We were reunited with our family in Bangkok and Cambodia for three weeks. A very special and valuable period. Asia is not the region where we will go on vacation together soon (it is not so Toine's thing 😎), but to do this together with our daughters and Jonas is very special. After very busy work weeks for both of us, we totally relax. Extraordinary how you can be in a completely different world so quickly.
We fly to Bangkok to first spend 4 days alone with Marinthe. How wonderful to see each other again ☺️🥰. It is really different to catch up face to face than just through WhatsApp. Marinthe takes us along in the life she had for 5 months in Bangkok. She takes us to beautiful rooftop bars, delicious restaurants, the weekend market, the big shopping mall and a cooking class. We see her room at Nonsi's residence and eat at Mama's (where she herself has eaten very often). She lets us experience how easy transportation in Bangkok is via "Bolt" (a kind of Uber) in a tuktuk, on the back of a scooter or in a car. Very special to be able to explore the city through her eyes. But above all, have we had very good and open conversations together. It has been a hectic and special period for her in which she has gone through a lot and has developed considerably. Very valuable and sometimes emotional to get a good insight into this together with her in Bangkok. 😊😊. Thank you Marinthe for this beautiful experience 😘.
Bangkok is much more modern and clean than we expected. I myself was there in July 1988/1989; in my memory then it was very hot, crowded and messy. Now more than 30 years later it is quite developed and in December a lovely temperature. We got a nice hotel close to Nonsi's residence with a delicious breakfast buffet.
When we go to the hospital with Marinthe the last evening, because the wounds on her legs from a fall with the scooter turn out to be inflamed, we are very surprised by the quick and professional help. Marinthe receives antibiotics and walks around with bandages around her ankles for the following days. Fortunately, it heals well.
After 4 days, it is time to travel on to Cambodia. There we meet Eline and Jonas and make an organized trip with the five of us. We are very curious what that will bring because Cambodia is less developed than Thailand.
Cambodia is a special country, with very friendly and reasonably accessible people, relatively few tourists, beautiful nature, much poverty but also quite a bit of development. Rich in history from the old Khmer empire of a century ago. But also rich in history from the much more recent very brutal Khmer Rouge period between 1975-1979. We feel very welcome as tourists and have the idea that we are in a positive way contribute to the country's economy and that our money goes directly to the people themselves. The temperature is lovely, not too hot, a bit like Florida in winter, no rain and regularly a cloud in front of the sun 😊. Very different from the also relatively 'warm' but very wet weather in the Netherlands. Nice for us, because that hardly ever turns on the heating on the boat 😅.
We spend 18 days in 5 different locations in beautiful and relaxing small-scale 'resorts' with enormously friendly and helpful people, and get around by 'private minivan'. The days themselves are nicely balanced, days with organized tours (mostly in a tuktuk) interspersed with 'rest days' by the hotel pool.
We like this way of traveling very much. For Eline and Jonas a welcome change from the 'backpack' life and for Marinthe a good period to switch over from her busy and hectic Bangkok exchange. For all of us a very valuable time to spend close to each other 🥰.
We fly from Bangkok on Bangkok Airways to Siem Reap. It is still a bit challenging to catch the plane because of all the logistics of Marinthe delivering her room, us going to the airport earlier to bring suitcase and big bag of Marinthe to the "storage", long wait at customs and security and long walk to the pier. We have only 10 min to spare. The flight itself is an hour and goes very smoothly.
We will stay the first 5 nights at the fantastic small-scale Navutu resort in Siem Reap. There we see Eline and Jonas; how nice to see and hug them again as well, another beautiful and emotional moment 😊.
An ideal place to celebrate Christmas together, relax and catch up a lot. And in addition, with three beautiful tours to get to know more of the country with good English speaking guides.
The first tour takes us by tuktuk to the vast Angkor Wat temple complex. This is the largest religious monument in the world with many different temples on 126 acres in beautiful nature. We visit three of them. First Angkor Wat, a large temple with many floors, towers and special murals. Then Ta Prohm in a Jungle Book-like setting with large trees overgrowing the temple. Finally to Angkor Thom, with many towers, floors, yet other murals and monkeys running around.
The second tour is to a local market, with laughing and waving Cambodians and a 'delicious 😎' smell of fish. Then a ride on an 'ox chart' and then a boat trip across the great Tonle Sap Lake past floating villages with a school. Hugely impressive to see how people live here with a water level difference of meters between the end of the wet and the end of the dry season. Caused by the Mekong River causing floods during the wet season and these people can just move their floating house.
The third tour takes us to an elephant sanctuary. This time without Marinthe, as she needs to rest her wounds. The sanctuary is an hour's drive in the middle of the forest. There live 11 elephants (2 males and 9 females) who used to take rides with tourists at Angkor Wat. Fortunately, the government has now banned that partly triggered by tourists who no longer wanted it. We make elephant snack balls from rice with bananas, tamarind and "breadcrumbs. We get to feed the elephants (first the sugar cane and bananas and then the snack balls), and walk with them in their natural habitat. Much better than sitting on top of them 😌.
The Navutu resort really makes a point of having Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve (5 courses with unlimited wine) and lunch on Christmas Day (3 courses with unlimited wine and a visit from Santa Claus for the little kids). Beautiful moments when we also give our 21 year gift to Marinthe (necklace with matching earrings). We ladies also enjoy a wonderful massage treatment in the afternoon.
On Boxing Day we are taken by minivan to Battambang in 3 hours. To the beautiful small-scale Maison Wat Kohr in a wooded area with a pond with large lilies. Again very friendly owners and staff. We get the tip to go to the circus of the circus school that first evening. This is a school with 1000 "in board" students set up by a French couple for underprivileged youth. They can get training there in various kinds of 'arts'. The performance is a show by a group of boys with dance, acrobatics and stomping and moving with sticks. Very impressive because it firmly depicts the brutal "Khmer Rouge" period. Our first encounter with it 😖😥.
More about the brutal Khmer period follows during the next day with guide Tin who experienced this period himself. Throughout the day he talks about it in broken but easily understood English. In the morning we first get a good insight into the life of the Cambodians in this region where a lot of rice grows. We take a ride on a "bamboo train" which is still used to transport rice. Then we visit places by tuktuk where we see how they make rice noodles, a factory where the rice is packed, where rice sheets are made (and taste delicious as 'spring rolls'), where banana snacks are made and rice wine is made. All of this we can view quietly without being asked to do anything. Tin also points out to us four-story buildings everywhere where swallows make nests. Those nests are all sold to China (which is the caviar of the east there 😌). As for China ... they have a big influence on Cambodia right now. Almost all investment in good roads, buildings, irrigation and sewage has come from Chinese.
In the afternoon we continue to the Phnum Sampov Killing cave. Tin was 10-14 during the Khmer period and lost much of his family in the hospital we overlook from the cave. Many dead were found in the cave itself. This brutal regime with an unimaginably bizarre ideology resulted in 2 million deaths (20-25% of the total population) under the leadership of Pol Pot. All city people and especially educated people were forced to live in rural poverty. Many died from bare conditions or from captivity. Unimaginable that this could only have happened very recently.
Finally, we visit with Tin 'Bat cave' of Phnom Sampov. Just before sunset, millions of bats fly out of here in a long swing, as long as an hour. An extraordinary natural phenomenon.
At Maison Wat Kohr we have two special dinners with many open conversations in a beautiful setting in privacy next to the pond. Triggered by Marinthe with asking questions like "what are you proud of," to which everyone took turns answering. At times emotional but incredibly valuable 😊☺️.
Time to proceed to the capital Phnom Penh. A 3-hour drive on a very good road; fixed by Chinese. The first day we have a tour with tuktuks through the city to the palace, a temple, the genocide museum and the killing fields. In the palace (with lots of gold) we have to wear mouth caps and Eline has to buy a t-shirt because just a cloth around her shoulders is not enough. But don't say anything wrong about the king here. The temple is especially interesting because there are huge numbers of locals and almost no tourists. But most impressive is the Tuol Sleng Genocide museum where the horrific S-21 prison used to be, and the "Killing Fields" where all but 8 prisoners were killed. Awesome to see the pictures of people tortured to death here. How were people able to do this? Our guide talks a lot about how the Khmer Rouge regime was able to emerge, how often illiterate brainwashed people through belief in an ideology(?), fear and anger were able to do this, and how the regime was stopped. A history lesson in the time of the Cold War and the growth of communism. I do find some parallels with the book I am reading now (Eighth Life by Nino Haratischwilli). And when will this history repeat itself in the increasingly polarizing Western world? Hopefully never 😥.
In Phnom Pehn we also celebrate Toine's birthday and New Year's Eve. The day itself we spend relaxed by the pool. Toine is even treated to a chocolate cake with singing by the hotel 😎. Celebrating New Year's Eve at the Eclipse Rooftop Bar. A special experience, with great views (22nd floor) and delicious food. Amidst the somewhat richer Cambodians, sponsored by Carlsberg beer and as far as music goes, a combination of hard Techno beat and sad songs sung live by a Cambodian singer. With no oliebollen, apple fritters and no Champagne. But with beer, dancing to Techno music and good views of reasonable fireworks. A New Year's Eve we won't soon forget 🍺🎇.
New Year's Day is another rest day by the pool with a street food tour in the evening. We walk around the market with the guide from the day before yesterday and try out various foods. All fine until he comes up with a duck egg that has an incipient duckling with a black color. Jonas and Eline (heroes 👍) try a bite. Toine, Marinthe and I should not think about it. The girls and Jonas stay a little longer at the "nightmarket. We go home and watch Claudia de Breij's New Year's Eve show.
We move on to the somewhat 'off the beaten track' Koh Andet Resort on/on a river close to the sea and Koh Kong. It is a 7 hour drive on bad roads with lots of potholes ('massage tour') and we are very curious what we will find there as the reviews were not all positive. Well, we didn't have to worry about that. They are beautiful floating bamboo houses with nice staff and really delicious food. Also, the "Mangrove Tour" the next day is fantastic. We go out all day in a wooden boat with kayaks and bikes and plenty of food and drinks on board. We first sail for 1.5 hours towards the sea to a village where we take a short walk. Again we can walk around and see many smiling people without being bothered. Then we continue by boat to a place where we can swim and kayak in the mangroves. After lunch on the boat, we continue to the next village where we take a 7 km bike ride. Bizarre to be able to just bike in such a tropical landscape and through a busy little village. On the way back we quench our thirst by the juice of a fresh coconut and a watermelon. A lovely outing in the middle of nature, with quite a bit of sun and red burnt bodies.
Our last spot is The One resort on the islet of Koh Rong Sanloem on the south coast of Cambodia. There we relaxed for two days by the pool and on the beach with the sound of the sea in the background. The resort itself is the least of the five, but the surroundings are beautiful. We have another memorable dinner here, on the beach with fish from the BBQ and good conversation.
All good things come to an end ☺️. All five of us look back on a beautiful, fine and special time together. With several unique dinners where we had beautiful, special and sometimes emotional conversations by asking questions. For us, this 'vacation' is a nice taste of what it can be like later when we are traveling by boat and only see each other once or twice a year in 'quality time' 😊.
Eline and Jonas will stay two more days on the island and then continue to South Vietnam and probably stay to travel around Asia until the end of June. Marinthe will return with us to Bangkok and stay there for two more weeks with friends. And so the two of us are on our way back home to SeaQuest 😊😊.