DIPS at the beach…

Posted by on Aug 25, 2012 in Cambodia | 2 comments Sihanoukville is located only 185km south-west of Phnom Penh, but it still took over five hours by bus to reach. Just over half way we passed through the Cardamom Mountain range, shrouded in low cloud and rain mist and the weather markedly changed from hot and dry to cooler and moist.  Now it felt like the rainy season! Having not had a chance to book any accommodation, we had a taxi stop at a...
read more

Pearl of Asia?

Posted by on Aug 23, 2012 in Cambodia | 7 comments We said goodbye to Siem Reap and headed  for Phnom Penh, taking the same bus as Aline, Deborah and Kai.  The ‘Giant Ibis’ bus was most expensive option for the six hour journey as it had seatbelts, air-con and wi-fi, and even a hostess who supplied refresher towels, bottled water for $13 per seat.  In true backpacker style, Lara and Teddy opted for the cheaper Capitol bus at $6 per seat...
read more

Schools in …

Posted by on Aug 17, 2012 in Cambodia | 4 comments Whilst having dinner at a local tapas restaurant, we made arrangements with Lara and Aline to go with them the next morning to a school in a remote village called Prasat Char, where ‘Helping Hands Cambodia’ has been assisting the locals for more than 6 years.  ‘Helping Hands’ was founded in 2005 by Deborah Groves, a Sunshine Coast wedding photographer, who first came to Cambodia the...
read more

Whiling away the days in Siem Reap…

Posted by on Aug 16, 2012 in Cambodia | 0 comments The guesthouse we are staying at for our ten days in Siem Reap is about 3km out of town and down a bumpy dirt track away from the main road.  Our French friend Lara had stayed at the Bloom Garden guesthouse last year, so it was here that we had organised to meet up. The days when we weren’t out for any full days we spent the mornings doing school work on the top verandah after a superb ...
read more

Same same but different…

Posted by on Aug 15, 2012 in Cambodia | 2 comments We factored in a  ‘slow day’ where we caught up on some school work and spent an afternoon riding bikes into town for dinner and back before tackling the temples again the next day.  This time we left relatively early at 7.30am and had organised a guide to come with us in the tuk tuk as we were going to include the big one – Angkor Wat Temple. First though we stopped at Sras Srang a...
read more