Goodbye Camper - for now

Camping in Highlands amongst fir trees

Much has happened since the last posting, including shipping our van, along with a Toyota belonging to Nicolette and Jeroen (fellow travellers across China) to Surabaya where it should arrive on 2nd March. before shipping we made a quick trip to the Cardoman Mountains, an area in the west of Cambodia which is still primarily untouched forest and home to wild elephant and tigers. Unfortunately we did not see any of these but were amazed by the great Hornbills, which fly overhead like B52's having a body length of around 1.2m and massive wings.

Hornbill

Outrez Beach campsite

You hear them before you see them from the loud whoosh, whoosh noise their wings make. As we needed to discuss the options for shipping the vehicles with Nicolette and Jeroen we headed down to Sihanoukville and met up with them by the beautiful Outrez beach where we camped for three nights while cleaning the inside and outside of the van ready for shipping. An idyllic spot which has not yet been developed with white sands sloping into a gentle sea, shading trees over and no bars or restaurants.

Sunset at Outrez beach

Both vehicles just made it into the container once we had removed the spare tyre from the roof but it was a real squeeze to get round the cars to strap them down. However after around 1.5 hours all was strapped down to everyone's satisfaction and we locked the container.

Ready for Shipping

We were without the van but needed to collect the original bill of lading which would not be ready until the following Tuesday, so we went 80kms along the coast to Kampot where we spent a couple of nights and explored the area including a small 8th century temple inside a cave and a pepper farm. A memorable evening cruise on the river for the sunset and fireflies completed the day.

8th Century temple in Cave

Having collected the bill of lading we headed straight to the Thailand border, our visas ran out the next day, and headed straight to Bangkok for an overnight stop before catching the overnight train to the Malaysian border and the train to Penang, where we plan to get our Indonesian Visas. The differences between Cambodia and Thailand and Malaysia are striking. Thailand has such a good road infrastructure, and is much cleaner and more developed than Cambodia with Bangkok more like Singapore than Phonm Penh - sweeping road networks and much high rise development. Malaysia is a step up again, excellent trains, clean streets and generally well maintained housing.

   




 

Angkor and Change of Plans

Angkor Wat Temple

Bas Relief at Angkor Wat

From Phnom Penh we travelled north to Siem Reap and the World Heritage site of Angkor Wat. Like the Grand Canyon, it does not matter how many photographs you may have seen, they cannot convey the vast scale, and all of it hand dug, and hand built between the 8th and 13th centuries. Ankor is a huge site with numerous different temple complexes, Angkor Wat being the biggest and most famous, so there is a real danger of being "templed out". Consequently we spread our three days of access over four, taking a rest day in between to visit the Tomle Sap lake and its "floating villages", they are really villages on very tall stilts which are flooded in the wet season. Over the three days we managed to visit around a dozen of the temple complexes, choosing ones from different periods ranging from 800AD to 1300AD and styles. The common feature is that they were all overrun by forest and have needed a great deal of restoration. We were surprised at the detail, quality and extent of the bas relief carvings on the external walls of the temples with hundreds of feet of carvings surrounding Ankor wat as well as many of the other temples.

Camper at Bayon Temple

They were very reminiscent of the bas relief carvings at Persepolis. One temple was left relatively unrestored to show how they all looked and was famously used for the Indiana Jones film with huge Fig Tree roots growing out of, and over the buildings. From Siem Reap we stopped at Prasat Tembour where there are over 100 brick temples from the pre Ankor period

Indiana Jones

Whilst in Siem Reap we learned from the Thailand department for Land Transport that we would not be given a permit to cross Thailand as they have now banned camper vans. Disappointing as we were looking forward to Myanmar and India, but have instead decided to ship the van to Jakarta in Indonesia and spend a few months driving through the Archipelago towards Australia, hopefully shipping to Darwin in late May. While the vehicle is being shipped, which should take around 10 days we will backpack quickly through Thailand and Malaysia to Singapore where we can get a flight to Jakarta to collect the vehicle.
We ventured back to the cooler highlands in the east for a two day trek where we saw many birds and caught glimpses of gibbons, and langaur monkeys, but they were high in the trees.

"Floating" Village

After a couple of hot humid days were spent in Phnom Penh trying to arrange a visa for Indonesia, but we have been unable to get a letter of introduction from the shipping agent so will have to resort to a Visa on arrival, unless we can get a visa in Malaysia where it is claimed they are less insistent of having a letter of invitation.


Pre Ankor temples near Kampong Thom

This entry to the blog is written from a much cooler Kiriom National park where we have spent the day beside a small river in an open forest of conifers, very relaxing and a pleasant change from the hot humid Mekong Valley.

Carved faces at Bayon Temple

Huge invasive Fig Trees