Oct 1, 2008 - Phnom Penh

Today we say goodbye to our new friend Trong and cross the border to Cambodia. It was a much longer process than any of us thought. It took about 3 hours drive by bus to arrive at the border,then an hour or more of processing. We had our new guide meet us in Cambodia and then on a mini bus heading to Phnom Penh. Unfortunately there was a three day festival just ending with half of Cambodia there and we all had to cross the Mekong River on the small ferry, the traffic congestion was at a halt mostly and a very slow crawl. We saw some amazing...

Jul 8, 2008 - Phenom Penh

- In order to cross the border into Cambodia, we drove an hour, boarded a boat, and cruised for 6 hours (including border checkpoint stops). Thankfully, I brought tons of Dramamine with me, so I was able to prevent the seasickness and it made me drowsy enough to sleep the whole way. - When we arrived at Phnom Penh, the whole group was shocked. We had heard stories about how Cambodia would be a very emotionally difficult part of our trip....yet the parts of the city we saw on day 1 looked even more advanced than Hanoi in Vietnam. Instead of...

Jun 25, 2008 - Phnom Penh

Yohoooooo. Vi er i Phnom Penh naa og er paa nettcafe for en kjapp oppdatering... Lagt ut et par bilder til... Som dere kanskje saa saa har jeg smakt paa min forste grasshoppe... Paa bilde var jeg litt skeptisk og jeg var langt vaerre i virkeligheten. Jeg spiste to bein, og en liten bit av kroppen, men naar jeg merket at det var litt ekkelt inni saa fikk Thobben slenge i seg resten... Han spiste faktisk et par stykker og synes de var gode... Hmmm... De smakte faktisk reint lite, men hallo det var faktisk en gresshoppe... Synes jeg var toff...

Jun 24, 2008 - Phenom Penh

The Mekong River is about half a mile wide, brown, fast flowing and goes on forever! Three hours upriver it was customs and immigration. Got out of the boat on the Vietnam side to be processed to exit, which took about 30 minutes (time to buy drinks, and fruit, and coconut cakes, pastry around coconut and good tasting). Upriver another 15 minutes it was the Cambodia equivalent, and here we were fortunate in that the boat before us was being asked to have every passenger bring out the bags for inspection. I guess the thought of a second lot...

Mar 23, 2008 - Cambodia- Sihanoukville/ Kampot/ Phnom Pehn

I sadly said goodbye to my English boys as I decided to move on to Cambodia. I bought a packaged ticket that was to get me all the way from Trat to Sihanoukville, Cambodia. I am usually against the packaged purchases but I have heard some terrible Cambodia border-scam stories and thought I might want all my transportation already figured arranged. The 5am tuk-tuk got me to the border at 7am and by 7:30 I was grumbling about the $20 extra the police were deciding to charge for the Cambodian visa. I knew I hadn't complained that loud but I...

Feb 19, 2008 - Phnom Penh

We took a public bus from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh - it was quite luxurious -we watched Die Hard 3(?) with Bruce Willis, etc. speaking Cambodian, there was a steward who provided travel commentary and we were given bottled water and a snack. The countryside is a mixture of rice fields and the remains of jungle growth. There were lots of cattle and water buffalo and the highway is pretty well lined with little selling booths. Any sort of construction is very labour intensive so you see crew breaking apart chunks of clay with axes for road...

Nov 10, 2007 - Phnom Penh

The day was taken up by a boat ride on the Mekong River from Chau Doc over the border to Cambodia - Phnom Penh. This was a local service rather than a tourist ferry and took over 5 1/2 hours. Not feeling very well i wasnt really looking forward to it but the sights of the floating houses, houses on stilts and local people waving from the river banks really made up for it. At the border they didnt accept my e-visa so i had to buy another one...I didnt have a passport photo so luckily they accepted the pic on my e-visa. I was really impressed...

Oct 23, 2007 - Phenom Penh

Now that it's light out and stopped pouring buckets, we can finally have a good look at Chau Doc which pretty much revolves around the river. We board a speed ferryish boat to take us up river on a 5 hours journey to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We have fun at the border crossing on both the Vietnamese and Cambodian sides. The boat ride was really pretty and we got to see locals living and working the river. Once we were into Cambodia and settled, Melissa and I headed out to discover the city. We went to Wat Phnom and the Central Market (new...

Sep 2, 2007 - Cambodia...Phnom Penh

We flew to Phnom Penh (in a lightening storm i might add), and arrived at our guesthouse (OKAY Guesthouse)in the evening on Sept 1st. As the books warn you, Cambodia is not quite the place you want to be walking around at night in dark alleys...since we were staying in a dark alley :), we decided to take a tuk tuk (taxi) to a restaurant near bye to grab some dinner. Thus far on the trip this was the most amount of beggers we have seen! Taxi drivers everywhere trying to get us to go with them, children on the street begging for money, etc....

Jul 22, 2007 - Pnomh Penh

Vanmiddag na een lange, maar mooie boottocht aangtekomen in Phom Penh, de hoofdstad van Cambodja. De eerste indruk is dat het een erg relaxete, laid back stad is, niet zo'n gekkenhuis als Hanoi en Saigon met al de motortjes. PP is niet zo'n hele bijzondere stad. Ben hier wel twee dagen gebleven (heb nog genoeg tijd voordat ik naar Tanzania vlieg). Ik heb een dag een tourtje gedan met de motor driver die me van de boot naar het hotel gebracht heeft. Eerst naar de Killing fields: erg indrukwekkend, er zijn daar massa graven opgegraven....

Jun 14, 2007 - Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh - I'm actually learning how to spell that. Arrived here after six hours in a bus from Battambang. I'm used to South American roads so this was a highway though the ox-carts slowed us down occasionally and the AC worked. Ended up in the penthouse suite - you know - the one up the ladder the receptionist didn't want to give me as she thought that I was too old to climb the five flights of stairs. I sure fooled her. Amazing views and worth the puffing. Arrived in time to do the museum and then wander along the river bank. You can...

Jun 8, 2007 - Bus Trip to Phnom Penh

Today we are braving it by taking a bus from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh. A 5 hour trip to cover 320 kms. So does that tell you what the roads are like! It was pretty uneventful - lots of potholes to keep us on our toes. We did have a/c, a commentary, sandwich (with who knows what on it), water. We stopped half way at a restaurant - where big piles of noodles were the order of the day. We have just about had noodles! Needless to say, we didn't order anything. As we were waiting to get back on board - we noticed a street stall selling...