Sunday, January 24, 2010

In the jungle!

After a few days in the sleepy town of Kratie, where I spent my days strolling around the market, drinking ice coffee and watching the Irrawaddy dolphins in the Mekong river, I took an impulse trip up to Banlung in the north eastern parts of Cambodia.

Ratanakiri is a beautiful region with red dirt roads and green forestry hills and I went with some girls I had met to swim in crater lakes and shower under waterfalls, it was wonderful!

molly and me under the waterfall

The next two days we spent hiking in the jungle. We had a really col guide and a ranger that made us walking sticks and coffee cups of Bamboo. I think that is the coolest coffee cup I have ever seen!

Our man making the bamboo cups

There were hardy any paths to be seen, but the ranger knew his way around in the jungle and after about six hours of walking we arrived to where we were spending the night.

Crossing the river

Our campsite was beautifully located by a small river, and as our guides made a fire and prepared for dinner, we walked further up the river to find a place where we could swim and cool down. It was a beautiful and calm spot, and it felt great to relax after the hike.


swimming in the river

As we came back to the campsite the food is already cooking in long bamboo sticks placed on the fire and we sit down to try out our new coffee cups. The food is great and we sit by the river chatting untill the sun went down and the stars came up. When darkness came upon us, our guides asks us to borrow our flash lights cus they wanna go hunting for frogs to make us a late night snack. As we watch them disappear further up the river all we can hear is the sound of frogs and insects. I have no idea what is out there, and I really don't want to know either.


our food is in the bamboo sticks on the left

After about an hour the guides come back with a bucket full of frogs, crabs, shrimps and small fish that they cook with garlic, chili, lemon grass and some other herbs that they had found in the jungle. The frogs are delicious, and since I'm the only one who really eats any of it, I got as much frog legs as I wanted! Love it!


When there were no more jungle frogs left, we took our blankets and climbed into our hammocks and fell asleep under the starlit sky in the jungle in northern Cambodia.

Saturday, January 09, 2010

Taxi ride Cambodian style

I was in Kampot in southern Cambodia just relaxing, barely moving out of my chair for three days. Just looking at the river and reading my book and enjoying doing nothing. But I couldn't stay there forever so I decide to take a shared taxi back to Phnom Penh. The bus took five hours but apparently the taxis only take three. So the choice was easy.

Me and Meredith (a girl I met at the guest house) gets picked up and the car is empty. We had been told that it would be really crowded so we were a bit surprised. But of course, we spent about an hour driving back and forth and here and there picking up people. And at the end there were eight of us in the car. Meredith and I shared the back seat with two girls that sit making out basically the whole ride, and in the front there is the driver and three sweaty football players that came straight from a match. And yes, one of them do share seats with the driver (don't understand how the driver actually manages to drive, but somehow he does, probably not the first time he does this). And then, of we go.

We go for about 100 meters and then we stop. Oh no, not more people we think. But they were just buying fish. We made sure it was placed in the trunk and not in the car. And then we head of for real this time. Music comes on. A horrible high pitch female voice talk and sing and it's painful cus it's too loud. And then there is the honking. Every 10 seconds the driver honks. Great!

And then, after five hours we arrive. Dammit, we should have taken the bus!

Saturday, January 02, 2010

Vietnam in pictures

The chaotic streets of Hanoi

Christmas was spent in Halong Bay

We finally found the beach!!!

fruit seller in HoiAn

the water buffalo manFun on the beach
Rice paddies

sun rise