emwillaert

We returned to our “favorite island beach” today. I made the initial goal to see how many straws I could find that had been washed up by previous high tides and random litter and planned on making a little sand castle display. However, as things started to unfold I saw that I had inadvertantly created 5 towers in the shape of a di five. Much resembling Angkor Wat. Well, now that I had a picture the creation needed to be made. Out of blue bottle caps, blue plastics and blue flip flops came the moat. From single use plastic spoons came the wall for the city. Cue tips and white straws created sections within the city. Roads were bottle caps and cigarette lighters and of course the towers are plastic straws. Some people visiting the beach ... read more

We decided to give our hiking boots one more outing before packing them up and trading them in for flipflops. The venture was Mae Len Waterfall and based on our research could be anywhere from just under a 4 hour hike to a 6 hour hike. We started off strong, parking our bikes at a hostel because no one could tell us if there was somewhere closer to park...there was (add 40 minutes to the hike). The hike itself was the right balance of entertaining, flat and challenging as the trail wove across the river about 20 times out and then 20 times back. No point was the river too deep or fast moving now that it is dry season so it was fun to play don’t fall in the lava as we hopped rocks and ... read more

Thailand is known for its elephants and after Shelby went on an elepant craze in Cambodia (elephant pants, elephant shirts, elephant paintings, elephants, elephants, elephants), it only seemed right that we spend a day interacting with elephants. In Chiang Mai, it turns out elephants are in large supply and many companies provide ample tours. Our hostel owner Som informed us that most of the parks in the north of Thailand are very good and reputatable. They don’t allow riding on the elephants, they have handlers who work specifically with an elephant to ensure they understand basic commands (eat, good, stop, back, etc.) to provide a safe environment for tourists, and mostly they roam free. This is not the case in all places in Thailand or around the world so do your research first. Most elephants who ... read more

Today we rented some scooters (mopeds) and headed to Bokor National Park. The real adventure was taking a go at navigating the Cambodian roads. The good thing for me is Kampot is way less congested than Siem Reap. It was about a 30 minute ride to the national park and then 45 minutes winding up to the 1 kilometer peak. The curves were great training ground for learning to steer and the almost empty road was great for going at my own pace and seeing the view points and trees. The first stop Povokvil waterfall. During monsoon season, the water fall appears to be almost a horseshoe with many levels and drop ins. Now in dry season, there were two small trickles. It was still a great stop because you could hike in the river bed ... read more

We traveled by overnight bus to Phnom Pehn. It is pretty common for us to select overnight travel, you don’t miss a day of moving and seeing, you don’t add overnight expenses for lodging and typically the fares are cheaper. What I wasn’t expecting was for the entire bus to be bed cots instead of seats. One side of the isle was single bunk beds and the other side of the isle had two separate cots next to each other with bunk beds. Never have I been so happy to be traveling with a friend than tonight! We arrived in Phnom Pehn and caught a bus to Kampot and made it out to our hostel. Again what the hostel photos didn’t show was the domitories were not only in the house but also in 2 shipping ... read more