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We hired a taxi driver today to take us to the three main things we wanted to see in Phnom Penh - the Killing Fields, the Genocide Museum, and the Shooting Range.

The first stop was the Killing Fields. Just to be brief.. basically, only 30 years ago, over a million innocent people in Cambodia were killed for no reason. They were killed by other Cambodians. It was like a Holocaust and I never knew about any of this until we were planning for our trip. Everything I learned was just really, really sad. The killing fields is where many of the victims were taken to be tortured and killed.
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We arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia today. Well what can I say, besides it sucks here. LOL. Sorry but it’s true. This is the type of place (unlike Thailand) where you come to see what there is to see, and you never come back.

Phnom Penh is a large, busy city. Very crowded, and tons of traffic. Additionally, the city is filled with beggars, tons of litter, stray cows eating garbage on the outskirts of the city, and other signs of poverty. Needless to say, we won’t be out after dark.  Almost every sign is in their language as well, and there are no recongizable places. Luckily, we discover there is a KFC across the street from our hotel. Horray!

Today we arrived back in Bangkok. We are back here because it is our gateway to Cambodia. By now, I am almost fully recovered with the exception that I still did not have much energy or an appetite, but otherwise, I was good.

We got to Bangkok fairly late in the day, so there really wasn’t much time to do anything. We went to Siam Paragon again (the awesome mall) and did some shopping. Then for dinner, we found a Tony Roma’s! Yay! It tasted just like a USA Tony Roma’s, so it was good.

On our first full day in Koh Phangan, I woke up with that tingly feeling in my throat. You know, the one you get when a cold or something is coming on. Well, it sucked, but I felt fine. We had a great day swimming and hanging out by the pool. But towards the end of the day, I wasn’t feeling right at all.

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Today we left Koh Samui to get to Koh Phangan. The only way to get to Koh Phangan is by ferry or speedboat; there are no airports on Koh Phangan. It is a very tiny island, even smaller than Koh Samui.

The ferry ride was nice and cheap, and not too long, either. Once we arrived in Koh Phangan, there was a shuttle waiting for us to take us back to the hotel. We had no idea the drive that was ahead of us.

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We went to go see the Big Buddha today, which - like the name implies - is a gigantic Buddha. It was on the other side of the island in a cool villagey type place, and we walked around there a bit afterwards. Afterwards, we went to the nearby mall (basically the only mall on the island) which also had the only movie theater on the island. The movie theater was nice, but ordinary, and selections were limited. We ended up seeing the Street Fighter movie, which ended up being a lot better than I anticipated.

On Koh Samui, one very popular tourist attraction is known as the “Grandfather and Grandmother” rock formation. These are rocks that are shaped like male and female genitalia. These were naturally formed rocks. Well, it’s not every day that you see rocks shaped like a penis and a vag, so we went to go check them out.

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We decided to have one more spa day before leaving Koh Samui. This time we went to this place that has a forest spa, which is basically an outdoor, hot spring, fresh water type of place that you swim and relax in.. really cool and unique type of spa that you wouldn’t really find in many places. It also had a really nice herbal steam room. We spent a few hours relaxing there today.

Today we had an island excursion to Angthong National Park which is about an hour boat ride from Koh Samui. Like I mentioned before, about 42 islands make up this park but we only visited the 2 main islands. The first island we got to is where we were able to go kayaking. We went kayaking for about an hour and visited this beach on another island where I found lots of cool shells.

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Since Koh Samui is the part of Thailand that is known for its spas (there were tons of them) we picked one to go to for a few hours. We each got body scrubs, wraps and 2 hour hot stone massages. Let me just say.. and I think Joe agrees with me on this one.. hot stone massages are the best! Overall it was a nice experience.