No chance for happiness

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Only one full day left in enigmatic Cambodia. It's going to be such a shame to leave this incredible country as there's so much, all in the details, that we're going to miss. Here are some of the minutiae that make up the crazy whole that we love so much:- Khmer food (especially Lok Lak and the supremely delicious Amok), local markets selling the living, barely living and very much dead creatures of this country (you can ascertain the level of life by the number of flies - the more flies, the deader it is), the gorgeous red dust tan, counting the number of hello's received as we walk through a new village and the most beautiful smiles as we return the greeting, the happy serendipity of arriving, randomly, at the perfect guest house after a 12 hour journey, the 12 hour journey itself, finding the only bar in a small village can make you an exquisite Mojito, engaging in a seemingly insignificant conversation that supplies a gem of important information (without having asked, and without realising it was needed), the quick wit and easy laugh of the Cambodian people, the continuing mystery as to why all Cambodian women dress in oversized children's pyjama's, the nature, the scenery, the sun and the stars and even, if one is all and all is one, the rooster with a dysfunctional internal clock. Actually scratch that, "with an ashtray as big as a f#*!ing really big brick I'd split his skull in two!"


I mentioned serendipity earlier and, after a little while on the road, I have come to realise that it is the sum of all the "happy coincidences" that combine to make the travelling "experience" and that further, once one realises this, one starts to look for and expect these random moments of good fortune and, so it seems to me, by anticipating (and essentially willing) them, they occur with much greater regularity. If this is true it produces two effects; firstly, to greatly enhance ones travelling experience and secondly, paradoxically, to entirely negate the idea of serendipity itself! Whatever the truth, Anny and myself have been in a self perpetuating continuum of very good fortune, bouncing off each other (!!) and throwing ourselves blindly at the country to rebound with bigger smiles each time.


But now to more bloggy matters. Siem Reap took us to Kampong Cham where we stayed a night, dining in, for us, quite a flash restaurant. We ate mudfish and beef with tomatoes but declined the whole grilled turtle and the rice with "pigs insides!" The turtle was refused on two grounds; firstly, because earlier in the day I had seen four very dead and very whole (guts, feet, head and all) cooked turtles at the market and, secondly, because we would have been invited to select the poor unfortunate from a large tank in the corner. Anny had no problems ordering the killing of her Mudfish (they don't sound that friendly do they?). In the morning we had breakfast at a place by the wide and muddy Mekong in a restaurant that turned out to be owned by a very loud (but very helpful) American. He had the first decent book exchange I had found so far and I had no trouble selecting my book: "The quiet American" by Graham Green!! It is set predominantly in Saigon which, in two days, will be our next destination - so it was not only irony that facilitated my decision.


From there we went to Kratie which is again on the Mekong but a couple hundred clicks further north, it was also much quieter. At Kratie we enjoyed our first Mekong sunset from the roof of our riverside guest house, ate some fantastic food and, on our only full day there, went to see the critically endangered Irrawaddy fresh water dolphins. We hired a motorbike and travelled a small distance north to Kampi where, in the dry season, the dolphins congregate in the deep water pool to be found there. The drive there in the oblique, suffused gold light of morning was so beautiful. Cruising slowly past wooden houses on stilts, narrowly missing mother hen with her huge brood of chicks, dodging dogs, children and Ox carts and constantly waving back at the locals as they paused in their morning activities to smile and wave as we passed was a real delight. We arrived at the river and had to wait a little for a few more tourists to make up the numbers in the boat (so as to keep the price down). We got stuck with four Australian dirt bikers; the commentary was not exactly David Atomborough, but much more fun for that! We got to see dolphins, just as we had hoped, and in large pods as well. The Irrawaddy dolphin is shorter than its deep sea cousin, has a smaller dorsal fin and a much rounder face. We got to see them at pretty close quaters, perhaps five meters, but due to not having a long lense on my camera they only appear as small dots! In my memory they will forever stay as the magnificent creatures we saw so close.


Then another day of travelling that, in retrospect, was really great fun and gained us, through a "chance" encounter a great tip on a place to stay. We left Kratie at 7am to connect to Snoul, this journey was only two hours and proved very smooth going. Arriving in Snoul we purchased our ticket to Sen Monorom in the Moldakiri province, being told the bus would arrive in three hours at noon. At 2pm it finally turned up! Six and a half bumpy, rutted and dusty hours later we arrived, thirteen and a half hours after leaving. We enquired as to where the "Nature Lodge" was that we had been reccomended to stay at was and were told that it was a half hour walk out of the village! It was now very dark and there were no lights and apparantly it is very hard to find (not in any guide books). Our spirits briefly sank and we resigned ourself to a stay in a generic guest house before (and we should have expected this by now) the person with whom we made our enquiry informed us that the owner was eating in the restaurant next door! We went in, made contact and were told that if we were happy to wait two hours and have some much needed food, she would drive us there when she had finished! Perfect.


We went straight to sleep when we got there, but not before admiring the most incredible proliferation of stars I have ever seen. Upon awakening and stepping outside onto the wooden balcony of our treehouse, we could finally see the amazing place we had "chanced" to find. Our view was of gently rolling, partially wooded hills (much like parts of England - only with a blazing hot sun, a pair of wheeling Eagles and a dearth of English, save myself) that stretched away miles into the distance. We went to take a shower and even that was an experience in itself. The shower cubicle was a wooden structure made of planks with the roof open to the sky. The shower (hot, as we are at altitude) was attatched to a large tree that grew in the middle and, at our feet, was a beutifully tended rock garden replete with water loving tropical plants!! It was fun during the day but to shower at night under the stars was very special indeed!
We spent three days here, the first and the last were spent swinging in hammocks, reading books and eating great food in the treehouse restaurant; the second day we went treking. We knew there would be another couple on our trek and when we arrived at the Green House bar to start we found that the other couple were the guys from Slovenia with whom we treked in Thailand! We were driven on dirt bikes to a minority village in the hills where we met our guide. We had a quick look around the village; low, conical, thatched wooden huts, pigs, chickens, nervous smiling children, serene elders and a working elephant. We walked up hill and down dale for the best part of eight hours, stopping at three superb waterfalls along the way, one of which had a 25 meter drop and a perfect pool for a much needed swim. The rest of the time was spent in thick forest and the occasional grassy plain. We also spent a long time in a meadow with twentu meter hight grass - actually a bamboo forest but, as bamboo is technically the worlds tallest grass, it is a meadow of sorts! Back at the Green House bar we indulged in several perfect Mojito's and one or two too many glasses of Pastis!


Our bus to sadly take us away from this amazing part of Canbodia had, we found out, broken down before it had even started. The lovely guy from the Green House managed, in no time at all, to secure us a seat in a people carrier (with ten others) that took us to Phnom Penh. The journey would have taken about twelve hours by bus but we made it in eight! Another coincidense?! So, it is from Phnom Penh that I send this missive, we have only a day to explore for last night we arranged our Vietnam Visa's and tickets to Saigon and we leave on the 5th, to arrive in time for Tet - Vietnam's New Year celebration that lasts for three days. We'll let you know all about it.

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