Cambodia and Laos

So, Gabriela and I went to Phnom Penh by boat. There we went absorbing Cambodian's sad history: the Killing Fields and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum where the people were tortured (most of the time to death) before they were brought to the Killing Field. So weird to think this only happened 30 years ago! And also to some beautiful places: the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda.

Then Floor came to Phnom Penh to travel together for our last 4 weeks, so good to see her!

Floor and I went to Kampot, mainly to visit a project Books4Life just donated money to: Cambobabs. Cambobabs is an organisation set up by Babette de Brouwer, a Belgian lady. She built 2 schools for children, a village, some waterwells and a vegetable garden in a village near Kampot.(http://cambobabs.skynetblogs.be) That day it was raining heavily plus it was Friday, their normal day off, but the children all came to their school in the ricefields, perfectly dressed! Babette couldn't believe what she saw! It was a good day, helping in English class, seeing what she has built, how she helped the community in that village. Was very good to see how well the money is spent!
The rest of the days in Kampot and Kep were just very relaxing, along the riverside, swimming, reading, lying in the hammock, watching beautiful sunsets, aah you know, just life ;)
After that we went to Bamboo Island, for more relaxing haha. We met up with Gabriela again, spent some last days together before Floor and I went up to Angkor Wat. Actually, we met 2 persons who were in Siem Reap (the town you go to if you want to visit Angkor) and didn't go to Angkor! They had never even heard of it, they were like: Angkor WHAT?! Wow, unbelievable...

Angkor Wat was amazing! We met up again with Kent from South Africa, who we have met earlier in Kampot and spent 2 great days there, exploring quite some temples!
Cambodian people are superfriendly. I was amazed (especially after Vietnam!) how helpful they were. If we asked something to someone and he/she doesn’t know the answer, they will call all their friends etc just to answer your question. One tuktuk driver even pulled out his laptop to give us the right information haha!

Then we wanted to go to Laos, and took the VIPbus which they said will take 10 hours. Well, it wasn’t really like that at all… The bus wasn’t exactly VIP, it broke 3 times plus we had a little accident with another truck! And there were some people who didn’t had a seat at all, ending up stealing plastic chairs from restaurants so they could at least sit! Oh yeah, we also got stranded at the border, so the journey took us 30 hours in total instead of the 10 hours! Pfff, well, people always bond more in a bad situation, we met some fun people we kept on bumping into during whole Laos trip.

We went to the 4000 Islands together with Victoria and Antonia from Germany, with whom we will spent the rest of our journey in Laos. And again we were just relaxing there haha. After that we went to Ban Kong Lo, where the Kong Lo cave was. We did a homestay there with a very cute family! The cave was thrilling and exciting! It’s a 7.5km boatride through the cave, the only thing you could see was your lightbeam lightening that part of the cave. The surroundings in Ban Kong Lo were so beautiful, it reminded me a bit of Dali, China.
Then we went to Vang Vieng, yes the party and tubing place! We did that as well yes, but the surroundings of Vang Vieng were just stunning! Karstmountains everywhere! So we didn’t just tube and party there, but we also rented a mountainbike to explore the surroundings and some caves.
Last visit of Laos was Luang Prabang, famous for the monks collecting their alms. Luang Prabang itself is supertouristy, and although many people were superexcited about LP, I didn’t feel it that much. We were just strolling the streets, tasting local food, doing some final shoppings at the Hmong Nightmarket and went to visit an amazing waterfall with beautiful pools, our little garden of Eden!

Time to say goodbye to our travelbuddies, since they had to continue their volunteerjob in Siem Reap and we booked a busride (this time very comfortable one!) to Chiang Mai for some streetfood, massage, trekking, waterfall, rafting. Floor had to catch her flight from Bangkok back home and I went for 1 day of couchsurfing Hong Kong before I left Asia… So here I am, home again and almost starting my so called ‘serious life’ ;) Hasta la proxima!