Recoucou

Aren t you all lucky , two posts in one day...

So after Angkor Wat and Siem Reap,we set off to Khompong Cham , north west of Phnom Penh on our way to Ratanakiri Province, where we met two jolly travellers ,one Italian and one Australian Thomasso and Carly.

We were all trying to avoid the pressing crowd of taxis tuktuk and so on and with our joined efforts managed to get a share taxi with only 4 people in it plus driver a record in Cambodia where they normally fit 4 in the front and 4 in the back and this does not include cockrel or children.

it took us 5 hours to get from S R to K C and then a further 3 to reach Kratie ,home of the Irrawaddy Dolphins.We stopped there for the night and caught a glimpse of sunset with dolphins swimming around our boat ,by hoping on superfast motorbikes (not driven by us).

We departed from Kratie the following morning after yet more bargaining and ended up in another shared taxi with Thomasso Carly Rob and me plus a dodgy box of fish tied to the boot.The road was getting pretty rough and we were glad to arrive in Ban Lung some 5h30 later, blissfully unaware thanks to our sulky taxi driver who did not speak a word to us.

We spent a few days exploring waterfalls on bikes and dirty red sand roads , the road below looks far too good to be true...

To get an idea of the area , they told us they only have two seasons ...the wet and the dusty

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Now if you look at these beautiful waterfalls , we were there!

No prizes for guessing which fool jumped off the top,even if our 'guide' told us it was ok - he bottled it...

Our toughest day started gently with 1h30 elephant trek to another waterfall (that s Rob saying that ,it was actually pretty high and rocky and none of us looked that brave when the elephant tried to go on his back legs to reach a high up branch) where the boys played Tarzan successfully swinging off the vines.At 11h30 we set then off for the chinese cemetery, supposedly 1h30 away. Unfortunately the road was unbelievably bad and some 2 hours later we were still riding.

By the time we had lunch , when we eventually reached the river around 2h30 we decided that there was no way that we were doing that road in the dark and started the return journey around three.

This also sets the scene for our first motocycle accident, as the wheels went from under us on a patch of sand. Luckily following Simon B-L's laws of motorcycling in Asia, we weren't going too fast and I was paying due care and attention (well quite a lot anyway, even if not quite eneough to keep us on the bike) so we came off quite gracefully and got away with a couple of bruises (light colours only) and a graze on the top of my foot.

So all well at the end of the day, and like a horse, we got back on and headed on for supper.

We spent a couple more less eventfull days relaxing and playing poi before catching a bus all the way down to Phnom Penh (a 12h trip). We have spent two days here and have been running around museums and the royal palace with incredible sculptures and the amazing silver floor and diamond and gold budha.

As well as the ancient wonders we also took a more sombre look at the infamous Toul Sleng torture camp of the Kmer Rouges. A truly horrific example of what man is capable of - and it all happened within the last 30 years.

So we continue on, tomorrow we are taking a slow boat to Vietnam, let's see what lies in store there...