Laurie's World

All things considered it was not a horrible first night sleep. We were safely tucked in by 8pm. Hit the wall not long after the pizza….so made our way right back to hotel. I woke up briefly at midnight then not again until 6am. We were at breakfast by 7:10am only to discover I’d booked the room without breakfast included but alas we could purchase breakfast of course. $2.50 for a omelette and 1/2 baguette and another $1 for back coffee. Would have berm $1.50 for coffee with milk, I decided to try black. This part of the country is not known (in my books) as being great at their coffee. It’s usually very strong and well….just really strong. Anyway, it was actually palatable and the omelette was tasty. So all in all great start to the day.

After we researched weather predictions, we decided to rent bikes and head out into the world. We rented bikes for $5/day right from our hotel. This worked out great as now we wouldn’t have to turn our passports over to strangers.

In hindsight, we should have applied the sunscreen more liberally. It was certainly warmer than we were thinking it would be.

We stopped along the way to take pictures, enjoy the river and take selfies (of course). Up by where the dam is located there was a side road with a hut and a “guard” that was gesturing to us to go down the lane. (VS going towards the dam-which we know isn’t allowed 😉). So we decide to turn off. A very short way in,there is a booth with a sign that indicates it is 10,000 R ($2.50 USD)  to pass through. They assure us it is worth it, there are waterfalls etc up there. We pay up and pass through. Indeed after a short drive up a hillside on a tutted dirt path, there were lovely waterfalls. We park our bikes in the designated area and a young man comes out and tags our bikes. Hmmm, why would they do this? More on this later.

We had fun walking up the remaining stairs/hillside to reach the top where the waterfall was. Got some refreshing time in the cool water and enjoying the view.

Landon decided to be funny guy and snag Sam and run her under the waterfall. It started out as expected…..

But it went south very quickly when he slipped on these very slippery rocks. And they both went down…….

 Luckily Sam is a good sport and didn’t clock Landon right back for this bit of monkey business.

There were millions of butterflies in this whole area, starting from right down on the road before we came into park area. Hoping to include a video….so you can see what a small portion of it looked like.
Now, to finish the tale of the parking, after we were done wandering around, we went over to where our bikes were parked.

The cutest (and I mean cutest) little girl runs up to us and indicates we need to pay 1,000 riel to take our bikes. Hahaha, the shake down never ends…..but it is what it is (.25 cents) and she is cute, but I want my picture!!

After all this excitement, we remembered the purpose of coming to this area was to stop and buy durian. The infamous durian that is so smelly it is banned from most hotels in Thailand. Can’t say ice seen the same postings I hotels here in Cambodia, but regardless, it is infamous for being really really smelly. We’ve never tried it.

But we did as Sam really wanted us to try it. Here is Troy’s face as he us trying to figure out what he is eating.

It doesn’t taste as bad as it smells (thankfully). It has the texture of soft avocado, but tastes like cantaloupe. I don’t care do cantaloupe so that knocks me out of the competition. And Troy doesn’t care for the texture of avocado, so now that we’ve tried it, we are good. Landon was not a big fan either……

Durian is rock hard on the outside with super sharp spikes. Like nails, it sharper….poor Landon got injured when a couple durians rolled off the table and his reflexes prompted him to try to catch them. One with his hand and the other with his leg. Ouch…..
Given the time (noon) the decision was made to head back to town for some lunch. We went to Captain Chims to try to get the famous red soup that we were unsuccessful in securing two years ago. We ate like kings, red soup, amok, lol lak, crab satay, drinks. All this for $20

We had to have Sam back to hotel and ready for minivan back to phnom phen for 3pm. So we did that, then Landon troy and I headed back out on the bikes around 4pm. We went back to the “island” that we attempted a couple years ago. The weather was not nearly as cooperative as it was getting windy and rainy. But we still had fun and I was able to work through some of the vivid flashbacks I was having about driving a bike on a rutted, snotty, red dirt path right alongside a body of water……

So we got ourselves off and running on time Monday night.  The girls drove us to the airport for our 1:50am flight on EVA air. Our first leg was about 12 hours. We had a 4 hour layover in Taipei, Taiwan. I’ve not been to this particular airport before, Troy Brooklyn and Russill did a few years back. It is an interesting place with every lounge having a theme. Hello kitty, the library, postal service, jungle…..the list goes on.

The bathrooms had a customer service screen at each exit where you just tap a face to review your experience. Hahaha I wonder what they do with this info…..

And of course the Asian commitment to cleanliness. Love these signs.

We arrived in phnom phen and Landon and Sam were right there waiting for us. A quick stop at DQ and we were on our way.
We rode in a private car to Kampot that Sam arranged. $40….best money spent. 😃

I booked a room at the Natural Bungalows in Kampot where we stayed for 10 days a couple years ago. And low and behold, look who I found perched on the bed frame

My trusty travel companions……they go everywhere with me!
We walked about for a bit, I got myself a $6 foot massage, then we made our way to the Rusty Keyhole  2 and had some amazing pizza, cheese fries and saw the cutest little restaurant pup.