More waterfalls and some great food
Trip Start
Aug 15, 2006
1
131
155
Trip End
May 27, 2008
Ban Lung,
Cambodia
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Crater Lake
! We headed back to the bar and I bought a copy of 'The Life of Pi' to read and we bought a ticket for our bus to Bang Lung and waited in the bus depot (which was simply an office containing the owner's family watching TV and his children doing their homework which looked to be learning English). It was over an hour late and was another Hour Lin bus (the company we'd used to get to Sen Monorom) which kept stopping every 10 minutes due to the engine coughing out lots of fumes and chucking dust onto us through the clogged up air vents.
We arrived very late in Bang Lung, but in one piece, and of course were instantly hounded by hotel workers trying to sell us a room. We fobbed them off as usual, checked a few places out which didn't seem too good (one place refused to let us even see the room!) but eventually found a great deal in the Ratanak hotel (a big room with bathroom and hot water, comfy beds and cable TV for $5 total - that to us was a luxuary room). We ate dinner in the hotel restaurant which was OK but tiny portions, even for me and of course we were constantly hassled by the owners who wanted to know what we planned to do during our stay as they could help arrange any trip for us blah blah blah.......
Wednesday morning I headed out to explore the town (which was so dusty all the buildings were oranage) and found the local market where I bought lots of interesting snacks to take back to the room for breakfast
Local picnic
. We then walked out to Crater lake which was about 5km away but was nothing special - the way it was described in the LP made it sound spectacularly stunning 'situated amid pristine jungle' 'one of the most peaceful, beautiful places that Cambodia has to offer' 'visibility up to 5m'........you get the picture. Well, it was nice to swim and it was fun to watch the local kids jumping in and playing with inner tubes while their families had picnics but it was overall a local bathing area as in where people got in with their soap and shampoo and had their bath and the water didn't seem to be all that clear to me. I had a bit of a swim (in my sarong this time!), jumped off the platform and lazed about in the sun and decided to head off back to town. I do remember there being a path that ran around the outside of the lake so maybe if we'd explored that it would have been more interesting. That evening we went to a small restaurant for a BBQ meal and then found somewhere to play pool. The owner's 2 small children suddenly found us very interesting and although they were very cute, I wasn't impressed when they kept taking balls back out of the pockets; especially when I was winning since that was a rarity playing against my tutor Ollie. Back at the hotel we started to watch the film 'The Game' with Michael Douglas on TV but soon fell asleep (all that walking in the scorching sun)
Young local relaxing
. This morning it was Ollie's turn to head to the market and pick up breakfast snacks so I layed in my bed and watched 'The Game' again which was being repeated on TV. We found some bikes to hire and cycled out to Katieng waterfall which was supposed to be free according to the book but wasn't and was supposed to have jungle vines hanging over to practice your Tarzan swings but they were'nt that great, the water was dirty and some locals kept taking pictures of me (even in a sarong this time) so it wasn't great. We came across 2 other backpackers who said that the big falls weren't worth a visit (well I guess it is dry season after all) so we decided to go and check out some smaller falls which were quite pretty but again dirty and not very deep. On the way back towards town we passed lots of villages where friendly locals would shout and wave to us but I was more focused on finding the key to my bike lock - I'd left it in the lock and it had obviously dropped out somewhere on the road but I didn't want to pay a fine for losing it. After cycling up a hill I turned around and noticed that Ollie wasn't there. Assuming he'd stopped to have a drink I waited....and waited...... After a while some young monks started chatting to me on their way to the monastry and they ask me why I'm alone and I explain that my friend is somewhere behind me. Eventually I bike back down the hill and find him pretending to be David Beckham playing footy with the local kids and had attracted a small crowd of locals!
Back in town I realised that Ollie's bike lock key fitted mine so I realised it would be no loss to them if I didn't mention I'd lost the key so we dropped off our bikes and went to grab dinner at the pool table restaurant we'd been to the night before
Cambodia's 'beach' huts?
. We had a great meal of Lok lak and fish and later got some chips and a great iced Ovaltine drink at another restaurant. We went to book our bus ticket for the morning to get to Stung Treng, the last town before the border crossing into Laos. The ticket agent wanted us to buy a ticket all the way through into Laos but we'd read bad stories about a guy in Stung Treng who supposedly helps you across the border but you end up having to pay again for each section of the journey so we decided to stick woth our plan and play it safe. The ticket agent lets us use the internet for free and we headed back to the room and watched the movie 'Four Brothers' on TV. Tomorrow we are out of here and headed for Laos - I must admit that despite the local attractions being a bit dull, the locals in the market and some of the restaurants were quite friendly and we've had some great food in this town.
