DAY 20 MONDAY DECEMBER 4th LUANG PRABANG – SIEM REAP LAOS - CAMBODIA

Our day started quite early as we were to venture out onto the streets of Luang Prabang at dawn to see the procession of monks as they received alms from local residents and businesses along the roadside.

In semi darkness at 06:00 several hundred monks walked in file and as they passed, people would give them offerings of food such as boiled rice or sticky rice in bamboo. The monks also received sweets such as chocolate bars and these were accepted and then later put into separate baskets along the street for donations to the poor and orphanages.

When this spectacle ended we moved along to the local morning food market. The market occupied about 300 m of a narrow street leaving barely enough room to walk between the stalls. The wares on display were as diverse as any we’ve seen so far with every conceivable type of food for sale.  The variety of fresh fruits and vegetables was impressive with their quality and freshness being first class. Several types of fungi were on sale too. 

The many stalls selling fish made for an interesting sight. There was a wide range of fish types and apparently all are from the Mekong River. Some of the biggest perch would have been around 10 kg. The meat market was not for the faint hearted as the offerings apart from normal cuts of meat also included intestines and other unidentified offal.

Food such as sausages, fish and rice was being cooked on small wood stoves along the street to add to the olfactory delights of the market!

We then returned to our hotel for breakfast and did a final packing of bags prior to heading for the airport for our early afternoon flight to Siem Reap in Cambodia.

Our flight south was for approximately two hours and as we approached Siem Reap the landscape below changed dramatically from mountains with deep river valleys to a broad wet plane with rice paddies extending in all directions.

Just before landing we passed over a perfectly rectangular lake and could see the vast waters of the Lake Tonle Sap.

We met our new guide Thay at the airport and were transported in a minibus for thirty minutes to our hotel called The Aviary Hotel. Our accommodation is very modern and quite a contrast to our colonial hotel in Luang Prabang.

Siem Reap is the main town providing the infrastructure for the huge tourist industry that is based on Angkor Wat and its archaeological region.   

DAY 21 TUESDAY DECEMBER 5th SIEM REAP CAMBODIA

Our tour company “About Asia” has a policy of starting each day’s activities very early in order to miss the majority of the crowds and to avoid the midday heat.

We were collected at 06:45 and headed to our first destination called the Ta Prohm Temple regarded by many as the most evocative and mysterious of all the temples at Angkor. The temple buildings cover a large area of around 350 m by 250 m contained within a laterite wall.

Ta Prohm (which means the Ancestor of Brahma) was built during the reign of King Jayavarman VII from 1181 – 1218 and was dedicated to his mother. It seems that for about 500 years this temple was left abandoned until the 19th century colonial period when it was rediscovered and the French commenced archaeological restoration. Indian archaeologists have continued restoration work since 2012.

The restoration was done with a great effort to maintain the structure as they found it and by cutting down as little of the surrounding jungle as possible.   

As a consequence the temple buildings remain smothered by the roots of giant banyan trees. A strangler fig has encompassed its host and dominates the temple’s masonry.

The Face Tower has four images of King Jayavarman VII and many of the walls have intricate bas-relief carvings. One narrow stone column in the complex has ornate circles that enclose various animal reliefs. One such carving depicts what appears to be a stegosaurus but it is probably a mystical Hindu beast called a Makara.

The temple has a Buddhist origin but was later to become a Hindu temple and consequently many of the carved images of Buddha have been destroyed or damaged.

This temple was used in parts of the movie Tomb Raider featuring Angelina Jolie long before she became a Hollywood superstar. Since that time she has become a firm patron of Cambodia and has adopted Cambodian children.

After leaving Ta Prohm we walked around a small lake and found to our joy a shady spot where a mid-morning snack had been set up for us. We enjoyed fruits, cold drinks, coffee and croissants; sheer luxury!

Our next site was Ta Nei Temple built in the late 12th century. The temple was hidden in the forest at the end of a narrow dusty road and this isolation meant there were very few visitors as big buses can’t enter this restricted zone. We enjoyed the opportunity to linger in the shade of its surrounding silk cotton trees and take in the archetypical “tumbledown temple” image that was splendid in the dappled light.

The Ta Nei features notable walls and arches decorated with Buddhist inspired carvings that survived the Hindu times of King Jayavarman VIII.

Our final visitation for the morning was to Ta Keo and early 11th century temple. This was built by King Jayavarman V, when at the age of 17, he decided that he needed something to rival the edifice that his father had built.

It is a massive five-layered pyramid 22 m high which has little in the way of adornment as the construction was stopped when a lightning strike was seen as a bad omen. The stone staircase from the main entrance leads to the fourth level and is exceedingly steep. We had to exercise great care especially on descent.

The restoration work done by the Chinese at Ta Keo has involved the use of much steelwork bracing and framing of doorways which presumably gives added strength to the stone block work but severely detracts from the potential magnificence of this temple.

In accordance with Noel Coward we voided the midday sun (Mad dogs & Englishmen etc) and rested until around 13:45 when we resumed our visits and went to Angkor Thom.

This great city was founded by King Jayavarman VII in the late 12th century and at one time was the largest city in the Khmer Empire. The city area is surrounded by an 8.0 m high wall about 12 km long!  We visited the East Gate, which is much quieter than the South Gate, and walked for about two kilometres on this wall. The city’s area is about ten square kilometres and has five gates with four facing in the cardinal directions and an extra one on the eastern side. The whole complex is then surrounded by a three metre deep moat approximately a hundred metres wide.

The South Gate is the best preserved of the gates and is flanked by 154 stone statues, gods on the left-hand side and demons on the right side. The gate itself is 23 m high surmounted by a triple tower with four gigantic smiling faces of Buddha (or possibly the king). The gate is flanked by statues of the three headed elephant Erawan which was the fabled mount of the Hindu god Indra.

In the heart of Angkor Thom is The Bayon, one of the city’s most extraordinary structures epitomising the “lost civilization” of the Angkor.

There are 54 towers with 216 huge enigmatic stone faces. The towers are linked by galleries that are in the process of being restored.

The bas-reliefs in the eastern gallery provide scenes from the struggles between the Khmers and the Cham. These stories are told in vivid carved and intricate scenes extending along a 5 m high wall for over 100 m.  

On leaving this temple we walked along the Terrace of the Elephants and then the Terrace of the Leper King.

At this point we were becoming a little over-awed with the scenery with there being in our midst, grandiose structures involving over 6 million tonnes of carved rock! It was mind boggling.

Our visit was concluded with a quiet sunset boat trip around three kilometres of the moat. During this sojourn our guide Thay provided us with gins and tonics plus nibbles making for an utterly delightful end to our first day’s visit to the marvels of Angkor.

A sumptuous meal at a nearby restaurant called the Red Piano made for a very pleasant end to a marvellous day.

DAY 22 WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 6th SIEM REAP CAMBODIA

Our first destination for the morning was to be Tonle Sap Lake but on the way we visited the Psa Leu market which was quite close to our hotel.

This was certainly not a ‘touristy’ destination but nonetheless a fascinating exposure to the lives of the Siem Reap people.

The market is extensive and undercover and sells food only. We wandered down narrow lanes between the stalls and saw a bewildering array of meats, fish, vegetables, nuts and fruit. There were many locals just having their breakfast at side benches and everyone seemed to be far too busy to even notice our intrusion to their market centre. Women dominated the sellers and buyers and were the ones cutting up meat, killing and gutting live scale fish, plucking various types of fowl, cooking meals and preparing shellfish and crustaceans for their customers. In one section we noted the Muslim women preparing beef meat in halal fashion.

We then went into the adjacent tourist market where persistent haggling was sure to bring prices down significantly. The range of synthetic gems now available for sale is a minefield for the unwary purchaser. We were shown quite large rubies that tested positively with their handheld spectrometer but were far too cheap to be anything but synthetic. A cut and mounted ‘ruby’ stone of size about 5 mm was initially at a price of $30 and when we questioned the genuine nature of the stone the price decreased to $10. In a reputable jewellers this ring, had it been genuine would have been several hundred dollars or even more.

Another tourist item that looked to be a total dud was block of so-called amber with a perfect butterfly embedded in it.

After all this we drove for about 40 km south eastwards to Tonle Sap Lake. This lake is situated in the very heart of Cambodia and is the very largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. The township we arrived at was Kompong Khleang and here we boarded an old wooden boat with some very ancient steering, gear and throttle controls linked by pieces of rope.

We chugged out along a narrow waterway towards the open water of the lake.

On the way we passed the local houses all perched on stilts as the water level in the lake varies greatly with seasonal variations. The lake is presently at its smallest at around 2 500 sq km but after the monsoon season the area becomes about 12 000 sq km and the depth may increase by as much as 5 m. Most of the houses had boats tethered nearby and the preoccupation for the village is fishing using nets and fish traps. Apparently the lake has over 200 different species of fish and the surrounding floodplain has a diversity of waterbirds. Tonle Sap Lake supplies over half of Cambodia’s annual supply of fish.

Around a corner in the main channel we entered the floating village section of Kompong Khleang. Apart from floating homes we passed schools, general stores, mechanics’ workshops, petrol stations and small cafes which were all afloat.

After travelling for nearly an hour we reached the open waters of Tonle Sap Lake and stopped for a picnic lunch aboard our boat.

On our return journey to the docking area we passed the school where students were heading home in boats with paddles.

In the mid afternoon we headed back in our minivan towards Siem Reap stopping at the Roluos Group of temples.

The first we visited was the late 9th century temple of Preah Ko meaning ‘temple of the sacred bull’. This temple was dedicated by Indravarman I to his ancestors in 879. This was a Hindu temple and statues of three of Shiva’s bulls sit guarding the six sanctuary towers. The towers were made from brick but were covered with lime stucco most of which has subsequently been eroded away.

From 1975-79 the Khmer Rouge used the towers as an ammunition dump and storehouse for food.

The nearby Bakong Temple was to be our final tourist destination for this day. This 9th century temple has the nine-headed serpent naga as features on both sides of the embankments of the causeway leading across the moat. Dedicated to Shiva and Vishnu, Bakong served as the capital of the Khmer empire until the end of the 9th century.

The temple is a five tiered, 16 m high pyramid representing Mt. Meru the home of the Hindu gods and the centre of the universe! Elephant statues carved from single pieces of rock adorn the four corners of the second tier.

The guardian lions that flank the stairways up to the top level diminish in size with each tier risen tricking the eye into thinking the temple is larger than it really is.

We returned to our hotel at 15:00 and rested before going out for an early meal. Tomorrow we need to be on the road by 04:45 in order to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat and to avoid some of the crowd that will gather by mid-morning.

DAY 23 THURSDAY DECEMBER 7th SIEM REAP CAMBODIA

We arrived at the eastern gate of Angkor Wat just after 05:00 and were initially the only people in sight. In semi-darkness we walked around towards the western entrance to await the sunrise. We were positioned so that the temple would be reflected in the section of moat in front of us. The sunrise was a bit of a non-event but heralded the arrival of the masses.

The Angkor Wat (“Small Imperial City”) temple is regarded as the largest religious complex in the world and is considered as the crowning achievement of Khmer art and architecture.

Angkor Wat was built as a Hindu Temple during the 12th century by King Yuryavarman II. The complex, dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu is contained within a rectangle 1.5 km x 1.3 km although the central sandstone temple only occupies about 5% of that area.

The five towered sanctuary with each tower shaped in the form of a lotus bud stands in the middle of the complex. The uppermost level has the 42 m tall grand central shrine surrounded by axial galleries with four smaller towers rising at the corners. These galleries show the corbelling (as opposed to ‘keystone’) technique used by the Khmers for building vaulted ceilings.

We spent a good deal of time meandering along the wall galleries around the temple’s perimeter inspecting the 600 m of bas-reliefs depicting scenes from the Hindu epic Mahabharata. These images feature hundreds of brave weapon-bearing warriors engaged in furious combat during the Battle of Kurukshetra. There were also carvings of hundreds of sensual apsaras (angels) each one different from the next having variations in ornate jewellery and hairstyles.

After waiting in a queue for half an hour, we climbed the steep staircase to the central sanctuary to gain a broad view of the whole complex and the intricacy of the delicately carved stonework that abounds everywhere. The main shrine features images of the Buddha reflecting the Buddhist influence that eventually displaced Hinduism in Cambodia. Some heads of Buddha were stolen during colonial times and sold on the black market to European and other overseas collectors of antiquities.

One intriguing small area encountered was the Hall of Echoes where only very low frequency sounds like banging on one’s chest gave any discernable echo. 

The visual input from just five hours of exposure to this ‘Eighth Wonder of the World’ is almost too much and one becomes mentally exhausted just trying to comprehend the time and effort that went into thirty years of building the temple. Although there’s been much conjecture, archaeologists still don’t know how the millions of tonnes of sandstone was lifted to such heights with some blocks known to be three or more tonnes.

We exited via the Terrace of Honour through the western gate and crossed the causeway which had balustrades carved in the form of giant nagas (serpents).

Whilst leaving at this stage, it now being 9:00 the crowds indicated to us why we’d been advised to come at such an early hour.

The Angkor Wat Temple receives about four million visitors a year and the tourist value to Cambodia is presently around one billion US$ per year.

We returned to our hotel for brunch and then had a twenty-minute helicopter flight in the late morning over the Angkor area. This flight was spectacular and gave us some further insight to the incredible nature of this archaeological wonderland. From the air we able to see how vast the area was and we could see the interlinking between the numerous waterways and ancient roads. Our flight took us down to the northern extremities of Tonle Sap Lake and we could see all the floating village homes that we’d passed through yesterday.

In the afternoon we did a journey of discovery through the rural landscape and visited some villages where tourists seldom venture.

We visited a Buddhist monastery where blessings from the monks were offered and we participated with passive enthusiasm.

At a small rural home we had coconut milk and were shown how to weave a fish from pieces of coconut palm leaf. Our group all performed dismally and needed the expert help of the locals to achieve a reasonable end-product.

A ride in an ox cart took us down to the shores of the huge rectangular artificial lake called the West Baray. The lake was dug by hand in the 12th century and measures 2 km x 8 km.

We traversed the lake in a wooden boat and on arrival at the far shore were greeted with icy cool face towels and champagne.

We then walked a short distance to our travel agent, About Asia’s villa Chandara where we relaxed with cool drinks and watched the sunset. On the way we passed a school which is sponsored by About Asia.

The culmination of the night was a tasty open-air dinner served while listening to traditional Khmer musicians playing on drums, a bowed single stringed sol and two instruments similar to xylophones.

After a wonderful afternoon’s entertainment we headed home to prepare for our long six hour trip southwards tomorrow to Phnom Penh.

DAY 24 FRIDAY DECEMBER 8th SIEM REAP – PHNOM PENH CAMBODIA

We left Siem Reap at 07:30 and followed a relatively new and broad road that heads south-east for the 250 km to Phnom Penh.

After an hour of fairly slow progress in heavy traffic we made a stop at a famous bridge built 800 years ago during the reign of King Jayavarman VII. The hundred metre long bridge is built of laterite stone in a succession of pointed arches across the river at Kompong Thom. The main highway used to cross this bridge but it has now been diverted around this ancient structure to prevent any further deterioration.

We alighted at one side of the bridge and three young women suddenly appeared with cameras and by the time we’d walked across to the other side they were there waiting with tourist photos showing us with the bridge in the background. The photos were not good but nonetheless we felt a bit mean refusing to make any purchases.

The next comfort stop was at a roadside market at Skoun. Gauging from the numerous stalls along the road this is the pineapple centre for the region. However this was not the reason for our visit. Skoun is also famous for its peculiar cooked foods such as big black spiders, cockroaches, crickets, caterpillars and a range of other ‘appetising’ delicacies, which are collected from around the nearby cashew nut trees!

We each sampled a cooked locust and although it was a bit crunchy the taste wasn’t too distressing although the thought of what we were eating was more of a concern. Needless to say, no one tried a grilled tarantula.

We arrived at Phnom Penh at 13:00 and made our way through high density traffic to our hotel called the White Mansion.

This impressive building was formerly the USA Embassy but was converted to a hotel some ten years ago. It has been refurbished very tastefully and we have a comfortable top (fourth) floor room with attic ceilings.

In the mid to late afternoon we ventured out and walked towards the east where eventually we came to the Tonle Sap River just a little upstream from its confluence with the Mekong. Along the quayside there were stalls, cafes, department stores and copious numbers of bars and restaurants.

After a fairly long hike we arrived at a recommended riverside restaurant and had a delicious meal of buffalo steak, fried rice and vegetables.

After dark, the waterfront area has a somewhat dubious reputation for active thieves and pick-pockets so we decided to get a tuk-tuk for transport back to our hotel. The cost for five of us squeezed into the one tuk-tuk was $5 in total for a 5 km ride.

Tomorrow in Phnom Penh city we have the opportunity of visiting some of the famous landmarks and also viewing infamous sites associated with the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot. 

DAY 25 SATURDAY DECEMBER 9th PHNOM PENH CAMBODIA

Breakfast in the hotel’s café/bakery was a little chaotic with everything (fresh bread, fruits, muesli, eggs, toast and coffee) being delivered all at the same time. It was nutritious and sufficient to mean that we didn’t need a mid-day meal.

We then visited the Royal Palace with its gilded pitched roofs framed by nagas.

The palace was built with French assistance in the mid-19th century in the classic Khmer style. Its location on the western bank of the Tonlé Sap River was the former site of a temple. It is the official residence of the reigning Cambodian monarch, King Sihamoni.

The very impressive Throne Hall was only observed from the open door but it certainly looked grand. The façade is intricately detailed and the roof is adorned with garudas as well as the mystical naga serpents. The central spire with four faces is 59 m high.

The surrounding gardens are beautifully manicured and apart from the crowds that gather the atmosphere was serene.

The Silver Pagoda was very impressive with its name derived from the 5 tonnes of silver used to tile the floor. The surrounding galleries are ornamented with interesting murals depicting scenes from the Hindu epic, Ramayana.      

King Norodom who reigned from 1860 -1904 was a firm friend of Napoleon III and the pavilion in the Royal Palace ground was originally built in Egypt for the French to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal. Napoleon III then had it demolished and transferred to Phnom Penh and reconstructed. At present it is undergoing further restoration but we could take a peek through the surrounding barriers.

The next part of the day entailed a necessary but depressing reminder of the atrocities perpetrated during the Khmer Rouge time under the leadership of the tyrant Pol Pot. We visited the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek some eight kilometres south of Phnom Penh.

This deceptively peaceful orchard setting was the scene of one of the most disturbing acts of human violence in modern history.

Some 17 000 humans perished here between 1975 and 1979 and were buried in 129 mass graves of which 49 have been left in tact. Fragments of human bone and clothes are visible and the whole experience is utterly devastating emotionally.

In 1988 a fittingly dignified tower building was erected to commemorate the 9000 people whose bodies were uncovered here. Inside the pavilion there were 8000 human skulls arranged by age and gender behind glass panels. All the time visitors are subjected to haunting and mournful music that leaves all dumbfounded and in shock.

The information about the treatment of the victims, including the tiny children is

graphically displayed around the Killing Field and is totally horrifying!

To make the impact even worse if that’s possible, we were later informed that this was just one of an estimated 430 similar killing field sites of atrocities in Cambodia.

To add to the day of horrors we then went to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in central Phnom Penh.

This museum was originally a school but under Pol Pot it became a prison called S 21 and a holding point for trucking humans out the Killing Field at Choeung Ek. Within the prison there thousands of photographs of victims and paintings of people being tortured plus scenes of unspeakable abuse.

We met briefly with an elderly man who was one of only seven people to have been detained in this prison and survived the holocaust mainly because he was needed for his skills as a painter. He, Bou Meng, was liberated by the Vietnamese in 1979.

Later in the day we visited the National Museum of Cambodia which is housed in four majestic terra-cotta pavilions around a central courtyard. The exhibits uncovered by archaeologists in Cambodia ranged from pre-historic to 12th century Buddhist sculptures, plus ancient pottery and bronze statues from over two thousand years ago.

Our final site was at Wat Phnom, a modest Buddhist temple at the highest point in the city which is a mere 27 m above the river level. The main reason for visiting is to see the shrine dedicated to Duan Penh as she is regarded as the founder of this city.

The evening concluded with a dinner at a nearby French restaurant to celebrate Chris and Diana’s 40th  (ruby) wedding anniversary. This was to be special night with a sumptuous meal and wines to match.

DAY 26 SUNDAY DECEMBER 10th PHNOM PENH – TATAI RIVER CAMBODIA

An extraordinary feature of the Tonlé Sap River is that is changes direction of flow depending on the seasonal weather. This is remarkable in so much that the Tonlé Sap is a huge river being about 500 m wide at Phnom Penh. In the dry season (Dec – Apr) the water flows from Lake Tonlé Sap down 100 km of the Tonlé Sap River to its confluence with the Mekong River at Phnom Penh. During the wet season (May – Oct) the level of the Mekong River rises so much that the water builds up in the Tonlé Sap and then starts flowing back ‘upstream’ to refill the lake!

After breakfast we commenced a six hour road trip to the Tatai River heading south-west out of Phnom Penh on highway #4. Along the highway it was distressing to see the incredible piles of rubbish just dumped everywhere. Plastic bags together with polystyrene foam cups and bowls seemed to be the main litter items. Garbage bins are practically non existent!

Motorbike transporting bar fridge, Phnom Penh

On highway #4 the traffic coming in towards the capital city was phenomenal with many of the vehicles being large container trucks bringing in freight from the sea-port near Sihanoukville. The attempts by on-coming cars to overtake meant that our driver was forced to take evasive action on a good number of occasions.

At Kaaong we diverted to highway #48 although the term ‘highway’ was not really appropriate.

The countryside now became much more rural with rice, bananas, rubber, pomelo, cashews, durian and melons being the main produce. Where there were flat bitumen surfaces rather than dusty potholed sections, many of the farmers had their rice drying on the side of the road and sometimes even encroaching into the lanes where cars were travelling.

The rural setting also meant that a new problem on the road was that of wandering cattle that seemed unperturbed by vehicles weaving in amongst them.

We stopped for a coffee and comfort break at a small roadside town near Chikha on highway #48. At the coffee shop we were astounded to find amongst other things, pasties, so-called ‘Aussie’ meat pies, Schweppes tonic and three rubbish bins, one even catering for recyclables!

The shop also had some wines and spirits for sale and Gordon’s Gin was US$15 per litre and some single malt Scotch whiskies were around US$25.

The road then became steeper as we entered the Koh Kong province which is on the south-western edge of the Cardamom Mountains region.

After a winding, undulating last half-hour of travel we arrived in the small village of Ta Tai Kraom at the Tatai River crossing where a long boat from the Four Rivers Lodge was awaiting us.

With all our possessions loaded aboard, we then motored southwards downstream for about thirty minutes to reach the Four Rivers Floating Lodge.

Boat to Four Rivers Floating Lodge, Cardamom Mountains

Local boats en route to Four Rivers Floating Lodge, Cardamom Mountains

This eco lodge is committed to sustainable tourism and protecting the natural beauty and wildlife that surrounds it.

Our accommodation is in one of twelve spacious floating units right on the Tatai River’s edge. The units are constructed with heavy-duty canvas walls and roof, insect proof mesh windows and timbered floors. Our bedroom and bathroom are well appointed and we have a riverside deck with a ladder as a swimming entry and exit point.

Our room, Four Rivers Floating Lodge

Our bathroom, Four Rivers Floating Lodge

We enjoyed a relaxing afternoon in the sun on our deck and then had pre-dinner drinks. Dinner in the Lodge’s restaurant was excellent and by 20:00 we were all feeling pretty tired after a day of mostly travel.

Sunset drinks, Four Rivers Floating Lodge

Tomorrow we have a day to explore this wilderness region or to just do nothing as at present we have no formal commitments or planned activities.

DAY 27 MONDAY DECEMBER 11th FOUR RIVERS LODGE, TATAI RIVER CAMBODIA

The humidity in this region was aptly illustrated by the heavy dew that formed overnight even without any significant drop in temperature. We awoke to find our washing put outside last night to dry, now drenched rather than dry.

As small commuter boats and fishing craft go up and down the river, our unit sways gently back and forth in the wash the boats create and it’s a very relaxing feeling.

We had breakfast at 07:30 and decided that before the heat of the day struck, we’d go for a paddle around the island that is directly opposite the lodge. We had a two-person kayak and took a leisurely pace doing the 3.5 km circumnavigation in just over half an hour. At the northern end of the island we passed another floating resort with about ten bamboo units but it appeared to be vacant.   

The island is called Koh Andet and has ten houses and forty residents a number of whom work in the resort. Most of the elderly in the village are refugees from the Pol Pot regime.

The island also houses the water processing and filtration plant for the resort. Sewerage is treated through a septic system with an emphasis on low environmental impact. We were very impressed with the Lodge’s efforts to minimise waste and their use of biodegradable bags made from cassava starch rather than plastics. This has been achieved through a partnership with “Cleanbodia” a facility providing innovative solutions to achieve waste minimising.

Other features of the resort pertaining to sustainability are the use of non-rotting floors made from a composite of wood and recycled plastic; and a move to achieve a 75% reliance on solar power for electricity.

For the first time in nearly four weeks we spent the afternoon just sitting in the sun, relaxing, reading and sleeping. When it became oppressively hot in the middle of the day, we retired to our “tent” and enjoyed the shade and cooling effect of the electric fans inside.

Orchid, Four Rivers Floating Lodge

Tomorrow we are intending to do a boat and kayaking trip into a mangrove area to observe the wildlife and possibly to visit a local village. Although it’s exceedingly unlikely that we’ll see such things, the region we’re in has been known for sightings of tigers, a rare ‘fishing’ cat and another feline somewhat like a small leopard. 

DAY 28 TUESDAY DECEMBER 12th FOUR RIVERS LODGE, TATAI RIVER CAMBODIA

The day will be our last full day in Cambodia as tomorrow we all commence our homeward travel to Australia.

Five of our group elected to spend much of the day on a boating trip down the Tatai River to visit a small village and then to do a kayaking excursion deep into the mangrove areas.

The Tatai River in front our resort is brackish at this time of the year and as the dry season continues, the ocean water encroaches further and further upstream. During the wet season the river flows strongly and it takes fresh water much closer to ocean at the Gulf of Thailand.

Our long boat, a 15 m wooden vessel driven by two whipper-snipper type outboards was extremely loud and the thought of us photographing bird-life on our downward river travel was soon abandoned, as the noise of the engines would scare off any sensible bird for miles.

We travelled down the river for over an hour and during that time saw very little sign of human activity apart from a few riverside shanties usually built on stilts on the river’s edge or even in the water.

At one point we passed a dilapidated and rusty old conveyer belt that had been used in the past for loading timber onto ships that were able to venture that far upstream. The river here would have been about 1 km wide. This logging of the native forest has now been stopped and a vast area of south-western Cambodia has been proclaimed as a national park.

Another sign of past pillage was the remains of a big sand-mine on the riverbank. Chinese operators were mining, loading and transporting large amounts of white river sand to Singapore to be used in reclamation of inter-tidal flatlands around Singapore Island. No doubt Cambodia received little financial benefit from this sand removal and thankfully, that mining venture has been terminated too.

We arrived at the village of Koh Kong Knong and tied up to the local jetty. We were soon met by a gaggle of the local geese acting as very effective security guards.

We visited the primary school just before classes were to be dismissed for lunch. We heard grade I recite their 2x table and we then sang ‘Waltzing Matilda” to them for generous applause! We were pleased to see that the children who go home for lunch in boats wear life-jackets.

The school lacks basic facilities but now at least has one reasonable roofed classroom although the school desperately needs more.

3 times table

Grade 1 students

Students wearing life jackets ready to go home for lunch

We then walked to the Buddhist Temple which although very meagre was decorated with dozens of fancy murals depicting scenes from Buddha’s life including some strange scenes with Buddha looking very feminine.

The village itself can best be described as sad and uninspiring. The houses were dismal and dark and the ground around the homes was littered with plastics. 

There was a small store with dusty goods on display and a mechanics’ workshop where a motor was being serviced. Charcoal is produced by people in the village using a deep pit where wood is allowed to smoulder under a covering of sand. Some cashew nut trees seemed to be the only other visible form of income although one assumes that fishing provides much towards the villagers’ staple diet.

We then commenced the homeward journey but stopped at a small junction in the river for lunch. After our snack, we kayaked two kilometres or so up the narrow channel between the mangroves and palms. At the end we came to a small clearing where three families lived but we didn’t go ashore.

Once back on the boat we headed for home, arriving back at just after 15:00.

Sadly no tigers and very few birds were sighted during our travels but we did see a large water snake.

Just after dark we were taken by boat up the Tatai River just a few hundred metres to a place where a single tree high above the river bank was sparkling like a Christmas tree. The flashing lights were due to hundreds of fireflies and this nightly performance by male fireflies apparently continues until around mid-night. It was certainly an interesting and impressive sight.

Our final dinner together (until next time) was celebrated with cocktails and a bottle of French wine.

Tomorrow morning we head back to Phnom Pehn to catch our international flights for the long journey home. 

DAYS 29 & 30 WEDNESDAY/THURSDAY DECEMBER 13th & 14th CAMBODIA – MALAYSIA - AUSTRALIA

We left the Four Rivers Lodge just after 08:00 and headed by boat for 30 minutes back up the Tatai River to meet with our driver and van. Our friendly driver had been staying with a friend in the local village and was at the little jetty waiting for us with a warm welcoming smile.

As we now had access to the internet we finalised our Lodge account and headed off for Phnom Penh.

The drive was quite scary and the road hazards were numerous but principally involved vehicles overtaking at inappropriate spots with the problem exacerbated by many large slow trucks on the highway. There was one situation when four cars, two in each direction met at a corner and the only action possible was for the two outermost cars to take to the gravel verges to avoid collision! Motor-bikes were often ignored by cars and usually forced off the road during overtaking manoeuvres.

After about five hours we were entering the southern section of Phnom Penh and the traffic density became unbelievably high. At one point we sat in a traffic jam without moving for just on twenty minutes and moved one kilometre in one hour.

We eventually arrived at the Phnom Penh International Airport and checked in with minimal issues and relatively short queues.

The four South Australians were heading home to Adelaide via Singapore and our return flight was firstly to Kuala Lumpur and then through to Sydney.

We said farewell to our Adelaide companions and it was quite an emotional occasion as after four weeks of close company and great friendship we were now splitting up; but only until our next adventure!

For our flight from KL to Sydney we were assigned premium economy seats which gave us much more legroom and seats that tilted back further than normal particularly as there were no passengers seated behind us.

Transfer from international to domestic in Sydney was a laboured process involving train travel but eventually we were on our way to Hobart and by 17:00 we were home. We’d been travelling for 30 hours and were very glad to finally reach home and a good night’s sleep was high on the priority listing.

These past four weeks for us have been an educational trip as much as anything else as it exposed us to cultures far removed from our western mores and attitudes. The three thousand years of history on display in S.E. Asia is fascinating and reveals a time when architectural grandeur was the expectation of kings and the people (many as slaves) were the providers of these grand edifices.

We’ve spent much of our time mingling and talking with people for whom Buddhist religion provides their raison d’être. Buddhism with all its golden trimmings is partially constraining progress and yet its monuments are now the key attractions bringing tourists in to South East Asia.

Our feeling is that until compulsory education becomes available to all students, these countries will struggle to improve their standard of living. We were pleased to know that both our travel agents, ‘Good News Travels’ and ‘About Asia’ make significant financial contributions from our fees toward the development and education of their local communities in Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.

As a final note it is interesting to hear on return to Australia that Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) have recently updated their report on the atrocities committed by the Military in Myanmar on the Rohingya Muslims. Their estimates show that 6 700 Rohingya Muslims were killed in just one month and that now 800 000 are refugees having been forced to flee to Bangladesh. While we were in Myanmar we kept asking about this humanitarian issue only to be fobbed off with statements that it’s “false news” or the problems have been exaggerated or even that the Muslims were the perpetrators of the violence.

It was clear to us that any bad news emanating from Myanmar was to have disastrous effects on the tourism industry and that was to be avoided at all costs!