Sitting behind the driver is no place for the feint of heart. So it’s a good thing that Paul and I long ago relinquished our Western sensibilities and accepted the realities of travel. We rattle and bounce down a road built for lighter loads and slower speeds. Overtaking means hurtling headlong into oncoming traffic at…
At first Kampong Chhnang doesn’t seem like much. It’s dusty and quiet. We walk past a prison on our way to our guesthouse. Hmm. But the guesthouse is lovely with friendly staff. Our room set in a garden with a bench out the front and cold aircon inside. Right on dusk we head out to explore…
We sit at the bus station watching the goings on. Our bus is scheduled for 9:30am but it’s already 11am. We’ve watched as the bus to Siem Riep was loaded equally with rice and passengers. Yes, you read that correctly, the bus was loaded with heavy bags of rice. Probably a few hundred kilos of…
We enjoy three nights in Battambang. It’s a pleasant city to visit with a pretty riverside park where we can enjoy meals in waterfront tent restaurants. Women take a aerobics classes in the parks. Lean muscular young men do chin ups and acrobatics on a set of monkey bars (the sort of acrobatics you see on…
Today we got the true Cambodia experience: a bus ride that should have been three hours but turned into six. Not because there was traffic but because the bus company spent 2.5 hours trying to fill their bus with passengers by driving laps of Siem Riep before finally hitti g the highway. It was a…
We spend the day time hours enjoying town. We eat cupcakes at Bloom: an NGO that provides training, employment and access to healthcare to women. The cupcakes are delicious and pretty. We have our teeth cleaned and scaled at the dentist for $US8 (at home this would cost $100-200 so I haven’t had it done…
There are so many ways to see Angkor Wat. By bicycle. In a tour bus. On foot (more on that later). By tuk tuk. And there’s so many timeframes for a visit. The small tour. The grand tour. One day. Two days. Three days. The options are endless. Fortunately, Keith and Paul from the Golden…
Lake Tonle Sap is only a short drive from Siem Riep. A small ten-seater long boat takes us from the edge of a canal all the way into the lake and onto a bigger boat (the Tara) for sunset dinner and drinks. It sounds all very contrived but the execution of this adventure is quite…
A mini bus from Mekong Express arrives just before 6:45am. It’s a battered and bruised van but the aircon is cranking and the driver negotiates the traffic slowly. We do loops of the city collecting other passengers headed to Siem Riep on the 7:30am bus. At $US13 the bus ride is comfortable, safe and efficient.…
The plane drops below the clouds. Everything is green and wet. Rice paddies take up almost every bit of flat ground. Mountains are slowly eaten away by mining operations. Dirt roads zig zag between red roofed villages. Water abounds as dams overflow. “It looks so wet” are Paul’s ominous words. This is our first impression…
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