Cambodia: Crazy nights in the city and relaxing days at the beach

I’m falling so far behind with my travel blog. I really have some catching up to do! Already in Manila in the Philippines but didn’t even updated you guys about my experiences in Cambodia and Vietnam where I’ve spend about a month in total. So lets get started…where did I left off…in Don Det in Laos just before the trip to Cambodia started…

We left Don Det early in the morning. After a nice breakfast we took the boat back to the mainland and a minivan to the border between Laos and Cambodia. We bought a visa on arrival for 35 dollar and everything seemed to go quite smooth. On Don Det we bought bus tickets straight to Siem Reap, our first stop in Cambodia, so we didn’t had to change busses on the way. But surprise, surprise… As expected, the trip didn’t go as planned. After an hour of driving we got dropped of at a little restaurant in the middle of nowhere where we had to wait for another bus. How long that would take was unclear. A few hours later we finally were on our way to Siem Reap.

Siem Reap is well known for the famous Temples of Angkor where the Tomb Raider movies were recorded. I wasn’t expecting much from the city itself but it was surprisingly big, busy and full of tourists. It even has a Burger King! Seeing the Temples of Angkor was of course one of the activities on our Bucket list. Most tourists hire a private tuk-tuk for the day but after paying 20 dollar for the entrance fee and being the cheap travellers we are we rented bicycles and drove off to the temples at 5.30 in the morning to see the sunrise. Unfortunately it was very cloudy so the sunrise wasn’t as spectacular as I hoped it to be and after seeing as many temples as I’ve seen in the last months it was hard to be crazy excited about seeing more ruined temples. But overall it was still a nice and new experience.

I must say I don’t really drink often nor party a lot because I don’t really feel the need to be out till late, spend a lot of money on alcohol and being to tired or hangover to enjoy my next day exploring the beautiful and interesting places I visit. But every now and then it’s nice to have some drinks and have a crazy night full of dancing, talking and laughter with strangers that you most likely will never see again after. And believe me when I say we had a night like that in Siem Reap. It was quite late and we didn’t had dinner yet that evening so we decided to go outside on the hunt for a bite. When we arrived at the so-called Bar Street the street was filled with little mobile cocktail bars. We got us some fried noodles and took a seat on the tiny plastic seats and ordered a piña colada. After a while 2 Malaysian guys joined us. We bar hopped with them for while and a few drinks later we decided that they were going to be our guides for Kuala Lumpur for March. After the guys left we continued the bar hop and ended up at the Tequila Bar. People came and went, we met a lot of people, had nice conversations till Hong joined us at the bar. He immediately started to buy us tequila shots and the music changed from terrible house music to traditional Cambodian music. Before we knew it people started to surround the tiny mobile bar and everyone was showing their Cambodian dance moves in the middle of the street. After Lucas and I also showed off our Cambodian dancing skills Hong insisted we would join him to a restaurant to have some typical Cambodian food. Hong owns two bars in Siem Reap and invited us to come and have a drink the next day. We hobbled into bed at about 5 AM and our energy level was extremely low the next day but we had an amazing night full off amazing people.

After a hangover brunch at Burger King the next day we went to see Hong at his bar. And what a surprise…again he immediately was on the mission to get us drunk by giving us free shots and drinks. Then he told us he found an Australian passport, credit card and vaccination papers of a girl named Emma and asked us if we could help him to find her. After exploring every social media platform that you can think of we called the Australian embassy to ask what to do with the passport. The embassy contacted Emma and Emma, who was already back in Australia with a new passport, called us back and the mystery of the passport of Emma was solved. She told us her whole backpack got stolen out of her locker in the hostel she was staying at and she asked us if we could drop her stuff off at the Australian embassy in Phnom Penh once we would get there. So that’s what we would do. Siem Reap had been amazing but it was time for a new place…off to Sihanoukville in the south.

We took another night bus, a so-called hotel bus this time. It was a funny but scary experience. The inside of the bus looked like the night train we took in Thailand with bunk beds but the beds in this bus were very tiny and meant for 2 people so it was a very cozy ride I can assure you. Can’t imagine what it must be like when you are traveling alone and are seated next to a stranger. The scary part was the flat tires we got twice on the way. Before we left I read that the conditions of the busses in Cambodia can be very bad and that usually one and the same driver drives the whole trip of 14 hours without stops so I was already a bit sceptical about the trip. Luckily we arrived safely in Sihanoukville and went straight to the Vietnamese embassy to arrange my visa. We didn’t wanted to spend too much time at this town so we booked a boat ticket for Koh Rong Island for the next day.

Koh Rong is such a nice and beautiful island. As soon as you put a foot on the sand, that feeling that you only get on islands takes you over: that feeling of walking barefoot and wearing nothing more than swimwear and a saari and drinking unlimited piña coladas and fresh coconut juice straight out of the shell. But before that we had to find the perfect place to stay. After seeing a dozen of guesthouses and a lot of patience I finally found the perfect place for us: a guesthouse on top of a hill with a balcony with an amazing view. It was even the cheapest accommodation we came across. As our mission in every new city or town is too find the cheapest possible for everything, after finding probably the cheapest accommodation on the island we also found the cheapest places to eat. We ate rice with chicken and vegetables in a sweet sauce for 1 dollar so we knew where we would have dinner the next evenings. Nice baguettes, fresh smoothies and huge fruit salads were also available everywhere for a dollar so enough cheap breakfast options as well. We didn’t wanted to get too lazy, what you can easily get on an island like Koh Rong, so we decided to book a cheap boat tour. The boat left at about 1 PM to another small island where we snorkelled. After a while we changed locations to fish for a bit. We didn’t got fancy fishing gear but not more than a string of fishing line with a little hook and a tiny piece of octopus. The fish we caught would be our lunch for that day so I wasn’t quite sure if we would eat at all but after a lot of patience I finally caught my very first (and only) fish! The guides on the boat were catching fishes every 2 seconds so for them it wasn’t very impressive but the other travellers on the boat weren’t very lucky either so I was kind of proud about my tiny fish. After the spectacular fishing adventure we sailed to a breath-taking beach with white sand, extremely clear water and few other people. The boat guides started to light the barbecue and the whiskey and coke got poured. Enjoying our grilled freshly caught fish we watched the sunset before going back to Koh Rong. On the way back we made one more stop to see plankton in the water. It was already dark outside so we took our snorkelling gear and jumped into the dark water, which was still super warm, but no plankton to be seen. As soon as I moved my hands millions of tiny sparkling light green dots lit up. I bet anyone that has seen this in real life understands how magical it looks and feels.

The next morning we wanted to go kayaking around the island but the sea was kind of rough so it wouldn’t be a very good idea. Instead we did the best thing to do on an island: chill and relax. The plan was to stay on Koh Rong for a few days and spend a few days at another island called Koh Rong Samloem which is supposed to be more quiet and laid back. There was only one boat departure per day going that way at 8 in the morning so we got up early, packed our stuff and went off to the ferry port. It was extremely windy since the evening before and the sea looked quite rough. Just after 8 the boat company announced that the sea was too rough to depart and that we had to wait till…well, nobody actually knew. So after waiting for 3 hours we gave up and decided to go back to the guesthouse and we would try it again the next morning. The next morning we did exactly the same as the day before: got up early and went off to the ferry port. And again…waited for nothing and eventually no boat going to where we wanted to go but they assured us that we would be able to catch a boat the next morning. They say third time’s the charm so the third day we tried again only this time they decided to let the boat depart earlier which meant we missed the only boat going to Koh Rong Samloem that day. We gave up, accepted the fact that we weren’t going to see the other island on this trip and enjoyed our last days on Koh Rong. The next day we took the boat back to the main land to take the bus to the capital city of Cambodia: Phnom Penh.

Phnom Penh is just another big city in Asia: everything is expensive and dirty compared to the small cities and beach towns. As promised we went to the Australian embassy to drop off Emma’s stuff and spent quite some time in malls in search for Christmas presents which isn’t the easiest task when you’re traveling with all your belongings on your back. It can’t be anything too big, it can’t be anything too heavy, it needs to be useful at this moment and most important: it needs to be something the other person likes. After a day of walking in and out of shops I found the perfect gift: a 5-panel cap that he would love for sure so I was ready for the holidays. I think it’s so ridiculous when people travel to the other side of the world to spend their time in resorts and air-conditioned malls so, no…I didn’t spend all my time in Phnom Phen shopping.

A part of the Cambodian history is the time the Red Khmers ruled the country and murdered almost a third of the total population. The so-called Kiling Fields, where this all happened, are nowadays open for the public. Every Cambodian citizen that was educated or could possible become rebellious against Pol Pot’s way of ruling at some point had to be killed. So men, women and even children (to exclude the chance of revenge in the future) were brought to these Killing Fields under false pretences to brutally get slaughtered. Bullets were to valuable to kill these people with so their heads got smashed with anything that was available at that moment and babies where smashed against trees with their heads. Horrible to think it’s possible this really happened but so impressive to visit this place and to hear the stories of the people that survived. We can compare this to all that happened in the time Hitler was trying to take over and killed millions of Jews and the Killing Fields are comparable to places like Auswitz.

I enjoyed Cambodia a lot and I was quite surprised by a lot of things. Before visiting this country I didn’t knew a lot more about it than a bit of the history of the Red Khmers ruling Cambodia. Visiting the Killing Fields was intense and impressive and really showed me the horrible part of the countries history.

I met a lot of nice and cool people but also had arguments with tuk-tuk and bus drivers that wanted to rip us off. The country is very diverse: I’ve seen big cities stuffed with fast food restaurants, gorgeous temples and breath taking beaches. I ate delicious Cambodian food where amok was one of (meat or fish and vegetables in a coconut kind of sauce served with rice). Definitely a country where I would like to see more of and spend more time…2 weeks was way too short.

My Vietnam travel story will follow shortly in a few days!