Siem Reap

After spending an afternoon in Kratie, I moved east to the beatiful forested hills of Mondulkiri. The capital of the province, Sen Menorom, is really a village, with a lot of interconnecting trails going around the hills. The weather can be quite chilly in early morning and becomes hot in daytime.

Very quiet place, it's probably just before the tourist boom will hit it, because the scenery around is amazing. The hills are either covered by grass or by jungle, with lots of waterfalls, some of them quite difficult to reach. The road to Boo Sra waterfall, 40 kms northeast of town, is ok most of the way, ang gets pretty bad towards the end. It's worth the journey, though. The waterfall has two levels, and is very impressive. It's possible to walk above the top, between the floors, and go down to the bottom. Jungle is all around, birds are pretty rare to spot, but big butterflies are in abundance, so are dragonflies, red ants and those cool little bugs that slide on the water.

After enjoying few days biking around the hills I took a bus to the capital, Phnom Penh. After several weeks in countryside the noise came as a surprise. The most common question is 'You want motorbike, sir? ' coming from hundreds of bored moto drivers. But, on the afternoon I got also something like 'You want shooting, sir? Not far away, near the Killing Fields.' I decided to leave it for some other time. I decided to get some Angkor stuff and took off. Stopped on the way in Kompong Thom. There's a complex of ancient Khmer ruins near the town, called Sambor Prei Kuk. There's not much left of the red brick temples to see, but it's located in a forest, so it's a nice walk. Next day I arrived to Siem Reap, a village that has grown out of proportions with hotels and restaurants, thanks to its location near the Angkor temples. The Angkor park is a very busy place, but still beatiful. Just need to get up early, come to Bayon temple around 6 a.m. and be greeted by all these smiling faces...