Border crossing , Temples of Angkor, Beatocello

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Boarder crossing

The boader crossing from Vietam into Cambodia was a pretty nice trip along the Mekong Delta, which included a small tour of one of Vietnams floating fishing villages (without my knowledge) it was a nice diversion but it added a hour to the already long trip but I savoured the moment and took in the lovely lush natural landscape and waving, giggling local children.

The process to get over the boarder and obtain the Cambodian visa was quite funny the officials have no idea they pretty much stuffed up my second entry visa entry into Vietnam fortunately I noticed just before the boat was about to take off (well thats when I got my passport back - lucky I looked at it) and to my own dismay I held up the boat for around 1/2 hr, the officials attempted to resolve it but I won't know until I am in Hanoi......

Phnom Penh is crazier than HCMC I decided to head down to Sihanouville which is the main coastal area of Cambodia and was a 4 hr bus trip from PP, I really wanted to go to Kratie butit was much further and I neeeeeeded chill time. I stayed in the beach area of Occheuteal which is a very long calm beach with little shade and is predominately populated by nationals swimming,holidaying who knows but it is a nice change as you rarely see locals soaking up the sun and doing the whole beach relax thing, I happen to be there on the weekend so it was even more packed.

To my pleasent surprise I once again crossed paths with Michelle and one of her friends Jo, we both knew we would be in Cambodia around the same time but we did not discuss anything other than we would contact each other once we were there, we accidently cross paths at breakfast she was staying at the same guesthouse, whats the odds!!! funny how things work out the same sort of thing happened to us in Siam Reap, where we met ....co-incidence I think not.

I finally left and made my way up to Siam Reap of course no direct route from Sihanouville so I had to go back to PP and stay the night, I decided to check out the area and I braved the streets of PP that night and walked to the Tonle Sap River area for dinner.

The bus the next day which took around 6 hours to Siam Reap and I was pretty happy as I was going to meet up with Karen. We stayed in the main area of Psar Chaa and decided to get a 3 day pass to the temples, the first couple of days we hired a remorque moto (motor bike with a carriage) and we toured around the various temples, our driver wiendy was most amusing, he was a sweet cutey that by day 3 he was flirty with us and giggling (heh he was young)......and of course like every other foreign guys I have met so far wants a western wife.....in my first month as the english say and to my amusement I have been "pulled" (well not really as they were clearly not successful) by a Nigerian, Vietnamese and Cambodian toooooo funny, will I be taking over the title of "International commare" ??nah I don't think sooooooo hehehehe....sorry guys only the commares and compares will know what this means.

Temples of Angkor

The Angkor temples cover a huge area and are quite magnificant, the photos will not do it justice (and I was snappy happy) the structures have been made of huge stones some ornmented by various budhist and hindu carvings, there is a sense of peace and stillness even in the chaotic areas such as the Angkor Wat (its the biggest temple and I think mosted visited). I really didn't know what to expect so it added to the beauty, by day 3 karen and I pretty much visited the temples and a quite lesiurely pace and decided to just find a space that we could just be, we went back to one of the temples that we visited the day before and pretty much just hung out, reading, writing and drawing in our new amazing surrounding. Our nights were eating, drinking and pretty much just chilling and catching up.

Beatocello

One night we visited the local childrens hospital to hear some music and inspiring words by the swiss Doctor Beat Richner.........he is truly an amazing individual who has devoted his life to improving the health system in Cambodia, he played his cello, showed a few short doco's and provide some very sad statistics particular about the common illness which are often life threatening and have evolved over time due to the war, the flow on affect of a war that ended long ago, the hospitals purely work on foreign aid and donations the purpose of concert was to spread the word, get donations, money or blood, I gave a little of both...Cambodia particularly lacks healthly undiseased blood as over 2/3 of the population have either Hep or some other disease it was easy for me to donate......... now don't fear people it was all clean and sterlie and I did not hesitate at all.

Romper Room in Cambodia

We hired a bike and tour around the Siam Reap area, the area is quite flat (thank god) So we rode to the hospital I gave blood, then we rode for a bit and visited a butterfly cafe (yes lots of butterflies) for chill out time and a drink and then headed down to the river to just chill and read....now this was not to be so, we were bombarded by over 10 kids boys and girls ranging from 4-11 years, like little pixies who knows where they came from soooooooo gorgeous all they wanted was my attention they didn't want to sell us anything....which was a pleasent surpirse, I armed wrestled the boys and surprise surprise they won (well of course I made them, they were only 10), we sang ABC's, 123, played sissor, paper, rock, drawing laughing, they were climbing over me....(reminded me of Maz) I loved it, truly put a smile on my face...I really enjoyed it

Well this was a long one, not sure when I will write next, I am truly having an awesome time and hopefully once I get better at this Travel Blog thingy I will be able to articulate it better.

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