Cambodia to Lao

31 December 2010

Koh Rong Saloem

Ditched the arm pit of SE Asia (Sihnaoukville) and  took a two hour boat journey out to Koh Rong Saloem,
Saw the New Year in on a tropical island with a night dive,  a few 6 cent beers and some Cambodian fishermen - Magic.

1 January 2011 - great start to the new year with some more diving and a bit of snorkelling off a deserted beach

2 Jan
left Koh Rong Saloem after a days diving and took the boat back to the mainland to catch the night bus Phnom Penh

3 Jan

Arrived in the Cambodian Capital city at just after midnight. Welcomed to the city with a full on death match between 2 tuk tuk drivers competing for our fare to get to the hostel.
Hovel of a hostel with a room covered in police notices on the illegality of child prostitution.

Phnoem Penh turned out to be a great city, again huge French influences with fantastic restaurants, bars and cafes.

Genocide museum and S21 Detention Centre - Horrifying and beyond words - read about it

Royal Palaces - Very good of the Cambodian people to build a nice house for a guy who sided with the Khmer Rouge..

Met up with our new buddy Radick the beer breathing Czech and treated ourselves to the best steak for 3 months!

4 Jan
6 hour Bus to Siem Reap the city base for the Angkor Temples.

5-7 Jan Siem Reap
Angkor Temples - 2 days of Wat watching. Massive area covered with temples (Wats) and lots of South Korean tourists.

Met up again with Radick on the 2nd night and discovered a bar that served pitchers of beer...Day 3 was not a good one! Luckily Sally was kind enough to book us into a cooking course for the afternoon, how my fingers survived hungover chili chopping i'm not sure.

8 Jan
Siem Reap to Lao

Up at 0430, 1 tuk tuk, 4 buses, 1 border, 1 boat and some walking and we made it to Don Det Island 15 hours later.

9 -11 Jan
Don Det -  an island within the Mekong in the far south of Lao. Probably the most laid back place i've ever been. No roads, hardly any people and a serious amount of lying in hammocks.

Took a kayaking trip on the second day to a few of the other islands and back over to Cambodia where we were lucky enough to see the rare fresh water Irrawady Dolphins looking about as chilled out as the locals.

The third day on the island required something other than lying in a hammock so we took some truck inner tubes and floated down the Mekong, all very pleasant until Sal saw a snake (minding his own business) and that was the end of that.

12 Jan
Boat and bus to Pakse the old French capital of southern Lao. Not much to report here other than Lao is turning out to be the most expensive country so far.

13 Jan
Decided to forgo the 24 hour bus journey to Luang Prabang and took a flight instead.
Got to the city after dark and checked into a guest house we found on line. I've stayed in some pretty awful places but this was on another level - self immolation seemed preferable at about 4 am but Sally talked me out of it.

14 Jan - Luang Prabang

Very French, very cool, lots of monks (acting French and Cool)  - Type of place you would find in a Chelsea Travel Agent (sorry Global experience assistant) under the Asian Chic brochure.
Sally loves it....