Stay another day in Cambodia...
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We woke up in our base at 9am next to the Cambodian boarder and had to hurry up because our Visa will expire at 11.30am. Our Crew applied for the visa with help from some volunteers, but we had to pay our "free" service. It was 4 Euros per person on top. Doesn't matter it was just the beginning. Maybe this is the only boarder which we can cross on top of the car.
Before we could get our car out of Thailand we had to leave the country first. But the car was still in Thailand and we weren't allowed to go back. So after a long seesaw with the custom officers, one of us could go back to Thailand and pick up the car. A gaggle of begging children surrounded us in the no mans land. For our surprise one of them, he was not even 10 years old, was carrying a small baby. Hillary gave them balloons instead of money and they were over happy.
The difference between Thailand and here was huge. Sometimes we weren't able to see the streets because of all the potholes. Poorness and pollution everywhere and then we had to get used to drive on the right lane (like Germany). It's perfect to have a four-wheel-drive because there were a lot of cars which were broken down. And the rule is: "Bigger car first!"
It's normal here to drive with the hole family on a moped (3-4 persons or a few monks), like Thailand.
We jolted down the street to Siam Reap and stopped over in a small city to eat and change our money. Nobody had a glue about the exchange rate and hopefully they won't cheat us. I's funny that they have two currencies here. The official Riel (1 Euro = 6000 Riel) and the unofficial US Dollar (1 Euro = 1,52 US$). The US$ is more common than their own currency. Later we met another world traveler on the way. He rode his motorbike from Romania to Cambodia. We had a chat about our experience and plans.
The streets became better as closer we came to Siam Reap. When we arrived, we found a accommodation (Family Guesthouse). A couple that we met on the street recommended this place. It was cheap, (6US $ for double room and an extra mattress) clean and the stuff was really nice. The best was our roof top bar.
Sadly we had to leave our guns, grenade and drugs in our car, because those are prohibited in the hotel.
We had fun without those things, too. For example while playing a Canadian drinking game called "Ring on Fire".
It was worth to have a look in the floating village near Siam Reap. There is a whole city floating on a big lake, even with a school, fish- and crocodile farm, bar and everything that is necessary. The residents are living in shads which were build on boats. Some children used trays to reach the other houses.
They are poor also. Here is a begging child with a constrictor snake. But she looks happy, anyway.
On the next day we went to a huge temple complex (Angkor). There were a lot of temples. Massive ones with a base area up to 3 km² or really small ones with only one cognizable stone. To move into the biggest temple we had to drive through a ancient gate of stone that is about 15m high.
It was absolutely interesting to explore the temple. Sometimes a bit dangerous.
We were looking for the mysterious relict in the footprints of Tomb Raider. Honestly we were just looking for Lara Craft running around with hot pants, two guns and a sweaty shirt.
The most famous temple is Angkor Wat which is also on the national flag of Cambodia.
For today we were the monarchs of the old temple. We just had to survive to climb the steep and dangerous stairs.
The nature almost won the fight against the temple on a few spots. There are gargantuan trees growing on the roofs. This temple was our favorite. Our motto: Back to the roots :-)
The temple looks pretty with our car (Queen), so she couldn't deny to act in a hot pose.
Fed up of temples we went back to our favorite street restaurant which offers all meals for only 1 US$. It's hard to decide what you want. Rice or Noodles???
It was sad to leave our guesthouse and the stuff. You could almost call us a family, we even got an invitation for a Cambodian wedding. We are proud to be in Cambodia. Andreas and Florian lost their heart to Cambodia and the people there.
We drove all the way south to the beach because Daniel was so aspirated to go to the beach and the ocean. On the way we got a heavy loaded mopped in front of our camera. How can you balance something like this?
Three of the five faces are going to the beach.
We moved into a beach bar (Frog Shack)when we reached the beach of Shioukville. Two American girls who we met in Siam Reap, recommended this place. The accommodation was free (we were wondering), instead you had to drink or eat something at the bar. It is a 10 second walk from our bed to the sea and you can chill out in one of the cozy seats on the beach. Maybe with a cold beer?
The children a collecting empty cans and bottles till late night and sometimes they ask for a dollar or a bit food. They were fascinated by our cameras and we couldn't stop them to take pictures of everything. They also loved our Coca Cola which they finished very quick till the last drop.
The beach was a bit crowded at daytime but around 80% of them were locals.
And 1 % are we :-)...
We contract friendship with a Vietnamese girl (Won). Her job is it to offer services and goods on the beach (manicure, pedicure, massage, bracelets and a lot more).
The Cambodian kitchen supplied us with two BBQ sharks and a crispy spider as a starter. The sharks tasted exquisite but you had to get used to the taste of the spider.
On the following day we almost missed our party boat, which drove us to a Jump rock and to an uninhabited island. The jumps were a bit small (5m), but the island with BBQ was great.
After an aimless driving, we decided to travel to Cambodia's north-west. There should be an untouched jungle packed with exotic animals and plants. We were heading towards the city Koh Kong. Our camp was a bit out of the town, on a small mountain overlooking a river delta and on top we had an amazing sunset.
On the next day we had a long and stressful day searching for a waterfall. Finally we found it in the evening, but it wasn't worth the time, we spent to find it.
After a cool dip we drove back to our base camp to be on the mend, because we are going to explore the mountains tomorrow. We were finished with picking up food and petrol for our journey when two jeeps and six dirt bikes got our attention. Our mind led us to the right person, Nick Berry tour guide for the Cardamon Mountains (www.junglecross.com) He told us that he will go on a tour with an English guy (Blue Loo) and another German ( Dave ). He invited us to join his group of dirt bikes tomorrow and we were happy to follow them up. We had a nice evening and a couple of beers to get to know each other a bit better. After a good German breakfast at Otto's place, we were heading to the mountains. The way led us over hill and dale to a beautiful waterfall, where the nature forced us to stop for a while because of the heavy rain. Thereby we met a family, who lives in the jungle. They invited us to move in their shed.
Nick guided us to a beautiful and remote river where we settled down for tonight. We fried chicken and veggies for dinner and had some ice cold beers. Special thanks to the English "Ice block rolling technic "
Sadly our two-wheel friends had to go back on the next day. But our way should go through the mountains straight to Phnom Penh. The track wasn't easy and after a few bloodcurdling parts of the track we followed the advice of the locals to drive back. Still we had a funny challenge and again we were surprised what is possible with a 4WD.
Over happy and goggle faces were passing us in the small villages of the mountains, because it is rare to see a car or even white peoples here.
Final destination....
Back in Koh Kong we reported Nick our adventure. Next stop: Phnom Penh (Capital City). We crashed into the "Same Same But Defferent" guesthouse with a nice view over a lake in the middle of the city. That is what you get for only one dollar each.
There is not much to see here. We went to a special shooting range from the army. Here you can shoot everything from gun (12 US$) to rocket launcher (300 US$). It's sick that you can buy chickens (20 US$) to have an alive target. Our choice was a handgun and a pump gun which we shot on a wooden target.
After that we visited the Killingfields a part of the horrible past of Cambodia. It is a memorial for the thousands Cambodian victims who were killed here.
This building is filled with human skulls.
You can get more informations here : Killing Fields
The next was a shopping day, because everyone had a long list of wishes. The best place to go is definitely the "Central Market". We got a bit of a buying binge and bought hammocks, Lonely Plantes (the cheapest place were you can get them), shoes, game boy, card reader and a new guitar.
Later on we visited the Vietnamese embassy to make sure that there are no problems to drive the car into Vietnam. Then a shock. It will take a long time to get the permission ( if you can get it ) and there were only 2 days left with our visa. We had an emergency session. 2 options:
a) don't care about Vietnam and drive straight to Laos or
b) travel Vietnam on foot
We decided unanimously to go there on foot, because it is to nice to miss it and we already paid for the visas.
Quickly we made up a new plan. We could ask Dan, a nice swiss guy in Kep, to park the car at his place. He owns a really nice Resort "Kep Lodge" there, next to the boarder of National Park.
We will upload a picture of him later...
So we drove to Kep and spoke to Dan about our plan. It was no problem to park our car on his place for one month. He even organized one of his employees as a translator to talk to the custom officers at the Vietnamese border. That was our last try to cross the boarder with our car. As we predicted it was impossible. Spending the night on the beach was really good after that stressful day.
There were only two days left and we spend the time to explore the pretty area and it was easy with Dans drawing.
We met to locals who enjoyed it to show us around. There was a lot to see. A cave wherein you can swim, a storage lake with a lot of small islands on it and some pepper plantations. On the way to his uncle, where we harvested and ate a few fresh coconuts, a few curious children surrounded us. They were staggered about our western look (colour of the skin, hairs, piercings) and our car.
Then he invited us to eat with his family. As our car passed a school 15 children stormed out to have a look on us strange looking humans.
His mother cooked us a traditional Cambodian dish while he shew us the classroom were he teaches English to the local children. Andy took action and explained Moritz how it works with the irregular verbs.
The last stop was at a cave where we saw how they crush stones to make gravel. Not even the prisoners at home have to work like this anymore. This woman earns around 4000 Riel = 0,66 Euro a "DAY". No one at home should complain about his job anymore.
On the next day we handled the car (our house) over to Dan, the latchkey included :-). A Tuk Tuk drove us, packed with the most important stuff, to Vietnam.
See you in one month Cambodia...
32 °C
