The land of OZ, the land of OZ! Okay, the land of Australia but still awesome! While spending 2 months in Kampot we were lucky enough to borrow a computer to figure out what to do next. The original plan was Vietnam, but the weather there wasn’t co-operating. So how about a complete change of scenery and we look into renting a camper van and travel Eastern Australia! Flights, check, Phnom Penh to Brisbane. Australian visas, check. Camper van rentals, checked, checked again… once more and then boom… pulled the trigger. Look out Australia, the Rimmer’s are coming… for 3 months!!! 😀

After a whirlwind trip to Hong Kong, we headed back to Cambodia for further adventures. We had an overnight in Phnom Penh before heading south to Kampot to visit our old friend Lee. We ended up staying there for 2 months… yep, 2 months in Kampot.

Bokor

If you are in Kampot you have to go up Bokor mountain. It’s spooky, beautiful and weird all at the same time and has its own weather system. Lee took us up the first time on a very foggy, rainy day. We went to the waterfall with water that looks like tea, explored the old casino, went through a huge warehouse that people were living in and checked out the suburb that is supposedly being built. We ended up going up Bokor several times but only once in the sun.

Hong Kong? What!?! That was unplanned… well yes, but everything has pretty much been unplanned! Let’s make a long story short… in May we looked into getting tickets to the Liverpool FC preseason game in July at Hong Kong Stadium. They sold out in less than 24 hrs… too bad, moved on. While in Don Det, Laos, we discovered that one of Paul’s favorite Liverpool podcasts, The Anfield Wrap, was going to do a live show at the Hong Kong game. So, hmmm, maybe we should look into it further especially since it was going to be someone’s birthday month. Within 3 hours we had tickets lined up for both the game and Anfield Wrap Podcast show, hotel and flights booked. So “Hong Kong? What!?!” became “Hong Kong? You Bet!”.

Cambodia (Part 1)? What? Why, you ask? Even if you didn’t, I’m pretending you did so I can tell you all about it! After a great time on the 4000 islands in Laos our next stop was Cambodia. We were very excited for a couple of reasons the main one being an opportunity to see our old friend Lee. We hadn’t seen him in years… basically since he moved there from Calgary, Canada. The other reason was that we heard it was amazing. So we took off from the 4000 islands on a boat, then a bus to the infamous border crossing, renowned for its corruption. We were super lucky in that our Thai friend Nok had also decided to leave at the same time so we all traveled together.

The Land of Laos was next on our list. We met wonderful people, saw some beautiful sites and had a blast. We spent the most time in Luang Prebang, Vang Vieng and the 4000 Islands.

Slow Boat on the Mekong to Luang Prabang

This is a two day journey with an overnight in Pak Beng where we stayed at the Monsavanh Guesthouse. We crossed over the Mekong on the Friendship bridge which is the border at Chiang Khong into Laos and then took a minibus to the slow boats. The seats were basically car seats dropped into a boat. We stayed away from the back of the boat to avoid the engine noise and enjoyed the sites along the Mekong. These boats are big and can easily hold 50 people. We had a great Indian meal and our first beer Laos at the Hasan restaurant in Pak Beng. Every once in a while you would see a boat heading upstream. These were usually very and small and scary fast.

After Myanmar we spent several weeks in Northern Thailand. All the Chiang’s together: Chiang Mai, Chiang Dao, Chiang Rai and Chiang Khong!

Chiang Mai

We decided to get organized in Chiang Mai. Mailed some items back that we don’t use, saw Wonder Woman and did a cooking class with Pat and Liz. I’d wanted to a do a class so this was more for me then Paul. We got to make several dishes and no injuries occurred. After wandering the night market we spent some time at the shopping malls, not either of our favorite things to do but we managed. Had a nice evening at Small House Kafe where some advice from Dao had us heading off to Chiang Dao instead of Pai.

After 60+ days in Thailand we headed to Myanmar for a new adventure. We woke up early and headed to the green bus depot to take us to Mae Sot on the border. We stayed one night at a nice little place called Phanu Guesthouse.

Hpa-An

First stop Myawaddy, right across the border from Mae Sot. We were helped by “Mike” and were soon sharing a taxi with Karen, nurse from USA who was volunteering in Thailand at the Burmese border during her retirement. Apparently lots of Burmese cross here to use the hospital at Mae Sot. After a harrowing drive through the countryside (1 dead body from moped accident) we arrived in Hpa-An and checked into the Galaxy Motel with it’s amazing rooftop views.

On Facebook, you may have been exposed to our constant updates and many temple and/or Pagoda photos. For those not on Facebook or who have blocked us after being fed up with the aforementioned pagodas… here is the Cole’s notes version of our first couple of months:

Koh Lipe – March 2017

This time we stayed at The Reef instead of our usual Andaman Resort, which was taken over by new owners. We really enjoyed our accommodation and met some great people. We highly recommend The Reef, the staff was super nice, beds comfortable and breakfast was good. The orange tabby cat that I spent a lot of time with has no bearing on my opinion.

After some very crazy, hectic, emotional weeks we are on our way. We left on the first leg of our adventure on February 28, 2017! Before I get into too much, we need to send a big thank you to Paul’s Mom and Dad. We wouldn’t have made it through the last weekend without their help. Between letting us store things, taking care of our mail and our car (VW TDI to be returned), helping us pack up and clean the apartment and taking us to the airport… well needless to say we got it all done and I was even able to spend several hours with my Mom the day before we left with no stress. Ok, this is me so there was some stress but it was under control. 😏