The Kingdom of Cambodia

Introduction Cambodia is over now and we have to say we look back at it with a touch of nostalgia. When we first decided to come here it was due to the fact that the country seemed to be rich in culture as well as to visit the world famous Angkorian Temples. We never expected that traveling throughout this country would enrich us so much. We have seen amazing places and met great people. We rode terrible roads and endured long hours of Khmer music. We swam in beautiful beaches and dived in their coral reefs. We were tormented by the tuk-tuk drivers and touched by the poverty of many of the locals. Khmer people have a recent terrible history, dating just 30 years ago, which we re-lived when visiting the S-21 and the Killing Fields. In fact, Cambodia is still recovering from the brutal years of the Khmer Rouge rule. Cambodia is struggling, day by day, to recover from this ordeal, but it’s no easy game. These people should be admired for what they had to go through and from being able, in one way or another, to survive it all. Here comes our story and what we experienced in this country.

Making our way into Cambodia We set off early in the morning on a boat from Don Det which took us to what would be our transport across the Laos border. Our first stop involved getting a departure stamp, for which we had to pay $1. Once we were done with that we walked for about 200m to get our Cambodian visa. We gave in our applications to the immigration police who eyed our passport suspiciously as they had never seen a Maltese passport. They even checked the list of countries which could not enter Cambodia, thinking that Malta might have been one of them! We paid another dollar there for their service and walked another 10m to get our passport stamped for entry in Cambodia…and guess what…we had to pay another dollar! As soon as we got through the ‘border’ we got on a van which was going to take us to Stung Treng, from where we intended to find transportation towards Ratanakiri, more specifically Ban Lung. We had heard about travellers buying a ticket to a further destination and being stopped somewhere else along the way, having to sort out their own transport. We escaped that faith as our stop was the very shortest one on the list when entering Cambodia. On our way to Stung Treng we met a Canadian couple (Chris and Bex) which was heading to Ratanakiri as well, so we decided to share the transport. Another Belgian guy (Sijs) joined in and we managed to find a taxi in the form of a worn out Toyota Camri, to take us there. Little did we know that we were going to spend some great moments with these guys and that we would have become friends…. Chris and Bex left us in Phnom Penh.

We travelled almost all of Cambodia together with Sijs, a great guy, and now a good friend…we will miss him but will surely meet him again, someday, somewhere around the world.