Battambang
After 1 1/2 weeks I started a little “road trip” all the way down to the islands in the south of Cambodia. First stop on this road trip was Battambang. Battambang is a nice little town in the east of Cambodia. We climbed up a hill to a temple. The view was quite amazing. At night we headed to a bates cave which is close to the temple. Right on point with the sunset thousand of bats flew out of the cave. It was interesting to see how they all flew in one line in one direction.
Phnom Penh
The next stop was Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. I took the night bus to Phnom Penh – it was my first one. I was pretty excited to be honest. It sounds to good to be true – a real bed, a toilet and WiFi. At the end I ended up in a bus without a toilet and WiFi and without a real bed. It wasn’t a seat and it wasn’t a bed ether. It was something in between. “Dont`s – Expect to get where you want to get to”. The bus was supposed to leave at 10:30pm, but at the end we left Battambang at 11:45pm. We arrived in Phnom Penh at 4:45am and obviously it wasn’t easy to go to the hostel with the public transport at this time. So we had to take a Tuk Tuk. We ended up being at our hostel at 5:15am and the door was closed. So we rung the bell and someone opened the door. I guess he wasn’t pleased about it. At the end we slept another 2 hours at the lobby together with the staff. At least it was an experience ? We didn’t do much this day. Luca and me went to a motorcycle club which is called Lucky Lucky Motorcycle and is well known to raise a visa for different countries. It’s kinda wired to give your passport to a stranger and pay him 50$ at such a place. But at the end everything went out pretty well. In the evening we went to a bar to watch the sunset.
On our second day in Phnom Penh we visited the Genocide museum and the Killing Fields. I can highly recommend to visit these both places, at least the museum. In the evening we grabbed some food at a locals place and watched the movie Black Panter. Luca got Luc Lac and I got Amok at the locals place. I love those both meals. If you have the chance to try them, you have to.
Kampot
The third stop on this road trip was Kampot. It was the first time we decided to stay at a Mad Monkeys Hostel. This hostel chain is well known for being a party hostel. The hostel has a nice rooftop bar, a pool and also a pool table. So we had a lot of fun there. The other day we rented a scooter and drove a long Kep Beach all the way to a pepper farm. Kampot is famos for its pepper. The farm we went to grows and manufactures it’s pepper 100% organic. Following this, we drove to a grab market in Kep. Luca and me shared one kilogram of crabs. It was delicious, but pretty hard to eat.
On the next day I decided to take a day off. During the last weeks I met a lot of people and made great experience, but it was time to digest everything and to breathe. I was just be myself – I relaxed at the pool, read a book, listened to music and wrote some thoughts done – I needed it.
Otres Beach
It was time to say goodbye to Kampot and say hi to Otres Beach. Otres Beach is a sort of hippie place. I guess a lot of people ether love it or don’t like it. It wasn’t that bad, but for me there are way more places I would rather stay than in Otres Beach.
Koh Rong Samloem
Let’s hop on the island Koh Rong Samloem ? it was an adventure to go there, but at the end it was worth it. The bus was about to pick us up at the hostel in Otres Beach at 11am to drive us to the ferry in Sihanoukville (12pm). It was almost 11:30am and still no bus picked us up so far. We called the company and they said they literally forgot us. So we had to make a decision to get the ferry at 12pm. We took a Tuk Tuk and we arrived at the ferry station at 11:54am – just in time. After half an hour ferry drive we realized, that the company dropped us of at the wrong pier. Our hostel was on the other side of the island and there was no way to walk to the jungle. This implies that we had to walk for 30 minutes to another pier. From that pier we had to take another boat to get to our hostel which means another 7$ per person. If you compared it to the 11$ we paid for the long ride from Sihanoukville to Koh Rong Samloem it really was a rip off. 2 hours later we finally arrived at our hostel The Yellow Moon. At night we had a really nice BBQ at our hostel and at midnight we “swum” with plankton.
The next day we went on a boat trip for half the day. We snorkeled around the coral reefs and for lunch we caught our own fish. I caught the first two fishes in my life ? in the evening we had a really cool Bar-Quiz at the hostel about Cambodian history and random stuff. Which country would come into your mind in terms of consuming the most alcohol per person per year? Nope, it’s not the country you are thinking of …. it is South Korea ? it was a really cool night tough. After three nights we took the ferry back to Sihanoukville where we stayed for one night.
After 3 weeks of Cambodia its time to say goodbye to this lovely country, it’s kind locals and to all this special places I went to ? Cambodia it was a pleasure!
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Ho Chi Minh – see you in a bit (after a 13 hours bis drive via Phnom Penh) ….
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