We took a super long bus ride from Siem Reap to Kratie (Kratchey) and it turned out there was so little to do there that even a tour guide said, "I can get you on the first bus out of here tomorrow morning!" We stayed an extra day though and decided to rent some bicycles. It was a lovely ride along a country road where every single person waved as we went by and all the children ran to high five us or practice saying "hello how are you what's your name goodbye" in English.
Rode for a good hour until we arrived at a place called Kampi where we got into a small wooden boat to go in search of the rare Irrawaddy dolphin on the Mekong River. Sounds more exciting if you whisper it with an enthusiastic Australian accent. Much to my surprise and delight we saw about 10 of them. Funny looking things, who, unlike their bottle-nosed counterparts, have faces as wide as their bodies.
Right before we were about to cycle back it started to pour. I was on a one-size-fits-all (too big) bike wearing flip flops and one of those silly garbage bag rain ponchos that had a hole in it. So now I'm off biking. Haha all part of the adventure then eh?
I know that when traveling it's necessary to forgo certain amounts of comfort for the sake of adventurism, but not to the point where it stresses you out. I grew up in, what I can now view as, luxury and with that comes a high regard for cleanliness. So yeah.. cockroaches stress me out.
I've seen some in our rooms the size of my fingers (I made Brock hunt them down, killing bugs is a distinctly blue job) that repulsed me, but not as much as the ones I dont see! I know, I just know, that there are some the size of my hand lurking about. How do I know this? Because I've been to the markets and seen baskets full of dead ones. For sale. To eat.
*shudder*
Sometimes you can't just paste a happy face sticker on things, sometimes you just have a shit time of it! Like our ride from Kratie to Ban Lung on a "mini bus" (read: van) that was dirty, falling apart and smelled like hockey equipment in which they crammed 16 of us because hey, why have a seat all to yourself when you can share it with 2 other people? So there's that, and then there's the roads which only fantasize about being made of gravel. They're just mud and most of it is flooded (in some parts 2 feet high, as it is the rainy season) full of huge divets and potholes and the occasional cow. The whole 9 hours was spent going up and down and zigzagging.
First time I've ever felt carsick, though I was able to keep a grip on things... unlike the dude in front of me who kept vomitting into little bags and tossing them out the window.
There are certainly days when I feel a bit homesick for the ease and comfort of my country. Though, I'd settle for 2 bottles of wine and a barrel of M&M's!
We arrived in Ban Lung expecting to do all sorts of fun trekking and visiting neat things, but we have been advized to stay indoors. It's been the worst weather all year, been raining for 8 days straight and violently windy. Think it must be coming from the tyhoons and what not that hit the Philipines and eastern Vietnam.
We ended up being stuck in Ban Lung for 5 days because there were no buses leaving due to the flooded roads. Fortunately we were staying in a real cute place at the top of a hill that overlooked a stunning jungly valley. The power also went out about 3 times a day... luckily Cambodian rice wiskey is only about a dollar a litre!
It's almost nice we were forced to stay because on the last day the wind died, the rains ceased, and the clouds parted to reveal the start of a beautiful day.
We (stupidly) decided to walk to this volcanic crater/turned lake and our expert navigator, yes-I'm-certain-this-is-the-way-stop-pestering-me-I-know-where-I'm-going-Brock, lead us ten (TEN!) kilometres in the wrong direction. Oh, did I mention it's +35 degrees (45 with the humidity)?
Fortunately (for him) on our way back, this sweet man stopped to offer us a ride back to town. He turned out to be a government coordinator of urban development (or other such nonsense) and had just returned from assessing the storm damage in NW Cambodia. Lots of lost homes and crops, but no lives at least. Anyways, he was very interested in hearing what we thought about his country and to insist that we tell all Canadians to learn about and visit Cambodia. Consider yourselves told.
[Sidebar: The number one rule of travel is this: don't get trafficked. So ordinarily if someone stopped to offer us a free ride we'd be all, "git outta my faces you trafficking swine!" but he had an official vehicle and I was pretty certain that in my rage at having walked so far in the wrong direction I'd have killed anyone that tried any funny business. So all was safe, no need to worry mothers.]
After he dropped us off we wisely rented a scooter to visit the dazzling volcano lake and three waterfalls. The waterfalls might make my top twenty, but wouldn't even crack the top ten so they're not that noteworthy. Still, the drive was heaps of fun because of all the country folks and how sweet they are. I bet I've said "hello" more times in the last 3 weeks than at all other times in my life combined!
Then we had an even worse bus ride from Ban Lung to Stung Treng which was the most disgusting place I've even been and won't even get into.
Next!
