Loved Looooved Cambodia

We are a few days behind with our entries... we had safely surived Cambodia's crazy bus ride from Siem Reap to Bangkok, Thailand. Cambodia's buses lack aircon and comfortable seats however they did have windows that you could only open an inch cause the roads were super dusty. At one stage I didn't even know whether our bus driver could see ahead. So once again Derek and I were stuck in a sauna bus for 5 hours sweating continuously (followed by a nice 4 hour thai bus ride). I think you know that you stink when you can smell yourself.... I stunk BIG time...



Now that we are back to what seems to be our home base of Bangkok for this 7 month journey of ours, I can honestly say that I loved looooved Cambodia. After Kampot and Sihanoukville we continued our journey further north in Cambodia to a great town called Battambang. People say you can't go to Cambodia without seeing Ankor Wat but for me you can't leave Cambodia without visiting Battambang. Here is where you truly see Cambodians tackling life head on with so much joy and wonderful smiles on there faces even if what you see seems to be sooo little for them it is more than enough. Benny, Kenny or Penny and Jay had given us a great day riding along the country side on their motorbikes. The scenery is a national geographic photographers dream. Riding pass rice paddies, observing little boys herding their cows and buffalos, amazed with six or seven year old girls in their dirty rag school uniforms riding in an adult sized bicycle that has man made wooden handles and seeing monks walking from afar collecting their food for the day from village to village.

Battambang residents are extremely proud of their bamboo train with an old track that was abandoned by the French over 80 years ago and looks like it shouldn't be traveled on. Since Penny and Jay insisted for us to go for a ride Derek and I turned to each other... hugged and said "oh god" ... ok! Three local boys assembled our train and gave us the first class cabin with a straw mat to sit on and off we went. As soon as we got going Jay then decides to mention to keep an eye up a head cause a train may be coming in our direction and therefore we may need to stop and disassemble their train or ours depending on which carriage is the heaviest. Great!

A few days spent in Battambang was fantastic and sadly our Cambodia journey was coming close to an end as we headed off to Siem Reap, our last destination. Obviously, known for their well preserved range of ruins dating back from the 8th to 11th century. Ankor Wat, which they are trying to desiginate as one of the world's 8 wonders if not already.... Ankor is a fairly large archeological park and was certainly surrounded with amazing wats and ruins. Its hard to believe that some of the wats are 1000 years old. The wats were scattered all over Ankor so people usually purchase a 3 day pass of sight seeing which can leave you overwhelmed by Ankors majestic feel. Derek and I did a two day trip of 10 hours per day of sightseeing with our tuk tuk driver friend Mr. Bean.. After the 3rd day we were Watted out..... Enjoy the pics.

So now back in Thailand we will be spending maybe another week or so then heading off to Hong Kong.. Woo hoo! Or actually that's the plan so far.. Derek is the logistics guy I just tag along!

Cheers,
-Uriah