We left Phnom Penh early Tuesday morning...on a regular old bus! It took about an hour to get out of the city, but boy...DID WE LEAVE THE CITY!!! Kongpong Cham is about 2.5 hours northeast of Phnom Penh...but a world away. We had front row seats on the bus...I did a double take on the odometer...
...almost 1 million km's...course, everything (almost) is old in this country. Once we got to KC, we hired a tuk tuk for a tour...and what a tour! It started off plain enough...
...but then it got dusty, and Cassandra converted to Muslim...
...and that was only in the first 45 minutes...dust is a way of life here. We crossed the Mekong River a few times...it's the dry season right now, so fishing isn't that good...
...these were part of a floating village that get's huge in the rainy season. Then we went to the oldest wooden temple in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge killed a bunch of people here, and painted a bunch of the temple white, but the monks have brought it back to some of its original splendor...
...each one of the support posts is an intricately decorated tree trunk, and look at the ceiling!!! Here is one of the monks...
...this is a big monk training camp...here are two of the monkids flirting with Cassandra...
...there was a nice shrine out over a pond...although it doesn't look very liquid...
...after the monastery, we took a ferry across the Mekong...which is like the Mississippi...
...which takes horse drawn wagons too...
...next to the ferry were these boats...
...the sun was great on Cassandra...
...and on the river...
...this put us on an island...with great fields of tobacco and corn...
...we went through this little village at sundown...
...but the most amazing thing was yet to come...a bamboo bridge! Every year the rains wash this bridge out, and every year they rebuild it out of bamboo...THEY DRIVE CARS OVER THIS THING!!!
Our hotel didn't have internet, so I couldn't do a post...but this was the sunrise over the Mekong from our balcony...
...the tower in the lower right is an old French watchtower left over from the wars....and this was from our breakfast table...
...not a bad life!!! So this morning it was off to see the oldest ruins in Cambodia...even older than Angkor Wat...
...and a beautiful lady cleaning up...
...that was after the dentist...this was before....
...off to another, less inspiring temple...with monkeys!
...the Khmer Rouge killed a bunch of people here too...
...these are all new temples...
...and finally, the Temple of 10,000 steps...sorry...Mr. Corona died!
...there was no bar at the top!!!
Have to admit Dougie, I really enjoy the pics from these trips you go on. Have you ever considered making this a permanent lifestyle and not coming back to Canada? I vote yes! ;)
ReplyDeleteI WILL return....just to make your life as miserable as possible!!! lol
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