Crazy Cambodia

Crazy Cambodia

We are now in South East Asia in the part they call Indochina which includes Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos.  Lisa and I met our group in Bangkok and left Thailand the next morning for Cambodia.  There was a distinctive difference entering Cambodia.  The politics here is extremely interesting and well worth a story or two when we get home.  The prices of everything are very cheap here.  Just to give you an idea Lisa and I can get a full meal and drinks (that is plural for a reason) for 10 to 15 dollars.   The one meal we had two seafood platters, two beers and three jugs of mixed drinks for $20 all on the beach. (See Lisa’s expression in the photos below). 

This tour is very different from our last one.  It’s more about the people and the culture which is extremely different than at home.  To sum it up, the word courtesy doesn’t seem to exist in their vocabulary.  You have to push and make your way through.  Staying in hotels is nice but we do miss the group atmosphere that you get from the camping experience.  Our group here is nice but we don’t get the same amount of opportunities to get to know them as well. 

Our first night in Cambodia had us in a local village eating at one of the homes.  We were treated to an authentic Cambodian meal.  Lisa had to use chop sticks as there was no cutlery.  We also had a chance to walk through the village and meet some of the children.  It was a great experience that really can’t be summed up in words.

We have been to Siem Reap to go to Angkor Wat and the various temples in the area.  To see the temples we awoke early to be there when the sun rose.  It was a very cool experience.  In the afternoon we went to the Tomb Raider (The Movie) temple.  It is not as overgrown as in the movie and there was no inside like they showed in the movie but it was still spectacular.  We have lots of pictures but have only included a few here.

Our next stop was in Phnom Penh.  This is a very busy city with a lot of people.  There is quite a bit of seedy goings on and we had to be very careful where we went and our surroundings.  To give you an idea of what we are talking about I took a photo of the hotel rules found on the back of our door (check out rule 3 – it is disgusting that they even have to mention that).  We have stories to tell on this area as well.  The reason for our visit to this city was to go to the killing fields.  For those of you that remember this is the area where the government systematically killed thousands of their own people over 5 years and dumped the bodies in mass graves.  The day we did this was an extremely emotional day for all of us.

We have also included some photos of the living spaces.  Most houses are on stilts for three reasons.  For natural air conditioning (they spend most of their time under their houses and in the shade since it is extremely hot and humid here – we have not stopped sweating since we arrived), for flood protection and to keep away from the creepy crawlies at night.  There are also some pictures of the things we see travelling down the roads.  It is simply mind boggling how and why they would overload their vehicles.  We have more stories than pictures but my favorite so far is the mini-van (similar to one of the photos) but add half a dozen people on top with their gear and some of them were standing.  It was insane.  They also fully utilize their motos (various types of motorcycles).

I hope everyone is enjoying themselves.  We’d love to hear what you are doing and what you are up too.  Please send us comments, emails or facebook Lisa.

Cambodian Family Robinson

Angkor Wat at sunrise

Angkor Wat

Tomb Raider Temple Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm Temple overgrown

ATVing in the Cambodian rice paddies 

The Killing Fields

High school used as a re-education center before the killing fields.

There are barber shops there and many of them

Overloaded van driving (picture taken from the bus)

Moto with people in the trailer (this one is NOT overcrowded)

Pull tractor and trailer

Typical house

They will tow anything with a moto

This is a typical van with a typical load 

Cambodian children we met after dinner at our home stay

Hotel rules which were typical where we stayed

Drinks on the beach

Out of Africa

Out of Africa

This now concludes our African adventure.  The past 54 days have been a remarkable experience.  The time has flown by and it is difficult to sum up all of the awesome times we have had.  We are already missing our fellow travel companions.  Nine of us made the entire trek together and have spent the past 2 months 24/7 with each other with no issues, no big problems, and many friendships have developed – we have become one big family. 

We are now in Thailand (after a 46 hour non-stop travel adventure – this is a story in itself) having a vacation from our vacation, getting ready for the next two legs of our tour.  I’ll have to share the story of the two Daniel Robinsons on our flight from London to Bangkok (it was extremely freaky and a bit scary - but I will share this at a later time)

We are spending a week on the island of Koh Larn 150 km SE of Bangkok 7 km from the shore of Pattaya, Thailands party capital.  Lisa and I are some of the few white people on the island (the only white couple) and really stand out.  We attended a Buddhist festival on April 1 where they had a big stage and performers in the square and many food vendors and everything was free.  The locals were laughing at Lisa and I as we walked around and tried to figure out what the different types of food were.  The one lady must have felt sorry for us as she had a box of Mc Donald’s chicken burgers and called me over to make sure Lisa and I got one.   Soon after the Mc Donald’s lady wanted to give us what we thought were hot apple pies.  I’ve included a picture of what they were so you can judge.

The beaches are great and the owner of the hotel (Suntosa Resort) has been lending us his scooter so we can get around the island.  Parts of the island are friendly but others not so much.  It is Thailand’s main vacation time and it seems we have found where they like to stay.

We are off to Bangkok later today to get ready for the Asian part of our adventure. 

Thailand Family Robinson

Enjoying a sea side dinner

They really like their corn.  It was creamed corn in a pie shell.
You be the judge of how good it tasted.

One of the many restaurants on the busy narrow streets.

This is one of the beaches.  The water and sand are around there somewhere.
It was too crowded for us so we went to another beach.

We saw this and thought of our "Brewster" friends and their new dog and Murray's love of Spock.

I wouldn't want to work for the utilities company and figure out this mess which is everywhere.

Enjoying some food and the festival.  It was that crowded.

Enjoying a book on the beach.  This one was not so crowded.

The still happy couple after 60 days.

Our resort and deck.

Chilling with the owner and a few beverages with the city of Pattaya in the background.

Unique Uganda and Quick Kenya

The final leg of our African tour had us cross into Kenya.  There was a noticeable difference in the quality and quantity of housing.  Kenya is developing a middle class and nowhere is this more apparent than on the roads as this country has a lot more cars than we had been experiencing.  This lead to lots of traffic and traffic jams, especially in Nairobi (the country's capital).  They have many roundabouts controlled by traffic lights and traffic police but no one pays much attention to them so it is survival of the pushiest.  Heightened security was very evident in Nairobi.  Everywhere we went you were airport type scanned before you entered (including grocery stores, restaurants, etc.).  There was also an armed presence all around the city.  This is all to be expected considering what has happened there in the past year.

We didn’t spend much time in Kenya and quickly headed into Uganda.  This country was very surprising.  It is very physically beautiful and the people are extremely friendly.  As our truck rumbled down the “highways” –for lack of a better term- kids would run for a chance to wave at us.  We felt like rock stars and this was very poignant as we passed this one school and hundreds of kids ran screaming towards the road just to yell out the all too familiar phrase “how are youuuuuu?”   Even the adults beamed when we would wave at them.

The purpose of our visit to Uganda was to trek and track the mountain gorillas.  We did stop first to do a chimp trek to break us into the trekking routine and we were not disappointed.   We saw a mother and her baby.  The only clear pictures we got were of the baby and those are below.  After our trek we headed to our basic campground.  I’ve included pictures of the facilities.  The pit toilet (hole in the floor) and shawer.  They try hard with the English but struggle at times much to our delight.  As dinner was being prepped we were treated to a make shift performance by some of the local school children.  Once the rest of the village found out what had happened they repeated the performance with almost all of the local kids participating.  It was extremely entertaining.  I took a video using the ipad and the kids were soooooo excited to see themselves.  It took a lot of coercing to get them to leave and go to bed.  They walk 2 hours every morning just to get to school and then two hours back.  They left the next morning around 5:30am. 

Our journey now had us at Lake Bunyoni, our base camp for the Gorilla trek.  This lake is over 2 km deep and high up in the mountains surrounded by dormant volcanoes.  Our group was split up to trek 3 different families of gorillas.  We entered Bwindi National Park (The impenetrable forest is its nickname and for good reason – the slopes are very steep and covered in vegetation).  Our group was lucky as we didn’t have to venture too far (only about 3 km into the park) before we ran into our family.     The first part of the family of 9 that we saw were two large black back males (in the trees) and the very large (200 + kilo) silver back dominant male (he was on the ground resting beside a tree less than 7 meters from us).  We have lots of photos but I had to narrow it down to just a few.  Do you know why Gorillas have big nostrils – cause they have big fingers.  Find the photo that verifies this.  After sitting and admiring the silver back for a while he decided to get up and ramble straight towards us.  The guide told us that if her charges we were to remain calm and stand our ground (he didn’t say anything about soiling oneself).  Thankfully he didn’t charge but he did get very close.  I’ve included a video of this occurrence (check out the expression of Maureen after the silver back goes by – this totally sums up the experience) and one of a black back climbing down a tree.  After the silver back moved away we headed further into the forest and were treated to a viewing of the lone baby in the group.  Trekking and finding these limited and amazing creatures was awe inspiring.  I’ve included photos of our awesome mountain top views from our lunch spot after the trek.

Just when we though Uganda couldn’t deliver any more we stopped in Jinga on the shores of Lake Victoria which is the source of the Nile River.  Here we took the opportunity to go white water rafting on the Nile River.  Our guide was totally snapped and that’s what made the day even more exciting.  I’ve included photos of the rafting (thanks Todd for the Go Pro it is really coming in handy) and the view from our river side tents.  (G-Adventures upgraded us all to awesome permanent tents)

Our tour was coming to an end and we limped our way out of Uganda back into Kenya for our remaining four days.  Our first stop was a game drive in Lake Nakuru National Park in western Kenya.  I don’t know if it was all of the awesome experiences and wildlife we had seen so far but the excitement seemed to be waning for most of our group as we went through the park.  The big thing we were looking forward to was seeing rhinos.  Lisa and I had seen black rhinos earlier on in the tour but in this park we were treated to white rhinos and plenty of them.  There were supposed to be flamingos there but the water levels have been unexplainably high for the past five years and they are no longer there.  The last day in Kenya had us going to see the hippos and bird like in Lake Naivasha.  It is here that we found out that six fishermen had already lost their lives to the hippos and it was only the end of March.  The hippos may seem slow and nonthreatening but think again.

Getting out of Kenya was also an interesting experience as security was very intense.  I’ll explain more when we get home. 

Longhorned Africows 

They carry so much on their bikes

Typical street mall in Uganda 

This is the local football (soccer field)

Speak no evil

Baboons on the campsite

Cold Shower anyone (Those are butterflies on the side of the building)

Don't fall down the hole when using the toilet

Lisa sharing pictures of snow with our gorilla guides and guards (notice the AK 47 in the guards hands)

Getting ready for the gorilla trek

Enjoying a lunch with a view

Beautiful scenery in Uganda

They farm everywhere in Uganda

The local saw mill (no machines here)

View of the Nile River from the front of our tent

This is a blue balled monkey (can you tell why it is named that) 

Our rafting group