SIEM REAP, floating village and getting organized

I was there at 07:45...but nobody else. So after some waiting and internetting I went to the bankoffice. For just 2% fee they could give me cash money from my Creditcard. Finally I have some money :-) Just walked around and had a lovely and sweet breakfast a Bleu Pumpkin (oh, this place is expensive). Went to the local market for some fruits. The people here are so dirty, they sell the food from sitting on the ground. I saw fish on the concrete pathways and they were still alive. Yummie...? Went to the pharmacy for Immodium, but it didn't stop the diarea. At the end of the morning all the other guys were stiil in a coma so I went out for a Cambodian massage. Really strong an 4 times more expensive than in Thailand. Can't move my injured arm anymore...

After 13:00 the guys were there and we took our tuktuk to the floating village. We had to pay 15 USD each for a boat ticket and it was a shitty and really slowboat. So we spent 90 USD together for one boat and still they keep asking for money. The floating village didn't seem to receive any of that money. After a short rivercruise, visiting a school, see some little crocodiles and snakes in a cage we returned on the smelly river. We refused to come with the drivers to their place, because we knew that they would try to get more money from us.

With a group of 7 we had a great dinner in one of the backstreets of Pubstreet. Free and unlimited popcorn, dished that were ready in not more then 10 minutes, free extra drinks and more stuff. And it tasted fuckin' good! I can't remember the name, but there is only one that offers free popcorn.

In the evening we had a few drinks and had some fun riding this policemotorbike. The policeman was just laughing all the time.

SIEM REAP - ANGKOR WAT, amazing old temples

We didn't want to do the sunrise edition of Angkor Wat, too early after this long journey. So 2 of the tuktukdrivers from yesterday took us for a whole day to the Angkor Wat area for 15 USD per tuktuk. We didn't had to pay for the ride yesterday. At the enytrance of the park you had to buy your ticket with your picture printed on it. We choose for a one-day ticket for 20 USD, and one day is enough. They wait for you all day and bring you to the next place whenever you want. Most of the guys were a little bit dissapointed at Angkor Wat, well I still think it's an impressive building. Okay, maybe there are to many tourists walking around and it doesn't give you that ancient feeling when you see all the construction work going on in and around the temple complex.

After meeting some monkeys our next stop was Ta Prohm, this is one of the best ruines in the area I think. Most of the buildings collapsed, but the complex is completely taken over by the jungle. Beautifull jungletrees growing on top and in the ancient buildings. Absolutely, visit this place! We lost Dan here and stayed for lunch while our tuktuk driver was searching for Dan.

Next stop, Angkor Thom. A big complex with some highlights. Terrace of elephants, not very special. Terrace of Leper King, some hallways with many puppeps in the walls. But one side of the hallway looks ancient and the other side is structures with modern concrete walls...why? There is another temple nearby that you can climb, walk around it first because on one side there is a normal stairway to the top. You see many people stumbling up the steep original stairsways.

The absolute highlight of this complex is Bayon. An impressive collection of 54 Gothic towers and 216 enormous smilig faces. I visited this site in the late afternoon...awesome views. The other guys were still playing local games somewere else.

Our tuktukdriver recommended us to view sunset from the hill with a temple on top. Well, everybody seemed to go there. Way too many people and not a special sunset. I should not do it again. And you can see only a small piece of Angkor Wat in the distance.

Evening ended up in a partynight. This time we didn't had to invite people to our table, the girls just came to us :-) Good times at the Angkor What? Bar and good pizza on the other side of Pubstreet. Still it's strange that you pay everything in US Dollars in Cambodia. After a few buckets and free t-shirts we went home early in the morning and promised that some of us were there at 07:45...

DON DET - SIEM REAP, long day of travelling

08:00 pickup they said...yeah right :-) This is Laos. Even when they know the day before that they have more then 60 people leaving the island on the same time, they can not manage more then one longtailboat. In one boat they put 8 persons. So at 09:15 it was our turn to jumpo in the boat. The bus didn;t arrive at the pier, so we had to wait for another hour. Next thing, they booked too many peoplke on the bus, so a lot of people were sitting on babychairs in the middle path of the bus, around 11:45 we finally left to the border.

Border, first you had to pay 2 USD for leaving the country at the Departure office, then you had to pay 1 USD for a healthcheck (this is crap, cause everybody had 35,7 as a temperature). Then you fill in a form for you visa at the next office and with one picture you pay 23 USD. Then the next office for an arrival stamp, again 1 USD. A lot of extra USD because this was weekend fee. It took a while before everybody was ready and they promised an extra bus, but no way they didn't.

Cambodia looks terrible. Poor country is the first impression. And damn, garbage and red dust everywere! At some point we stopped near this disgusting market and they told us we had to take our backpack and get out of the bus, because of a transfer. But then they tell you they made a mistake and we had to go back on the bus. Then we had to get of the bus again, some of us did but fuck it. I stayed inside and the bus left. The others jumped on another bus. Our next stop was Kratie, this place looks also like shit. The trip was followed by a local Martial Arts movie, but well directed. The karaoke was not that fun to listen too, so earplugs in :-)

At 18:00 we stopped somewere and jumped on another bus and finally we met the other guys again. At 21:00 we stopped for dinner at an awfull looking place with dirty toilets and food that didn't look that good. Frogs, turtles, snakes... I'm feeling sicker the last days so I decided not to eat here. It was almost midnight when we arrived at Siem Reap and this is completely different then we saw before in Cambodia. And with all the lights and Christmasshats you would still think it is Christmass here. We went with a group of 8 people in 4 tuktuks and told them to take us to the same guesthouse. They didn't and took everybody to another place in town. 6 people found eachother again. After some guesthousechecks we dropped our stuff at Bakong Lodge, the guesthouse of the tourcompany. Cheap and all services available.

First impression of Siem Reap?... No, I don't want a tuktuk, drugs, sex with local women, fishmassage, same same food. If I want something I will ask, damn those people here are very pushing! And beggars everywere. Ow and guess what, filled with positive feelings I put my debtcard in one of the ATM's... 'CARD NOT ACCEPTED' What the fuck!? So after Laos, Rabobank is not working in Cambodia. No Dutch people around and the bankoffices are closed today and tomorrow. We had dinner after 01:00 midnight, some places stay open 24 hours?...

LAOS, it was all about balls... :-)

Yeah Laos was different, but I had some amazing experiences.

Laos was all about waiting waiting and waiting... and all about BALLS;

Making balls of sticky rice, discussions about buffalo laap and if it's made from buffalo balls, throwing balls with girls during the new years ceremonies, naked boys on the river banks playing with their balls(!), throwing balls at bowling alley at 03.00 in the night (Luang Prabang), tasty meatballs at Josh's Place Don Det, show that you have 'balls' at the tourbooking office to get your money back, kids pull their pant down and start pissing while you are waiting for your kayaktour, Sohail showing his balls more than once during the drinkinggames on the slowboat, mudvolleyball at Vang Vieng, and much more!

DON DEAD

Yeah, the first day of the year was boring. Just sleeping all day. Don Det is dead. Didn't went with the other groups today. In the evening I had dinner at the Indian restaurant (Yasmin) again. But this time we were with only 6 poeple so we had to wait for only 20 minutes. The food here is delicious. we celebrated Chantal's birthday with a few bottles of red wine and I must say, I start to like red wine. After that we spend some time around the bonfire on the beach at it ended up in a night with not enough sleap.

DON DET - CAMBODIA - DON DET, Kayaking and Newyears Eve

Not everybody was there on time for kayaking today and the booking office was not really happy. Also because we were with too many people and told everybody we paid a lower price. But at 09:00 we started kayaking to Don Khon, I had a 1-person kayak. Very easy and for the 3rd day in a row this was a good body workout. 16 people, normally 10 or 12 people, theha company was happy, cause they were making pictures for their new website all the time. We were acting like little kids from the beginning, trying to get everybody soaking wet.

The Li Phi wtarefall was just a short 10 minute visit, but everybody had already seen this with the bycicletrips. We met Jenneke and Davy, who did the kayaking with the inflatable kayaks, that was a little bit different than our kayaking. But the same program.

Now it was time for rafting in the rapids just after the waterfall. Hmmm, a big group with partypeople that listen to the guides?... No. One by one they said...no. And all to the left the guides said. Well, Tita and me were in 1 kayak this time. The rapids had already taken us too much to the right side of the river. We tried to get to the left, but kayak headed straight to a big rock in the middle of the river. We hit the rock and capsized, Tita panicked a little bit and we we going all directions in the river. First I grapped the paddle and tried to get to the kayak. And you never know when you hit new rocks again... The guides were not really helpfull and after a while we managed to get back in our kayak again. Actually I found it quite fun and cool, the capsizing and the excitement. At all the other rapids we made it without capsizing.

The scenery between the Laos and Cambodia border is beautifull. We saw some of the special dolphins. But there are only around 15 dolphins in the area, so they were not really close. Lunch in Cambodia and up to the next hour of easy kayaking. Well easy, me and some other people were racing like idiots. At the finish we waited for the guides to put all the kayaks and equiptment on the truck. Me and some other guys played football with the local kids, very funny. Those kids were so enthousiasctic. And even when you kick a football in their face a little bit too hard, they won't start crying.

After all this intense sweating activities we finally arrived at the Komphaeng Waterfall, the biggest waterfall in Laos. Quite impressive. After some photoshoots and icecreams I took a small pathway down in the bushes. I found some places halfway the waterfall were you could swim. Many locals and Japanese here. It was refreshing. I completely forgot about time and when I got back, the group was waiting for me for a while. The guides were searc hing for me because they thought something bad happened. Well I said that this was just Lao style, never leave in time :-)

On the way back we were covered in dust from the dry sady roads and we got a flat tire at the end. This was an intensive day with many hours of kayaking. Recommended to do here in Don Det!

PIzza night tonight and again the group in the restaurant was getting too big. This means waiting for your food for more then an hour :-( But it was good. The army/police heard about the plans for the big illigal Newyearsparty and came to the island to cancel it. They also wanted to cancel the small party on the beach near the mainstreet, but after some LaoLao whiskey they said it was okay to have a small party. Not like the fullmoonparty in Koh Phagnan but really relaxing with Ipod music, selfmade mixes from the supermarket and no fireworks. I stayed with some Dutchies and English people, because the Danish and the other ones from the kayakinggroup were a little bit too drunk. Sorry guys ;-) Party ended for me around 03:00.

DON DET, change of plans

Woke up at 05:30 to see this amazing sunrise... After saying goodbye to the Israeli's, I had some chats with other backpackers about crossing the border to Cambodia. This is easy, just take nthe bus to Siem Reap, this stops at the borderoffice and will get a Visa-On-Arrival there for 20 USD. So change of plans, not enough time to make it to Vietnam with Newyears Eve. Some people are organising an illegal New Years Party on one of the islands here, we are just preparing right now. And the kayaking was full today, so we are gonna do it with a huge and crazy group tomorrow.

I finally met Kent and Vlaming again and some other people that I met before. Today is tubing day around Don Det. Just relaxing, landing with the tube on some islands and have a few drinks. We had dinner at the Indian restaurant, Lonely Panet already told about long waiting for the ordered food and this was true. We had to wait around 1,5 our for our food! But is was worth it! -

DON DET, canoeing the islands

This morning I went with Saray, Dedi and Tita to find a company that allowed us to rent a Kayak by ourselves. Because of some deadly accidents in the waterfalls this is not allowed anymore. One company wanted to do it, but another one found out and stopped them. So we had to take a canoe somewhere. We had one that was dangerous, normaly they put 2 local fisherrmen inside and even they get wet. So we wanted a big canoe, we got one :-) But the paddles were too small. No other choice, we had to go. After a few instructions from the locals we managed to reach a lot of small islands with the canoe. The sun is hot and burning down here. The Israeli's brought a lot of food for cooking. We stopped at a small island again, searched for some wood and made a campfire. Saray cooked a delicious spagetthi for us. The locals were surprised to see our different way of travelling with a canoe and making our own food. They catched some fresh fish for us and even took Saray to the nearest island to buy some more drinks.And after some tea and cookies we went for another swim in the sunset. We made it back alive!

What a fun and lovely day again. The day ended with social talks about life and so...different then the conversations in party party Vang Vieng. And I found out that Kent and Vlaming had arrived, they booked the same tour as me. A lot of people couldn't sleep because of the big local party on one of the other islands. Saray and me went out for some drinks at 01:00, but this was difficult. Oh, and don't go to the restaurant of Don Det Bungalow (the one with the expensive bungalows), this was not good!