Monday, 28 January 2013

Cambodia


Hello followers, it’s been a while since my last post with my travel adventures. I’m in Cambodia since the beginning of which the first ten days with my British Brad. At a later stage I will post some of our joint adventures which but for now…..

Cambodia

After   great time in Vietnam we set off for our final leg of our joint travel; Cambodia.
We left HCMC city with a 7am bus which was from Mekong Express. Due to a hangover and the early start we were both not looking forward to a long journey into a new country with no accommodation or destination confirmed for that day.
We had a lovely Cambodian bus hostess dressed in a beautiful golden/purple long skirt and top finished with high heels. We noticed that she had a lovely smile and later on we found out she had a lovely personality too.
The bus service also included the border crossing, this was the first one for me over ground and not by air so I didn’t know what to expect. It was a bit chaotic but very efficient and our lovely hostess (another Ginny in the bottle) was dealing with the papers and our passports. After 2 stops (Vietnam and Cambodian side) we had the required stamps in our passports and were dropped off at an eatery for breakfast. Most of it was noodles or the traditional breakfast so I tried the fish soup with noodles and vegetable. This was delicious for breakfast and wouldn’t mind to have this more often in Cambodia.
After breakfast we went back on the bus ready for our crossing over the Mekong Delta, where we got out of the bus and celebrated our new country with a picture.
As usual the locals tried to sell their produce or drinks and I was surprised that they weren’t pushy at all as we were used to in Vietnam. But most importantly, everybody smiles and/or have a beautiful smile which makes you feel happy and want to hug them.
The kids are already adorable so it will be hard to ignore them when they come over to sell something. Back on the bus I got a good impression of the country which looked very green, flat and children everywhere. They were playing in the fields, cycling or just having fun with old car tyres, wood and things we call rubbish. When we arrived in the capital City Phnom Penh it was a very different experience as it is very civilized with fast food chains, lots of scooters, cars, office buildings and many little markets. We swapped busses to take us in 5 hrs to Sihanoukville we were expecting a nice beachsite place to chill but as this wasn’t good enough for us we wanted to spend a week at a remote island called Koh Ta Kiev. It was a recommendation of two British men I met on a beach in Railay / Thailand.  We tried to contact the two places who had wooden bungalows/ tree houses and hammocks on the island but this was very difficult. So we just had to change it to go to the island and find a place. At 7.45pm we made it to Sihanoukville which turned out to be less idyllic than we thought it would be. No room at the places we hoped to stay and we had to wait till the next day to find out if there was a tree house available on Koh Ta Kiev.
The next day we got on a small boat with one other couple which would take us to the island as we had the VIP tree house with our own toilet for 5 nights! So we were very excited and looking forward to the quiet, WiFi and limited electricity new home during our stay at Koh ta Kiev.
While writing this I’m having one of the best views. The island life: sleeping in the ‘round house’ with no windows just a round bed and a mini table and chairs made from a tree branch and our own squat toilet. The shower is a big bucket of water and a plastic pan which you use to wet your body. Washing your hair is not that easy so you’ll leave it till it’s really necessary.
Our days were spend waking up around 7am followed by a run or exercise on the beach, swim in the sea then a lovely breakfast with stunning views. The rest of the day we spend reading books, listened to music, enjoying a short sea kayak trip, talking to other travellers, explored the Island and by 5pm you head to the bar as it’s getting dark and there will be lights, food and drinks. We had lovely warm evenings chatting to people and enjoying the worriless atmosphere. It took only a minute to get back to our tree house in the dark so head torches are a must and on our way home we were met by some little creatures like crab hermits crabs and spiders.
One day we’ve visited the fishing village at the other side of the Island, we went with ‘guide’ Co-op through the jungle which changed in a very leafy surrounding followed by dune like area before arriving at the fishing village. After we were greeted by children and dogs we walked to the water and found out that is was shoes off and walk through the water as it was a floating village. The next hurdle was a self-made wooden bridge with hardly any barriers to hold on as the planks were very loose. It seems to go on for ever but finally we arrived at the ‘restaurant’ which was a big area with one table. We agreed to have fried crabs so the lady went to get some which were still alive. One tried to escape but ended up on our plates half an hour later. We tried to find out how she prepared it but they were delicious, we had the leftovers for dinner. But maybe the highlight of the fishermen’s village was a trip to the toilet…..
After 4 nights at the Island we felt it was time to go back to the mainland; full of energy and with a tan!

Toilet at fishermen village

view at Koh ta Kiev





Our tree house


View from the Tree House

1 comment:

  1. "They were playing in the fields, cycling or just having fun with old car tyres, wood and things we call rubbish." - Angel, you are priceless :-) The round house looks and sounds lovely - what incredible views, and I love that it's on stilts - but there's no way I'm doing a squat toilet! I was bad enough with a chemi-toilet in Nova Scotia boathouse.

    ReplyDelete