- Asia, Cambodia, Independent travel, Outdoor Activities, Photography, Transport, Travel Blog, World food
Kampot: A Different Kind Of Town
The train is almost definitely not our best option for getting to Kampot, given that there’s only one train per day which leaves Phnom Penh at 7am and takes four hours to do just 150km, but my love of rail travel wins and so we skip breakfast and make our way to the station early enough to beat the traffic jams which create the daily morning gridlock. An ambling train journey through drier and more agricultural terrain eventually delivers us to the little town of Kampot nestling on the banks of the Sangke River, just a few miles from the coast. The smiley little guy introduces himself as Pat as…
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Phnom Penh: Happy Pizza, Dodgy Bars & Crazy Money
It’s very rare for us to eat pizza, it’s just not a food we ever seem to choose, even though these days it’s one thing which is available just about everywhere in the world. For those who like to, you may well be tempted by the “happy pizza” signs on A-boards outside many of Phnom Penh’s restaurants. Well, if you like a liberal helping of marijuana in the tomato base beneath your chosen topping, then “happy pizza” is for you, because that’s exactly what’s in the recipe. All drugs are absolutely illegal in Cambodia, including marijuana, yet somehow these pizza places occupy a grey area law wise and continue to…
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From Province To Capital: Phnom Penh
Preamble: We thought long and hard about this post. It contains some horrific detail but also contains some light hearted humour. Can we really put those two things in the same post? We reached a decision. Please read on, we will warn you before you reach the more brutal words… It was on our first night in Battambang, just as we were drifting off to sleep, when we first heard it, and we both laughed out loud. Something outside, some strange, semi-mechanical disembodied voice seemed to shout “f*ck it” five times, in a kind of rhythmic chant. Surely we don’t have a neighbour who has taught his parrot to swear in English?…
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Caves, Carts & A Cartoon Character: Our Time In Battambang
Considering its status as Cambodia’s third largest city, Battambang is a modest and quiet place, feeling more like a provincial town than how a bustling Asian city normally feels. The Sangker River flows lazily between its steep banks, in dry season anyway, while the traffic moves slowly through its docile streets which are noticeably free of beggars and hawkers, tuk-tuk drivers wait to be stirred rather than tout for business, and incredibly a car will sometimes even stop at a red traffic light. Battambang’s modest collection of restaurants is dotted around the city rather than centred on one area, there is nothing to compare to Siem Reap’s Pub Street here,…
- Asia, Cambodia, Independent travel, Outdoor Activities, Photography, Transport, Travel Blog, Wildlife, World food
Tonle Sap: Going Off Limits & Sleeping With Toads
This next part of our South East Asia trip is one which we’ve been looking forward to with such anticipation, not just recently but before the original curtailed trip three years ago. Why? Because we do love pushing the boundaries of the comfort zone, and this short adventure will surely do that. It starts when Var, our guide and companion for the next two days, collects us from Siem Reap and we climb into the nicely air conditioned 4×4. And when we say “companion” we mean it – Var will be sleeping in the same room as us tonight. “I will explain all we are going to do” he says,…
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Seven Sultry Days In Siem Reap
It’s already getting warm long before first light as we head back towards Angkor Wat, the clock ticking towards 4.45am and the darkness heavy with sultry heat even before the birds are singing. Michaela’s trusty weather app says today will be 39C but will “feel like” 45C and it’s clear that the mercury’s journey up the thermometer has already started. We’re up at this hour for the classic sight of the sun rising behind the temple’s five towers, a must-do experience for all visitors to Siem Reap. As we leave the tuk-tuk and start the long walk through the grounds, a silent pilgrimage of other early risers makes its way towards…
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Into Cambodia: Siem Reap & Angkor Wat
Words. One of our airbnb hosts in Vietnam has left a review of us on the website, as they do. When Michaela runs the Vietnamese text through Google translate, the review consists of just three words: “clean tidy happy”. Well, it’s hardly an extended character reference but “clean tidy happy” is a description which we’ll readily accept as a compliment. And on the subject of words, I picked up a T-shirt in Hanoi which carries a slogan which just about sums up my entire life philosophy just now. It reads…”think global, drink local”. Yep, that just about says it all. As the end of our time in Vietnam approaches, we…
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We Have To Mention The War
“Everybody has heard of the Vietnam War, right?” asks Mickie the tour guide as the minibus heads towards the tunnels. “Well”, he continues, “let me tell you there is no such thing. My country has a history of a thousand years of war. After World War 2 we have the Indochina War, the French War, and then, the one you call the Vietnam War”, he pauses for effect, “we call the American War, not the Vietnam War. I hope before you leave Vietnam, you will understand more about the American War”. Mickie is impassioned, proud of his country, and – like every single Vietnamese – from a family devastated by…
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On To Saigon Or Whatever It’s Called
Day 35 of this trip and we cop out for the first time. Up until tonight it’s been local food all the way….Indian, Nepalese and Vietnamese dishes, local specialities, street food, even a frog on a stick for God’s sake. But Can Tho is different: the restaurants aren’t quite as inviting, the atmosphere is less accessible, and the street food we’ve tried is unpopular with locals and close to inedible. So we cop out and find an “ordinary” restaurant, The Lighthouse, which, perish the thought, does steaks and stuff. For the first time since we entered the country, we eat some non-Vietnamese food: Michaela’s is a French dish, mine Belgian.…
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Down To The Delta: Markets On The Mekong
We seem to get from Da Nang to Can Tho in the blink of an eye, via a domestic flight which leaves on time and arrives early followed by a taxi driver with Formula 1 aspirations. Our base in Can Tho is in the Ninh Kieu district, close to the quay of the same name, and as we take our first stroll and look out across the water, there is a serenity which we think is like a Spanish siesta, but will come to realise later that it is something else entirely. The mighty Mekong River travels some 3,050 miles from its source high on the Tibetan Plateau down to…
