After more than a month spent in Vietnam, we bid farewell to this frenzied, friendly, and beautiful country. We really enjoyed our time in Vietnam but we had had more than enough of the crazy traffic, endless honking and often dreadful roads. Our last day in Vietnam was April 30, Independence Day, so the traffic was especially heavy into Ha Tien and there was very limited hotel availability in town. So we decided to push on to the Cambodia border crossing and what a difference crossing the border made! Suddenly there was very little traffic on the road, sparsely populated communities, pretty good roads and very little honking! It felt like a cycle tourist's paradise if you could only drop the temperature about 30°F.
Before sharing my observations on Cambodia, I will note that we have been here only six days so it's quite a small sample size. However, there have been some remarkable differences compared with Vietnam:
• Skin protection - while the Vietnamese cover themselves from head to toe to protect against the sun, Cambodians are much more relaxed about protecting their skin (especially the men).
• Old white guys - I'm not going to speculate regarding the nature of the relationship but we saw an awful lot of creepy old white guys with young Cambodian women, especially in touristic Kep and Kampot. Gross!
• Traffic - so much mellower in Cambodia and the incessant honking is no longer. We can put our earplugs away!
• Public Transport - there is an informal network of minivans and station wagons which cruise the main roads carrying people in very crammed conditions. The back of the vehicles are always open so that they can maximize seating capacity.
• Food - no disrespect to Khmer cuisine but it doesn't hold a candle to Vietnamese food. Many of the Khmer dishes are soups served over rice but they just don't have the flavors and fresh ingredients of the Vietnamese food. There's also much more western food available in Cambodia which is what we have been eating mostly.
• Cost - this took us by surprise but things are considerably more expensive in Cambodia. Accommodation and food are approximately twice as expensive as Vietnam. Speaking of cost, US dollars are accepted everywhere but you can also pay with Cambodian Riel.
• English - many more people speak English in Cambodia as compared to Vietnam. This is probably due to the fact that we have been traveling the 'gringo trail' of Cambodia but it certainly has made communication so much easier!
• Safety - while we haven't had any incidents, we've been warned by many people to keep our guard up as there is a fair amount of crime. A guy asked us today how much our bikes were worth and we told him they were super cheap and then took off riding! Ginny also busted a guy going through my bike panniers but fortunately he didn't get anything.
• Dogs - the dogs in Vietnam are pretty chill and stick to themselves for the most part. In Cambodia, it seems as though we get chased by dogs multiple times a day.
A few other interesting notes from the last week of our trip:
• many places don't have power in Cambodia so people rely upon ice to keep things cool. On our ride today, we saw a woman cutting a big block of ice with a skill saw!
• it could be that we're just getting into the rainy season now but we've already experienced two thunderstorms since arriving in Cambodia. It rains cats and dogs for an hour or two and then the storm passes and the sun comes back out.
• we rented a scooter in Kampot to go explore the Bokor National Park which was nice but not super impressive - see graffiti art on bombed out buildings below. The highlight was running out of gas coming down the mountain 4km from the nearest gas station. Fortunately we were able to coast downhill for 3km and I only had to push the scooter for the last 1km to get gas. Ginny was not impressed!
We're leaving Cambodia tomorrow to head into Thailand. It's been a short but enjoyable visit and we look forward to hitting our 4th country tomorrow!
Before sharing my observations on Cambodia, I will note that we have been here only six days so it's quite a small sample size. However, there have been some remarkable differences compared with Vietnam:
• Skin protection - while the Vietnamese cover themselves from head to toe to protect against the sun, Cambodians are much more relaxed about protecting their skin (especially the men).
• Old white guys - I'm not going to speculate regarding the nature of the relationship but we saw an awful lot of creepy old white guys with young Cambodian women, especially in touristic Kep and Kampot. Gross!
• Traffic - so much mellower in Cambodia and the incessant honking is no longer. We can put our earplugs away!
• Public Transport - there is an informal network of minivans and station wagons which cruise the main roads carrying people in very crammed conditions. The back of the vehicles are always open so that they can maximize seating capacity.
• Food - no disrespect to Khmer cuisine but it doesn't hold a candle to Vietnamese food. Many of the Khmer dishes are soups served over rice but they just don't have the flavors and fresh ingredients of the Vietnamese food. There's also much more western food available in Cambodia which is what we have been eating mostly.
• Cost - this took us by surprise but things are considerably more expensive in Cambodia. Accommodation and food are approximately twice as expensive as Vietnam. Speaking of cost, US dollars are accepted everywhere but you can also pay with Cambodian Riel.
• English - many more people speak English in Cambodia as compared to Vietnam. This is probably due to the fact that we have been traveling the 'gringo trail' of Cambodia but it certainly has made communication so much easier!
• Safety - while we haven't had any incidents, we've been warned by many people to keep our guard up as there is a fair amount of crime. A guy asked us today how much our bikes were worth and we told him they were super cheap and then took off riding! Ginny also busted a guy going through my bike panniers but fortunately he didn't get anything.
• Dogs - the dogs in Vietnam are pretty chill and stick to themselves for the most part. In Cambodia, it seems as though we get chased by dogs multiple times a day.
A few other interesting notes from the last week of our trip:
• many places don't have power in Cambodia so people rely upon ice to keep things cool. On our ride today, we saw a woman cutting a big block of ice with a skill saw!
• it could be that we're just getting into the rainy season now but we've already experienced two thunderstorms since arriving in Cambodia. It rains cats and dogs for an hour or two and then the storm passes and the sun comes back out.
• we rented a scooter in Kampot to go explore the Bokor National Park which was nice but not super impressive - see graffiti art on bombed out buildings below. The highlight was running out of gas coming down the mountain 4km from the nearest gas station. Fortunately we were able to coast downhill for 3km and I only had to push the scooter for the last 1km to get gas. Ginny was not impressed!
We're leaving Cambodia tomorrow to head into Thailand. It's been a short but enjoyable visit and we look forward to hitting our 4th country tomorrow!
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