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! [View Full Entry]

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Up and grappling a bicycle down the 80 odd steps down to the boat to cross over to the Island by 08:00. We get to the other side and it's a hard slog pushing the bike througj the soft sand for a quarter of a mile before get up over the levee and onto the Island proper - a small boy tells me his nbame is ''Dollar'' and then proceeds to ask me for money - he doesn't get it! I also notice to my amazement a shack advertising bikes for hire at $1 a day!!! The hotel didn't bloody tell [View Full Entry]

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Ever had the feeling you've been conned? I've just parted with $80 and I still don't know what I've paid for - it's supposed to be for a trip around the area including a couple of boat fares but the story keeps changing every time I try and clarify what is included and paid for already. I decide to go with the flow and jump into the waiting TutTut and off we head North out of Kratie. The Khmers seem to prefer building their houses alongside roads in a linear fashion and here is no exception - the difference here is [View Full Entry]

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Ban lung is the biggest town in the rattanakiri province, which is up in the north eastern corner of cambodia. It has paved streets but even so it is a very dusty town. A layer of red dust covers just about everything. It is also a bit out of the way, but it is pretty unique and we are definitely glad we made it up there. The bus from Kratie went pretty smoothly. As I mentioned in the last blog, we saw the dolphins in the morning and then got on the 1 pm bus. We had to switch buses at [View Full Entry]

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Kratie was basically just a stopover between Siem Reap and Ban Lung, but we made the most of it. Kratie is right on the Mekong, and it is famous (at least among backpackers) for it's nearby pod of fresh water dolphins. We decided to take the bus from siem reap to kratie (8 hours or so), see the dolphins the next morning, and then catch another bus to Ban Lung (6 hours). Our bus left siem reap at 8 am, and we didn't make it to kratie until after dark. It shouldn't have taken that long except we made a few [View Full Entry]

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We made our way East from Siem Reap to Kratie, this took a monotonous 12 hours by various buses all of which broke down at some point. We eventually arrived in the dark, never a favourite for any traveller, but were kindly greeted by a man and his tuk tuk and a sign for the guesthouse we had earmarked to head too. So off we went and ended up at YouHong Guesthouse $5 for a double en-suite, not bad hey!!!! There isn’t much else to say about our time here, there really was nothing to do here. We had a potter [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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Salut a tous, le 12 novembre on est parti pour Kratie, un autre 7h de route. On est arrive a bon port accueillis par une meute de tuk-tuk qui nous offraient tous la meilleure guesthouse, comme d'habitude. On a decide d'aller voir un guesthouse recommande par le restaurateur de Kampot, mais etant trop cher pour nous, nous avons opte pour un guesthouse suggere par un chauffeur de tuk-tuk. Aussitot arrive, il nous offrait d'aller voir les dauphins immediatement, disant que c'etait la meilleure heure. Aimee ne filait pas, donc on a decide de remettre ca au lendemain. Ils nous a donc [View Full Entry]

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Tag 1: Anreise Mit Tabletten fuer meinen Bauch bepackt, gings um 7 Uhr los. Der Bus war bis auf den letzten Platz belegt. Ich der einzige Barang (westlicher Tourist). Wir kaempften uns durch den Verkehr von Phnom Penh und luden hie und da noch Leute und Reissaecke auf. Am Rande der Stadt sah ich eine nackte Frau auf der Strasse. Ob die wohl irgendwo ausgebrochen ist? Umso weiter wir von der Stadt weg kamen, umso schoener wurde die Landschaft. Da sind die Menschen noch mit Pferd und Anhaenger unterwegs. Und da gab es auch sowas wie die Tour de Cambodia zu [View Full Entry]

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23.07.09 During my last days in Cambodia I had to learn that not everything can be perfect all the time. After a great time in Phnom Penh I enthusiastically went to Kratie which is famous for it’s fresh water dolphins and of course I didn’t want to miss them out. As soon as I had arrived to this little place on the Mekong river, I looked for a guesthouse which already seemed quite abandoned when I arrived. The room was big, but already when I checked in I realized that it was not the cleanest place. But the hot water shower [View Full Entry]

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