A Monkey enjoys the view from Nahargarh fort Jaipur, India.

So we got back to Bangkok on the 14th and applied for our Vietnamese visa the same day. We were told our visa would be ready on the Tuesday evening and made plans to get the train to Aranya Prathet in Thailand and cross the border into Poipet in Cambodia. We just took it easy and didn't do much for a couple of days, going to the cinema and seeing "Nacho Libre" and "Click" (the first being funny and the second being shit), and then collected our visas on the Tuesday as planned. That night, shock horror, there was a military coup in Thailand.

It really was a bit of a shock. Sheena's friend Laura, who we had met in Bangkok that day, texted her that night from Samet Island, 3 hours from Bangkok, asking if she was okay as she had been watching CNN. We switched over from some crap film and saw some tanks driven by Thai guys and the headline "military coup in Bangkok?" The news from CNN wasn't exactly concrete. We just knew that there were definitely tanks on the streets and that all the Thai stations were showing the same thing; an image of the royal emblem and playing military style songs. Me and Sheena went up to let Donna and Steven know the good news and then we settled down for a night of unsure sleep.

















Herons in Keoladeo Ghana National Park, Rajasthan Province, India.

I was confident enough of a peaceful coup, I knew that the prime minister, Taksin Shinawatra wasn't well-liked and I found it hard to imagine easy going Thai people rioting or staging a counter-coup. Possibly a little naive, and my Thai history was a little off. I mistakenly believed Thailand had been a democracy since the 30s, while it had actually been a constitutional monarchy since the 30s. Turns out there have been around 17 military coups since the end of World War II. I'm reading the history of Thailand at the moment but I'm only up to the start of the 19th century, so I'm a little behind.

















Sheena and some guy who asked her for a tip for his stupid pose in the City Palace, Jaipur, India.

Anyway we kept a low profile for a few day and now the coup seems to be settled down a little. We are leaving tomorrow morning for Aranya Prathet. We did a little research and have decided to give Phnom Penh a miss for now and are going to Siem Reap, then back to Thailand and then up to Nong Khai to cross the border into Laos. The Cambodia-Laos border crossing doesn't sound the safest or most convienient route, and it seems we would have to pay a small payment for "overtime" on both sides of the border. The road from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh is also a little dodgy apparently, as is Phnom Penh itself.