Cua Can & Dai beach

Just a quick update from Phu Quoc. For the past few days we have been mainly just chilling and enjoying each others company. Yesterday we visited the local market and had an amazing tapas dinner at a restaurant called Mondo.

We also changed our room to a big cozy bungalow and the roomrate was 20$ for a fan room. There is an AC in our room ceiling though which the staff shut down as we didn't want to pay for it (it would have been 10$ more). This didn't matter much because of Henkka's mechanical skills. He managed to get the AC work without the remote.. In this heat me likey ;)

Today we headed to the northern part of the island and stopped in a beach called Cua Can. The beach was beautiful and non touristic. Locals in Asia are so friendly, once again we were invited to join a group of friends to enjoy beers and snacks with them. The language barrier is huge but after a few Tigers it seemed to get better, fair enough :D

For the sunset and dinner we then drove to Dai beach which is located even further in the north. It took us almost the whole day to drive from south to north and back. It's safe to say that Phu Quoc is a pretty huge Island and there is still lots for us to explore. The whole Island is actually going through a major make over as more and more resorts are being built. It will be interesting to see what the Island will look like in the next few years!

Phu Quoc

Hello Vietnam! So few days ago we arrived from Kampot to Phu Quoc by minibus and ferry to meet our dear friend Jagi. The tickets cost 18$/per person and it took about 4 hours to get here. The travels went smoothly and there was no husstle at the Ha Tien border, superb :)

Yesterday we rented some scooters and went exploring the island. We drove to a secluded beach to have some sea food and drinks. Me and Jagi tried a local fish called black king fish and it was amazing! Later we went to the night market and ended up buying some beautiful pearls and dined in a good street restaurant, yum.

This morning Ellu and Salli arrived here also. It was great seeing them. We had breakfast by the beach and caught up with all the gossip ;) We got slightly burnt from the sun yesterday so we have planned some major chillaxing for the day.We will most likely explore the north of the island today while Ellu and Salli are sleeping off their jetlag. Feels too good to be back living the island (dream) life!

Mondolkiri

Yea. Had enough of the hectic cities like phnom pehn and took a local bus heading towards the mountaineous mondolkiri. Picking out a appropiate bungalow wasn't an issue, since Mot, one of the owners of Happy Elephant Bungalows & Phat Geeko bar greeted us at the station. First of all, he is a super crazy guy and told us many stories about himself, always jokin' around. Also his girlfriend Vivi, who moved permanently to mondulkiri from france, was one of the most pleasant persons we've met on our travels. I really recommend anyone who goes to mondulkiri to stay at their bungalows!

After a relaxing night at the bungalows, we booked a guided trek for two days in the jungle. It was pysically really hard to hike in the heat and the humid jungle. But the views we're facinating and totally made up for it! After 5-6 hours trekking we spent our night at a local village, drinking a lot of ricevine and finally arter the party slept in some army hammocks.

The next day we continued our hike, saw more beautiful waterfalls and endless amount of jungle. The trip ended next to a river were we  washed elephants (Sonja did, i had enough of getting wet).Then we rode the elephants for a few hours to the next village which was also the end point of the hike. Amazing experience.

After the hike, my feet were full of blisters and cuts. All of us were physically tired, but happy. We charged our batteries and the next few days just partied hard and celebrated Ben's birthday with a huge BBQ and drinks.

Since our french companions needed the visa to get to Vietnam, we had to get back to the capital. Finns apparently can stay in Vietnam without a visa, if the stay is under 15days. Sweet. So we save a lot of money, shame that france isn't included in that arrangment. They had to pay around 73$/each, ouch.

Before leaving Cambodia to Nam, we'll meet a few friends in Campot and stay there for a couple of days just to relax! Yayj!

Killing fields & Tuol Sleng

We stayed in Phnom Pehn for only two days and our solely purpose was to learn about the darker side of Cambodian history, Pol Pot and The Khmer Rouge. For those who don't know about this dark era of Cambodian history here is a caption of Wikipedia:

"The Khmer Rouge period (1975–1979) refers to the rule of Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen, Khieu Samphan and the Communist Party of Kampucheaover Cambodia, which the Khmer Rouge renamed as Democratic Kampuchea.The four-year period cost approximately 2 million lives through the combined result of political executions, disease, starvation, and forced labor. Due to the large numbers, the deaths during the rule of the Khmer Rouge are commonly known as the Cambodian Holocaust or Cambodian genocide."

In Phnom Pehn we went to visit The Killing Fields and the Tuol Sleng genocide museum. Both monuments holds heavy stories, torturing and suffering of the victims of The Khmer Rouge. It was a really sad day for us to see all the violence and the killings (some things we learned it's too sad to even write about), but at the same time it's important to learn about the history of a certain country instead of just enjoying the good parts.

Apsara

Today was one of the best days of our trip so far. It was raining in the morning when we were supposed to go to our small Angkor tour and instead of driving to Angkor in bad weather conditions our tuktuk driver (who is absolutely amazing!!!) asked us if we wanted to go see first a traditional cambodian dance performed by the children of his village. Without hesitation we said yes and he brought us to his house where around 100 children was gathered to perform the Apsara dances.

Cambodia is a poor country and a lot of children has to work in upleasant conditions. It was amazing to see this community with so much joy and love towards each other and in life in general. There are actually some french people trying to make life better for this particular village encouraging the children to dance, educate themselves and just providing them everyday necessities.

After the children finished their perfomance they asked us to dance with them and showed us some traditional dance moves ;) Seeing children like these made us realize that money really isn't the key to happiness..

In the afternoon we quickly went to see a few more temples in Angkor including the one featured in Tomb Raider :D We are going to miss the sunrise tommorrow morning though because the weather is not clear enough, booo! Tommorrow at 8am our travels continue and we are going to Phnom Pehn. Sad to leave Siem Reap but it's time for new adventures!

Angkor waaat

We started our Angkor tour yesterday by watching the sunset in Angkor Wat. We took a three day pass that cost 40$ and rented a tuktuk driver for three days for another 40$. It's quite expensive, but totally worth it since it's something you've never seen before. The architecture, the details, everything.. Truly amazing!

So today we did the big tour that took 7 hours and we saw many different temples. Tommorrow we are doing a small tour for 4 hours to see the sunset in more quiet, private spot where there are not tourists flying around everywhere. Our plan is too see the sunrise (which everyone recommends) in Saturday before our bus leaves to Phnom Penh. We are continuing our travels with our french friends which is so nice.

Going to keep the Angkor Wat post short because in this case pictures will tell you more than a thousand words. This place is just out of this world, a once in a life time experience!

Not quite Magmadan, but close

Our trip to Siem Reap was something to say the least. Yesterday before we went to bed Henkka saw some serious lightning storms above the Koh Chang mountains. We didn't think much of it but in the morning it was raining heavily. Our pickup came on time at 7am and the rain got stronger. Luckily our driver was struck by the spirit of formal F1-legend Ayrton Senna and he went with fast pace through the slopey wet mountainroads. Needless to say it was a pretty scary drive. The rain started to get even heavier as at some point we even stalled at a dangerous uphill, forcing our thai Senna to try the climb numerous times. Fortunately he handled himself well and got us safely through the mountains.

The rest of the ride was smooth sailing (including ferry) right until the border as we had predicted. Just like in a textbook we parked at a restaurant where a seemingly polite man greeted us with warm welcomes. As soon as we sat down the staff handed us visa applications to fill. We got under the radar, since we had our e visas (thank god) but our companions weren't as lucky. The polite man showed his true colours as he started to argue with our companions about the common scam going on. At that point we were rushed to another vehicle and our companions were denied this privlidge as they had to stay in the restaurant fighting to avoid paying more for the visa.

We were relieved that we had decided to make our own arrangements regarding the visas. Ofcourse the force is strong with these jokers and just before the border another "gentleman" tried to hustle us with the money exchange scam, but we calmly told him we got everything covered.

The actual border control was a piece of shake and after 20min of paperwork we went flying through. Welcome to Cambodia. We were then escorted into a local shuttle bus and it took us to a international tourist bus terminal. As we are writing this, we have already been waiting for two hours for the transferbus heading to Siem Reap. 

In the terminal we met a lovely french couple who had been travelling from Koh Tao to Siem Reap from 2pm, so at that point they had been travelling for 12 hours straight. After two and a half hour wait we finally continued our journey once again in another bus. In this big bus were only us and the french couple. We never found out what happened to our original companions as they never arrived to the terminal.

The final bus ride went slowly but smoothly and we arrived in Siem Reap around 7pm. The bus didn't leave us in the centre, instead they brought us to their own small buss pitt. It was already dark and we literally had no idea where exactly we were so we had to use the services of the TukTuk drivers conviniently waiting for us in the bus pitt. For relatively high price (1.5 dollars per person) we then continued our journey to find a suitable guesthouse for the night. First the drivers took us to see a guesthouse they suggested (obviously they get some kind of comission for bringing tourists to certain guesthouses) but we weren't fond of the place and as our initial deal with the drivers was to see other guesthouses too they had no choice but to continue the ride. We finally to managed to find a decent place at a good price called Garden Village. 

The TukTuk driver turned out to be a pain in the ass as he started to make deals for taking us to see the Angkor Wat using his services. When we kindly refused saying we didn't want to make any plans yet he got pissed off and demanded more money for the Tuk Tuk drive. At this point Henkka & Ben (the french guy) got really annoyed with the driver and started to just walk away. Me and Camille on the other hand felt slightly bad for the driver and tried to make peace with him. Once he realized we weren't going to cut any deals he finally gave up but made us promise to contact him as soon as we wanted to book our Angkor Wat tour.

After having a nice cool shower in our guesthouse we headed for dinner and a few beers with our new french friends. We really enjoyed their company and made plans going to the Angkor Wat and other sights here in Siem Reap together. One of the best things in travelling is definitely meeting new friends all across the globe. 

Oh, and one more thing. On our way back to the guesthouse we were greeted with the milk scam. I had just read about the scam before hand so I knew what was about to happen. A dirty and poor looking woman approaches us with a baby on her arms asking for milk for the baby, not money. Apparently if you agree to buy the milk you are escorted to a specific shop where they sell overpriced milk. After making the purchase and sending the tourist away the woman returns the milk to the shop and splits the money with the shop owner. So organized the scams in here, pretty scary...