My previous post say that I'm back home but that off course is not up to date anymore. The last two weeks I was in Cambodia with a full load of people. I flew in a few days before the group would arrive so that I could arrange a few things. It was also nice to be able to adjust to the time and just chill a bit, so that I would be able to be a good guide ;)
The group eventually arrived about twelve hours late because of problems with their flights. Also about half tha group had lost their luggage but they were all fine about it, a good sighn for a good and easy group and that turned out to be true.
So, first we were in Siem Reap, which is close to Angkor, which off course you all know, where there is Angkor Wat and a whole lot of other temples, which again off course you al know, except maybe some people from a country just North of Belgium. The person I am talking about will off course recognise herself ;-)
The picture below is from the entrance of Angkor Thom. In the back you can see the South entrance gate. When you look closely you can see more faces above the gate and on the sides.
After visiting a lot of temples in two days and then visiting more temples while driving direction Phnom Penh for two days, we stopped in a town, or more a "highway crossing" called Skun. This is the place known for its spiders ..... that get fried..... and then eaten .... yes, goosebumps appear and hairs are rising!!!!! As a medium, ok, some people call it more than that, arachnophobic, it is not the most relaxing place. The spiders are called Wolff spiders but in some guidebooks they also talk about tarantulas, although I'm not sure if that is correct. They throw them is oil and then just fry them, nothing more than that.
I had warned the group about the place and we did find a candidate, Edith, for a little snack. She claimed that the leggs were the best! She also convinced one other person, David, to try a leg and had a live one walking over her arm. Just watching was already bad enough for me!!! Below is a woman posing with her platter full of those fried spiders and a live one on her chest.
After a one night stop in Phnom Penh we drove up to Ratanakari province in the North East of Cambodia clode to the Vietnamese border. The trip took two days and on the way we stopped for a little boattrip on the Mekong to watch the Irryawaddy dolphins, an almost extinct species of river dolphins. We saw many of them from quite nearby. Must have been almost all that still exist.
Then there was the 3-day trekking, walking part of the Ho Chi Minh trail, through rainforest and sometimes open landscapes, sleeping in hammocks in minority (Jarai, etc) villages. It was hot, dusty and humid. A hike of six hours on flat terrain can already get veryu exhausting in such a climate. At night we sang songs with local children. They didn't dare to come very close though as they haven't seen many white people before. Everytime that we would approach them or come a little too close they would run away. Below is a picture from a local old lady with her pipe and some strange thing on her throat. It was crazy to see how many of those tribal people smoke. We even saw little kids smoking from only about 6 years old.
From Banlung, Ratanakiri, we flew with a Russian plane back to Phnomh Penh. It did take a very long time before we actually left because they had a battery problem. The pilot and assistant were sitting under the plane trying to fix it while we all stood around and looked at it. It eventually took 5 hours before it was fixed.
That night in Phnom Penh I got a fever and my intestins started a protest action so for the next two days in PP I spend most of the time in bed (and on the toilet). I just always gave my group instructions on where that could go and how they had to get there. More people in the group were also sick though and since it was such a good group they were very understanding.
Now I'm in Bangkok, recovering. Tomorrow there's a new load of people arriving that I'll take to Laos for a 3-week trip. I hope that I'll recover well and that it'll also be a good group.
Hope to hear from you all soon!
