Time to go home...

We've all had a really interesting time here in Siem Reap, despite the heat and humidity, the 'organised chaos', and the occasional (or frequent, for some!) tummy problems.  The food was lovely, although with tummy problems we were not terribly adventurous this time.  We really enjoyed our Cambodian BBQ, even though a table of young people next to us were having a great laugh when we tried to eat the big slabs of fat (with chopsticks, too!) that were actually meant for putting on top of the BBQ to cook with!

Tonle Sap, Cambodia

Still submerged after recent flooding

We organised a trip through Beyond Unique Escapes to Tonle Sap, an enormous lake in the middle of Cambodia which is larger than the island of Singapore!  This lake is home to many floating villages, where families live on homes built on bamboo rafts, or stilt homes or boats.  The lake increases in depth by 9m or so every wet season, and the villages just 'go with the flow'.  About a month before we arrived in Siem reap all the outlying areas were over a metre under water from flooding, and many of these homes (on 9m stilts) were totally covered.  We could see all the water still covering the area when we flew into Siem Reap.  This flood has devastated the recent crops of rice, and affected the livelihood of many Cambodians.

Enjoying?? a fish spa

 

This is uploaded in Quicktime, so you may need to download it if you don't already have it. Check out the look on Trev's face!

Every Cambodian has a story....

During our 10 days here we've heard some interesting (and sad)stories from some of the people we've met.

One of our guides, Kim, took us to Tonle Sap, the huge lake in Cambodia that is larger than the island of Singapore.  On the way he told us of the first time he actually saw white people in 2003.  He was 20 years old at the time, and said he didn't understand what these 'strange white things with long noses' were!  He said:  "I asked myself what these things were - were they human, were they the same as me?'  We were absolutely astounded - until he explained that when he was young, there was no TV, no radio, as the Khmer Rouge had cut off access to the outside world. 

Temples, Tuk-Tuks and ... more temples!

Our driver, Pang, picked us up next morning in an air-conditioned van to take us to Angkor Wat.  We bought a 3-day Temple Pass for $40, which could be used within 7 days.  We first visited Angkor Thom, built in late 12th century, covering an area of 9 sq km.  Very impressive.  

We were, of course, assaulted by young street vendors offering books, silk scarves, bags and other assorted items. We managed to battle our way through unscathed, then moved on to the Terrace of the Elephants and the Terrace of the Leper King.  This was a huge area and was very interesting, except that there were were too many bloody tourists (jumping in front of my camera when I wanted to take a person-free photo) and it was soooo hot and humid.  And we did, of course, get caught by the next lot of vendors and I ended up buying 4 bags and 5 scarves!  Lorraine also bought several bags, and Trev bought a book.  How does this happen, I ask myself every time?

Siem Reap, Cambodia

Our next adventure is again in Asia - our first time in Cambodia, accompanied by our friends Lorraine and Bill who have also travelled to Thailand and Vietnam with us.  We left Canberra on 5 November flying Malaysian Airlines and arrived in Kuala Lumpur for a 7-hour layover at 3.00am next morning.  KL airport has an airside hotel, so we booked in to have a decent sleep, shower and breakfast before the 2-hour flight to Siem Reap.  It cost around $48 but was well worth it for the few hours of sleep after a long flight.

We arrived in Siem Reap and were transferred to the Frangipani Hotel ... we'd booked deluxe poolview rooms, but didn't know that we'd be on the 3rd floor, with no lift!  That's 64 stairs at least 3 times a day up and down for 10 days - do the maths, that's a lot of stairs.  We all should be super-skinny by the time we get home.  

Menindee Lakes - Yabbie Heaven

It was just a short drive from Broken Hill to Menindee where we planned to stay for 2 or 3  nights.  The road was quite different to when we here last (2009) - green or grey shrubs and trees lined the highway, virtually covering the thick red dust that we drove through before.   We drove up to the Menindee Lake Lookout which used to overlook a huge, empty, dusty lakebed - well, there was water as far as the eye could see.

Quite a different outlook, especially along 'Sunset Strip', a small 'exclusive' suburb just outside Menindee, which was supposed to be a holiday village overlooking the lake - we drove in here in 2009 and found a cluster of dilapidated, tired old houses on the edge of a large dustbowl.  This time, they actually did overlook the huge Menindee Lake, and obviously many of the homeowners were making the most of the change in view, as they had their homes up for sale, hoping to 'cash in' now that there was water.

Flinders Ranges & Wilpena Pound

We hopped into the Rangie at 8.30am next day, ready to do one of the 4WD tracks up to Mt Gill, rated as 'hard' by the homestead managers.  It's a 54km round trip, and should take around 5 hours to complete - sounds like a slow and steady day!  Well, Trev started the car and 'bang', she backfired.  Trev said a couple of choice words, then went to check what had happened - the lid of the air filter box had completely blown off and broken in about 4 places.  Not a good start. 

So it was out with the toolbox, the super glue, the epoxy glue and other assorted bits and pieces.  None of the above seemed to work at fitting the jigsaw back together, so then he tried his little butane soldering iron (thanks, Pete!) and tried 'spot-welding' and melting the plastic pieces together, and it seemed to work.  He put it all back together, tied the lid on with a strap, and 2 hours later we were ready to go.

Coober Pedy Slideshow

Click here to view some photos from Coober Pedy

William Creek and a Flight over Lake Eyre

After refuelling and stocking up at the local supermarket, it was off to William Creek where we planned to do a flight over Lake Eyre.  It was another beautiful day, around 22 degrees, and we were heading into red dust country.  The scenery was amazing - miles and miles of nothingness, followed by plains of red gibber pebbles which looked red/purple from one direction, then as you passed and the sun caught them, they changed to shiny black.  Then big open claypans, followed by long red dunes covered in green shrubs of varying hues and a variety of wildflowers.  You could see 360degrees of totally flat land followed by red or white mountain ranges dotting the landscape. 

We went through Anna Creek Station, a working cattle property, which is bigger than Belgium or half the size of Britain!  We arrived at William Creek on the Oodnadatta Track,  where we had a drink at the hotel, then went across to the airfield to book our flight at 3.30pm.  We booked into the local campground and had lunch. 

Mildura to Coober Pedy

We left Mildura and headed to Renmark, hoping to find a nice spot to camp then have a Paddlesteamer cruise.  No luck, as the weather was still not good, so we carried on to a little town called Burra, where we camped at the local showground.  Good value, only $10 per night, with power, showers and toilets.  We'll have to look out for more of these on our travels - beats caravan parks hands down.

Bright and early next morning we packed up and headed for Port Pirie.  We dropped into the local tourist info centre and viewed the white pointer shark that had been caught locally - all 5.4metres of her!  Quite impressive.  The tourist info centres at each place we visit are a mine of information - most of the staff are really well informed about their area and have lots of tips for visitors - we love them.  We had lunch at Port Pirie at Barnacle Bill's, which was actually in an old church - quite different and a bit weird!

Trying to outrun the rain - and failing!

Well, Trev decided it was time for us to visit the Flinders Ranges and also check out Lake Eyre while it still has water in it - so, despite the fact that it's winter and we're heading west instead of north, here we are on our next adventure.

We left on Friday morning and arrived in Yarrawonga, Vic in the afternoon.  We dropped into the visitors information centre (very helpful), got some maps then set up camp at Forge's Bend on the Murray River, just past Yarrawonga.  It was a nice area and we got a fire going to cook a tasty beef stroganoff in our camp oven.  It started to get a bit chilly, but we enjoyed sitting by the fire eating and drinking to a beautiful moonrise over the river.  Very pretty.  A couple of drinks, then bed.

I was fast asleep when I was suddenly woken by Trev saying: "Something just crawled over my head!'  He switched on the light, and we checked the bed, where I discovered a small furry animal, (bigger than a mouse but smaller than a rat) crawling along the channel at the top of our slide-out bed - it quickly ran along the edge, then disappeared through a tiny hole to the outside!  Seriously, this was a little unsettling!  But we were both happy that it was something like a marsupial mouse, rather than a rather large spider - I don't think either of us would have slept well.  Trev called him 'My mate Murray, the Marsupial Mouse.'

So, next morning we were off to Echuca.  The plan was to spend a couple of days there, have a trip in a paddlesteamer, check out a couple of wineries etc.   We found a campsite near Christie's beach on a really pretty bend on the river, then headed into town to find about Paddlesteamers and wineries.  We were in the old Port town which has been restored really well, has lots of character, where we found we could do a paddlesteamer and lunch at Morrison's Winery trip for a reasonable price, a perfect combination.  So we planned to come back the next day and do that, weather permitting.  Back to camp where we again got the fire going and had chilli con carne in the camp cooker - lovely.

Of course, overnight the rain started - not too heavily, but enough to spoil our plans  for the next day - neither of us particularly wanted to sit on a paddlesteamer in the rain and pretend we were having a good time, so early next morning we packed up and decided to try and outrun the rain and head for Mildura.  So we are now sitting in a caravan park just outside Mildura enjoying the pitter-patter of rain on the roof, hoping that tomorrow the weather will clear up and we can either do a paddlesteamer cruise here or in Renmark.  So, a good start so far.  Hopefully my next instalment will be a bit more interesting!  

Moonrise over the Murray river