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30 October 2012
Well this time, there is no choice. The border between Cambodia and Laos has only recently opened to foreigners/overlanders, and there is just one border town : Stung Treng, right on the Mekhong. They are currently building brand spanking new facilities, but for the moment the paperwork gets done in little shacks (on the Laos side, it’s an old railway wagon).
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30 October 2012
October 17th – 28th
The road from Kep to Phnom Penh isn’t very long, merely 200km, along the Mekhong. But it’s in a mediocre shape, and the closer we get to the capital, the more congested it gets.
The thing is, yesterday, while I was enjoying a cold beer on the balcony of the bungalow overlooking the river, the owner of the guesthouse came up to me, and in a distressed voice announced the king was dead. Norodom Sihanouk died at the age of 89, in a hospital in China. Though his two reigns are controverted, to say the least, he was still very much loved by his people. Sihanouk had a troubled past. He resigned in favour of his father, then came back into power and was close, some say too close, to the Khmer Rouge regime, but he also managed the independence from France, and a lot of his acts were “for the good of the people”, or so he claimed.
25 October 2012
October 08th – 17th
Early in the afternoon, after a first failed attempt to cross the Cardamoms, we got to Pursat. It has in fact no real appeal, this town. None at all. But we did get the chance to visit a women handicraft center, where we bought some artefacts. It’s amazing to see these women use their skills, bent over their work for hours a day, it’s a wonder they are not all blind and hunched by the age of thirty.
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