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Published: February 10th 2008
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Looking Worse for Wear
Check out the dust after only a few minutes on the Bike! Our first stop in Cambodia was in the Ratanakiri Province, which is in the North East of the country. We met some people on the bus who were also travelling there and decided to split a four hour cab ride for $45 - 5 of us plus the driver in a Toyota Camry. Yikes. Because most people skip past this area, there is only one bus a day, which we missed, so we squeezed in for a bumpy ride and got to know each other.
Our new friends, Janet and Jakov are from Malta, and Sijs, pronounced like 'lace' with an 'S', is from Belgium. The five of us arrived in Ban Lung and settled into a lovely guesthouse. We ended up spending quite a few days with these guys, so anytime I say "we" in this entry, unless I specify otherwise, I mean me, Chris, Janet, Jakov and Sijs.
So that night WE all headed out for a Khmer BBQ dinner, which was delish! Afterwards we decided to try to seek some further entertainment so we asked our waiter where we could go to for a drink in town. Being the friendly guy he was, he sent us
In the Shared Taxi
6 People....1 Toyota Camry....Luxury to a bar just around the corner. As soon as we arrived we knew that something wasn't quite right. Many young girls caked in makeup showed us to our seats. They were especially friendly to Chris, Sijs and Jakov. You guessed it, this was our first (and so far only) trip to a Cambodian brothel.
The next morning we decided to rent motorcycles and hit the sites around the area. Chris and I were a bit apprehensive about renting bikes, since: 1. neither of us have our license to drive a motorcycle; 2. neither of us have ever driven a motorcycle; 3. the roads are full of potholes and are not paved; 4. the rental companies do not provide helmets and look at you as though you're nuts when you ask for one; and 5. Cambodians do not even remotely adhere to any traffic rules. I'd love to say that we were so care free that we jumped on without any worry. No, we hummed and hawed about it for quite awhile and then decided that it was the most realistic and inexpensive way to see what we wanted in the area. So, Chris got a 5 minute lesson
On the Move
Look Mom, no helmet!! on how to ride a semi automatic motorcycle with a foot brake and we were off - without helmets!
We bounced along red dirt roads for a long time. Did I say in an earlier entry that Laos was dusty? Ha. I've never seen dust like this before - at least I have never been on the back of a motorbike in dust like this. Every time a car, bus or truck would speed past us from either direction it would leave a huge cloud of red dust. Our only protection was our sunglasses. Janet and Jakov had rented motorbikes in Laos and had driven on lots of dusty roads, so Jakov bought swimming goggles so that the dust wouldn't get into his eyes. Good call. If we do it again, we'll be following suit. We had a system though. When the truck would go by, I would close my eyes and Chris would try to keep his open...once most of the dust had settled I would open mine allowing Chris the opportunity to try to blink some of the dust out. He was inevitably unsuccessful!
Our first stop was this amazing lake that has formed naturally in
the crater of a volcano. The lake is surrounded by jungle and I was really taken with the size of the crater. The water was crystal clear and we all hurriedly peeled off our clothes and jumped in trying to clean our red dusty skin. It took a lot of scrubbing.
After our volcanic swim we all got back onto the bikes and headed to Kin Chaan, a local waterfall. Knowing we were just going to get back on the bikes, and get covered in more red dust, we opted to wait for a second swim. The next waterfall was Ka Tieng, this one was spectacular. You could walk right behind it and swim right underneath it. We spent a while there swimming. Chris spent the majority of his time swinging from vines and jumping into the pool. Tarzan!
After a long day, we headed back into town to grab some dinner and have some drinks. We enjoyed a nice dinner at a local place where we met Mr. Naan, a tour guide who spoke fluent English. Mr. Naan told us many stories about his "big gun" and how he would like to use his "big gun on
Monica Lewinsky" who gets him "really hot" and makes his "face turn red". Lots of laughs, lots of beer, lots of priceless stories.
The next day we got back on the bikes and headed out to another waterfall. This one was quite beautiful, set in a gorge and the water came quite heavy from high above. This was more of a shower than a bath as we walked under the pounding water and again, cleaned ourselves from the ride over. We cried red tears as our bodies tried to get rid of the dust from way back in our eye sockets. We survived, though, and had quite a nice time.
The people in Cambodia are very friendly and have a great sense of humour. Maybe the Lao people enjoyed a good laugh, too, but we didn't know because of the language barrier. In Cambodia, most people speak great English, so it was nice to be able to get to know them, joke with them and ask some questions. It seems more developed in Cambodia. This is actually not true, I think because people speak English it seems that way.
After a few days in the north we
were looking forward to Phnom Penh, the capital city. The five of us decided to do it together and catch a 10 hour minibus south. And THAT is a story in itself!
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anonymous
non-member comment
Chris you are starting to look a bit like a LION.