HE SAID... We left our homestay (near Sambor Prei Kuk) at 8am and embarked on our long southward journey to Kampot. We pulled into Skuon at 9.30am for petrol and a toilet break. Skuon is jokingly termed Spiderville in Cambodia, and for good reason. The food stalls scattered around the roadside cafe were selling all manner of deep fried spiders and insects. I wasn’t overly hungry, so I opted for a Khmer iced coffee. We jumped back into our minibus and kept heading south, arriving in Phnom Penh at midday. We lunched in the food court on the top floor of Soorya Shopping Centre (the same place I’d purchased my new camera only a week before). After surveying the many food stalls selling a variety of cuisines, we decided to share fried rice with egg and ... read more

HE SAID... We woke at 6am and organised our packs. We were leaving Battambang and travelling the Sangker River by boat to Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake, which we needed to cross on our way to Siem Reap. We headed up to our hotel’s rooftop terrace for breakfast. Battambang is not what you would call a picturesque town, and the view from the terrace was nothing more than a sprawling urban skyline of dusty buildings and factories. I had muesli with fruit and frozen yoghurt, while Ren had an omelette with baguette. We both had a hot Khmer coffee with condensed milk, which was a good start to the day. We headed down to the hotel lobby at 7.30am and caught a minibus to the Sangker River. Luckily there was a pharmacy open on the riverbank close ... read more

HE SAID... On our third morning in Phnom Penh we woke around 6am, worked briefly on our travel notes and then headed out for a quick breakfast at 7.30am. I had muesli with fresh fruit and yoghurt with a pot of Khmer tea. Once again, I had to remove the papaya piece by piece from the muesli. I have to work on my issue with this fruit – it just smells and tastes like vomit. Ren had a pineapple smoothie and an omelette. It was a great start to the day, ruined a little by an old white guy sitting behind us searching for very young Asian women on a dating website. He didn’t seem to care that everyone could see what he was doing on his laptop. Cambodia, like so many Asian countries, attracts its ... read more

HE SAID... Cambodia had been on our travel horizon for months, but we were so busy with work and daily life that it had been somewhat of a ship on the horizon in the overall scheme of things. But suddenly it was upon us, and we were packing the day before we left. It didn’t help that Oliver, our new kelpie, cut his paw about a week before we left, which meant trips to the vet and continual monitoring at home to ensure the wound healed. Luckily, his paw healed just in time and we finalised all our projects, so we were ready to go. The dogs were picked up at 11.30am. They were happy to jump in the back of the car, but not so happy to leave. We spent the next few hours sorting ... read more

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson So it’s our fifth travel blog birthday today (any excuse for chocolate cake!), and we wanted to mark it with a post. As much as we love travel, we also have some personal gripes about it, so we thought we’d provide a balanced view by writing about both. For every yin there’s a yang, right? So here goes... TRAVEL LOATHES... here are a few things that exasperate and annoy us SHE SAID... 1) Queue jumpers… I know some people seem genetically predisposed to struggle with the concept of queuing; and I firmly believe that my purpose on this earth is to help them with this disability. When I do, Andrew tries ... read more