From a war and genocide shook country to the Fruit Shake World Champion of Smiles :))

Over the last month we've been travelling so much and had such crappy internet that we didn't manage to post anything yet. Sorry to those we haven't had a chance to reply too! (photos will follow when the internet allows us to stay longer on it than 15 minutes...)

Our journey took us from:

• Bangkok to the border (Aranyaprathet/Poipet),
  A bloody hot 6 hour 3rd class trainride with the locals for 1€!!:)
• The Thai/Cambodian border to Siem Reap (Angkor Wat),
  A 20 min tuktuk ride to the border, some haggling at the border, a 10 minute free shuttle bus and 3 hour taxi ride with a dancing driver
• from the temples to New Year's on Koh Tonsay (Rabbit Island)
  A 11 hour nightbus (that turned of the airconditioning all the time turning the climate within minutes intona jungle :)!!) to Sihanoukville, a too expensive 4 hour minibus to Kep with an unexpected stop in Kampot and 5 minute tuktuk ride and 20 minute boattrip to the island, where we stayed four nights over New Years Eve
• to a riverside bungalow in Kampot
  A 10 min tuktuk, a 2 hour busride with karaoke on full volume....
• to the capital Phnom Penh
  A 4 hour bus trip - that went spectacularly fast :)
• to the Mekong at Kompong Cham
  An angry (but very late) tuktukdriver and a 4 hour bus ride that miraculously went without any issues
• To the rapids in the river near Kratie to have a cooling dip
  A 3 hour trip through hell over bumpy roads with 4 hours delay and locals on plastic chairs in the isle (like chinese trains)
• to the eastern jungle and mountains of Ratanakiri
  Another 3 hour delayed busride - this time without karaoke! And a breakdowm that costed another 2 hours!!
• and finallly the border crossing to Laos
  2x 2,5 hours stacked in a minivan, via Stung Treng with a really nasty driver.

In total around 50 hours of driving - not including our own scootertrips!! Here are some of our stories; it's simply too much to write all down!!

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We're on a bus again - ideal to write something - to Kratie. Hopefully only 3 hours, but we are counting on more. We actually put a bet on it this time with a couple of foreigners we met :). We lost the one about the arrival time, originally 9:30 became11:35. So with 2 hours delay we are off, the bus is full. They took out our bags (there is a motorcycle packed in the luggage compartment!!) as it didn't fit. In the middle, we have plastic chairs to fit more locals. In the backseat, some Cambodian is rubbing his black feet on my backpack. Sigh... 
Cambodia has been really nice so far. You can clearly see that tourism is starting to take off as serious business, but it is still more unspoilt than Thailand. We had some time to relax and started happily in the New Year. Happy New Year to everyone!!!

SETTING FOOT ON CAMBODIAN SOIL
We crossed the border in Aranyaprathet-Poipet. A sleepy town, Aranyaprathet doesn't offer much than a place to sleep and a little mini-nightmarket. Apparently not many tourists stay here, we were kind of an attraction again. We decided to stay here, as we heard horror stories about late night border crossings where people get ripped off shamelessly. It was all ok. We had our own official person helping us out. Maybe Cambodia tries to improve their image; I still have my doubts as he definitly looked like someone from a tour operator, no matter how nice he was. Apart from the extra 100 Bhat the officials at the passport control wanted (supposedly for a passphoto, which we had!!) and we refused to pay, we ran into no scams. It only took longer. They tried to rip our travel companions off when changing money (they are supposed to do this without commission at the border). We didn't need to as our Gernan bank allows us to withdraw for free anywhere with our visa card!! The money is a bit confusing, the US dollar is the second currency next to the Riel. 1 US dollar is 4000 riel. Pay in dollars, get change in Riel, or dollar or a mix of both:).. (confusing!!) which in its turn is really handy when buying small amounts on local markets. They negotiate much less than in China or Nepal, we really have to be careful not to offend people sometimes!! They are much more honest, although you can tell they start getting used to the "oh it's only one dollar" mentality of the Westerns. 

FINDING THE TEMPLE WHERE THE GODS DWELL
Siem Reap was our first stop - we found a nice hotel with swimming pool for little money, which we desperately needed and extensively used because of the dwelling heat :) We didn't book in advance, which was not smart as Siem Reap is just too touristy. It's all about Angkor Wat, and apparently many people are willing to pay a loooot to see one of the 7 World Wonders. The 20!!! Dollar entrance fee is ridiculous, it is double of what you can live on for a day. But they are impressive.... At least nice to see. With Steph and Gasela (two girls we met and travelled on with) we rented a tuktuk for one day. 12 dollars is normal apparently, we paid 16 :)
We only managed to visit 3 temples, anticyclic with the other tourists starting off in Bayon, with the faces of the King on the towers, which was good due to the traffic jams we encountered on the opposite side heading back! Angkor Wat itself is huge and imrpessive by its size, but the most beautiful was Ta Promh, because of the carvings and seeing the nature/big trees are taking over the manmade self-worshipping structures of intemperateness inflicted on this area by some emperors a few hundred years ago...The place where the Gods dwell... It's been pretty demolished under the Khmer Rouge regime by Pol Pot. Heads are cut off, temples destroyed. We read the book "first they killed my father"... We can lively imagine. It's painful to know that these things happen still all over the world. Hard to believe they were still fighting here in 1998.

To understand a bit more about what happened here, we took a tuktuk to the war museum. Disappointing though, as it is not more than a bundle of tanks and mines put together on a site. No explanation, nothing. The "Guide free of charge" was " do an oligatory donation" so we were left to wonder around the area ourselves. 1935 Russian and Chinese leftover material stands here, rotting away in the humid warmth, which was used in the wars/civil wars between 1970 and 1998. So thanks to Russia and especially China!! These armed conflicts and years of murder have been enabled at all... China trading their sorted out armery/recycling them to kill their own people - 2 million cambodians have been killed within 4 years at a total population of 7 million!!! Killing almost 30% sounds even compared to the holocaust very terribly efficient. 

- holy sh* !!! we just passed a minibus, upside down. Yesterday we shortly thought of taking one, as they are faster and it went on a more convenient time. But when it was being packed at the busstation this morning we were glad we didn't (not that our bus is less full...but at least we have a little legspace). Now, we consider ourselves really lucky! Let's hope no one got hurt... - bus company told us minibus normally 12 people, cambodia 25!!!!:)) man....

NEW YEAR'S EVE ON A- not so- DESERTED ISLAND
From Siem Reap we took the nightbus to Sihanoukville. The loads of tourists that got out freaked us out - decided to pass the village and directly head off to Kep and then Rabbit Island. At 7 am, the ticket salesman is still sleeping in the hammock outside the office. Stoned as hell, he refuses to sell us a ticket; we are handed over to the hagglers and with only 1 dollar spent too much we finally get a place on a minivan. We got angry about letting us be talked into prebooking a hut; a classic fairytale of "it's full and the island only has 10 huts". It was relatively crowded indeed, but we spent some marvellous days there, doing absolutely nothing. No tv, no internet, no snorkelling (too much clouded water), no phone, no running water (only when the water boat filled up the tank)... Just us, coconuts and sunsets. We enjoyed the peace, found some rest and physically felt much better. 

It was a relaxing, but bit weird New Year's Eve. Hardly any fireworks (there were some shootings two years  ago and they said it was hard to distinguish the shots from fireworks). We were invited by some locals to sit with them and ate some pepper-crab with them. Really difficult to conversate with them, which made some awkward silent moments :) All the locals slept in hammocks on the beach (two were daring enough to sleep next to our open window on the porch of our hut).

If it wouldn't be for the mosquitos and the insuline issue, it would have been perfect. As there was no electricity, we kept Jan's insuline in one of their orange cooling boxes - with ice. This works as their fridge; new ice is delivered daily from the mainland. Not an ideal solution as the risk of freezing the insuline is not to be underestimated. On the last day, the plastic bag with Jan's stuff was not to be found. Identified as trash? We don't know. The trash dump right behind our hut was full of stuff - just not with ours. For the readers: no worries, we had some spare in the second Friobag separately, and still some in Bangkok. But it's still very very annoying as it just costs money! But hopefully our insurance will help us out here!

FRUIT SHAKE PARADISE AND COCONUTS WITH A MONK
From our little paradise in bamboo huts we set off to Kampot. A quiet nice little town on the riverbank. A 6 dollar riverbank hut, tons of really fresh fruitshakes (our favourite is pineapple, lime and dragonfruit!) and free bikes to explore the environment. Our world was perfect. The locals smiled and were so incredibly friendly!

You're not cambodian if you don't drive a bike or even better - a scooter. So on our steel donkey we soared off to the caves of Kampot. Not the most spectacular caves ever (at least real and not made of concrete like in China), but it was worthwhile just touring around the countryside. The roads are in a real bad shape here; red dust everywhere. It sticks to your hair, in your nose and doesn't get out of your T-shirt. We are literally hunted down by little kids, that want to be our guide. "I understand you don't want a guide and will not pay me. But I will follow you anyway!" a cute and smart kid, but a little too pushy for our taste. He indeed followed us the whole way. 

On the way to the -not so secret-Secret lake, we pass by a school/monastery. A young monk tells us to sit with him and talk. He wants to know all about us, literally watches all!! 839 pictures on our camera. He tries to teach us all kinds of Khmer words, from "hello, my name is..." to "delicious coconut". Our heads spin after an hour; we can't memorise more. Around us are 7 kids and an old lady. The schoolkids stared at us with their beautiful brown eyes - not many foreigners come here. We wish we could communicate more with them. As the monk phrases it: "they don't speak English, but they are excellent in Khmer." He invites us home to drink (buy) a coconut. We have a marvellous time just sitting there, having the family watch us as if we are from another planet. I think he miscalculated when the promised coconut price quadrupled. At least I want to believe that. 

JUST ANOTHER CITY: THE CAPITAL SPONSORED BY CHINA
From Kampot it's a four to five hour bus drive to Phnom Penh. We only stayed a night - it was enough. It's still hot...although it's said to be cool now, by February, the locals sleep under wet towels :)
We miss out on the Killing fields, but we don't believe we will find the stories there what we are looking for. The stories are with the people with one arm, those with burnmarks all over their bodies, those women with one eye, the tragic victims of a time that is hard to grasp. The entry tickets for the fun fair are too high, sadly enough ("foreigners only allowed to buy full packages, not single rides") but I did manage to get my once-a-year cotton candy :)  The traffic is crazy, we learn to drive a manual scooter and drive past huge signs that say "this bridge is constructed by chinese government" on a 2x 40 meter billboard.

It's pretty sad that Cambodia sells everything. They still mourn about their loss of Phu Quoc to Vietnam, but have no issues in selling many islands to Russia and China! On some, the Russians are now building a bridge to the mainland and dumping the place full with concrete Russian holiday resorts. In former times the Khmer Rouge traded food for weapons with China and Russia that resulted in thousands of people starving to death. Nowadays it looks like they will sell anything for a handfull of money.

We shortly have been tempted to buy a second hand scooter, but it's way beyond our budget. The freedom calls, but it's simply of no use. And as much as we hate it, we'll keep on busriding :) 

MAKING OUR WAY INTO THE MEKONG DELTA
Twenty kilometers before Kompong Cham, the busdriver decides to halt. Lunchbreak at 11:00 on an already delayed busride. We stroll around the foodstands. Today's menu: mini-birds, bugs and spiders!!!!! Not our kind of taste; we'd rather get stuck at the pineapple stand. Five young girls negotiate with us. We give each other a hard time, but in the end walk away with tree small pineapples, a bag of sugarcane and a bag of little sticky rice sticks, wrapped in a leaf. The Western world should learn from those eco-packagings!

The road becomes better, and while chewing my sugarcane slowly, I can enjoy the view better. Cambodia is flat, almost as flat as Holland! With a little hill here and there, but no rolling countryside; pure flat fields with palmtrees scattered over it randomnly. Sometimes it changes to vast jungle, sometimes you can see for miles. Traditional wooden houses on poles fill the landscape, red dust covers the leaves, giving it all an autumnly touch.

In Kompong Cham we meet her again - the Mekong river. Not swimmable everywhere and too dry for the ferries, but still beautiful. 
We drive around on our bikes, and cross the bamboo bridge. In the wet season, a ferry runs here; the bridge is built up every year in the dry season. It looks like a bunch of matches from afar. An amazing construction!! The sound it makes as you drive over it is a bit scary, and there are some parts that we don' t trust. But it holds, even a big car. They say, they are working on a fixed bridge, a little curther down the river, and that this year is the last time it was built. It would be a shame! We get into a bit confusing discussion with the locals charging us for crossing. It's not the first time we're given tourist prices. Our non-Khmer language and the half-English some people speak makes it really difficult to get the conversation in the right direction. Most of the time we refrain from English and stick to the sign language, but even that doesn't always help. We end up paying, it's no use as they don't understand. It's like the time when we agreed on "2000 per full plate" and were charged 4000 afterwards ("you asked too much food"). Or when we sign language agree on a coconut for 1500 Riel. The  guy even repeats Muoy (one) Bram roy (five -hundred). His wife comes along and we are charged 2500. We argue over a ridiculous 25 cents and don't understand where the confusion comes from, still I don't want to be treated different. A local pulls out 3 x a 500 note, I'm charged 2000.... Do they think I'm stupid? Or is it like with the monk: 1 coconut costs bram roy (500), two cost 1 dollar (4000)? We think that many people simply cannot calculate, and many cannot read either. Showing the phrasebook often doesn't help. A really bad result from the Khmer Rouge reign: a really really low rate of people are being educated properly. And also, a complete nation has been told not to think, nor to question things as that will cost you your life. Their hunger for education these days lets univerisities sprout everywhere, but if there is no one to educate them, what does it help?

We find a swim spot not far from the dolphin watching site, at the rapids. With entrance fee - of course only for foreigners. Two young boys hide in the bushes, hoping to catch a glimpse of skin. We decide to wade to a strip of land a little further down the stream. Somehow we feel we need to watch our bags... But the mistrust is unfair; they make a crown of leafs for us! They did venture to give Delphine, our Belgian travel companion, a slap on the behind....but that was all.
At the 100 pillar pagoda, a lovely 74 year old man approaches us in French. Our Belgian companion translates, his smile stretches from ear to ear knowing he found someone to explain things to. He's the guardian of the temple and teaches people that come here; not many real practicing buddhists from the old times survived. They were wiped out by Pol Pot's regime - how this fellow survived we don't know. When we ask him about that time, his eyes turn sad for a moment and he becomes silent. Inside, the walls are decorated with the story of the life of Buddha, complete and colourful. It's strikingly similarly depicted as the life of the Jesus. Born as a normal person, enlighted and then healing and teaching all over the world. All about Do good- receive good in return. Nothing about guilt.

We watch the sunset over the Mekong - redder than ever before - and make the 35 km back on our little scooter in the dark. Like Laurie described, it's like a computergame: beep beep watch out for the kid on the left, beep beep beep, the dog in the middle and the bike without light that suddenly turns around. Beep. 

UP TO THE PRECIOUS MOUNTAIN - BIRTHDAYS, FROGS AND SCRATCHES
Our next stop: Ratanakiri, translated as "the precious stone mountain", named after the many gem stones they dig out here. The bus is fashionably late, only 2 hours. A rough and dusty ride, sometimes the driver can hardly see; it's like a yellowish, red fog of sand. By the time we reach Stung Treng - where the road bends to the east - our driver turns off the engine and is unable to turn it on again. We try to push, but he almost steers into a lantern. No use. He opens up everything, fiddles and fumbles around on the battery and starter, but it doesn't work. The few cars and buses that come by don't even stop. We wait in the dark and just when we start to think about sleeping options like in the bus, before, under, on top of the bus...., the driver gets the thing running again. We'll be in Ban Lung around 11, hopefully we'll find a place to stay....

While we're waiting, we run into a bright young man called Vet (Timvet) who has taken the journey to be at a birthday party of his brother's daughter; only to be taking the same journey back on the day after. When we finally make it to Ban Lung, he invited us to join the party! He helps us find a hotel and when we come down the stairs, he is already waiting there for us with a car. What we then experienced was something that we totally had not anticipated!!! We were hugged by the Cambodian family, invited to dance, to eat marvellous fish and drink beer with ice in a speed that we couldn't keep up. Chap chap, 50% or bottoms up....pffff.. It seriously was amazing and we enjoyed every minute. One negative experience - a bus break down- turned into an exponentially many good ones! We were even invited for a traditional Cambodian breakfast - although it was really early!!! - spicey noodle soup. Thanks again for these unforgettable moments!!!

Next day we got a beautiful bungalow, shared with the four. We cycled out to the volcano crater, a beautiful clear lake.'this is where we run into another shameless discrimination sign - KHMER 500 Riel (0,125 dollar cent), AFORAIGER 6000 Riel, only 12 times as much. None of our arguments of equality, discrimination, whatsoever work, the man cannot be reasoned with. We stand our ground and refuse. So Jan just went a few hundred meters along the road and found a route to the lake/crater and there we even had our private spot to swim!! Was nice and a good feeling to show corruption and discrimination your fingers :)) (once in a while)

In Ban Lung, we hiked into the jungle, a 5 hour survival trek with 2 guides: Ron and an amazing, local ranger called "Rain". It wasn't the walk itself that we loved best...(our legs looked like we had ran through barbed wire.. and were glad we have taken our hiking boots), again it was the food!!! We drank from the blood tree, made a fireworks-like fire from the yellow tree, and cut bamboo cups and sticks from the ever growing bamboo (a few meters in just a few months!!!). At some point he stopped and grabbed some leaves that were glued into a triangular shape. Before we realised why he rolled up his sleeves, he had already smashed it between his hands! Ants! Somewhat between lime and battery acid, the live ones annoyingly biting your lips.... not delicious but an experience :))

We put our hammocks between two trees, amazingly comfortable with an integrated mosquito net, and unpacked our stuff from the incredibly uncomfortable backpacks we were given. The campsite is located next to a pool, with a bamboo rope to swing into it! So refreshing after a day of sweating, full of dust. No leeches fortunately (it's dry season) and - thanks!!- hardly any mosquitos - less than in town (we were surprised!!)

At the campfire they cooked us bamboo soup: meat, leaves from the jungle and vegetables concealed in a bamboo stick, adding a sweet taste while it slowly boiled on the fire. The ricewine was pulled out, strong tasting, clear high percentage stuff. Our guides smiled. Later in the night all of a sudden Rain ran off; we could only see his headlamp flashing near the pond. He grins from ear to ear when he returns; in his hand a split bamboo stick with 6 - unconcious, but live- frogs clutched in between. Sorry for the vegetarians amongst the readers, they tasted lovely, like chicken. The cricket was less tasty, the live shrimps - made unconcious by a garlic-lemon-chili mix (that must have burnt their skin!!) were ok! Probably the amount of rice wine helped cover the idea of it (glad that they couldn't see through my bamboo cup I was often toasting with an empty glass)!

I don't think we will survive in the jungle, but we might make it a little longer now when we get lost. About losing things... Of course something had to be left at the campsite...our Mp3-player had fallen out of the hammock. The guides refused to go back (nor to let us!) half the group refused to wait, but... the min. estimated 1:40 hr each way was conquered by Jan and Laurie in 1:30 for 2 ways!!!! And best of all, with an Mp3- player! So when Jan arrived they told him "You should become a Ranger!! :)

While we wait, Ron explains a bit about his life. He has two or three jobs to allow his son going to school (for about 3000 Riel a day (0,75 dollar cent)). He now wants to join the police, that is a well-paid!!! job. He and his wife earn both about 30 dollar a month (not enough to spoil his child in the way he wants to), so he pays his godfather to get him another or better job..., which costs him around a month salary. In Cambodia it is all about connections and paying your connections....Thats how whole Asia works - corruption  seems to rule especially communistic governed countries, like China, Laos, Cambodia, Nepal,.....So a two day hiking trip into the jungle is about a months salary for them!!

On the way back we found apple-leaves, sugar cane and... A bee's nest. In our countries protected, in Cambodia eaten. Proudly Rain presents us the honey comb's with half-finished bees, just crawling out of the litte 6-sided maze. "Eat!"'he simply says in the little English he speaks. We try, but the thought makes us want to vomit. They "pop" between your teeth, and I feel bad. Not just from the taste, but also about the fact that we destroyed a whole colony. When we return in the village, the locals are ecstatic about it. The top part -with just honey - is carefully put into a bag. "for my son"- Ron says. Rain goes home alone - without honey. It's obvious that they have a different "status". Those that do speak English benefit most from tourism. But I'd like to think I am wrong and they are just the best buddies.
Starting to feel the pressure of hurrying to Laos, we decide on the spot in Stung Treng to make it for the border. The villages keep repeating themselves, it's time to move on. Stacked in a minivan we head off to the border... An adventure!

CROSSING THE LINE - almost like WALKING THE LINE :D
The minivan driver drops us at the border and offers to get our passports stamped for 4 dollars. Ridiculous. I paid a 20 USD Visa, so what for? We refuse his offer and make our way to the customs officer. 2 dollar exit stamp. Pffff. We don't think so, so we wait. "OK you can go" is his answer after 5 minutes, but my passport is still not stamped. When he then stamps the passports of our fellow British travellers without muttering I go mad. We argue again, he finally stamps them randomly, wasting a page and we are off to the next office, 200 m further. Same game, but this guy is much tougher; he leaves us waiting in the heat for over 30 minutes and then goes off playing boules with his friends and hanging out in his hammock!! :). The Visa is paid (30 dollars for Germans, 35 for Dutchies), simply not stamped. Then the officer turns to speak with our driver, who in his turn gives us his ultimatum: 10 minutes. We argue, it's a really good assertivess without agression training. He crosses my line when he brings up the ever recurring argument: "It is your fault, you should have paid. In your country you have money and 2 dollar is not much. You are rich." I am sick of hearing that, maybe I should have told him 2 Dollars is too much for you 10% salary too much :)). In the end, there is simply no win-win situation as he refuses to listen. Finally he declares after a 20 minute battle in perfect English: I don't speak proper English. I tell him I don't speak proper English either anymore if he continues like this. The whole drama ends into us finally paying 1 dollar of bribing money, a really unreasonable grumpy minivan driver (I'm sure he didn't get his share of the deal now) and a bitter aftertaste of an actually really nice part of our trip.... :))