beaches)... So here you have our Top 10 list of: 

THE BEST BUDGET GUESTHOUSE/BARS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA...

1) Monkey Republic - Sihanoukville, Cambodia

Hands down, the BEST budget guesthouse in southeast Asia.

2) Treehouse Lodge - Koh Chang, Thailand

My favourite beach bar in the world, rustic and atmospheric.

3) Pinocchio Guest House - Sapa, Vietnam

In Sapa the view is everything and Pinocchio is all about the view.

4) Sea View Resort - Koh Phangan, Thailand

The best huts actually on the Haad Rin sand.

5) Serenity Bungalows - Koh Phangan, Thailand

Simple bungalows with amazing views of Haad Rin.

6) Tie and Milly Sunflower Bar - Koh Phi Phi, Thailand

The prettiest beach bar in the world.

7) YaYa Resort - Railay, Thailand

Tree house like tower blocks with regular visits from local monkeys.

8) Komala Indah 2 - Kuta Bali, Indonesia

Great little bungalows in a lush garden just minutes from Kuta beach.

9) Okay Guest House - Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Clean and busy, a great hub for travel services.

10) The Grocers Inn - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

An oasis in KL’s vibrant Chinatown.

If you're planning on passing through one of these towns then we personally guarantee that if you stay at these places your life will be better, why not check out www.hotelscombined.com for more great options we often use it and it also comes with our recommendation... Enjoy beautiful people.

29/06/09 Back in Sihanoukville... Back in Monkey Republic... Back in the game.

With all the constant moving from place to place over the last week it’s a big relief to finally get back to a place where we can dwell for a week... Or two... Monkey Republic!

With the night at the casino behind us we sorted out tickets down to Sihanoukville for the same day, packed up and checked out. It was a scorching hot day in Phnom Penh, by far the hottest I’ve ever been in my life and of course the bus was running late... Huddled together in the shade pouring sweat from places we didn’t know we had - dreaming of getting back to the beach was all that kept me standing.

We had a nice bus, not VIP but plenty good enough and the six hours passed in no time. Excitement about seeing the Monkey bunch again set in as we started to make our way into Sihanoukville as did the feeling of being somewhere where everybody knows your name.

We were met at the bus station by one of the Monkeys named Stuart, he was handing out flyers to all the tourists. We had never met him the last time we were here but heard all about him and vise versa so he phoned ahead had saved us a couple of rooms, turned out to be a bloody good job because we somehow managed to pick the slowest tuk tuk driver in the world and every other tourist passed by and beat us to Monkey... Didn’t matter much though because we arrived and were met with a warm welcome from Big Chris and Jimbo (of Sessions Bar fame), Georgie went ape shit (excuse the pun) and the last of the rooms were in the bag... As is the policy - all newcomers get a free beer on arrival and as is my policy, everything else can wait if there is free drink bounding around. 

Georgie got straight on the phone to Duncan and Lee to announce our arrival and demand their attendance while Big Chris decided it was indeed a time for celebration and got us all a beer tower... Although not to attempt another beer tower challenge (last time we were record holders for quite some time). 

Lee and Duncan turned up and we kept the beer towers coming until the wee small hours, Jimbo danced like a loon behind the bar as usual and despite a few minor renovations everything was as we left it and we wouldn’t change that for the world!

It was so good to see everyone again and be back at Monkey but it’s a big shame all the others who were there last time weren’t again. New party picture boards are up all over the place and it’s good to see that we are plastered all over them, looking fancy in our costumes and Georgie in her rather amazing homemade jellyfish and flower outfit (pink and glitter party and seaside party). 

With the Monkey bar running dry and the staff wanting to get to bed so we left them to it and took Toby along the nearby casino, Fortuna casino - the cheapest casino we have ever been in and seeing as we  are a super tight budget it almost made actually going to it seem like a good idea... The fact I was having serious trouble standing and even seeing didn’t bode well but we took a single crisp $10 note, halved it and somehow with roller-coaster luck on roulette and blackjack managed to stay until 7:30am... Free beer, cigarettes and food kept coming promptly on demand and although something inside me felt super sleazy staggering out of a Cambodian casino at 7:30am pissed up to the eyeballs, something else felt damn good... Eight hours of food, beer and gambling for $5 each... That’s how we roll.

27/06/09 Bed bus to sardine bus, Vang Vieng-Vientiene-Pakse and then Cambodia.

With a couple of full days resting and recuperation behind us we decided it was time to move on from Vang Vieng. We wanted to get down to the south of Laos and then press on to Cambodia again, the plan was to kayak to Laos sleepy capital Vientiene and then sort the rest out from there so thats just what we did... Beats a bus ride any day! 

To be honest the actual amount of kayaking was minimal and the rest of the journey was done in a minivan but we had fun bobbing down river, over some easy rapids and a BBQ on the riverside. We arrived down in capital city in the early afternoon and bumped straight into some people we had been tubing with, I think we were all still feeling the bike trip because none of us could really be arsed to do any thing so we got a couple of beers and watched a movie in our room. We stayed in Vientiene for only one night, long enough to get plenty of Dollars changed up for any border shenanigans and a good massage. As we were checking out of our room Georgie had a shower and somehow managed to break the door lock, trapping herself in the bathroom - Toby and I tried to open it but to no avail so we had to call for some staff, two fellas went at the door with a screwdriver and hammer while Toby and I sat and watched and I think they thought it was their lucky day when a half naked Georgie emerged a good  twenty minutes later...

We had a bed bus booked to take us all the way to the south of Laos to a town called Pakse, thirteen hours but with fully flat beds - Georgie was literally thrilled by the idea and for once couldn’t wait to get on the bus.

Once again we bumped into a fellow tuber and apart from the bus staff trying to get Toby to spoon up and share a bed with a strange man (hilarious!) it went off without a hitch... Almost half of the entire country just passed by as we slept and we hardly noticed... A stark contrast to the journey we had been on just a few days earlier.

From Pakse to four thousand Islands was a short minibus and boat ride, apparently there are about four thousand Islands in that stretch of the Mekong, ranging in size and all dotted at the far south of Laos pressed against the Cambodian border. A very quiet and rural place dotted with a few simple bars and bungalows we planned to stay a couple of nights but after a short spot of exploration on a bycycle we turned up nothing... Despite it’s nice quiet, rural charm it was pretty boring so we decided to move on the next day. But not before we sampled the nightlife!

We met up with our tubing friend Emma and all went down to the hottest spot on the Island - the Reggae Bar, got some buckets and played some cards in the vain hope we warmed up our gamble muscles ready for the Cambodia casinos. We ended up having probably more than our fair share of Laos whiskey and on our way home in mid conversation Emma managed to stagger clean off the side of a small bridge and disappeared into a ditch, a guy happened to be walking past with a head-torch (the generators and  lights go off at around 10pm) and shed some light on Emma so we could pull her out and hit the hay.

7am alarm... Regret whiskey buckets, claw our shit together and stomp down to the boat. We wound in some strong coffees then hit the water. We had a nice minivan ride down to the Laos - Cambodia border and the formalities went pretty well, they tried to screw us out of a few Dollars each but I got tipped off by an honest official and we soon sorted that out... That’s where the fun started, two mini busses were sat waiting and one was already half full of people, nobody seemed to know what time they were leaving or even which one we were supposed to go in. The people already there had been there for two hours already and were getting a little irate but we knew better and just st in some shade until decisions were made. At first they attempted to put an extra seven people into an already over full buss but we made a stand and got Emma and Georgie to charm them into using both busses. A little hot and sweaty we were finally on the road and only two hours of waiting for what seemed like nothing.

That first leg was about three hours, to a town called Kratie. Our bus was full of a good bunch of people who were all up for a laugh so the time passed quickly but from Kratie to Phnom Penh was a different story... Six hours crammed into the bus with our bags inside too, and nobody actually had a whole seat to themselves - in a word... Grueling. I couldn’t help but wish we just had our own motorbike... But we didn’t and don’t my arse know it!!!

By the time we got to Phnom Penh all the people in the bus were intimate friends so we dragged them along to our favourite place to stay - The Okay guest house and then on to the nearby casino... A few of them had never been into a casino before or played roulette but the free beer flowed and in no time everyone was having a ball. Maybe because there was a big group of us guzzling beer like it was going out of fashion or maybe because we were all up but they stopped serving us beer, I called the floor manager over and politely said no beer - no play, he didn’t seem to particularly care so we cashed up and found a Cambodian night club along the river front to go and drink away our winnings... All $5 of them.

24/06/09 The long way Laos... Part three, Phou Khoun to Vang Vieng.

Seeing as we had to have our beautiful bikes back by 9am or pay for a whole extra day - and we still had about 90km to go it was an early start... 5:30am early to be exact! I didn’t manage a descent nights sleep and after I had woken the other it seemed like they hadn’t either, don’t know why though because although our rooms were “simple” the were very comfortable, maybe we were just over tired. As I staggered out of our room, down the hall to to the toilet I caught a peek of the sunrise out of a small grubby window and it was breathtaking - the hills rolled up and down all the way to the horizon and a heavy mist hung low, the sun coming up had turned the sky bright pink and the mist was just as brightly tainted by the beautiful morning sun.

We got ourselves together and got downstairs to our bikes, the lady who ran the guest house was up and making the first fire of the day to boil the kettle and get breakfast for all the truckers who had stopped over the night. We tried to get ourselves some hot coffee but the water was taking forever and as we all know a watched pot never boils. I rolled the bikes out into the street and checked my oil which was getting pretty low again and Georgie sorted some coffee (we were going nowhere until after some coffee). As soon as everyone and the bikes were topped up respectively we set off into the morning mist.

As we passed through town and along the winding roads they were all buzzing with activity as people went about their business before the sun got too hot. As usual the people we passed waved and smiled, so friendly and so welcoming. The roads were just as fun to drive as the day before and with the cool morning air our bike was running like a dream... Accelerate - change up - ease off - brake - change down - and accelerate... That was how it went for the next 15 km and as we swept around one bend that was completely whited out on one side it became clear that it wasn’t in fact morning mist but low lying clouds and they swept right across the road revealing sneaks of blue sky. 

We pulled over again at the amazing viewpoint rest stop that we stopped at on the way up but this time there was no view, it was just white everywhere, even inside the building because they aren’t finished building it yet and where there’s no glass the clouds blew threw as we finally knocked up some hot coffee’s.

Still looking at a good 70km to go we didn’t hang around, coffee down we carried on our way through the clouds. The roads were still lined with friendly people making there way to wherever it was they were going and as we slowly dropped down the hill we started to drop below the cloud and the landscape once again opened right up.

Sadly the ride back only seemed to take half as long and by 8 am we were out of the hills and down onto the flat straight roads again, we opened up the bikes and made some serious headway. We passed a couple of places where we stopped on the way through and they all waved and shouted of course but we didn’t stop again until we got to the little coffee shack on the river, there was a spit of rain in the air but now we were down from the hills things had warmed right up. We stripped off the extra layers had a smoke or two then made the final push back into Vang Vieng, Georgie was loving it from the second we got up but now she was desperate for a wee so we had to burn some rubber and get through  the last 15km in record time. We rolled into Vang Vieng at 8:50 and pulled up at our guest house where our bags were stowed in blazing sunshine. We unloaded all our crap and Georgie’s comfort modifications while she tented to her urgent loo call and then we had to return the bikes... Needless to say I really didn’t want to, it was my first real bike and my first real bike ride and what a ride it had been, hard at times and we were all exhausted but I’m hooked... The funny thing is Vang Vieng to Luang Probang is a road that just about every Laos tourist travels at some point except they’re on a bus, behind glass, reading books but we actually traveled it, we felt every mile and we felt every bump. The people we met and the places we stopped would never have been possible if we were on the bus and there is something about a bike that makes you feel connected to the environment and you have to work with the road not in spite of it... Laos is by far the most charming country we have been to, the people are so warm and welcoming and those few days have been some of the most interesting, fun, hard and enjoyable of my whole time away.