Our Motorbike Adventure - The End!

ELLIE - Our final proper days driving was amazing. We drove along the Tam Tron Pass which at over 1000m is the highest mountain pass in Vietnam and the views were simply stunning.

ADAM – I loved this day on the bikes, the sun was blazing and the roads were all winding and cliff edged with countless hairpin bends and the most stunning views to look at as we rode along. At one point I let my mind wonder to what I would be doing if I was back in England. After a quick laughing fit about work I concentrated back on the roads and the views (sorry to rub it in).

The route that we had followed supposedly goes though some of the coldest areas of Vietnam and this time of year is supposed to be the worst. With this in mind we packed all of our coats and thermal gear ready for the big chill. However, the chill never happened as the sun blazed down every day and the only time we even needed our thin coats were when we rode at night and during the high mountain pass. The effect of packing all this warm gear meant that my razor didn’t get packed and I am now sporting a very interesting red beard which Ells thinks is very, very attractive and the locals in the villages are bemused by (along with my arm and leg hair!).

During our trip we have ridden through some amazing villages and met some great local people, all have been so friendly and made us feel really welcome.

ELLIE - Our Motorbike Adventure completely exceeded all my expectations. I am amazed at just how much I have enjoyed the past week and was a bit sad when they loaded my bike onto the train back to Hanoi - a move which marked the end of our journey.

Arriving back in Hanoi we were once again faced with crazy traffic. People driving on the wrong side of road, blaring horns and generally following no rules at all! Not quite the peace and quiet we had become so accustomed to!

ADAM - This has definately been the best thing we have done since leaving Africa. For me, the only down side to this trip has been that it had to end!

Our Motorbike Adventure - Part IV

ADAM - After several days hard riding we decided to wind down a little the next by going on a bike ride in the local area. Great, so not only were still sitting on bikes but this time we had to peddle! It was worth it though as we came upon rice fields and had a very strange “chat” with one of the workers about what part of the plant the rice comes from. After being laughed at by a field full of local women I decided it was time we got back on the road again!!

We had another great days riding and even though we set off late we arrived at Tho Dueang to find that we had been totally TETed. This time there were no shops open and none of the restaurants would serve us as they all had private celebrations. Going back to our hotel and resigning ourselves to the fact that we were going to go hungry again we decided to ask the receptionist if she knew of anywhere we could get some food. She looked puzzled and made a phone call. 2 minutes later she told us to follow her and walked back down to the street and into someone’s house!

ELLIE – The evening just got more and more bizarre! It turns out that we were now in the home of her Uncle, a policeman with two children. The lady from the hotel left us there saying ‘I go now busy me’ and suddenly we were alone in this strangers house. He disappeared off and his eldest daughter came to sit with us. She spoke some English and before long we were having a pretty normal conversation, aided of cause by the ever helpful phrasebook. Her Dad in the meantime was preparing some lovely TET food for us, a dish of roast pig, I can’t call it pork as I’m not sure which bits of the pig were used but it didn’t look like normal meat! And lots and lots of rice. On discovering that we liked coke they proceeded to take cans off their offering to the hearth spirits that had been the center of their TET celebrations!

After we had eaten as much as we could physically manage the Dad brought out a random alcoholic drink which I wasn’t allowed but which he enjoyed forcing on Adam. Apparently he was ill and couldn’t drink it but he enjoyed giving it to his new best friend! Ad forced down a couple of glasses of what smelt like pure alcohol with a smile and then we all sat around chatting, well we chatted with the daughter and she translated bits for her Dad. Suddenly her Dad got up and went over to the corner of the room and started getting changed into a shirt and trousers. We presumed he was going to work but when he finished he asked his daughter if we could take a photo of him! He then got a bit photo crazy and pictures had to be taken of every conceivable group of people present – quite amusing. Just before it was time to leave he motioned for Ad to pick up his alcohol glass again – unwillingly Ad did as instructed and then he kept pointing at me. We knew that I wasn’t allowed this special ‘mans’ drink but we hadn’t got a clue what he wanted me to do – suddenly I realised, he wanted me to take a photo of him and Ad saying cheers but because he couldn’t drink due to his illness they were going to do it with empty glasses! Even as I took the photo Ad looked very confused about what on earth was going on!

Our Motorbike Adventure - Part III

ELLIE - We spent the morning seeing the sights of Dien Bien. Ad loved visiting A1 Hill, climbing on the tanks and running around the reconstructed trenches! After a while it was time to be on our way again and so we set off on the most amazing, straight and perfectly smooth road I have ever seen. It wasn’t to last though and suddenly the tarmac just stopped and we were faced once again with a small dirt covered track! Not convinced we were on the right road we decided to stop at one of the first villages we came to (by village I mean collection of wooden houses) and check with the locals. It was hilarious – within seconds of stopping literally the whole village was crowding round our bikes trying to talk to us. The only English they knew was ‘what is your name’ and they were obsessed with trying to work out if any of them were taller than Ad – they weren’t of course but very funny to see each of the men come and stand up really straight next to him just to check! We were heading in the right direction and so off we went again.

Before we felt Hanoi my biggest worry about the journey was other road users. However, there was no need to worry as the mountain roads we were riding on really weren't busy at all - well, not with normal traffic. There was one form of road user that I hadn't even thought of though - animals! They were everywhere, dogs and pigs I could cope with but these water buffalo were seriously big creatures and pretty scary, especially when they stopped eating and just started at you as you rode past!

By mid afternoon we were thirsty and so stopped off for a drink in a little shop which was once again owned by a very friendly lady. Deciding this was a good chance for a toilet stop I managed to ask in my best Vietnamese and she pointed behind the shop where there were a collection of doors. Off I headed but after looking behind every conceivable door I just couldn’t find the toilet. I was forced to go back and ask (again in Vietnamese) to which the lady laughed, took me by the hand and lead me back to where I’d just been. Instead of pointing to the doors though she pointed down a rather steep muddy slope to where a curtain was rigged up in front of a pond. I scrambled down this hill to discover that the toilet was a random stone and once finished you were supposed to scoop water out of the pond to wash it away with! Very hygienic I’m sure!
ADAM – After the toilet stop we rode on through increasingly amazing scenery to the place that we thought we were going to stay, only to be confronted by a road sign telling us it was another 150km. Not understanding this we stopped at a hotel to ask advice and discovered that the names of 2 villages had been swapped and that we were in the correct place after all. I can’t believe that the government just changed the names like that.

Our Motorbike Adventure - Part II

ADAM - Setting off the next day we started to climb into the mountains on the nice smooth roads we had ridden on the day before. This nice smooth road lasted for about 1km when it suddenly disappeared and was replaced by uneven pot holed black stuff that looked like tarmac but was barely wide enough to drive a smart car let alone 2 way traffic. I can feel that you are concerned for Ellie at this point but don’t worry, these road conditions didn’t continue for too long. NO they were replaced by barrier less mountain roads made from dirt, gravel and my personal favorite deep, soft sand. At the prospect of these road conditions I started to get concerned for Ellie as she had only been riding a motor bike for just over 24 hours. However I needn't have been concerned as after a particularly treacherous patch of 'road' I turned round to check she was OK and found her standing on her pegs laughing. Much to my surprise (and relief!) she was loving it and was taking it all in her stride.

ELLIE - I couldn't believe it when we rounded a corner and were faced with thick, soft sand. After an initial moment of panic where I was convinced as soon as my bike touched the stuff I would be off, over the edge of the mountain, I was fine, and as Ad said, really enjoying it!

Riding that day was loads of fun, the sand and gravel made the mountain bends exciting and we were having a great day. Being on bikes meant that we were able to stop and talk to the locals which was always interesting. These children were trying to give me some random fruit which didn't look all that ripe or tasty! However, soon afternoon was turning into evening and we hadn't reached our destination. We started to get concerned as although fun in daylight we didn't think these roads would be quite as great in the dark (and believe me - in the mountains it gets really dark!). We were only about 20km from the town at this point and knew we'd be able to make it if we just picked up our speed a bit and cut out our photo stops. Off we set, determined to make it before nightfall. Ad was a little in front of me when a bike with 3 blokes on came past me waving frantically and pointing at the back of my bike. Panicked I stopped - what was wrong? Was my wheel about to fall off! (Strange the thoughts that go through your mind!) The guy on the back of the bike got off and started pointing at his shirt, then at the road and then at my bike. I hadn't got a clue what he was going on about. Then, much to my horror, he tried to get onto the front of my bike - the penny dropped - he was wearing his best shirt as he was going out for the night in town and instead of riding three on his bike he wanted to come on mine as there was only me. The other two guys at this point rode off leaving me with this random Vietnamese man who had definitely had too many drinks to be driving a motorbike. I managed to mime that I was going to drive and he should sit on the back. Then, much to my relief, just as we were about to set off Ad came hurtling back round the bend in front of me.

ADAM – After going round a bend I always checked my mirrors to make sure that Ellie was OK and still behind me. Imagine my concern when she didn't emerge from a cliff edged hairpin bend! Turning round and heading back I was confused when I saw Ells with someone on the back of her bike. It took about 2 seconds to get the passenger transferred onto my bike as Ells was not happy to say the least having a pillion passenger on the bad roads. So for the next 40 minutes I drove down the side of a mountain in the dark on sand covered roads with our baggage and new friend that we had found. He didn't really say much as he knew no English and the TET festival had taken its toll on him already, evident by the way his head crashed into the back of my helmet every time I applied the brakes! (it hurt him more than it hurt me!) Dropping our friend off in the city of Dien Bien Phu (if you know your French history you will know that this is the place that the French lost there struggle to keep Vietnam as part of their Indochina empire after a torrid 57 day siege of there base) we set off to find some food.

Walking around for 50 minutes it looked like we were being TET(ed) again, until we found a very small "restaurant" that was operating out of a garage. Not being great with the local language and the phrase book drawing a blank we resorted to the oldest form of communication-mime. I pointed at all of the things I wanted to eat and mimed how I wanted them cooked (much to the amusement of the toothless owner and the locals!). To our amazement 5 minutes later our beef and noodle stir fry arrived, exactly as we had asked for!

Our Motorbike Adventure - Part I

ELLIE - We have just had the most amazing week ever!

We've really loved being in Vietnam but we were both getting a bit sick of continually being surrounded by other tourists, all doing the same thing and visiting the same places. After a trip to Halong Bay (a beautiful bay full of caves - if you could see past the other thousand tourists who were there!) where we were hearded around with countless other excited travelers we decided that it was time to do a bit of exploring on our own. Our chosen destination was North West Vietnam, an area described in guide books as pretty unfrequented by tourists - sounded perfect! So, we bought a pair of gloves, an atlas of North Vietnam and hired two motorbikes and off we set! Got to say that I was pretty nervous about our trip as I'd never really ridden a motorbike before and not only did our planned route cover more than 1,000km but it also encompassed what Lonely Planet described as 'some of the most treacherous roads in Vietnam'!

ADAM - I must admit that I was very surprised when Ellie showed any interest in the idea of going on a motor bike trip as her description of "not really" ridden a motor bike actually means that she has been on the back of a motor bike a few times and has never ridden a motor bike (in fact she hates motorbikes with a passion!). However the prospect of days on motor bikes on mountain roads sounded amazing (to me) and the thought of no tourists was obviously enough to spur Ellie on to do the unthinkable.

So having picked our motor bikes up I thought it would be a good idea for Ellie to get a little practice on her bike to make sure she knew how the bike worked. After an hour of driving around the near deserted late night streets of Hanoi I realised that she was a bit of a natural. This was lucky as the next time we rode our bikes it was in crazed morning rush hour traffic where there are no real rules to the road. In fact to ride a bike in Hanoi you need 2 things an accelerator and a horn everything else on the bike is an optional extra and rarely used!

Safely out of Hanoi we started on our journey to Mai Chia which is west of Hanoi and a nice easy ride for our first day. This was however until Valentino Rossi (aka Ellie) decided that it was too close and that she was happy to continue to what was our second night destination Son La. This was almost 400km of winding but good quality roads. (I know that 400km does not sound like a long way for the perfect motorway roads of the UK with laws and rules but in Vietnam it's a bloody long and very dangerous way!)

ELLIE - Looking back it was pretty stupid of me to suggest we drive all that way extra. By the time we arrived in Son Las (11 hours after leaving Hanoi!) I was shattered and badly in need of a good, long shower! However, the drive had been awesome (I still can't quite believe that I enjoyed it so much!) and we'd met some amazing people along the way.

At one point I was running really low on fuel so we stopped at this petrol station - I know it looks like a random plastic carton on the side of the road but believe me - it was a petrol station. The woman who was running it didn't speak a word of English but was very friendly none the less. Once she had filled both our bikes up she grabbed me by the hand and literally propelled me into her house. Inside she sat us both down and proceeded to pour us tiny cups of tea - much to my horror! Not wanting to be rude I forced mine down pretty quickly only for it to be refilled seconds later! We were relieved when the teapot appeared to be empty but then she topped it up from a luke warm thermos flask - nice! We stayed and talked (we talked in English and she talked in Vietnamese - it kind of worked!) for quite a while, we were having a great time with her and the hundreds of children who had appeared from nowhere to see the 'white people'! It was really refreshing meeting someone local who was genuinely pleased to see us and didn't just see our white skin as dollar signs!

ADAM - As Ells said we were both pretty tired when we arrived in Son Las and very hungry! The only food we had eaten all day was "new year" food that we were forced (sorry kindly invited) to eat by a lady when we stopped at her shack for a drink. (New Year food is white sticky rice with some corn, a type of meat which I think was dog all held together by fat of the animal the meat related to, hmmmm Nice!) So I decided to go and find some food in Son La and discovered that for the first and not the last time on this trip I was being TET(ed). This means that all restaurants were shut or had private celebrations going on for New Year. Although discouraged I managed to find a small shop that sold biscuits and beer (always essential!). The owner was a very enthusiastic old man who watched the premier ship all day, screaming and jigging up and down in his chair every time a goal was shown. I spent a very confusing 30 minutes sitting with him "talking" about football! Still no real food to be found, so sadly we went to bed hungry.

Happy New Year (again!)

Not happy with having a whole year off work, we have also managed to get more than our fair share of New Year celebrations! We arrived in Hanoi (the capital of Vietnam) ready for the Tet celebrations. Tet seems to be the equivalent of Christmas, New Year and your Birthday all rolled into one! The Vietnamese follow the Lunar calendar (like the Chinese) and so New Year is based on this and this year New Year’s Eve was celebrated on Friday 16th February. People here don’t get a year older until the new year has passed, therefore New Year’s day is also everyone’s Birthday! Not surprisingly a week of celebrations follow that involves drinking and feasting, kind of like Christmas.

Anyway enough of the cultural stuff, we were in Hanoi and were lucky enough to spend the night in the center of the celebrations (that were being beamed to TV’s all over Vietnam!). There were acrobats, fireworks, thousands of people and loads of street restaurants for food and drinks. The atmosphere was electric and was added to by the deafening sounds of fire crackers that were lit and just thrown into the crowd – mostly by children! (almost had my toes blown of at one point!). At midnight there were hundreds of thousands of people on the streets all just celebrating, dancing around and shouting! No trouble to be seen - although I’m not sure if the lack of trouble was down to the kind nature of the people or the large sticks and guns the police and army were carrying!!

Suppose I’d better follow the custom here and wish you all ‘Chuc mung nam moi!!’

Water Parks and Whip Lash!

As Saigon is such a hot, sticky, busy city we decided to spend an afternoon chilling out at a local waterpark. We had the best time ever! The water park seemed just like other ones we had visited - however - all of the rides were just a little bit, well, dangerous! A favourite of mine was a racing slide you had to go down head first that ended in a plunge pool - all of your insticts were telling you that it was a stupid, dangerous thing to do - but it was so much fun you just had to! Kind of regretted it the next day though when I woke up with whip lash and had to literally roll out of bed!! (SORRY TO INTERUPT BUT THAT IS A BIT OF AN UNDERSTATEMENT! SHE COULDN'T MOVE PROPERLY FOR DAYS AND DIDN'T I KNOW ABOUT IT! ADAM CAN YOU JUST PICK THIS UP, ADAM CAN YOU JUST PASS ME THAT, OOOOH MY NECK HURTS!) He exaggerates!

After a few days in Saigon we headed over towards the coast for a couple of days in the sun. While we were there we discovered these huge sand dunes where you could go sand-sledging - it was awesome! These little children gave you a plastic mat to sit on and just pushed you off the edge of a gigantic sand dune - absolutely ace (if not just a little scary!)!

YOU ALSO GOT A MOUTH FULL OF SAND FREE WITH EVERY GO YOU HAD ON THE SLEDGE!! He's not exaggerating this time! It literally took us days to wash the sand out of our hair, ears etc!

Tiny tunnels and BIG GUNS!

Well Vietnam has been pretty cool for us so far. Our first stop was Ho Chi Minh City (fomally Saigon, but I don't think that you want a history lesson about that!). Anyway, as we were in Vietnam we thought that we ought to go and see some of the remnants of the war. About 50km outside the city is a place called Co Chi, this was a strong hold for the communists within the south of the country, and was therefore an area of high military activity. The whole area was deemed a no go area by the Americans and anyone living in the area was considered to be part of the Viet Cong. As a result the Americans bombed the hell out of anything that moved on the surface. The Viet Cong were a little upset by this (to say the least!) and so they bulit whole communties underground. These underground tunnels are really quite brilliant and worked a treat for them (probably a bit of an understaement as they stopped them from getting blown to bits!). The tunnels are still there and we got to crawl through them, apparently the Viet Cong were a lot smaller than me so it was easier for them to fit into the entrance!! It was also amazing to see just how many bomb craters were there and the size of them - about 20m by 10m deep - they were HUGE!

As well as getting a very one sided history lesson about the 'American Invasion' and how the communist brothers prevailed, we managed to find a place that allowed you to fire GUNS!! Not just little pistols either, I was let loose with an AK-47 and an M-16! It was absolutely awesome! It was also really scary just how accrurate you could be with these guns with absolutely no training. Apparently if you have the money and are a little sick you can machine gun a cow or hand grenade a sheep, but I didn't have the cash! (it's a dollar a bullet for heavens sake!!)

'Happy' Birthday

After the traveling fun of the last few days I woke up in Phnom Penh on my Birthday. As it was my birthday Ellie had told me that I could do anything I wanted, so to test this theory I went for breakfast and ordered fillet steak with sausages and hash browns, well it was going to be a long day and I’m a growing lad!

Anyway, as most of you know Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia and was the site of some of the worst atrocities during the Khmer Rouge years 1976 to 1979. If you didn’t know you do now!

As it was my birthday we decided that we would fill it with as much happiness and joy as we could. So…first we went to a place called S21 which was a former detention centre and torture facility. It was shocking to see how well the Khmer Rouge documented everything that they were doing including the methods and outcomes of torture sessions (including pictures). Having visited Auschwitz in the past the things that we were seeing here seemed to be of a more sadistic and barbaric nature (if that is possible).

This was further reinforced when we visited the killing fields only 15k away which is the site of some of the mass graves (in total 2.5 -3 million people were killed! - 40% of the population at the time!). A number of these mass graves have been uncovered to try to discover and detail what happened. There are 8,000 skulls in a memorial building, all of which have horrific fractures and holes where the victims were beaten to death with bamboo sticks, hammers, spades, axes and any other hard object that could be swung with devastating effect. The worst part of the visit by far was seeing an ordinary tree, this tree was used by the Khmer Rouge as a place to smash babies against in front of their parents before throwing them into the mass graves. None of the victims were ever shot as this would be a waste of bullets and therefore money to the Khmer Rouge government. What a loving, caring bunch they were!

So after a fun packed day it was no surprise that Ells and I were ready for (or needed!) a few birthday drinks. Even better I managed to find a very nice ex-pat restaurant that served bangers and mash with caramelised red onion gravy, hmmmmmm!

Thanks to everyone who sent me a birthday email, I really appreciated them!

Definately a Birthday to remember!

Bumper boat to Battenbang!

After a couple of days in Siem Reap we decided to follow the Lonely Planet's advice and take 'the five hour scenic boat ride along the river to Battenbang - a beautiful town with lots of French Architecture'. Sounded pretty good.

This is a picture of our boat - funnily enough it doesn't look anything like the one in the travel agents window where we bought our tickets from! We set off at 7.00 am over this enormous lake. As we picked up speed the wind started to whip around us - freezing us to death! The water was splashing up over the sides so the side covers had to be pulled down - what a great view that was!

The lake part of the jouney lasted for about an hour, a very long, cold hour! Then it got more pleasant. Beatiful scenery, tranquil villages. This is the life - 4 hours of gentle cruising - nice!

However, a couple of hours later our driver managed to somehow completely loose control of the boat and ploughed into some poor fishermans nets. They got completely entangled in the rudder but instead of stopping and sorting it out he tried to continue on the journey. We found it quite amusing to watch the panic on his face as we just careered between the riverbank, stationary boats and anything else that didn't move out of our way fast enough. Amusing for the first two hours that is. By this point we had been on the boat for the promised 5 hours - our bums were starting to get numb and hunger was setting in. We realised it was going to be a very long day.

Nine and a half hours after boarding the boat we arrived in Battenbang only to find it's a little town with absolutely nothing to do! Certainly no beautiful buildings!

I tell a lie when I say there was nothing to do. We found a small restaurant that also ran a cooking school. Had much fun visiting the local market, buying all of the ingerdients and then desperately trying to follow the instructions to make exotic dishes. Got to say they tasted pretty good and we look forwards to wowing you with our new found culinary skills when we get back. If we can ever find the ingredients that is - any idea where to buy morning glory and snake beans??!!

Which Wat? What Wat? That Wat!

Do you like what I did with the title there, Ells doesn’t seem to think it’s as funny as I do!

Anyway…..sorry, where was I, YES. We have arrived in Cambodia after a long day traveling. We got up at 4:30 to pack and catch the train from Bangkok to the Cambodian border. It was quite amusing seeing the very worse for wear drunks stumbling around the Khoa San road as we were leaving.

The Cambodian border has a reputation for taking an extremely long time to get through, however with a small “extra fee” paid at the right time we were through in 5 minutes just leaving 3.5 hours of moonscape style roads before we got to Siem Riep.

So we did WAT (sorry last time I promise!) every tourist does when they come here and we visited the world famous Wats at Angkor. They were absolutely amazing as you can see from the picture above. There are over 20 separate Wats that were built several hundreds of years ago by the ruling royal family of the time. They were all pretty spectacular but some of them were just downright dangerous - including the one in this picture! These steps are ridiculously steep - very funny to watch some tourists climb up and then see the panic on their faces when they realised they had to come back down! They have been used as the back drop to loads of films, the most recent being Tomb raider. However it was difficult to image the serenity that must have been present at these temples when surrounded by an army of Japanese and Korean tourists. I have never really seen the stereo typical Japanese tourist with 10 cameras and a disregard for anyone else around, but there were thousands of them here! We did manage to find a temple that was totally deserted and it was beautiful to sit and just relax (so much so that Ellie fell asleep!)

After a pretty hectic day battling the crowns we decided to have a more relaxed experience and went to the flooded forest (tried to think of something more spectacular to call it but that is pretty much it). This would have been relaxing but for the fact that at the end of our tuk tuk ride we had to ride 30 minutes on the back of scooters over what can only be described as a MOTO X track. Also being heavier than Ells and the average Cambodian my bike kept getting stuck in the deep sand and I had to push it out.

Anyway back to this river forest thing, there is a river delta that floods by over 20 feet during the wet season cutting off several villages (all of which are either floating or on stilts) and consumes an entire forest. As the waters recede you can go on a dug out canoe through the forest. It was really weird to be floating past trees in the middle of the forest. The other strange thing was the fact that the village was no longer under water so all of the houses were 20 feet above the ground!

Oh the other amusing thing I saw on the way was what I can only describe as pig carriers. These guys on Mopeds tie up fully grown pigs in this wooden holder and put them on the back of their bikes to take them home. I had to double take as we went past one and this pig snout shot out and started oinking at me!

Our visit to hospital!!!

OK - before you start to stress out you don't need to worry - we're both fine - haven't fallen off the back of a motorbike or caught some deadly tropical disease!

After a long day of temple visiting we were out enjoying dinner when I noticed a poster advertising the latest tourist activity going on in Siem Reap - giving blood at the local children's hospital!

The hospital are running at a 40% defecit everyday as there has recently been a dengue fever epedemic in Cambodia so loads of adults are unable to give blood. This sounds like an enormous shortfall but the hospital only uses a relatively small amount of blood - just 25 pints per day - however, only 15 pints are being donated.

So the next morning we headed off to the hospital. We were amazed at just how clean and hygenic it was. Everything was sterilised and only used once. The staff were so kind and friendly and to make our day we were given a can of soft drink, a packet of biscuits and, even better, a t-shirt each for our efforts!!

Later that night, after a few beers, we were talking about the problem faced by the hospital and Ad decided that in true 'my name is Earl' style he would try to win back some good karma by spreading the word about the hospital to 10 poeple - making up one days shortfall. He proceeded to stop randoms in the street and explain the problem. As we thought, no one knew of the hospitals problems and sure enough Ad managed to convince ten people to give it a go.

So if you're visiting Siem Reap in the near future, after you've visited the Wats why don't you join in this latest craze and go and give some bloody blood!!