I booked all my Cambodian tickets on the bus company Capital tour, and, until I left for Thailand, they had been flawless. I left Phnom Pen right on time (ie, I tried to get on the wrong bus 3 minutes before my designated departure time, and they told me as if it was obvious that my bus would pull in front of the station at 7:30, and it was only 7:27), and enjoyed the 4 hour ride down, except for the constant Karaoke VCDs that were playing (see Video from the Phnom Pen Blog for an example). My seat companion was [View Full Entry]

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After a relatively short ride from Kratie, I was lucky enough to be following our route on the map, and then realized that I was about a five minute walk away, told the driver and hopped out before getting to the final stop where all the tuk tuk drivers were waiting. I ended up at my guesthouse, checked in and showered about 10 minutes after getting off, and set out to see the city. I realized right off that this city had all kinds of Charm that Hanoi was missing. Many French colonial buildings had been restored, and the roads are [View Full Entry]

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The only option for crossing from Laos straight into Cambodia is, it seems, to work with this one company that charges $20 to get to a city half way between the border and Phnom Pen. As soon as I got to the border, I knew that this was going to be a unique experience. Actually, it was before that. I was picked up from the Island at 8am, delivered to the bus station by 8:10, and then found out that we were not leaving until 9. I was thinking, "then why the heck did I get up at the crack of [View Full Entry]

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Other than having a bus that was literally falling apart - dropping stuff on our heads as we chugged down the road, the drive down was surprisingly dull. We settled into a row of bungalows that faced some dry rice field, providing some nice ambiance once the moon was up and the cows moved in. Nicholas, Peter, Lam Jo and I did a whole lot of nothing in keeping with the Islands culture, and this was only interrupted by a ill-fated attempt at doing a Canoe trip to go around Don Det. We went downstream at first, thinking that this was [View Full Entry]

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Upon leaving Pakse for Champasak, we had are only real frustrating experience with the local transport. We all got on a tuktuk, negotiated a fair price to the bus station, and were dropped off only 2 out of the 10ks into the trip at a market, where we were told the bus would pick us up. There were many sawngthaews (big tuk tuks) leaving the area, so we got out, paid the driver and went to wait for bus. No sooner did our tuktuk pull out than other tuk tuk drivers come up offering to drive us to the bus station. [View Full Entry]

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As soon as I got on the bus heading south, I realized just how different this country was from Vietnam. I took one step, and was practically flagged down by a local women (about 50) who was just jazzed about the prospects of sitting next to me for the drive down. I should clarify that neither the local bus driver or the long distance driver tried to charge me a penny more than the locals paid. So, in addition to not paying anything extra for the ticket, the local bus driver flagged the long distance bus down since it was pulling [View Full Entry]

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Well, after a 22 hour busride with Vietnamese people, anything would look good. No doubt about it, the whole 'leaving Vietnam thing' didn't really do a whole lot to change my attitude about that country. Well, lets see, where to start. Oh, about 30 minutes out of Hanoi, a motorcycle cop came along side our bus with his light and siren on and pulled over the driver for the sole purpose of getting some early retirement money. Yeah, no problem, our scheduled time was just two hours shy of a full freakin day, but go ahead, spend a half hour in [View Full Entry]

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I had originally planned on spending a few days in the Sapa highlands after crossing over from China, but I got stuck at the border town for the night and decided to take the night train into Hanoi right off. I don't know if that was a good thing or not, for about 15 minutes into the journey, I had urgent indications that I had food poisoning. Now, the practical side of me says that it was better to take the night train than spend money on a hotel, because this way I didn't waste a stationary night puking my guts [View Full Entry]

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The pics tell most of the story, and I don't have time to add the text now. To be updated shortly. [View Full Entry]

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After some discussion, the G-6 (group of six) decided to venture up to the gorge and make a day trip out of it. There had been some speculation about doing it as an overnight journey, but after a while the merits of the day trip won out and we decided to go by local bus. We designated Lincoln and Nora to go on our behalf, and reimbursed them the 23 RMB cost of the tickets upon their return. About 10pm that night, we had a discussion with the guesthouse staff about getting out the next morning. The doors are locked up, [View Full Entry]

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