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.