Blogs from Banlung, East, Cambodia, Asia - page 3

Ratanakiri is great and am off on my first jungle trek for 3 days tomorrow - needless to say there is no tinterweb in the jungle and I won't be posting or replying to emails until Friday evening Cambodia time GMT plus 6 hours which is when there is electricity until midnight! More Friday folks! ... read more

The bus to Banlung was 30 minutes late and there were only 10 people on board. The journey is supposed to take 4.5 hours - at least that's what the ticket seller told me. 2 hours later we got turfed off the bus at Stung Treng because they said the bus had broken down! It was perfectly all right and I couldn't work out why we were in Stung Treng anyway as it's the long way round. I reckon they didn't want to run the bus at a loss to Banlung with only 10 people. 2 hours later we were told to get on another bus companies bus and we set for Banlung - this takes over 4 hours! All of this is typical of bus travel in Cambodia but infinitely preferable to travel by minibus ... read more

Salut! Le 14 novembre dernier on s'est elance de Kratie vers Ban lung, dans un mini-bus local. A part les choux dans notre dos qui laissaient echapper une coulisse entre nos jambes, un jeune qui ecoute sa musique sur son cellulaire sans ecouteurs, un passager qui refuse de me laisser de la place et un autre qui se vide le nez de facon peu gracieuse directement sur le plancher, ca s'est bien passe!! La route vers le nord etait belle, mais aussitot qu'on a changer pour celle qui se rend dans les confins de la province de ratanakiri, on est tombe sur une route de terre rouge, bordee d'une vegetation rouge a cause de la poussiere. On a meme du traverser un courant d'eau qui passait par-dessus la route et ou deux gros camions y etaient ... read more

Even though we had bought our Cambodian visas in Bangkok we had been warned that the border guards on the Cambodian side would likely demand around five US dollars for "Administration Taxes" that didn't actually exist and would be more accurately named "Cambodian Border Guard Beer Fund". We had been told that you can try and refuse to pay but when we got there and they only asked for one dollar we decided that having a row with an armed and corrupt Cambodian border guard probably wasn't worth the hassle of having a gun pointed in our faces and just paid up. For a country trying to encourage a flourishing tourism trade it wasn't exactly a great introduction. After border formalities and petty extortion we piled into a waiting minivan with a bunch of other backpackers ... read more

Day 45/46/47/48 - Ban Lung (& Kratie) To quote Lonely Planet in regards to Ban Lung is the best way we can describe the place....... "It may look like autumn all year around, but its just that the leaves, like everything else are cloaked in a blanket of dust". But not even the book or people we had talked to prepared us for the amount of dust. The nickname for Ban Lung is "the Red City", which is quite appropriate. Luckily due to the extra cash from S's mom, we chose to stay a bit out of town at "Nordon House". It is run by a Swedish guy and his Cambodian wife. Our bungalow was super clean, hot water was provided via solar panels, there were electric fans and the electricity ran from 6PM to 4AM. ... read more