Blog

It was a quick trip up to Vientiane to deal with some work matters. It was also nice to visit some restaurant and friends while there.

I have just purchased annual travel insurance, start date = this trip. And day 1 we have a claim because the 07:00am flight out of Queenstown was delayed. We got the notification on walking up at 4:00am :-(. That meant our connections in Sydney and Bangkok were destroyed. Instead we had to find a bed in Bangkok and rearrange the flights up to Laos a day later than planned. But we got there, just a bit later than planned.

One thing that has changed in our time travelling to Laos is the number of electric vehicles. Almost all of the new vehicles are electric and their silent travel changes the sounds of the city. No longer is the squeal of the tuk tuk brakes the predominant noise, now everything moves silently. Andrew is just pleased the beer Lao remains unchanged.

A quick overnight in Bangkok, at Don Muang airport for a change. We found a local cafe that had pictures and had a great cheap meal. The Thai beer cost more than the meal. And we passed a specialist Mango stall along the road and Andrew had his favorite Mango and sticky rice.

We were heading to Cambodia as an end of this this trip – it was good to return as we had not been back since 2018. One of our 1st trips to Cambodia, we went to Angor Wat on the 1st day and on the 2nd day Siem Reap was completely flooded and we saw nothing of the town. So this was our chance to have a couple of nights and actually see Siem Reap. It was a drive of nearly an hour from the new airport (very large and not a lot of passengers) to Siem Reap.

It would surprise no one to learn we ate and drank very well. Andrew even managed at the 1st meal to order himself a tasting platter that would have fed 2 people. The social enterprise/ training restaurant Haven, was well worth the detour for a very very good lunch.

We made a trip out to Apopo – publicity centre of the “Hero Rats”. There are highly trained rats that can detect the unexploded bombs that remain a problem in Cambodia. It was fascinating to watch the demonstration where a rat did a grid search looking for traces of TNT – and the rats were not creepy at all! A special breed of large African rats that are trained for a year before active duty. Because they are so light they don’t set off the bombs and larger areas can be covered than if a human team was doing the grid work. It is really interesting reading the back-story on the work Apopo is doing in Asia and Africa.

We also spent time in the purpose built Angkor National Museum . It is also relatively new and again very large but the displays of artefacts from the Khmer empire.

We checked out of the Ibis Hotel and were transported to the local bus station where we got a “luxury” bus for the 5 hour road trip down to Phnom Penh. And it was a easy way to travel, with an attendant, coffee, snacks etc. And so much more convenient than having to factor in airport transits.

We stayed overnight in a very nice boutique hotel Smiles Hotel, which was literally 20 steps away from the station, but a world away from the atmosphere of a bus station. That night we had a brief foray downtown for a look around and dinner.

The next morning it was back to another bus, less luxury, but still very nice and 3 hours down the highway to Sihanoukville. When we disembarked there was a bit of a negotiation with the tuk tuk drivers and we got put in a tiny 3 wheeler, + 2 big suitcases + us. We must have looked a bit comical squashed inside. The tuk-tuk coped quite well with the very big load but did noticably struggle going up one hill. At the port we registered with our hotel & speed boat.

The boat ride out to Koh Rong, Pagoda beach was 30 or 40 minutes. Of course I had booked the hotel at the far end of the beach, as far from the boat pier as possible. Our suitcases travelled in a small boat with an outboard, and we trekked along the beach in the midday sun. We couldn’t get the number of nights we wanted at one resort so ended up splitting the stay to two, side by side resorts.

The 1st was Secret Garden, the place we stayed at in 2012, on Otres beach, on the mainland. It was so good that we returned in 2018 but were so saddened by the over-development that we almost wanted to leave early. The development had prompted the owners to shut up the Otres location and move to Koh Rong.

At the moment Pagoda beach is unblemished with 4 or 5 resorts along the stretch of beautiful white sand. It was so nice that there were zero people walking along the beach all day trying to sell you souvenirs, pedicures etc. I did read some rumblings about new piers being built and the threat of major developments. Anyone interested in the recent history should google Sihanoukville and Casinos – and there are plenty of stories about the Chinese money, the rise and fall of casinos – up to 100 in the area equivalent to Wellington, the pre-covid banning of gambling means that there are 1000 unfinished buildings and large decreases in Chinese population numbers.

After Secret Garden we moved next door to the You & Me resort. One thing we have felt in Cambodia is that people are not out to get the tourist dollar – yes of course they want to earn money, but not to the extreme. For example our bags were moved from one resort to the other and we didn’t get the chance to tip anyone for that very helpful act.

March weather was hot. The mornings were quite windy but that soon dropped and there was no rain. We ate and drank, and swam in clear water with a lovely sandy sea-bed. Absolutely recommend!

`