Hey guys, I’m in Cambodia now and it’s awesome here! But first I’d like to make a short review of my last days here in Southeast Asia. I’ve got some nice impressions of Bangkok and I’ve met a lot of nice people in the Saphaipae Hostel there. At this point a nice journey and safe trip thru Asia to all. Bangkok is a nice place to stay, if you can escape from the street level to a rooftop of one of the skyscrapers. My favourite roof was of course the Dome at the State tower. I had to go there more then once because I had no luck with the weather till the last evening I stayed in Bangkok. There I could make the picture below. It was such an amazing mood, the city, the lights, the storm who was arriving, the wind and the first rain drops in my face.
On the next morning I woke up early to catch a bus to the Cambodian border. So after some minutes in the Skytrain and in a Taxi I was at the Mochit-Terminal were I bought I ticket for 3 and a half hours VIP-bus drive for only 220 Bath (5.8 CHF/ 7.4$). Luckily I met already in the bus some other backpackers with the same destination – Siem Reap. Well as some of you know is the border infamous for it’s touts and of course they also tried their luck with me but of course I was well informerd and I knew they’ll try. As soon they realised that we were informerd about their business they brought us to the true border. After filling out some random forms for Thai and Cambodian customs I arrived in the Kingdom :-). From the borer drives a free Shuttlebus to the bus-terminal where we get a taxi for 11$ per person till Siem Reap.
Now what can I say about Cambodia, the people are generally very nice. So nice that I was confused the first time but they’re really like that. In Cambodia you find everything to make great landscape pictures. So after I arrived here I tooked a TukTuk driver and told him he should bring me to the countryside. It’s where I made this picture with the sunset in the fields.
There are tons of things you can do here. Visit all the amazing temples. Go to floating villages and forest, have a helicpoter ride over the area, play paintball, go motorbiking or have a silly fish massage from Dr. fish ;-). It just sucks that all tours are very expensive! People told me compared to Vietnam it’s shocking, because there you pay for a 3-day-tour 20$, here you would pay more then 100$.
The nearly most important words in Khmer are: “ot tey ahr coon” which means “No, thank you”. What every tourist is doing here is visiting the temples. They are very mystical but because of the masses of tourists they lose a little bit their charm. But overall it’s a visit worth. I decided to buy a 3-day-pass which costs 40$ what’s in my view just too much, I just can hope they’ll use it for the temples and it doesn’t go into the wrong hands at the end. What you’ve to know if you go and watch the sunrise at Angkor Wat is don’t be disappointed if you think you’ll be alone at 5 am in the morning, you are just one of hundreds. I was also one of them and did my dawn-shot over there. I’ll stay till friday in Siem Reap because it has some really nice spots to stay. Then I take the nightbus to Kampot, to visit some forests and the Bokor Hill Station of course. Stay tuned.
Dennis
