Cambodia... a country of its own!

After deciding to leave the pepper, it was time to head to the island of Koh Rong Samloem. A small idyllic island that is still very original and quiet. The dream beaches in the pictures on the internet were insane and we were looking forward to a few relaxing days. Unfortunately, that didn't happen...

Also, we separated from Chiara and Marvin again here. It was a great time with you and we are glad to have met you! Maybe we'll see you two again in the south of Thailand, but at the latest back home in Germany=)

Arriving on the island, we first stepped onto a wooden pier that led to the village. I couldn't believe my eyes. Trash was everywhere, no white sand, trash in the water, and everything was really very original. Tourism had not arrived here yet. Our room consisted of a wooden hut with a corrugated iron roof and the only luxury item was a small fan in the corner. The toilet next door was clogged and smelled terribly. Where the hell was paradise here?

On the other side of the island, as we later found out...

I couldn't sleep a wink at night, the mosquitoes almost ate me alive, and there was still no good news from home... I felt bad and just wanted to get away from here. We decided to leave the island again the next morning and took a day trip by bus through the Cambodian countryside straight to the capital city of Phnom Penh.

We spent a day here and just strolled around the city. We didn't find the city as ugly and boring as described by many other backpackers. To Jonas' great joy, we even discovered a quite long, green snake on a wall right by the riverside. It was fascinating to watch as the animal slowly slithered along the wall and then disappeared into a tree.

A snake in the middle of the city? Not even I had expected that and I feared that I wouldn't be safe from evil animals even in cities... =)

The next day we continued by bus to the city of Battambang. There wasn't much to see here either, but we definitely wanted to take a ride on the bamboo train. A small bamboo platform racing on four wheels along the tracks, that sounded incredibly fun. When we arrived, we found out that the train had stopped running for maintenance work a few weeks ago.

Well... another flop.

We let ourselves be persuaded by a tuk-tuk driver to go with him to a bat cave. My dislike for most tuk-tuk drivers was once again confirmed during this drive. Two small dogs were sitting in the middle of the road and the driver stayed in his lane and drove towards them. Normally, the animals run away when they notice a vehicle. Since the dog was still quite small and apparently not the fastest, it didn't make it and we ran over the squeaking animal. The dog howled loudly and twitched disoriented. The driver looked back and, besides an indifferent 'Sorry', he didn't say anything and just kept driving. That ruined my day...

When we arrived at the cave, we sat down in a cozy restaurant right under the cave. As it got dark, suddenly about 3 million bats flew out of the cave with screams to search for food. The whole spectacle lasted about an hour and was quite interesting to watch.

So far, in Cambodia, we have only traveled by bus and have seen a lot. We are both quite shocked at how dirty and polluted Cambodia is, compared to the other Asian countries we have traveled to so far. Especially in the capital city, some places smell so extremely of rotten garbage that you almost feel sick. Well... the mentality here (and generally in Asia) is just very different from ours.