Donating blood and haemoglobin

Today Britt and I decided to donate some blood to a children's hospital.
Outside the hospital was a massive group of women and men with sick children waiting to be admitted into the hospital. They were sitting for hours in the sun hopping to get a chance to get medical care that day. Passing this group of people and following a hospital employee through the hospital we were slightly weary at first as we weren't sure about the hygiene standards. However when we walked in the staff were friendly and spoke extremely good English and the needles were new and fresh. Both of us filled out the forms and got our fingers pricked to get tested for blood group and haemoglobin. As we were waiting for the tests to be done the doctor chatted with us and calmed our nerves as none of us had ever given blood before. As it turns out both of us have the same blood type!
O positive, apparently this is the most common blood type. Always good to know. Then came the results for the haemoglobin. Britt passed and I didn't have enough haemoglobin. So I was not allowed to give blood as I am anaemic. At least one of us could help out a little and give blood to the children in need and I am now self medicating and taking iron pills.

Angkor Wat and football

Yesterday me and Britt decided to go for a tour in Angkor Wat. Before I started travelling I always thought that its was just one massive temple. However reading upon it and talking to other travellers, I came to realise its actually a gigantic temple complex with loads of temples. It's impossible to see all temples in one day!

We decided to start with the more famous and well known temples. They were absolutely amazing!

Our guesthouse here in Siam reap is great. It even has a small beach volleyball/ football field. In the evening me and Britt decided to play some football on this field. After a while we managed to get a group of guys to join us. It was so much fun getting to play around with a football. However as I have mentioned before I always have bad luck when doing sports on the beach or in sand. So of course I manage to sprain my toe quite badly and am now hopping around with one toe twice the size as it should be! Oh well, shit happens!

Why??!!??

Some men simply have no shame!

Siam Reap

It took means my friend Britt 16 hours by bus to get from Sihanoukville to Siam Reap. This was a hell journey. However the relief of getting of that bus is just amazing!

We ended up in a lovely hostel and found out later that a few friends of ours from Sihanoukville had also just arrived to the same hostel. We decided to take it easy today and explore the town for a bit and concentrate on visiting the Angkor Wat temples tomorrow. So far the plan is to do about 2 days of temple exploration and then head of to a floating village that's just outside town.

I have been following the Mekong river for some time now. I first saw it in Thailand, followed it down Laos and through Cambodia too. I have seen a noticeable change in the river. The closer the delta I get the larger the river gets. I have never seen a river this large before! It's amazing driving by or crossing the river. When I head to Vietnam, one thing i must do is to complete the journey of the Mekong river and go see the delta.

Happy New Year everybody!

It's not a big surprise that I am still in Sihanoukville in Cambodia. Me and the girls I'm with decided to use this time as a mini holiday in our travels. Also we are going to be splitting up in the beginning of January so we want to just be able to relax and have fun together before we head of to different places.

We are celebrating tonight by heading of to a casino and then going to a massive music festival which is being held in town. We have made some friends here and will be joining them tonight. It feels like its going to be a good party!

What are all your plans for tonight? Any fancy parties or nice relaxed dinner with friends? What has been your favourite way to celebrate New Year's Eve?

Merry Christmas

With us being a group of Scandinavians and British, we decided to celebrate both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Christmas Eve was a day of relaxing, eating and drinking. Unfortunately I have very bad luck when I do sports on the beach. Four months ago I broke my knuckle playing beach volleyball in Malaysia and yesterday I managed to hurt my foot playing beach football.
As we were celebrating Christmas the three of us girls went out to party. It was a great night. Especially since me and Gemma have been on a alcohol detox and have not had any alcoholic beverages for a month.

The Christmas spirit was all over. There was no lack of Santa dressed guys and girls and even more people, wearing Santa hats. I randomly bumped into a friend that I met 6 months ago when I was at the Gili islands in Indonesia! It was fun catching up and exchanging stories about where we had been and what we and done since we saw each other last.

On the way back home from our fun night, I managed to cut open my toe on a rock on the road. So now I have a weird limp as both my feet are hurt! I am so happy that I am at the beach now and don't need to walk to much so I can let both feet heal and get better.

Hopefully the rest of you are having a great Christmas with less injuries!

Merry Christmas! :)

Phnom Penh

I have had a great time in Phnom Penh. It's a large city with a lot of character. Most people are always smiling at you and even the tuktuk drivers don't hassle you after you have said no once.

Gemma and I spent a day learning about the Khmer Rouge regime. We visited a school which the Khmer Rouge turned into a prison and then the killing fields. These are located about 15km from the city and it is here they took the prisoners from the school/prison to execute them. For most of the day we were very down and thoughtful. I can't really say that it was a fun day, but it was very educational as I know nothing of what hat happened in Cambodia all those years ago.

Besides having a sad day visiting the places of tragedy, we have made a few new friends, been to the cinema and been rollerblading.

Now we have just arrived in Sihanoukville, which is a town in southern Cambodia. It's by the sea and this is where we have decided to spend Christmas and New Years. What could be better the the beach sun and friends.

Cambodia

After travelling for 13 hours I have made it to Cambodia. After waiting around for ages at the border and jumping between the border line to amuse ourselves we got on the bus and went all the way to Phnom Phem. So far I haven't seen much of Cambodia besides some rice fields and the passing of villages. I am surprised at how much the dollar means to them. Everything is priced with dollars and the locals are almost surprised when I ask to pay with riels which is the local currency.

I think this is going to be an interesting country to visit, there are so many places here that I want to see and can't wait to explore it all!