From Cambodia to Vietnam

Time for a blog update, wohoo. Time is going so damn fast now (I mean, already close to a month already in Asia alone and only a month left before we go home, eh, what?!). A quick Cambodia summary:

• Visited the Killing fields and Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh which was incredible heavy. Did not take any pictures while there, it just did not feel right. We were both deeply affected by our visit. A powerful visit, hard to describe it differently. You will learn a lot about Pol Pot’s regime and the Red Khmers thanks to the well-organized audio tours. Phnom Penh in general is a nice city, if not a bit chaotic and not-so-very-charming if you are only visiting for a few days, but has a big expat community.

• Managed to offend two young Cambodian girls in Sihanoukville due to a misunderstanding, resulting in me feeling like a proper horrible human being and later crying my eyes off.

• Visited the paradise island Koh Rong, popular among both tourists and mosquitos! Still not “too” popular among westerners, therefore rather unspoiled. But there are plans to build an airport there (noooo) so it is just a matter of time before it will turn in to Cambodia’s version of Thailand’s Ko Samui.

• When returning to Sihanoukville Erik and I managed to get food poising on the exact same moment, completely beating us down for three full days (and revealing a whole new challenge in trying to preserve the romance in our relationship).

All in all, an impressive visit in Cambodia, with a lot of beauty and challenges. We have been in Vietnam for almost a week now, and I have to say that this country makes my heart skip an extra beat. I can’t really put my finger on what is so incredible with this country (bearing in mind we have only visited Saigon, Mui Ne and Da Lat so far), but it is very beautiful, more green and lush comparing to Cambodia and also more developed in the urban areas. 

Unfortunately there seems to be no way for me to escape it- we will most probably do a lot of scootering here as well (to Erik’s delight!). Might be a bit dangerous, but it’s the cheapest and most fun way to get around in a city and around.

I also cant believe we will be going home in a month. I have a lot of mixed emotions right now. Sometimes (especially when sick in food poising) I get proper homesick, but then for Sweden and my family (and the Swedish fooooood) and not for the everyday life in Amsterdam. On the other hand I quiver by the thought of coming back. Everything will be the same for everyone else and with work, not much have changed while everything has changed for me. I am not saying that I have seen the light or something during this trip, dont be silly. Of course you are the same person, but as with so many other people I think that Erik and I will forever suffer from the famous travel bug, feeling like we will never feel “rooted” anywhere if you know what I mean…So what now? Am I just supposed to start working and actually care about a random office career? I just want to fill my days with taking care of animals, surrounded with gorgeous nature, living a stress-free life while sipping on a lot of wine. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that ;)

Four more weeks to go and we’re going to try to enjoy every second of it!

Taking a Tuk Tuk to the Killing Fields in pouring rain, cosy!

A cosy time by the beach at Sihanoukville...we thought! (oh how naive!)

Phnom Penh

Following pictures are taken in Koh Rong...paradise!

First time I witnessed a halo around the sun!

 A paradise island also for the mosquitos, aoch!

Accomodation was a step up in Saigon!

Love the colourful crazyness in Saigon/HCMC!

First Vietnamese meal (fail though!)

Lovely rooftop bar in Saigon

Ce chi tunnels (Erik looks a bit too happy, haha)

Rain season! 20 min of pooooouring rain every day :) Afterwards the air is breatheable again

War reminant museum in Saigon

So many well taken care of puppies everywhere <3

Filling up the petrol in a typical little local station

Bangkok, Siem Reap and Ankor Whaaat?

I am happy that we started off our little Asia adventure in familiar Bangkok, since we were there only 1,5 year ago, if only for three nights. At that time, we only had 10 days holiday and we were really on “holiday mode” and not on a “travelling mode” at all, we just wanted to go to our beach at Koh Chang haha. We did not discover anything of Bangkok then, it was such a culture shock (first time in Asia). This time we told ourselves that we need to toughen up and just throw ourselves out there. I think we succeded! For one thing we actually saw more then just one road, haha. 

Last time we actually thought that we lived by famous koh san road but eeeh, apparently not, we discovered that we didn’t even visit Koh San road last time we were here, we were strolling up and down Soi Rambuttri like two idiots last time thinking we were at famous Koh San. Jesus. Okey but this time we actually did visit Koh San (don’t really understand the fuss), we walked around in new blocks, walked to the Grand Palace and Wat Pho (sooo pretty, gotta love the Reclining Buddha) while on our way there at least 5-6 men shouted at us “you know its closed until 1 hee!?”. We read about this before, that people will stop you and tell you Wat Pho is closed so that you will do something else (which benefit them) instead.

We are travelling here during the low season which entails lower prices, less tourists but SO HOT weather. And then we are not only talking about high temperatures but the MOIST. It is around 85 % luftfuktighet  (eh, whats the English word? Moistyness feels very wrong). Erik handles the heat better than me, maybe because I have more fat to process especially around my hips haha.  After each time I’ve been outside I can literally squeeze out 1 liter of sweat from my clothes. I can drink 4-5 bottles of water and not even have to pee because I sweat it all out! Very practical come to think of it.

Two days ago we took the infamous land crossing between Thailand-Cambodia. Both of us were a bit anxious about this trip, because the Internet and Lonely Planet warn tourists that this is one of the most scammed areas in the south east Asia region. And sure, when we stepped out of the bus by the border hordes of men was telling us to “Go this way visa”, which was the completely other direction than what the big sign “Passport control” showed. Well, if we just ignored the people without an official uniform and just follosed the signs it was a fairly smooth process. We took the 8 hour direct bus from Bangkok to Siem Reap with Nattakan which was brilliant. We got breakfast, water, ice coffee, juice and lunch on board and the same bus waited for us after the visa procedure. Amazing!

We both love Siem Reap, a perfectly sized city with friendly people. Yesterday we visited Angkor Wat, which everyone do if they visit Siem Reap. For 15 dollars you have your own TukTuk driver for the day who waited for us by every temple. I first thought we could just walk around there without a driver or a bike but helloooo am I an idiot or what. It is so massive there, several kilometers between every temple. The Ankor Wat itself was the most impressive temple, so massive. We went to the top of the temple (the worlds largest religious building) and here is were travelling in low season comes in hand, because we waited in the queue for like 3 minutes and during high season one can wait for 40 minutes which is insane. We are both really happy to have visit Angor Wat but honestly, 1 day was enough for us. Many people buy a 3 day pass and I can just not relate to that (feels like a sin to say that out loud).

Tomorrow we will take a minibus to the capital Phnom Penh which takes like 6 hours. Looking forward to PP and another crazy intense city. There we want to go more in depth about Cambodias tragic history, visit the Killing Fields among other things. It would feel wrong to be in Cambodia or in Vietnam for that matter without gaining more knowledge about events that still shapes and shakes the people,

Oh, so pretty, eeeh not. Tourists tourists tourits everywhere :) Here at Grand Palace

The very beautiful Reclining Buddha

A sweaty couple at Wat Pho

So THIS is apperently Koh San Road. Woops.

The moment before an intoxicated Erik eat 1/3 of a scorpion

The face of Regret.

Phone quality- really happy we bought a camera before this trip. Here going through border control and getting a visa on  arrival.

This for us on the bus was a major luxury, haha 

TukTuk through Siem Reap

First Cambodian meal! Travelling for me is ALL about the food, yuum.

In Ankor Wat

Monkeys in Ankor Wat, showing their teeth to idiotic tourists coming to close. This picture was zoomed in, believe me.

The moment my pants ripped in half and we had to run to the closest market stand. Second pair in 3 days, no joke! I am apperently no Lara Croft ;(

Trying to take an "authentic" photo in Ankor without the hord of tourists is difficult. And this is even low season. 

Our take on an "authentic"photo where no other tourists are visible :P

Wow!

Such cool and magical place! A favorite :)

Byron Bay and its surrondings....

Tonight is our last day here in Byron Bay, we leave tomorrow after a full week in this beautiful, small, surfer/hippie paradise. I think of all the spots we have visited so far on our little journey this place has won a special place in our hearts! I will just let the pictures speak for itself below. I just realized I never took any pictures of the town center itself, but weeell it would not have shown any justice anyway! Just imagine many cozy (apparently my favorite word throughout this blog) cafés and restaurants, musicians on the streets, cute stores and just a general a relaxed beach vibe.

So far I have seen 1289 different bird speeches I have never seen before, wallabies, a koala, and weird stuff crawling around on the ground. We ended up in a night club were the theme was “paint party” (jesus, hello 2008) where the girls were topless (to Erik’s and the other guys in our company’s delight.) We rented a car with three other people that we met at our first hostel here and we drove to Nimbin (which everyone talks about here). In my opinion a superoverrated town (or in other words, just one street in the middle of nowhere) which is nicknamed the small Amsterdam in Australia. Well, living in Amsterdam it rather reminds me more of the creepy, small backstreet of Amsterdam. 5 ladies offered us their special cookies and one particular charming gentleman asked if we were interested in speed or maybe some LSD. After that very short-lived visit we drove through the gorgeous countryside and went for a hike to a waterfall. I can honestly say I am NOT a hiker, I get at least 4 blitsers on my feet after just walking, in proper Nike-shoes, for one hour. And this shit was not a normal hike, we honestly had to climb over major fallen rocks which was a particular hard challenge for me and the other girl since we almost are of hobbit height. Well it was worth it in the end, stunning. The guys jumped in the water and afterward witnessed that their balls had shrunk to grape-size because it was so cold so I did not feel bad that I didn’t jump in.

So has one might have guessed, Byron Bay was just the ideal place to celebrate my birthday. When I woke up in the morning Erik was already gone, and I had got a super cute video from my family where they sang to me (family tradition honored-check!). Then Erik told me to come outside (our new hostel is one of the best we ever stayed at, just by the beach and with a big back garden) and there he has prepared a breakfast with some of my favorite things in the world- egg and avocado! The rest of the day we just lay on the beach and played around with the big waves. In the evening we went to a restaurant (never do it otherwise) and had some Greek food. They had the BYO policy which many restaurants in Australia has, it stands for “Bring Your Own”. We could just buy a bottle of wine for five dollars in a liquor shop and bring the bottle to the restaurant. Such an amazing idea that I wish the rest of the world could adopt! Afterwards (with very many glasses of wines in our bodies) we went skinny dipping in the moonlit ocean, also something that was on my to-do-in-life-list. Just an amazing day in other words!

Tomorrow we fly back to Sydney where we will spend three more days, then on Saturday we fly up to Bangkok and then our South Asian adventure begins! It is low season there now, which means that the temperature during the day can rise up to +39 degrees and the air can get extremely humid. This will be a challenge in itself and will probably take a while to adjust to. But we are so looking forward to it! Only in one week from now we will be on the 8-hour bus from Bangkok to Siem Riep in Cambodia. But I think we will return to Australia one day, pff…how will we be able to get back to the normal office life in Europe after this trip is a question that remains…