I only went and forgot to say in my blog on 14th March that we’re HALFWAY THROUGH! (well when we were in Phnom Penh we were and I can’t even remember what we did that day. I presume it involved one or two Angkor beers). Funny how you can spend 10 years thinking about going travelling and here we are 50% done already. 6 months have flown by and from now on we’re on the way back…....
What do you do when you’re at the seaside? Go lie on the beach all day of course. We hadn’t seen the sea since New Year in Thailand and it sounds sad but it was really exciting. Being by the Mekong is lovely but you just can’t beat seeing the sea stretch out to the horizon merging with the blue sky and the sound of waves on the sand. Lush....
Our bus to Sihanoukville was booked for lunchtime so we thought we’d squeeze in some essential sight-seeing before we left Phnom Penh and visited the Royal Palace & Silver Pagoda first thing Tuesday morning. It took us less than an hour to be unimpressed by it. The Silver Pagoda is famed for its solid silver floor. We expected sparkling, dazzling. We got dull, scratched. Only a small amount was uncovered and “on display”, half of which was held down with masking tape....
I have been particularly slack on the blog writing front so am typing this a month after the event. Therefore it will be dry and sparse as my memory has faded and we have few photos. From Sen Monorom we went to the capital Phnom Penh, on a normal bus, with one passenger per seat. It took 7 hours, less than we thought, and the journey went surprisingly fast. By the time we’d settled into our hotel and ventured out it was dark so we couldn’t be bothered to explore too far for food....
If we thought the journey from Stung Treng to Ban Lung was interesting it was nothing compared to the journey to Sen Monorom. How many people can you get in a 13 seater minivan? Well if you attach a luggage rack to the back (boot open), pack everyone’s belongings onto it, tie all the extra random bags full of random stuff around it and pile 4 people on top, 4 adults on each row of seats, 2 adults in the passenger seat and an extra passenger in the driver’s seat plus as many kids as there are gaps…about 26 plus driver....
Kratie was a quiet town. Its main attraction, the rare freshwater Irawaddy dolphins, weren’t easy to spot as they tried their best to keep away from the 15 longtails rumbling around the Mekong close to sunset. However it was nice to see them as they could be extinct soon there are so few left. Dolphins: And boats: If you’re quick you may see one or two in these videos:
Funny minivan journey with 16 adult passengers, 3 babies (one naked, one half-naked from the waist down) and an 8 year old carrying a small plastic bag that chirped. To get to Ban Lung in Ratanakiri province in the north east of Cambodia. Found another form of paradise again in Tree Top Ecolodge. Very gorgeous wooden bungalows on stilts with all furniture made from reclaimed wood including a very simple but beautiful lamp which had a tree stump for a base and a branch for the stand....
After 6 weeks in Laos, we’re now in Cambodia!! There’s Laos time and there’s snail time. It took us 5 hours to go approx 70km from Don Det to Stung Treng. 8am boat ride from Don Det to the mainland followed by a long wait on a dusty street outside a makeshift travel shop until 10am and we board a bus. Half hour or so later we’re at the Laos/Cambodia border....
When you use Chrome’s omnibar to search, Chrome will redirect you to search results based on when you are geographically. This is great when I’m at home because I see (more relevant) results from google.co.uk and not google.com. However, I’m travelling at the moment and getting my results from google.co.th is painful since most of the results are not in english. Close Chrome. Open the file Local State in notepad. Mine was in: C:\Users\matt\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Local State....
An hour and half longtail down the Mekong brought us to the island of Don Det. It’s the 4000 island’s answer to Vang Vieng as Don Khong is to Luang Prabang. Although both are on a much smaller scale there were the usual bedraggled hungover backpackers in their tubing vests, saggy hotpants and cigarettes hanging out their mouths loitering. Can’t complain too much. Although our bungalow is basic and has a shared bathroom I am getting up-to-date with the blogs whilst lying in a hammock on the balcony with 180 degree views of the Mekong and across to Cambodia, and Matt’s snoozing in the hammock next to me....