All Aboard the Bamboo Train!

Location: Battambang, Cambodia. Imagine hurtling through the countryside at a death-defying 20km per hour (or thereabouts) on nothing more than a bamboo platform supported by 2 wheels plus axles, powered by an engine of unknown origin. And there's only one track so when you encounter oncoming traffic, you have to lift your bamboo platform and wheels off the track to let them pass. That's the bamboo train!

Known to the locals as the "norry", this 'train' system connects a couple of villages and is used for transporting anything from rice and produce to people. These days it also attracts a lot of tourists for the sheer fun and novelty of it, and rightly so!

On our outing into the Cambodia countryside we made a few stops to see local industries. First up was a rice paper-making village, where they produce the round rice papers used for making spring rolls. A single family can make around 5000 of these in a day if the weather is good.

We also saw a fish market where they produce fish paste and dried fish. The fish comes from the Tonle Sap (fishing in the Stung Sangker river isn't allowed), where they have over 250 different species. Finally, we visited a family that made sticky rice and beans in sticky rice.



Boat trip to Siem Reap tomorrow!

Bye for now
ML & Mum

The Orange Army: Phnom Penh branch

The orange army were out in full force in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital city, last night at an ungodly 1:30am. Mum and I did our duty and got matching orange shirts for the occasion (actually really good quality "Adidas" sports wear for $5 a shirt). Every single Dutch or part-Dutch person was there! Shame we lost, I blame it on the octopus. Ironically, the pub we were in, the one owned by a Dutchman, was called "El Mundo".

Sebastian (Swiss) was an honorary Dutchman for the match

Sihanoukville & the South

This week's lesson: everything takes longer in Cambodia.

So I've been patiently waiting for my laptop to be repaired, and worrying that it won't be finished in time before we leave Phnom Penh. To my delight, I received an email yesterday (Saturday) that it was ready to be picked up, office closes at 5:30. Our bus was scheduled to arrive in town at 4:30 so that would be enough time to pick it up and have it for the weekend, before leaving on Monday or Battambang. Strike 1: Our bus from Kampot to PP, a mere 2 hours on the highway, is actually a 4 hour bus ride because it goes via a million small towns. In addition, when we hit PP outskirts, traffic was at a STANDSTILL and we didn't get into town until 7pm. i.e., well after 5:30. Strike 2: when I got a moto taxi over to the repair shop this morning (Sunday) I discovered they were close for the weekend - something she'd neglectged to tell me via email. So now we have to get a later bus to Battambang on Monday so I can go get my laptop first thing in the morning.

Just trying to be zen about it but the cracks are starting to show.

Ok, now that the rant is out of the way...

Mum and I have just come back from the South of Cambodia. We went to Sihanoukville first for some beach time. It's quite a nice place despite everyone saying it's really average. We parked ourselves on beach chairs and ordered cocktails, and within 2 minutes we were attacked by lots of girls selling pedicures, bracelets, all sorts of stuff. That's one thing that is really bugging me about Cambodia, you just don't get 2 minutes rest from all the beggars and touts and it ruins your holiday. After chatting to some girls for a while, we got talked into having our legs threaded - where they use a piece of cotton to remove body hair. My girl did my armpits as well (I felt quite embarrassed lying there on the beach while this was happening) and did quite a good job actually :)

The following day we took a boat trip to 3 different islands, did some snorkelling, and had a lovely bbq fish lunch. We even caught a few little reef fish and chucked them on the barbie as well. Fantastic chilli pizza for dinner that night at an Italian place on the beach, and watched the most amazing sunset ever.

From Sihanoukville we went to Kampot, a town famous for the pepper that is grown there. We hired a tuk tuk driver for the afternoon and he took us to a pepper plantation. Not much to see at this time of year, the pepper hasn't grown yet, but there was a nice lady who was absolutely thrilled that mum and I were travelling together. So cute!

Stir fried chicken with ginger & kampot pepper... delicious!

Here are some snaps of our drive through the countryside. It was really pleasant, we went slow enough to take in all the sights.


Last stop was Kep, the seaside town famous for seafood, its specialty being crabs. I'd been looking forward to this for ages! There is a strip of shacks right on the water that have their cages out in the ocean, when you order a crab dish they swim out and fetch them for you. Straight from ocean to plate - it doesn't get any fresher than that! Eating the crabs was quite an odyssey, I'm glad Mum was there to give me instructions. Lots of work for not much food, but it was an experience (and a great photo op!) Pretty tasty too :)

NOM!

In Kampot we had a cool little bungalow at the Orchid Guest House which as perched over a lotus pond and had orchids in hanging baskets. Here's us carrying our packs:
We're going to watch the World Cup final tonight at the Dutch restaurant, it's completely decked out in orange already (has been for weeks). We got matching orange Adidas shirts at the market today and will be wearing them with pride tonight! Hup Holland!

And, provided all goes according to plan, we will be heading to Battambang tomorrow and on to Siem Reap to see the famous ANGKOR WAT (and do a Khmer cooking class, watch traditional Khmer dancing, all sorts of cool stuff).

Leave a comment!

Love
ML

The girls hit Phnom Penh!

Hi everyone,

Mum has arrived safe & sound in Cambodia and we are taking Phnom Penh by storm! She only just got off the place, dumped her bags at the hotel and it was straight to the pub to watch the football - and of course Holland gave Brazil a beating :)

Over the last couple of days we've enjoyed seeing the major tourist sights and also getting down with the locals. We visited the Royal Palace, Silver Pagoda and headed over to the S21 Genocide Museum. It's still as creepy as the first time, but I thought it was important for mum to see. We skipped the killing fields though, in favour of shopping at the Russian Market (hey, we're just girls at the end of the day)

Me and Mum at the Royal Palace

Statue of Hang, the sacred golden bird (he's the bird on top of the Japanese temples)

I have a picture of me in this same pose from 2008

Mum at the S21 genocide museum

Me buying a pair of Ray-Bans, and yes that is a new scarf

Me and Mum in a tuk-tuk on the way to the Russian Market

The Russian market is arguably the biggest baddest market in all of Phnom Penh, the only competition might be the Central Market but that's currently undergoing some renovation and parts of it are closed/temporarily relocated. At the Russian market you can buy everything and anything, including tons of stuff you didn't even know you needed/wanted. Of course there are millions of stalls selling Cambodian silk scarves - I nearly had a nosebleed, you all know how much I love scarves, and they're all so BEAUTIFUL and CHEAP - handbags, purses, wallets, notebooks with silk covers, dresses, luggage tags - you name it, they can make it out of silk. Lots of other touristy stuff too, like Buddha statues, chopsticks etc. It's to be expected, and fun to browse.

Spot the tall whitey! haha (inappropriate?)

scarves as far as the eye can see!

Mum with her first purchase - a couple of Cambodia kromas (cotton SCARVES)

One cool and very unique thing we found at the Russian Market was a lady selling custom-made silver name necklaces in Khmer script (a la Carrie from Sex and the City). Mum bought me one as a present :) "May Lee"was a bit short so we added ''koung" to the front which means "child", as in you are the child of somebody; it seemed fitting since it was a present from mum. Here it is:

Here's us having lunch somewhere

Today we had an awesome morning. After breakfast mum wanted to buy some fruit so we headed over to a smaller local market and checked out all the produce for sale. We had fun checking out all the tropical fruits, veges, herbs and meats - any and all parts of the animal on display. After picking up a pineapple for morning tea we headed deeper into the market for a look-see, where we stumbled upon a pocket that can only be described as the secret women's enclave of Phnom Penh. (I found one of these by accident the other day in another small market as well, it's like finding a secret level on a video game :P) It's rows after rows of salon market stalls - a bunch of girls with a sink, mirror, pots of dye, hair dryers, straighteners, bunches of hair for extensions, and innumerable pots of nail polish. Mum had been saying she needed to go to the hairdresser, so I said "why not here?" She looked a bit doubtful at first, but the girls (who spoke about 3 words of English) were really nice and said "madam, you sit! you sit!" A guy who was passing by translated and said a wash, cut and blow dry would cost $1.50 - bargain! So mum sat in the chair and the girls started washing her hair and gave her the best head massage ever.

I started to feel a bit left out at this stage. I spotted a few pairs of hair straighteners lying around and after another round of miming and "lost in translation", 5 minutes later I was in the chair with 2 Cambodian girls carefully and professionally straightening my hair. Bliss!! I can't believe how much my hair has grown in 3 months. When my hair was nearly done, one of the girls said "madam, colour?"pointing at my feet. I took that to mean pedicure, and at 75c I said why not?? :) (I have learned Khmer numbers, extremely useful) Mum had to have a pedicure too of course.

So an hour or so later we walked out of there looking like supermodels and feeling like a million bucks :)


Of course the Cambodian girls found it hilarious that I was a whole head taller than all of them but they were delighted that mum had come to travel with me, family being so important to Asian cultures. Everyone thinks mum is Khmer (and I thought I was getting it bad). She's been here 2 days and every single person treats her like a local.

Just a random picture of an elephant walking down main street in front of a posh hotel, between all the motorbikes

Khmer street delicacies - roadkill, entrails and insects

Off to Sihanoukville in a couple of days for some beach time, kampot pepper and fresh mud crabs. Until next time!

xx ML