In the next posts, I will write about my recent trip to Cambodia and Vietnam with a good friend of mine. We had 2 weeks to explore those two very interesting countries. It was my first time in Asia and I absolutely adored it. It was a whole new world for me and I came back with a big smile on my face - and a lot souvenirs, but that's another story! 2 weeks are definitely much too short for a deep Indochina experience, that's why I call it "Indochina Express". But it was definitely a good start and makes me wanna go back!
Here is part one of my Indochina adventure - the days in Cambodia.
After a long, but very comfortable flight from Zurich via Bangkok to Siem Reap, we were welcomed by heat - and by a tuk tuk. We were sceptical first as our driver didn't seem to care much about traffic rules. As we found out later, this was the normal way of driving, true to the motto "He who honks louder has right of way" or "survival of the fittest". We reached the hotel without any injuries.
We checked in in our hotel and jumped directly into the pool. What a fantastic feeling after such a long flight!
Soon after the swim, we started to explore Siem Reap. I liked this city very much, there is so much to see! Even if it's still very Asian, the Western influences are obvious. Burger King meets traditional market, street restaurant meets Starbucks so to say.
Our first highlight was the old market. I guess here you would find absolutely everyhing you would ever want to eat. I couldn't get enough of all the colors and smells, it was amazing.
 |
| Interesting menu! |
Despite the jetlag, we joined a tour the first afternoon we were in Siem Reap. We visited the floating village Kompong Pluk, a bit outside of town. All houses are built on high stilts to withstand the annual floods. Depending on the season, you can explore the village on a road, we had to take the boat, there was nothing to see from the road. Impressive!
 |
| Spirits bar? Well... This is a bar for your car - a mobile gas station |
 |
| Our expedition boat |
 |
| Post office |
After a very bumpy busride back to town, we wanted to have a taste of Siem Reaps nighlife, so we explored the Night Market (an invention that we definitely should introduce in Europe!!) and the Pub Street. We both loved both!
We also tried Cambodias national dish - Amok. The original version is made of baked fish, lemongrass, chili and coconut, I ate a delicious vegetarian version. Yummy!!
We were happy to fall in our beds after this veery long travel day. But as we wanted to explore moremoremore, we didn't treat ourselves with much sleep, but set the alarm clock at 4 a.m. the next morning for the next tour. This day, we wanted to see the number one tourist attraction of Cambodia: the temples of ANGKOR, one of the most important religious monuments on earth.
We started our tour very early in the morning and were picked up by the guide in the hotel. He was a human joking machine (or drunk, we weren't sure), I guess because he had to entertain himself somehow while telling everything for the 999th time. His "Angkor Whaaaat?!?!" was still ringing in our ears days after!
Already at 5:00 a.m. the queue in front of the ticket office was long. We paid the 37 dollar entrance fee and then waited for the sun to rise - together with at least 500 other tourists. To be honest, it was quite hard to get a good picture without a head or a selfie stick on it! :-) But nevertheless the view was fantastic and the temple in front of the orange-pink sunrise magical!
 |
| Angkor Wat is waking up |
 |
| What you normally dont (wanna) see on the pictures |
After seeing the sunrise at Angkor Wat, we continued our tour - our guide still joking and entertaining mainly himself.
Angkor Wat is very impressive - hard to imagine how they built it these times!
After the first temple, we had a delicious breakfast - a traditional noodle soup. It was wonderful!
Full of soup and new energy we continued with the 2nd temple, which probably was my favourite one. It is very known from the movie "Tomb Raider" and even if his original name is Ta Prohm it is widely known by Cambodian people as the "Angelina Jolie" Temple. I loved the fusion between stone and tree roots, it had something magical.
 |
| The entrance of "Angelina Jolie temple" |
 |
| Do you see it? :-) |
The Angkor visit was definitely one of the higlights of this trip. I could have stayed there much longer even if I was tired after 3 temples already. Who knows, maybe the gods are good to me and I can come again?
The next day, we already had to continue our trip and took a bus to the capital city of Cambodia - Phnom Penh.
Meanwhile we had gotten used to the chaotic road traffic and had therefore afforded ourselves a Tuk Tuk driver for a whole day. We started with two very sad things to see in Phom Penh: the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and the Killing Fields of Choeung Ex. They both reflect the terrible time of Paul Pot Genocide during which millions of Cambodian people were killed. The audio guides at both places are excellent and we learned a lot about the history of the country. After the visit, we both felt very depressed, sad and sorry for all the victims. We needed some minutes to "digest" the information. As you can imagine, I didn't take any pictures of those two places, bit I really recommend them to visit.
To cheer us up, we continued our tuk tuk ride to the Russian market and then to the Royal Palace. The buildings that all belong to the Royal Palace were impressive!
We also met some hairy, banana eating royalists...
I'm not sure if it was the heat or a bad ice cream that upset my stomach, but in the evening I felt really bad and couldn't really enjoy the evening. Gladly, the next day I was ready for travelling again, so we continued our trip. This time to Koh Rong, an island about 1.5h from Sihanoukville by boat.
Already from the ferry we saw that we will soon arrive in paradise. White sandy beaches, blue water, palmtrees, bungalows. It seemed surreal after what we'd seen in Phom Penh, but we soon felt into a very relaxed mood. We found a little camping lot, run by a Swiss couple. Here we would spend 3 nights and meet my sister, her boyfriend and his parents. My sister & her boyfriend are currently on a longer trip through Asia and coincidence wanted our paths to cross at this paradisiacal place. We spent three fantastic days and nights there.
 |
| Our home for 3 days |
 |
| Papaya salad - just yummy! |
 |
| Sunset after a rainy night |
The last full day, we splitted the group. While one group did a boat tour with snorkeling, fishing and plankton swimming, me and my sister decided to stay on the island and do a little walk. We first walked to the next village Koh Tuich. It was good fun, a lively village with a lot of backpackers, shops and parties. We continued our "little" walk and wanted to take a shortcut to Long Beach. As we found out this short cut let through the middle of a jungle. Great idea with flipflops! We tried to forget about the snakes and spiders that might accompanied us, crawled up the forest and then climbed down again. We arrived at a beautiful and lonely beach wet, dirty and happy. Back at the campside again, we decided to treat ourselves after the hiking hardships and enjoyed one hour of Thai massage.
 |
| The village of Koh Tuich |
The next day, my friend and me already had to leave the island. As we had to wait for breakfast forever, we said goodbye in all hustle and bustle and almost ran to the boat dock. My sister and her boyfriend even ran after me with my French toasts. Unfortunately we were too late and the ferry had gone without us. This meant: 6 h wait for the next ferry. Well... Waiting at the beach, enjoying the sea again and an iced coffeee wasn't too bad, but still we were a bit pissed. We finally caught the next ferry and we got to Sihanoukville, but the ferry had to stop at a different place and we had to take the bus back, which made us miss the bus again. It wasn't our day that day. As we waited for the next one, my sister and her companion met us again. It was at the same time to laugh and to cry.
As we were that late, we had to cancel our plans to go to Kep (no taxi wanted to drive there during the night as the road is so bad) and bought a ticket to Kampot. The bus was veeery cozy as it was a sleeping bus and we could lay down during the 4h drive.
 |
| In the cozy sleeping bus |
We arrived very late in Kampot and needed some tries until we found a guesthouse that was still open. But we were warmly welcomed by a Cambodian family and probably got their nicest room. I've never slept in a bigger bed - after some nights in a tent this was heaven on earth!
The next day we took a bus and crossed the border to Vietnam. The post about this will follow sooon... :-)