Easter in The Philippines

We made it to the Temples of Angkor in the end - we hired two bikes and set off early in the morning. It was a nice day and the temples were beautiful - there are so many of them though, we cycled a loop of 30 kms but only got to see 5 sites! Most of the temples we saw dated back to the XIIth Century, and some of them were so old that huge trees have grown on top of their walls, cracking them open along the way. Here are a couple of photos, though if you're interested you will find dozens more on our Flickr site:Having done our bit of sightseeing, it was time to get back to Bangkok in time for our flight to the Philippines on Wednesday night. On the bus from Siem Reap to Bangkok, we got chatting to some nice French people, and two of them (Catherine and Haldo) came from Agon Coutainville, in Normandie. That's the town my mum comes from. It's not especially big or famous so it was one of these "it's-a-small-world" coincidence - meeting a girl who's been to school with one of my second cousins, at the border between Cambodia and Thailand! (by the way, Catherine and Haldo have a blog as well - in French - and you can find its address in our blog links list).

We had a couple of quiet, uneventful days in Bangkok, just enjoying the food and atmosphere and sorting out head wear for Gary:On Wednesday, with our flight due at 0.10 am, we heard there were no buses to the airport because of a demonstration against the current Thai Prime Minister. People all over the city were protesting, dressed in a red T-Shirt (showing support to the former Prime Minister, who is exiled in the UK and would be sent to jail if he were to set foot in Thailand again). We though we might be stuck in the city for a while (seeing how it went the last time there were protests in Bangkok, last December: the airport was brought to a standstill for a week or so) but thankfully everything went fine and, after travelling all night and not getting any sleep, we got to Cebu at 9am yesterday and were welcomed by Alastair, Susan, Veronica and her cousin Maui.

It is so nice to be staying in a house, eating home cooked food, chatting to people you know and visiting with someone who knows where they are going... yesterday after dinner Susan, Veronica and Alastair did the traditional Easter thing of visiting five churches in a row and paying homage to... well I'm not sure whom to! Gary and I are not at all religious so we just stood in the back, but it was really interesting to go around the city at night and to witness the atmosphere brought about by Easter. There were hundreds and hundreds of other people of all ages and walks of life doing the five churches thing, whole flocks of people from the same family or neighbourhood reciting prayers together... very interesting.

Gary is very disappointed this afternoon: he went off with Susan earlier to see a crucifixion at 3pm, but it had taken place early so they missed it all. Yes, you read it right, a crucifixion! There is actually a guy here who, every year, volunteers to be nailed up to a cross in front of the local church. I think the thing that shocks me the most about it is that other (presumably sane) people are willing to stick nails through that man's hands. If it was down to me, I would just take him down to the local psychiatric hospital...

Apparently the crucifixion will be shown again on telly later. Won't be watching that one myself!

C.