Posts By Laura
Photo of the Day: The angriest bus in the world. Or at least in Laos.
Si Phan Don (4000 islands)
Finally, the country I’ve been so so so excited about visiting! When we moved to HK, this was the one place I wanted to see and I was really looking forward to it, having heard so much great things about it from others.
The journey from Siem Reap to Si Phan Don was ‘interesting.’ We had to take a series of mini buses and each one seemed to get smaller, however there was the same amount of people in each one- resulted in lots of squashiness from a considerable part of the 10 hours it took. The Cambodia-Laos border is a gigantic joke. There’s all the usual tourist taxes and accepted bribes everyone has to go through, and security was non existent.
Once we arrived in Nakasang, a teeny village 25km from the border, we were herded onto a raft to wait for a boat. At this point, we noticed a group of men downing beer to the side of the raft. Oh wait……they’re the boat drivers? Excellent. Sometime later, we landed on Don Khone, one of the bigger islands and found our super cute guesthouse.
I think Sam and I are divided about Don Khone- I really liked it because it had a rustic village feel to it. We hired bikes and cycled out to rapids and waterfalls, temples and through rice fields. Sounds great, yes? Sam did not seem to think so. A) Sam is not the biggest fan of cycling and we have already done ALOT during this trip. B) It was either roasting hot or pouring down with rain. C) There was mud. Everywhere.
I LOVED IT.
We ate overlooking the Mekong in cheap restaurants, read in hammocks outside our room whilst looking at views like this, and slept a lot. What’s not to love?
After a couple of days, we traveled 4 hours to Pakse for a connecting sleeper bus to Vientiane, the capital. This was not the most fun I’ve ever had. All in it took 22 hours and although I’m glad we’ve done it, I’m not looking forward to the next one in a few days.
All templed out….
Mission accomplished- somehow we’ve managed 3 days of temples. Although it’s been hard work at times because of the heat and the distances we’ve had to cover, it’s been totally worth it. Yesterday we hired a tuk tuk and went 2 hours northeast of SR to Beng Mealea and Bantaey Srei, also a cheeky last visit to Angkor Wat.
As well as seeing what seems like hundreds of temples, we’ve managed to fit in some awesome eating and drinking too, as well as an anniversary stay at The Shinta Mani Club. This hotel had got to be one of the best we’ve ever been to, if you ever get to come to Siem Reap, do a night here. Amazing.
Siem Reap monopoly, anyone?
Battambang- worth the detour
So 3 weeks in and we’ve ended up in Battambang, supposedly Cambodia’s 2nd largest city, after Phnom Penh….. so where is everyone? This is such a sleepy place, noone seems to be in a hurry to go anywhere or do anything and there isn’t actually that much to do…..or so Lonely Planet told us….
Another lesson learnt: Don’t believe everything LP tells you.
This is an awesome little place, so much so that we’ve extended our stay by 2 nights. It’s not go go go like PP was, however there is a lot to do, but at a relaxed pace. The architecture is stunning, all French colonial and eclectic. Just taking a walk around here was fascinating. It’s just outside the city that you see really cool stuff though – we hired some bikes and cycled north where we found a stunning temple.
If you’re ever in Battambang, go see the circus- it’s an arts school for teenagers- absolutely incredible. The original circus is in Battambang but when the students graduate they can go onto perform in the professional show in Siem Reap- all the proceeds from the show are invested back into the students education.
For our last day in BB, we went on another cycle trip, this time heading south to see the Killing caves. A similar situation to that in Phnom Penh, I’m only just beginning to comprehend the scale and impact of the Khamer Rouge and all of the suffering that people here went through. It’s hard to imagine that almost every family here would have lost at least 1 member to the atrocities. On our way out, we saw the famous bat caves- every night, at dusk, millions of bats leave the cave to fly to Tonle Sap lake to feed. Our camera didn’t do a great job at capturing it, but it was truly amazing. The fly in groups so from a distance it looks like a massive swarm of bees flying towards you!
Chi Phat- Community Based Eco Tourism
After leaving the busyness of Phomn Penh, we headed south via bus (with actual westerners on- we’ve seen none on buses so far.) Around 4 hours later, we were dropped off in a tiny village, in the pouring rain (with said westerners all looking at us like we were idiots.) Almost immediately, a man shoved a sign in my face with my name on it. Yippee! Off we went through the mud and rain to a fishing boat for a beautiful yet wet 2 1/2 hour journey up the Mekong.
We arrived at a tiny jetty and with some vague directions from the boat driver (pointing up a hill,) we went in search of a centre of the village of Chi Phat, a small village in the Cardamon mountains. Here they welcome visitors to come and experience traditional Cambodian village life, whilst supporting the local economy. Everything you spend in Chi Phat goes directly to the community so that they can support themselves. We opted for a bungalow, at a hefty $10 per night. And that’s considered expensive here. Homestays are just $3- but with mine and Sam’s hatred of squat toilets we decided to splash out.
The village itself is pretty amazing- there’s so much biodiversity and the surroundings are spectacular. We thought about doing a jungle trek (calm down mum, we didn’t) but it’s been raining a lot and we just didn’t fancy trekking 25km soaking wet. We’ve read about people that have come down here for 2 nights and ended up staying 3 weeks- it’s not hard to see why.
I think 3 nights for me is enough though, especially after finding Joshua (why not,) the world’s largest spider (in my mind anyway) in the bathroom. I’ve tried, I really have, but I just can’t get over their legs. I keep peeking inside the hut, wondering when he’s going to next appear.
As it’s low season, it’s very quiet- which has its pluses and minuses. We went to deserted rapids and a waterfall and walked back through the village that’s littered with cows just chilling in waterholes at the side of the road. I succeeded in convincing Sam that kayaking with me would be great idea (did he learn nothing from our ‘amazing’ kayak experience in Langkawi?) It was indeed great, although we have cemented the fact that we cannot kayak together. Not in the same boat anyway.
The food has been amazing. It’s traditional Khmer food and so not something either of us would normally try but so glad we have. To be honest, at $2 a meal we’d probably eat most things.
One thing I’ve learnt about myself already: I really really don’t like only having 4 outfits to wear.
One thing I’ve learnt about Sam: He overpacks. Massively. How have I never realised this before? Who needs that many t shirts? Why would someone need 5 Apple chargers?