TLC - go chasing waterfalls

16.03. - Day 31 - Don Det to Banlung
We are in CAMBODIA!!
Though it was quite sad to leave behind wonderful Laos, we are happy to be here and amazed about all the friendly people.
We left early this morning, first by boat and then by 3 minibuses...on the bumpy road towards the Cambodian border one of the backpacks fell off the roof (luckily not one of ours) and few minutes later we had a flat tire...the roads speak for themselves...
We felt a bit ripped off at the border, as the Visa was supposed to cost 20 USD and ended up being 24 USD since they would lead us through 3 different check points charging each time we passed (2 Dollars when leaving Laos, 2 times 1 Dollar when entering Cambodia). We knew this money probably goes right in their own pocket, but not much you can do about that.
The bus took us to Stung Treng and stopped at some restaurant where we were sort of expected to have lunch...Us and 2 others left on a minibus to Banlung after lunch and we also picked up Marion and Kerstin along the way. We got kind of ripped off once again, when they tried to squeeze 10 people into a minivan that was designed to be for 8...we tried making a fuss, but those guys wouldn't budge and we had no choice but to come with them - for an expensive 8 Dollars each. The ride was only 3 hours, so we survived!
In Banlung, we were dropped of at the Tribal Guesthouse and were too lazy to search for anything around, especially since that was the one that Tom (the German guy from Don Det) recommended us so we checked in, and the rooms were all right and just 5 Dollars for a double room.
It was so nice to have electricity again and a sink and a nice bathroom after the islands...amazing how we begin to appreciate silly little things like that
In the evening we had some very good dinner at the Star Guesthouse and Restaurant in town where we booked a trip for some Elephant riding the next day (10 Dollars each for 3 hours)- exiting!

17.03. - Day 32 - Banlung
We started the day early with breakfast at the Star Guesthouse and took off by car around 8 am to a place about 3 km from the Katieng Waterfall. We got an elephant that turned out to be a very lazy and hungry lady; she tried to run off with us into the bushes pretty often and the guide wasn't very gentle getting her back on the track; he punched and whipped her quite often which was horrible to watch. For 3 hours we went through the forest, passing cashew nut and rubber trees - amazing to see that there is only one cashew nut on top of one fruit that looks like some sort of apple (we tried the fruit but didn't like it too much). We arrived at the entrance of the waterfall but passed it - we figured that we go around it since the ride was supposed to be another hour (only 2 hours passed so far), but we were mistaken - we ended up in the bushes nearby watching the elephant eat and being eaten off by mosquitoes (first reason why we wouldn't recommend Star Guesthouse for booking trips). Then we went to see the waterfall (2.000 Riel entrance fee, 50 Cent USD)which was very beautiful.
In the afternoon Dunja, Marion and Kerstin got 2 motorbikes with drivers and went to the Yeak Laom Lake (4.000 Riel entrance fee = 1 Dollar), nice place to hang out and swim, while Romy was stuck in the internet trying to get into classes at university.
We went back to the Star Guesthouse for dinner and booked a 3-day-Trekking trip starting the next day together with Marion.

18.03. - Day 33 - Banlung
Second reason not to book anything at the Star Guesthouse: they tried to fool us, telling us that they can't take us into the national park because the only village where you can enter it is having some kind of celebration and nobody is allowed to go there, not even Cambodian people - if they do they are fined (1 pig and a couple of Whiskey jars). The guide offered to do another trip with us which sounded pretty boring - 3 days in some forest with just a small stream along the path. Thank god we were told before from Mr. Smey of the Ratanak Hotel and Jam, the one motorbike - guy from the day before that this happened before and people were pretty dissapointed by the trip they actually did.
We asked the guide if we could speak to Mr. Lung, the owner who told us the evening before that we could go into the National Park and especially into the protected Gibbon-area. When the guide told us that he was still asleep we knew that something was wrong - no Cambodian will be asleep at 9 am, especially since Mr. Lung was even there the day before to check if everything for the elephant riding was organized. Thank god we didn't pay in advance, so we took our luggage and left. We checked into Theng Dara Guesthouse right across the street from the Ratanak Hotel (nice room and TV for 5 Dollars), rent bikes and went with Marion to Yeak Laom Lake again. The place where we rent the bikes was owned by Jams brother (the motorbike-guide) and offered to do a trek with us to the National Park (it turned out the guide from the Star Guesthouse really lied to us, of course), but we decided not to spent so many more days here because it would destroy our whole plan, but he really seemed trustworthy (especially since Jam was the one who warned us in advance), so: thats the one place we recommend for booking trips: Sophat Thak, email: sophat2006@hotmail.com, on the street where the Tribal Hotel is, a little open store with bikes in front. The other place is the Ratanak Hotel, Mr. Smey, with whom we did a daytrip the following day.
We had dinner at the Ratanak Hotel and had a little party on the terrasse of our guest house.

19.03. - Day 34 - Banlung
The two of us, Marion and Jackie met Mr. Smey after having breakfast at the Ratanak. He charged 10 Dollars each for the whole day and we took off with his car. Our first stop was the Katieng Waterfall where we had already been after our elephant trip. The second stop was the Kachan Waterfall (also 2.000 Riel entrance fee) before heading to Cha-Ong Waterfall (2.000 Riel as well, our favourite of the 3).
Around 3 we went to Yeak Laom Lake for a swim before watching the sunset from Elsay Patomak Mountain (2.000 Riel).
Our choice for dinner was the Ratanak again (no way of going back to Star Guesthouse) and picked up tickets to Phnom Penh at the busstation after Mr. Smey made a reservation for the next morning. There is only one bus at 6.15 am (15 Dollars, reserved seats - luxury!), so we went to bed early.

20.3. - Day 35 - Phnom Penh
Arrived in Phnom Phen after 12 hours in a bus around 6 pm. We decide to get a Guesthouse near the National Museum and not in the Backpackers area Lake Side. A Tuk Tuk Driver recommends us the Okay Guesthouse - not a bad choice. Clean rooms, nice staff and affordable prices (single room with/without window 4/5 Dollars, double room with/without window 5/6 Dollars). We went to dinner with Marion at "Happy Phnom Penh Pizza" along the river and played a couple rounds of UNO at the Guesthouse.

21.3. - Day 36 - Phnom Penh
We started that day very relaxed, had breakfast at our Guesthouse and walked along the river, together with Marion. At the River View Bar we had some ice coffee and enjoyed reading the most recent "Spiegel". We got some Lunch from the market (great dumplings and some fruit) and went back to the Guesthouse for some refreshing. Around 5 pm the three of us walked all the way to the Lake Side and had dinner on the beautiful terrasse of Guesthouse Number 9 with a Cambodian guy that Marion had met on the bus to Phnom Penh.

22.3. - Day 37 - Phnom Penh
We started our Tuk Tuk tour with a driver that we had found the previous day at 9.30 am. Our first stop was the Tuol Sleng Museum (2 USD entrance fee). Interesting to get to know some more about the history of the red Khmer regime, but sad to see all the pictures of the people kept in Tuol Sleng and pictures about the torturing methods.
Our second stop was the killing fields (2 USD entrance fee), which has one Stupa at the entrance where they keep all the bones that they found in the graves and fences around a couple places where the people had been buried.
Afterwards we went to the Russian market but couldn't stand it for long - the smells were just too disgusting. We grabbed some lunch from the market and tried to cool down with some drinks. We used up their entire box of paper towels, because the sweat wouldn't stop gushing down our faces.
When we got back to our Tuk Tuk the driver asked if we would like to see an orphanage so he took us to the National Action Culture Association Naca Orpahanage, Number 107, Street 80, where they keep 31 children, most of them between 5 and 13 years old. First we wanted to bring some rice but since a 30 kg-bag was 30 USD we decided that was not covered by our budget any more and bought a dictionary Khmer-English, some books and some pencils. The kids were very open-minded and after a couple minutes they were all over us: jumping, climbing, horseback riding on our backs, making our hair, playing some sort of "rock, paper, scissors". We had a lot of fun and it was heart-breaking to leave.
We got back to the Guesthouse around 6 pm, took a shower and went to meet Jackie at her Guesthouse. We went back to "Happy Phnom Penh Pizza" along the river where we had been the first evening and had some fabulous food - especially the Aubergine Gratin is to die for!

23.03. - Day 38 - Phnom Penh
We didn't have any big plans for the day and decided to take it easy and run a few errands along the way. Romy also wanted to walk to the Railway Station to inquire about ticket to Ho Chi Minh city - it looked fairly close on the map...we ended up walking for about 2 hours in the sweltering heat (including few stops) with yet no Railway station in sight, until we got fed up and finally asked some cops on the way desperately waving with our map. We told them which road we were looking for and they started laughing..."no no Moniveng street - Me Tse Tao..." or something like that came as response - we noticed we had walked way too far and almost made it to the airport...
We went back like brave soldiers only to find that the Railway station was a little dirty shack that seems to have been out of order for ages...
We dragged ourselves to the nearby Lakeside No. 9 where we'd had dinner the night before and had some well deserved lunch there. After we took a motorbike to the Riverside Bistro, where we were supposed to meet up with Marion and Kerstin to go to the Russian Market...we chose to skip that though and rather chilled a bit over there. Went for dinner later and met Jackie again and spent a lovely night.
Back at the Guesthouse we tried to get a hold of tickets to Kampot for the following morning and were rudely advised to come earlier next time since "Cambodia is not like Germany"....:-S Asking for further information, we were told to "read first and then ask", as the details must have been listed somewhere on the swamped board...this receptionist probably spent too much time in the army!

24.04. - Day 39 - Phnom Penh - Kampot
Woke up this morning from the sound of someone hammering at our door (it was only 6am)...the Guesthouse staff was under the impression we wanted to take the 7.15 bus and were about to give us a wake-up call/knock...We quickly went back to sleep and re-started our day later on. Dunja and Romy both got up and left the Gh at different times but coincidentally bumped into one another at the silk store downtown, which Dunja had bought half-empty the day before. Did some more shopping and went back to pack our bags and were on our merry way to Kampot - along the ride, we were thrilled to already catch a glimpse of the ocean!!
Arrived to Kampot around 5.30 and checked into a nearby Guesthouse Ta Eng (Double-Rooms for 8 $ p.n.). The owner was quite a bubbly guy and tried to sell us all kinds of trips right away....he showed us his rooftop terrace from which we enjoyed a nice sunset. Afterwards the four of us (Marion & Kerstin are still with us) went in search for a restaurant along the river, which was easier said than done. After walking almost blindly in the dark, we finally got stranded at the Hang restaurant. For dessert we had some Chocolate & Banana crepe - Dunja almost choked on hers - it was spicy as hell, Romy's only tasted a bit garlicky - seems as they use the same knife for everything here... Very friendly staff though, who even offered to drive us home....we should have taken the offer, but instead walked in circles for a while longer.

25.03. - Day 40 - Kampot
What a wonderful day, except it began at 5.30 am when Dunja yelped in the bathroom when she realized that Romy's cosmetics bag came off the hook and fell into the loo bucket overnight...everything was soaked in smelly water!

Got up later and the four of us had breakfast downstairs and commonly agreed to move to a different Guesthouse. Ours was OK, but a bit pricey for what we got and overnight we had a million mosquitoes in our room. We all moved to the Kampot Guesthouse and got a much nicer room with a TV for only 6 $. After checking in, Romy was daring enough to get back on a motorbike and Dunja was trust-willing enough to hop on for the ride. This time, it all went smoothly though and we headed South along some gorgeous roads surrounded by fascinating scenery of mountains and the ocean. After some difficulties finding a restaurant (no one spoke a word of English in those small villages we drove trough) we had some merciful instant noodle soup which tasted like heaven, since we were half-starved. We also found a lovely little beach with only few fisher boats by the shore and some curiously watching fishermen in the far back. We weren't courageous enough to go for a swim, after we discovered some poisonous looking jellyfish washed up at the shore. The water was almost hot of top of that, it wouldn't even have been refreshing.
It was quite a challenge to ride the bikes along the narrow elevated paths leading towards the beach and back. We managed, even though we got stuck at times. Marion landed in a muddy paddle on the way back and got herself entirely covered in smeary dirt!
Dunja and Romy were racing ahead with everything this bike had to offer, so she could practice driving a bit before Marion and Kerstin would catch up to us. Everything worked out, except she was scraping off half the skin on her left toe by trying to use it as a break.... We came back to the Guesthouse and ate almost a kilo of Jackfruit and Mango each, that we had picked up on the way.
In the dark we headed out with the bikes once again searching for the market in hope of some more shopping opportunities, but it was nowhere to be found.
The 4 of us ended up going for dinner at a local and therefore still quite pricey restaurant and then split up with Dunja, Marion and Kerstin attempting a stunt going on 1 scooter all together and Romy going online for a bit.

26.3. - Day 41 - Kampot
Once again the two of us, Marion and Kerstin got our motorbikes and headed towards Kep which is about 25 km east of Kampot along the beach. When we arrived we found not a beautiful beach, but at least nice hammocks where we hung out for quite a while before we went back to Kampot at 3.30 pm. The two of us continued towards Sihanoukville for an hour, the direction we took yesterday. Back in Kampot we went to dinner at the "The Green Man Bar" which is owned by who else but an Irish guy who gave us some great advice about what else is worth exploring by bikes.

27.3. - Day 42 - Kampot (Dunja)
While I stayed back in Kampot together with Marion and Kerstin, Romy went to visit her friend Eva in Ho Chi Minh City.
Marion and me took our bike and took off into the direction the guy from "The Green Man Bar" advised us. We ended up at the river rapids (from this point on we didn't follow his advice - he recommended getting off the street earlier and relax at the Utopia Guesthouse and Restaurant since it lies directly at a beautiful part of the river). Anyways, we continued along the road and ended up paying 1 Dollar each for getting to the river rapids, which turned out to be just a shallow part of the river. I went for a quick refreshing in that bathtub and, since the ground of the river was covered with huge stones I, the only way to get back out was crawling on all four. Suddenly I heard some laughter in the distance and realized that a group of 5 Cambodians was watching me. Not even 2 minutes later they showed up at our spot and started finding excuses all the time to come near us and talk to us. They were splashing around in the water like little kids, trying to get our attention with singing songs including "I wanna kiss you", "I love you" and so on. When finally a group of monks arrived who stared at us the same way for ages (they even smoked!) we felt like in a zoo - but behind the bars - and decided to leave to that beach we were looking for 2 days ago but back then only found a little piece of sand along the ocean. This time we got a better description and found it without problems. From the mainroad there is a big arche leading the way to the Preak Ampil Resort - who would expect a public beach over there!!! Anyways, the resort isn't open yet but will be very beautiful as soon as it's finished. The beach was very nice, we were the only ones around, except for the guys building the bungalows. One of them came over twice, throwing himself on my towel and staring at me while I tried to concentrate on my book!
Back in Kampot we went to the "Green Man Bar" for a beer and met a cambodian woman there who owns the "Jasmine Restaurant" right next door. We decided to have dinner there later to continue the nice chat with her, and it turned out to be the right decision: first of all the food was fantastic with fair prices, and after we had asked around a couple times already how we could get to Sihanoukville and the answer was that there is a Minibus for 7 Dollars (for like 90 km, a ridiculous price) and a taxi for 5 of which nobody can tell us when and where it leaves (they just want to sell the pricy minivan tickets because they get a good commission) we asked her if she's got some advice, and - after a phonecall, she got us a taxi for 3,75 Dollars each, even with a pick-up at our Guesthouse!

28.3. - Day 43 - Kampot to Sihanoukville (Dunja)
Marion, Kerstin and me left at 9 am and weren't surprised when our "taxi" turned once again out to be a "stuffinasmanypeopleyoucanfitinthere" car with 5 seats (2 in the front, 3 in the back) but 8 people in there (4 in the front, 4 in the back), but since the ride was only 1 1/2 hours it was all right.
We decided to look for a Guesthouse at the Weather Hill Station, and together with Sandrine, the other girl they squeezed with us into the back row of the taxi, I got a nice room at the Mealy Chenda Guesthouse for 5 Dollars; Marion and Kerstin moved into the one right next to it, the Green Gecko Guesthouse.
Marion, Kerstin an me had Lunch at their Guesthouse (good menu with fair prices) and headed straight for Victory Beach just 5 minutes walk from our Guesthouses. It was really quiet there, neither too many tourists nor cambodians trying to sell you something every 20 seconds. We got a huge fruit bag with mango, pineapple, dragonfruit, watermelon and banana from a nice old lady who cut everyrhing freshly for us for just 1 1/2 Dollars - I don't think I will ever leave this place

01.04. - Day 47 - Sihanoukville/Ho Chi Minh City to Siem Reap Dunja:
I got picked up at the Guesthouse at 6.30 am to catch the bus at 7.15 am. At the busstation I had to say goodbye to Sandrine who went to Ho Chi Minh City. I arrived in Phnom Penh around 11.20 and went onto the bus to Siem Reap at 11.45. I arrived there with a delay of a couple hours (I was told that the ride is like 8 till 9 hours)at 7 pm. I checked into the Garden Village Inn Guesthouse (6 Dollars a night for a double room) and waited for Romy who arrived an hour later, together with Nam, a girl she met on the bus.

Romy:
I got up insanely early once again (5.30am!!) and could hardly say my goodbyes to Eva - she insisted I'd wake her the day before but she was half-asleep when I left
I took the bus from one of the countless tour operators in the Backpackers District, we boarded around 6.30. The guy next to me was a bit too chatty for this time of the day - I just wanted to sleep so badly.
We changed buses in Phnom Penh and coincidence wants it that the girl (Nam) who sat next to me on the bus was one of Eva's former colleagues at Indochica, whe had just finished her internship and the company paid for her trip to Siem Reap as a goodbye present. This world is just too small! Our bus was awful, no leg room and no A/C and we broke down (motor damage) after an hour somewhere on the road. This and the various other food-stops along the way (sometimes there is nothing that you would even eat in those places - one of the women at our afternoon stop was chasing us with fried spiders...) held us up so much, so we only arrived in Siem Reap at 8 - this was definitely my longest bus-trip so far!

We met Dunja again at the Garden Village Gueshouse and had dinner on the rooftop together before dropping into bed like dead flies!

02.04. - Day 48 - Siem Reap
We slept in today and decided not to go to Angkor Wat that day. Instead we wanted to explore the town a bit and started with the Old market on which we had breakfast and did some shopping. Then we drove to the Angkor Inn Hotel to check in Nam, who had her fancy room waiting for her. We rented some bicycles and wanted to drive to the Crocodile farm - everyone said it is far from the center, about 8 km, but it took us only 15 minutes to get there...seems like we are that good! The Crocodile Farm was a bit awkward to visit, bearing in mind what those reptiles are held there for...right next to the Farm there was a souvenir store offering all kinds of Croco-merchandise...
After Romy dropped her sunglasses in one of the cages (those would have been the fourth ones she'd lost on this holiday...) she got someone to fish them out for her and bought some stinky fish to feed those little beasts. There were so many of them and some were too lazy to get the fish - hope that's a good sign that they are fed well at least, but there were also few battles going on over the food. After the farm we went to the Do Do Restaurant to grab a bite and give us some strength for more shopping at the Central Market. In the evening we went to the Rooftop Restaurant at our Guesthouse again and later wanted to find a Tuk Tuk Driver for the next day to get us to Angkor Wat. We walked over to the nearby supermarket and there was a bit party going on on front, as some of the bars had a blackout before, people gathered over there. We bought some beer and joined the party and despite our good intentions of going to bed early we ended up at a private VIP-Karaoke Room with about 30 people and screamed out lungs out! It was good fun, and worth the lack of sleep!

03.04. - Day 49 - Siem Reap
Got up at 4 am in the morning to get ready for some Temple-action! Our Tuk Tuk driver Tra picked us up at quarter to 5 and we drove to the Angkor Inn to get Nam on board as well. Arriving at Angkor, we paid 20 USD each to get in and got our picture printed on the pass (thank god it was not a good camera, the way we looked like at 5 in the morning...)
It was still dark, but as we got closer we noticed there were tons of people there already! The street leading to Angkor almost had rush hour going on at 5 in the morning...and here we were, having this irrational illusion we were going to be the only ones by the temples at this time...yeah, yeah, dream on....
The sunset was a bit dissappointing, frankly we didn't see it, since there were too many clouds. We decided to be smart and move on to the next temple (Angkor Thom - Bayon Temple), hoping it wouldn't be so crowded by then - this turned out to be a fabulous idea! This was what we thought of one of the most beautiful temples, it had gorgeous face-engravings in the stone temples. We also saw the Elephant terrace, Chao Say (our second favourite, with huge trees growing out of the ruines), To Keo, Ta Phnom (which had also gorgeous gigantic trees growing out of the walls). We also went to Banteay Kdai, but took frequent breaks.
By the time we got back to Angkor Wat we were sort of templed out and decided to skip the midday-heat spending some time in the shade. The ants bothered us too much, so we took off to the temples soon after. Unfortunately my camera broke that day, something is probably wrong with the software and the camera somehow chose to pick the worst timing and broke right before Angkor Wat.
We all agreed that Angkor Wat itself was not too impressive and we spent just an hour inside. The reason why it is probably the most famous, it because it is best preserved. What was also quite annoying that day were all the children trying to sell you something every part of the way, they would chase us around, even after we told them "no" a million times. We do feel bad for them, but we can't buy from everyone all the time!
It is generally very exhausting to get all the drivers and vendors off your back in Cambodia. This is a little example of how they approach you:
-Hello Lady, Tuk Tuk? Motorbei?
-No, thank you.
-Maybe later?
-No.
-Tomorrow you need driver? Good/Special price for you!
(or in our case
-Have you seen the temples? I have a good route, special price for you only 12 Dollars!
-No, thanks, i don't need anything!
-You want to smoke?
-No.
-Opium?
-No.
-Ecxtasy?
-No. No drugs. Thank you.
And you keep thanking them all the time, but they won´t let you get away

Anyways, we left the site around 4 pm, a little bit exhausted but still rushing around to get things done. We tried to find a new camera for Romy without success, but there were no stores that would sell them with a warranty, exchanged some books, did some more shopping, and then we met with Nam for dinner. Had the worst fried noodles ever - they were swimming in gravy...not such a good day (except for wonderful Angkor Wat of course).
Dropped to bed really late once again, packing took forever!