Crater Lakes and Waterfalls

After a 14 hour bus journey from the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, we’re now up in the much more rural province of Ratanakiri. Our journey up to the north east of the country was only supposed to take 10 hours, but I guess after all the train and bus journeys we’ve been on since we started the trip, a breakdown was inevitable sooner or later. To make up for our good fortune so far, our bus broke down twice. The first time was just outside of Phnom Penh, and our driving team (which consisted of three guys barely in their 20s) decided that the best way to fix this poor excuse for an air conditioned coach was long periods of intense staring into the engine, punctuated by the occasional prod or tinker. Remarkably, after 40 minutes of this, the bus came back to life and we all piled back on.


Of course, we then stopped every 20 minutes to squeeze on extra passengers, who sat on plastic chairs in the aisle. By the time we reached Ratanakiri, the tarmac road had been substituted for an endless dirt track, which we bumped along for four hours before breaking down again at the top of a steep slope just short of our destination, the town of Ban Lung. This time, no amount of prodding or flashing of torches under the vehicle could revive the vehicle, and we had to transfer to a replacement bus instead, finally arriving into town at 10pm.

The reason we’d made this detour to the north was because of the Lonely Planet’s description of swimming under waterfalls and in beautiful lakes One of these lakes, Boeng Yeak Lom, was just 5km our hotel and, following my newfound cycling abilities, we hired bicycles for the day ($1 each) and set off. It’d been a few days since I’d last cycled, and it was my first time on an actual road with other moving vehicles. Luckily Ban Lung doesn’t get very busy and there weren’t many drivers on the road so, despite a wobbly start, we managed the journey there with me falling off only once (not into any traffic and with no injuries, don’t worry).

The lake was beautiful. It’s also known as the Crater Lake because it’s a perfect circle, and it’s likely to have been created by a meteor thousands of years ago. It’s around 850m in circumference, and rumoured to be 85m deep in the very centre. We didn’t waste any time jumping in – the water was clear and cool, and there was hardly anyone else there save a couple of local families. We spent the rest of the day swimming, diving, eating a simple bread and jam lunch, walking through the foresty bits around the lake (Indiana & Jones style, of course) and lazing about, before hopping back onto our bikes for the ride home. An exhausting but brilliant day.


Ratanakiri’s waterfalls are a little further away so the following day we decided to take it up a notch and hire a motorbike instead. This is Karl trying to impress some local kids on the motorbike (although they were more interested in his watch), while I demonstrate how to look stupid in a helmet.

We drove along at a leisurely speed to four very different waterfalls. Chaong Waterfall is more like a really powerful shower, with a large spout of water gushing over a rockface.

Ka Tieng and Ka Chang were more what you might expect from a waterfall, with a rocky backdrop and lots of greenery. We swam through the pools to try and get behind the falls but the water was too powerful to get very close.

Finally, O’Seng Eal was more a series of mini-waterfalls, and one of my favourites because you could just sit on the rocks underneath and get absolutely drenched, as I demonstrate here.


Seriously, after a long bike journey in the midday heat, this was absolute bliss.

On the way back, we stopped off at a little food cart selling baguettes with some mystery meat and vegetables, which were surprisingly delicious. I managed to take this picture of Karl with his baguette just as he was getting shot in the arm by a cheeky four-year-old boy armed with a potato gun, who then scurried away!

NEWSFLASH: Sheena Learns to Ride a Bike!

Yes, that's right, I've finally done it! I've finally learnt to ride a bike! I know a lot of people probably think it's appalling that I've managed to hit the age of 24 without ever having learnt, but it just happened. I was just never that into bikes.

On this trip though, I decided that it would be pretty cool to be able to hire a bike and go exploring, and I know Karl likes the idea a lot too. Of course, this would mean figuring out how to actually work the damn things. It took two sessions, and it was both harder and easier than I thought.

It kind of went as you'd imagine - Karl held the back of the bike while I pedalled and tried to get to grips with keeping balance and controlling the bike. It's one of those things where the less you think about what you're doing, the more successful you'll be. For a while, I wasn't very successful at all, but eventually it began to get a bit easier, and the bike felt more stable. We got to the end of the lane, and I looked back to realise that there was no 'we' at all - it was just ME! On my own, on a bike! A bunch of locals, who had previously just looked on in bewilderment, even cheered for me!


I've been practising a bit now and then. I'm still a bit wobbly and I'm not too great at turning yet either. So far, I've almost run into a stationery ruckshaw, a pile of wood, a dog, a cockerel and a wall. We were going to try and cycle to the nearby Angkor Wat ruins one morning to watch the sunrise, but I'm not sure I can be trusted on an actual road with other people just yet, so we abandoned that plan. Anyway, I'm very proud of me, and I hope you are too.

Exploring Angkor Wat

I think Cambodia is my new favourite place. We're in Siem Reap at the moment, and we're being typical tourists for what feels like the first time on our trip. Even though we spent 6 weeks in India, we never really visited a place just to see a particular sight, and the only temples we saw were the ones we stumbled across rather than specifically set out to see. But you really can't come to Cambodia and not visit Angkor Wat - the Cambodians are so proud of it that it features on their national flag, currency and even their beer bottles. And it doesn't take long to see what all the fuss is about - the ruins and temples of Angkor are stunning. We spent a couple of days this week exploring them and taking loads of pictures, including a few cheesy ones for good measure - you know the sort I mean... 'Karl gazing thoughtfully out of window' and so on.

The most popular ruins are the Angkor Wat temple, which have beautiful engraving and windows perfect for posing in:


Meanwhile, Angkor Thom used to be the capital city back in the 12th century:


We also visited few jungle temples. They generally tend to have great big trees growing over and around them, so they're not in the best condition, but they look very cool and are excellent for exploring. In fact, we spent quite a while climbing around and playing at being adventurers (I was Indiana and Karl was Jones). Lots of fun, lots of pictures and lots of sunburn for Karl. Oops. Here's the pics:


To balance out all this cultural activity, we've also been lazing around in our lovely hostel and making new friends. We didn't seem to come across other backpackers very often in India, and it's really nice to finally find other people to both interrogate about their trip and bore with tales of ours. The other day, we joined a group from our hostel and went to a pub quiz, and came 3rd! (yes, there were more than three teams) This success was largely down to the fact that a LOT of the questions were about the US, and we had two very knowledgeable Americans with us. We celebrated by heading down to a bar called 'Angkor What?' and drinking buckets of vodka & red bull, dancing in the street, and spending the whole of the following day being too hungover to function. Yay, holiday!

Wrong place at the wrong time

It's been a week since we left India, and an eventful one too!

We landed in Kuala Lumpur late last Saturday night, tired but excited about being in a new city, and hopped on a bus to the Chinatown district. Little did we know that it was to be our most stressful night so far...

We'd booked a hostel online the night before, but arrived shortly after midnight to find that our room had been given away! Karl was pretty annoyed, but I didn't think it was too big a deal - I was just keen to move on and find somewhere else to stay. There were signs all around us for hostels and hotels, so how hard could it be? Absolutely impossible. And I'm not even exaggerating! It turns out we'd arrived on one of the busiest weekends in KL - the weekend of the Malaysian Grand Prix. We walked around for an hour asking at every place we came to, only to be told that everywhere was fully booked. I mean seriously, the Grand Prix??

Anyway, eventually we got so tired of walking around that we pleaded with a hotel clerk to let us sleep on the sofas in the lobby, and thankfully he said yes. I think he was too tired to say no - he fell asleep before we did!

We managed to find a hostel easily enough the next day (air conditioned, too!), but the strangest thing was that the city didn't really seem that busy or buzzing with any sort of Formula 1 fever. Where did all the people go?

We stayed in Kuala Lumpur for a couple of days before deciding that we couldnt wait to get to Thailand, so we booked a train up to Bangkok and arrived there a couple of days later. It's been pretty cool here so far - we visited Chutachuk Weekend Market, which sells really nice souveniers, homewares and some nice clothes. If we were flying back home after Thailand, I think I couldve spent a lot of money there!

We've also been lazing around in parks, and when the heat gets too much it's quite nice to walk around the lovely air conditioned malls.

Unfortunately, it seems that once again we're in the wrong place at the wrong time as there are currently massive protests going on against the government - you may have heard about it on the news? The Red Shirts want to overthrow the current prime minister, so they've been rioting, and about 18 people were killed yesterday when they clashed with the military. We saw some of the protesters when we went to Siam Mall the other day, and they looked quite peaceful at the time - there were families, food stalls, people getting foot massages. I guess it doesnt take long before things can get out of hand!

So tomorrow morning we're moving on to Cambodia instead. We'll spend a couple of weeks there, before visiting Vietnam for a little while, followed by Laos for a further two weeks. We'll then cross the border back into Thailand for a month or so, before working our way down to Malaysia again, and finally ending up in Indonesia sometime around July/August. Or that's the plan, anyway!

Our Best Eats - India

As you all know, Karl and I love food - in fact, it's one of the things that most excites us about this trip. So it only makes sense for us to keep you updated not only with where we are and what we're doing, but also with what we've been eating. For each country we visit, we're going to try and put together a list of our favourite food and drink experiences.

Here are our top eats (in no particular order) for India:

* Mutton Rolls - these were the amazing take-away kebab rolls that we got from Bade Miya, a food stall in Mumbai.

* Goan pork sausage - it's very similar to Spanish chorizo, except way better. It's spicier and more flavoursome, and the hotel we stayed at in Colva cooked it realy simply with onions and potatoes to create the most delicious dish.

* Pork Vindaloo - absolutely nothing at all like the vindaloos at home.. The traditional Goan version is all about the vinegar and garlic that the pork is marinated in before cooking, and it's not stupidly spicy either. We had a really good homemade version in Candolim.

* Indian breakfasts - I barely know where to begin with these. Most people might think that curry for every meal is a little overboard. We disagree - what better way to start the day than with a belly full of spice??! The best breakfasts we had were puri bhaji - an indian flatbread served with spicy potatoes. And Idly Sambar, which is a steamed rice bun that you eat with a lentil soup. Mmm mmm.

* Masala Dosa - a thin, slightly crispy pancake that is filled with a spicy potato mix and served with a dish of lentil soup. Another favourite breakfast dish.

Masala Dosa

* Fresh lime soda - this is such a simple drink, I don't know why we don't have it at home. Freshly squeezed lime (or lemon) juice, a little bit of sugar, and some soda water. Tangy, fizzy, refreshing.

* Egg buns - our favourite Darjeeling breakfast. Spicy omelette served in a bun with fresh shredded onions, cucumber and tomato, and a bit of ketchup. All washed down with some masala chai.

* Momo - these are the Tibetan dumplings we ate in Darjeeling, dipped in a spicy red chilli sauce.

* Thukpa - another Darjeeling dish, this time a hearty noodle soup, usually with chunks of pork or chicken and a load of vegetables.

Momo & Thukpa in Darjeeling

* Thali - a thali is a type of meal that lets you try a variety of different curries in one go without absolutely stuffing yourself. It's served on a steel plate that holds 5 or 6 mini-bowls of curry, some chapattis, poppadoms, rice and pickle. The curries usually include a dahl (lentil soup), potato curry and various types of curried vegetable.

* Bekthi Pathuri - a traditional Bengali fish dish that we tried in Kolkata. A chunky piece of fish marinated in loads of mustard and ginger, and cooked in a banana leaf. I've never tried anything like it - i didn't even know that this type of Indian food existed! We ate it with a potato and vegetable curry, rice and sliced cucumber.

Bekthi Pathuri

Darjeeling update

Wow, so just a few hours after writing my last update there was a big rainstorm in Darjeeling. It poured down from about 6pm in the evening, and then throughout the night, and it was so windy that some of the power cable came down causing a major powercut.

At around 8pm we put on our waterproofs and prepared to battle through the weather to get us some dinner. What fools! We got literally twenty paces down the road from our hotel and gave up - not only was it too wet and windy to walk, there was no power anywhere! We ended up having an improvised dinner of crisps, chocolate and biscuits, eaten by torchlight whilst playing hangman. Who says romance is dead? Actually, we did start off trying to play I Spy but this didn't work out for obvious reasons (the dark).

Even though this meant our last night in Darjeeling wasn't at all what we'd expected, the next morning made it all worthwhile. The rainstorm had cleared the majority of the fog that had settled on the town for the past few weeks, and we woke up to clear views across the hills. After breakfast, we strolled over to the aptly named Observatory Hill and lo and behold, there were the Himalayas - finally!

Admittedly they were quite far away, and they weren't as clear as they normally are at this time of year - they looked at bit like jagged-shaped clouds in the distance. We tried to take some pictures, but I don't think they really do them justice.


Also, at the tea plantation the day before we'd been disappointed at not getting the chance to see any actual tea-picking, because we'd arrived during their lunch break. Luckily, our jeep ride back to Siliguri (where we'd catch the train to Calcutta) drove past a few other tea plantations, so we did get to see some picking after all. Hooray! No pictures though, I was too busy trying not to fall off my seat - I swear, the road down from Darjeeling has more craters than the bloody moon!

Darjeeling - a home away from home

Who would've thought that we'd come all the way to India, and that our favourite place would be the one most like home - as well as being big on tea (they have 84 tea estates here), Darjeeling is cold and grey. And we absolutely love it.

After the sweltering heat of Calcutta, the cooler weather here is unbelievably refreshing - we've done away with our traditional Indian outfits for the time being, and swapped them for trousers, long-sleeved tops, jumpers and socks. We've even had the odd bit of drizzle, which gave me the perfect opportunity to whip out my attractive pink waterproof jacket. No photos unfortunately ;)

To get here we took a three hour jeep ride from a horrible little town called Siliguri. It was another one of those journeys with gorgeous views, sharp bends and steep drops, but luckily our driver was calmer and more sensible than previous ones. Halfway through the journey we stopped off at a little roadside cafe and had our first taste of momo, traditional Tibetan Himalayan dumplings that are stuffed either with pork, chicken or vegetables, and can be ordered steamed or fried. As you can imagine, since arriving in Darjeeling, we've made our way through all of these options, and our favourite is steamed vegetable momo from this lovely little cafe stall. We've been having breakfast here every morning too - spicy omelette in a bun, followed by a cup of chai. The omelette comes loaded with green chillies and shredded vegetables. Every morning the owner asks "Chilli, sister?" and i foolishly reply "yes, please!", only to finish breakfast with my nose dripping and eyes running, much to her amusement. It's bloody good though!


As well as good food, Darjeeling of course does good tea, and today Karl and I walked along to a nearby tea plantation to see how our favourite hot beverage goes from plant to delicious brew. When we visited the spice plantation in Kumily, we had a taste of just-picked tea leaves. They pretty much just taste like leaves, and it's actually quite hard to believe this is where tea comes from. At the Happy Valley plantation today, we were taken on a tour of the machinery used to dry, roll, sift, ferment and heat these leaves and create tea. We also spent about an hour walking around the plantations - unfortunately we choose a bad time as everyone was on their lunch break, so we didn't see any actual tea-picking. But once again, the views were incredible, even if it was a bit foggy. And we met some hilarious kids who ran around us shouting hello, before asking whether we had any chocolate. I really wish we did, I felt terrible saying no!


One of the reasons we wanted to come to Darjeeling is because you're supposed to be able to see the Himalayas from here. March and April are supposed to be the best time for this, as the skies are clearest, but alas it wasn't meant to be for us! For the past few weeks a thick fog has descended on Darjeeling, sometimes so thick that we can't see the building opposite our hotel! Although I am quite disappointed at missing a glimpse of the mountains, it's quite cool to be walking around in the clouds :)

We've been making the most of the cooler weather here to do more exploring, and on Sunday we decided to visit the local zoo. The zoo here is quite small and is mainly inhabited by animals local to the Himalayas, including mountain goats and red pandas. They also had the Himalayan Monal bird which, according to the little information display, cries 'Klee-vich! Klee-vich!" - needless to say, this has now become one of Karl's favourite birds. We also saw some the most adorable little monkey, who was keen to impress and entertained us with various acrobatics before cuddling up to its mum:


On our way back, we visited a beautiful temple, with lots of colourful shrines to different gods and goddesses, including one that was hidden in a little cave underground. What made the temple all the more beautiful and special was the colourful prayer flags that were strung up all around. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.


Ah, I almost forgot! One of the most interesting experiences we've had since arriving here was a much-needed trip to the hairdressers for Karl. At first glance, it looked nothing like a barber shop. On closer inspection, it still didn't! The guy chopped away at Karl's mop with just an old comb and a pair of scissors that weren't at thier sharpest. We were dubious as to how it might work out, and for a while I was convinced I could see a bald spot appearing. However, it turned out to be surprisingly good - in fact, it was way better than some of the terrible jobs done by various hairdressers in Bow. It was followed with a shave, thankfully with a new and fully sharp blade. It ended to Karl's dismay (and my amusement) with a very weird head massage that consisted of much hair-ruffling, prodding and rather a lot of thumping! All for a mere R70 (one pound) - bargain!

Darjeeling has been a lovely way to end our trip to India. While a lot of other towns and cities have been hot, chaotic and noisy, Darjeeling has been cool, calm and clean, and I've felt really content here. I'd love to stay longer, but tomorrow we begin our journey back to Calcutta, and on Saturday it's off to Malaysia!