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Day 213 – Stats 107 Cambodia

Well, let’s face it, I was sick – therefore this post is up for grabs? We had one thing going that was not blobbing and sleeping: We went out to a very nice restaurant and had a very nice dinner before hitting the road again the next day. I was feeling better and better and was pretty sure it would be ok to ride again, come tomorrow. The restaurant was on the other side of the Nam Khan, reached via a rickety dry season only bamboo bridge. Nina was not convinced, but the bridge held – both ways. The food at Dyen Sabai was outstanding – easily the best fusion food in Asia so far.

Alright, so now, Cambodia. Why Cambodia and not Thailand? Well, since we are going back to Thailand once more, I thought of doing that one as a single post.

Country data #7: Cambodia

Full screen version of the map

  • 2030 km traveled (1993 km of GPS tracked)
  • 9 travel days, 19 days total
  • $17.19 Average cost per night (18x room, no invitation)
  • 111l of standard fuel for $  126.52 (6 l / 100km)
  • ~$34.30 for food every day, always eating out with no invitations
  • ~$1.850 in total

All $ values are converted to NZD.

Day 211 – Viva la Fever

Leaving our breakfast cafe with the hammer and sickle flag

Leaving our breakfast cafe with the hammer and sickle flag

This day should soon take a very uncomfortable turn for me. Yet, while we were sitting here munching on our decent and affordable breakfast across the road from our hotel, we did not expect a thing of what was to come. Because we thought the super cool waterfall plus swimming hole would be better in the afternoon when it would be a bit warmer (it gets quite chilly up here in the mornings), we scheduled the walking tour of the town for this morning.

Because we did That Chomsi last night, we started at the north eastern end of the little hill instead of climbing it. Through Wat Siphouthabat Thippharam we made our way to the old royal palace, now a museum.

 

The temple of the Royal Palace in the morning sun

The temple of the Royal Palace in the morning sun

The fancy building in the foreground is actually quite new – it was built at the end of the last century to house the Pha Bang Buddha, namesake of the town. We were briefly debating whether or not to fork over the 60000 kip entrance fee. In the end, we were glad we did it – the palace was in prime condition, left like it was after the reds took over. It was renovated and upgraded for the coronation of the last king in the 60s. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed inside. It was quite splendid, though. We especially liked the throne room decked out in mosaics of Japanese glass and the collection of swords.

Wat Xieng Thong - Glorious side view

Wat Xieng Thong – Glorious side view

Through some alleyways we came past a whole bunch of Unesco World Heritage protected buildings and out to the Mekong waterfront. This is when I started to feel a bit worse for wear. Although it was only 10 am, I was completely worn out and ready to sleep again. We just so made it to Wat Xieng Thong at the end of the peninsula when I called it our last stop.

The wat was fancy and all, but I still have not really connected with the local Buddhist style and themes. A lot of gold and glitter, but nothing spiritual going on there for me.

Pretending that he's not THAT sick...before collapsing

Pretending that he’s not THAT sick…before collapsing

We headed straight back to our room after that and I pretty much collapsed on the bed. Within the next couple of hours I felt worse and worse and developed a fever. So much for waterfalls this afternoon. I slept through lunch time and moaned around until at least Nina’s hunger drove us out at 3 pm. We went to a restaurant just across the street. They had amazing green curry, but I was not feeling like eating at all. Luckily I stopped half way through, because it would sit there for the rest of the night in my stomach making me feel nauseous.

It got so bad that Nina went out to get me a thermometer later on. I really did have a fever at 39°C. I don’t remember much else other than feeling miserable but unable to sleep due to my full belly. Later and all through the night, that got mixed up with some fever dreams on infinite rotation, for good measure …

 

Day 210 – On top of things

A joy to ride

A joy to ride

If the map was any indicator, we were about to embark into the real mountainous North today. We heard from other travelers that there was a new road going over a mountain pass instead of following the Mekong and that it would not be used by buses for the steep incline. Obviously we were quite excited about this.

Before we could find out however, there were a bunch of minor annoyances in our way. First, the drive chain was covered in a thick sandy layer of grit and had to be cleaned. Before packing, I fixed up our luggage racks a bit and when we finally were ready to leave, Nina’s headset finally gave out after playing up for a while. This is the forth or fifth one to break on the trip – and the final spare. As much as we love the cheaper wired intercom, it is getting a bit ridiculous. Later that night I went over all the old (and broken ones) again – and at least found one where only one of the earpieces is dead. That will have to do until we can get our hands on replacements later on, probably Oman. Continue reading →

Day 207 – Vien-tired

French decadence :)

French decadence 🙂

It is really hard to self-diagnose on a trip like this. Health, energy and mental health are pretty close together. Which makes discerning between “I am low” from “I might have the onset of dengue fever” difficult. I am pretty sure that we do not have dengue fever, nor any other of the major tropical diseases we are keeping an eye out for. Then again, they all have pretty much the same early symptoms: Headache, fever, fatigue. So far, we only ever scored mild versions of all three – which coincidentally are also the symptoms for heat exhaustion or just low energy levels. 🙂

So we decided to quit whining and get out there. There was a city to be explored here. The Lonely Planet suggests a 5 km bicycle loop –but we were confident enough to tackle it on foot. Especially since the very first suggested stop was a hearty breakfast at a French style bakery one street over from our guesthouse.

The breakfast held true and was delicious. Fresh orange juice and delightfully fluffy croissants. The only small downside was that it also had almost French prices – still worth it, though.

The inner temple

The inner temple

After such fuelling, we got underway. After a couple of more or less impressive colonial villas, some of which were shielded from view by high walls, we made a stop at Wat Si Saket which turned museum. It was a bit worse for wear, but we both felt it had some charm. At the inner sanctum, restaurateurs were hard at work – under competent German guidance, as a sign assured us.

From here we passed the completely walled in French embassy and made our way to the markets. It was a nice change from Indonesian markets to see that even with the same space limitations and hustle and bustle you CAN organise stalls thematically instead of having horse guts drip over the Barbie dolls. 😉

Fresh fruits...just 10.000kip

Fresh fruits…just 10.000kip

It was nearing noon and we were both feeling worse for wear. After another little accident involving treacherous south-east Asian footpaths, we took a break in a juice bar along the way and calmed down with some lovely fresh fruit juices.

We called it a day then and had a strategic retreat to our room. Nina took a good long nap and I got myself up to date again with the state of affairs in the world. Ok, I mostly watched US late night comedy shows …

The cave of shame was left only once more for lunch. Once again, our first pick had closed down or moved – so we settled for mildly fancy Italian. With the lunch special, the price was actually ok and the pizza was outstanding. Hands down the best pizza since Auckland. It was even enough to eat that we skipped dinner apart from a late night croissant for Nina.

Day 205 – Hordes of the Underdark

Rice fields and mountains in the early morning

Rice fields and mountains in the early morning

This was a neigh perfect day! Gosh, was that day trip amazing. To think that we almost did not go!

I am still on and off with some kind of infection. Never bad enough to need a full rest day, but it is getting annoying none the less. Regardless, after a nice breakfast on this surprising but refreshingly crisp morning, we decided to do what we came here for.

The road to Kong Lor was in itself a highlight. This whole area is a vast fertile plain ringed on all sides by limestone hills jutting out like crystals from the flat expanse. On it, there is not much going on but (mostly rice) farming and some cute villages. Even the high voltage transmission lines from the hydros did not look out of place. To top it all of, the road was sealed and in pretty good condition. Continue reading →

Day 203 – Plains

The guest house's dog took a liking to Flo...but well enough behaved to not follow into the room :)

The guest house’s dog took a liking to Flo…but well enough behaved to not follow into the room 🙂

We got annoyed with ourselves this morning for failing at breakfast. Or maybe it was just that yesterday’s one was so good that it was impossible to live up to it. The cute little community run cafe we wanted to go to had moved out of town a while back and we were a bit headless in finding another place to go. It was pre-coffee time, after all. So we ended up in the cafe of the resident fancy hotel, paying almost NZ prices while getting airport quality food, 🙁

Nonetheless, the day came into its own from here. The main goal was to cross the empty wasteland that is the central Mekong lowland. 300 km of the main highway following the path of the Mekong until Thakhek, where we would stay for the night to leave on another loop off the main road to explore the central east.

These things are the slowest vehicles on the road here. Mostly because they are totally overloaded

These things are the slowest vehicles on the road here. Mostly because they are totally overloaded

The ride was pleasantly uneventful, we found nice lunch and once again arrived at our guesthouse in the early afternoon. We went with the nr. 1 recommendation from the lonely planet a bit out of town. They had a room, albeit a rustic and simple affair with bare concrete floor and a bed which’s springs were covered by not much more than a layer of rice paper (or that is how it felt like). The whole place was packed with high energy, mostly culturally insensitive 20something backpackers. Then again, they have a bonfire every night. 🙂

Dinner in town was a bit of a disaster – but we used that opportunity to have a good talk about changing our food strategy. I am pretty sure we got it back on track with that.

We thought to finish a quick blog post before hitting the bed that night. I had a beer and we popped down in the common area. By chance I had overheard a young German couple talking about going to Cambodia some time later and used my chance to get rid of our last remaining Cambodian Riel. We got talking over that and soon it was clear that we would once again not manage to catch up on the blog. Tabea and Nils were great company and we spend the rest of the night talking about life, travel and the world.

Day 201 – Southern swing

The light is starting to file through

The light is starting to file through

We paid for a room with sunrise view, so we should better gotten out of bed to see the sunrise – right? Well, we did, actually. Getting out of bed, that is. Concerning the sunrise though, we were mildly out of luck. The cloud cover made it only nice instead of spectacular, but on the other hand we got to observe the Lao people go about their insistently early morning routines.

The fishermen, almost ghost-like and silent on the calm Mekong. The towns people getting up and preparing the little shrines. The monks doing their rounds and collecting alms, giving a blessing in return. The culturally insensitive tourists following the monks way too closely with cameras shoved in their faces … a normal calm morning in this sleepy tourist town.

Laos differs greatly from Cambodia: Much greener, many more rivers and most importantly, mountains

Laos differs greatly from Cambodia: Much greener, many more rivers and most importantly, mountains

A side benefit of getting up so early was that we also got on the road nice and early, while it was still relatively cool. The plan was to do the Southern Swing loop, a motorcycle tour through the Bolaven plateau recommended by the Lonely Planet. Since we found both a SIM card and new shampoo along the way, we skipped going to the regional capital of Pakse and turned off straight for the mountains.

We wavered only briefly whether to follow the advised loop back to Pakse or try to modify the route to come along a different way north. In the end we decided to stick to the suggestion. There will be plenty of opportunity to go off the beaten track further north.

A place to chill and sip organic coffee

A place to chill and sip organic coffee

Not willing to fork over yet another $5 for a waterfall, we skipped the first stop to go and pay Mr. Vieng’s Coffee and Homestay a visit. It was lunch time now and we had the small hope that we might find lunch there as well. Our hope for food was disappointed, but for once we were still quite happy with that. Mr. Vieng’s place was amazing – hitting that super narrow space of feeling authentic while still being spic-and-span in our spoiled western eyes. It was all wood and dirt floor, very calm and super cozy. The coffee was great, only topped by the complimentary home roasted peanuts. We even considered calling it a day right there and stay in the homestay, but food called.

Rocinante gets to see the waterfall as well from this wooden bridge

Rocinante gets to see the waterfall as well from this wooden bridge

The next stop was the natural stopping point for the day, and there were some lovely guesthouses to look out for, according to the Lonely Planet. Unfortunately, all the nice ones already had the signs out telling us that there were no rooms available. The cute restaurants were closed as well. Slightly defeated, we took a meal at the touristy place with a view of the Tat Hang waterfall to consider what to do next. The waterfall was nice, but nothing special. Although it was late for lunch, it was actually still relatively early in the day.

Lunch took forever to arrive – not for the first time in Cambodia and Laos, which gave us ample of time to come up with a plan. We decided to go on for a bit more and go to Sekong, the next town on the southern swing, where very reasonably priced guesthouses were available via Agoda.

Rocinante parked at our guest house where we stayed despite the Agoda scam

Rocinante parked at our guest house where we stayed despite the Agoda scam

Just an hour later, we were in for our final surprise for the day. The guest house we booked was nowhere to be found at the given coordinates. Some probing led us about 2km further, where the guest house from the photos could be found. There, they denied any association with Agoda and asked to be payed in cash. The place was nice enough, so we did it and started to sort out a refund for the weird scam from Agoda. The room was massive and the night was calm – everything else could be sorted out … tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

Day 199 – The far East

Newly sealed, great views, literally no traffic

Newly sealed, great views, literally no traffic

There was only a brief debate, but the rustic charms of our “shack” had worn off and I did not feel like needing another full day to recuperate. Thus, we hit the road again. Baring due north. Until very recently, there was no road, let alone a sealed one, connecting the eastern regional capitals of Sen Monorom and Ban Lung directly. Travelers would genuinely get lost trying to navigate a vast maze of cart and oxen tracks and some payed a handsome “thank you”-fee to a local guide getting them out again.

Huge areas have been transformed to palm plantations made possible and accessible by the new road

Huge areas have been transformed to palm plantations made possible and accessible by the new road

None of this anymore – a fully sealed road winds gently down the plateau and through the Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary connecting the provinces of Mondulkiri and Ratanakiri. But other than this one black strip of tarmac and some trappings that come with such infrastructure, there was still not much else out here. Especially now in the dry, it all is one long savanna / light forest as far as the eye can see. During the whole 150 km journey, we encountered maybe 30 other vehicles. It reminded us at times of the Australian outback. Only the 110cc bikes and rice tractors underscored that is was not that.

Crossing one of many tributaries to the Mekong

Crossing one of many tributaries to the Mekong

We enjoyed the ride, the solitude and the encounters with the hardy Cambodians living out here. We also made immensely good pace – so good that we hit the turn off to Ban Lung a good time before lunch time. With only 100 km to go and such easy riding, we decided to skip Ban Lung and go directly to Strung Treng. Another provincial capital of the province baring the same name, the Mekong town of Strung Treng is the launch pad for early border crossings into Laos.

One of many fires we've seen in Cambodia

One of many fires we’ve seen in Cambodia

We booked into a brand new Chinese (as in ethnicity, not nationality) owned guest house a kilometer out of the town center. It was cheap and we could book via Agoda. The room was lovely, clean and, best of all, motel-style on the ground floor with direct motorcycle access! The only downside really was the lack of a restaurant, but the ride to town was short enough.

We went to town that night to a forgettable Chinese restaurant and headed home early to get everything in order for the border crossing tomorrow. We even found a post office to drop off Nina’s next batch of post cards.