We tried to get into the Royal Palace, but seen the huuuuge amount of people, our perfect timing and state of mind, we only walked around its premises for a while. Then we did enter to pay a visit to the lying statue of Buddha in Wat Po and finally had a walk along the river before heading back to our (invisible) hosts. With the other family squatting Manu & Amélie's place, we went to a fancy rooftop bar, to enjoy a view and a cocktail, and we left just before they put us and our kids out I think ;-) Rooftopbars and 5 kids, it's just not a very long-lasting match I think.
Pierre et Pascale et la tribu
La Tribu Van Meerbeeck
28/01/2016
The Three Kings asked us to come home earlier
We tried to get into the Royal Palace, but seen the huuuuge amount of people, our perfect timing and state of mind, we only walked around its premises for a while. Then we did enter to pay a visit to the lying statue of Buddha in Wat Po and finally had a walk along the river before heading back to our (invisible) hosts. With the other family squatting Manu & Amélie's place, we went to a fancy rooftop bar, to enjoy a view and a cocktail, and we left just before they put us and our kids out I think ;-) Rooftopbars and 5 kids, it's just not a very long-lasting match I think.
27/12/2015
Battambang and kep 2016
So that place will be referred to as the hotel with the bad swimming pool. And I can't contradict them.
So off to battambang. They say the boat trip to battambang is one of the most beautiful of whole asia. They say it's an adventure. You start on the lake and then enter the river. They say you get to see the real Cambodia. Then they say it s a wooden little boat. That traveling time depends on water level. Anywhere between 6/7 up to 10/hours. Water is low now, yes.
So , diehard family Van Meerbeeck wisely decided to take the Mekong express... A minivan that is. There where dolphins painted on the inside , little blue curtains (Bill happy) and not all seats where taken. Me happy, everybody happy. Merry Christmas by the way, as that was on the 25th!
Now of course, you cross more tourists than daily life episodes; and as i said, you don't get to see a lot of landscape, just the bumpy rail speeding underneath you, at the end of the trip you stop in the middle of the souvenirshop, and you are informed well in advance that you are allowed to tip your 'driver'. Though at the end , after escaping the little shop, we had the usual twin questions, but this time with very enthusiastic reactions, cause the girl was herself also a twin. That made for the "you take picture, we take picture' of the two twin couples and amelie.
We accepted our nice tuktuk driver peter s suggestion to go and see a crocodile farm. It wasn't on our list, but Amélie understood the driver (who of course had asked directly to her in English if she wanted to touch a baby crocodile.... Don't need to be a super polyglot powered girl to answer yes to that) she reminded us we had said it was going to be kids' excursion so we went.
They touched some small crocodiles and then we went to see the real stuff. Crocodiles (way too much of them in a few concrete 'pools') of up to 40 years old , each of them worth a little fortune (5 to 600dollar) in skin in Thailand and meat in Vietnam. We closed the kids day by going to the Phare Ponleu Selpak circus. They also run shows in Siem reap but are originally from Battambang. It is a complete project for educating in performers skills, they have schools nursery, arts, musical, etc... The show of about an hour was great, the kids where scotched to the scene, smiling and clapping, and almost crying when they understood one actor was left out in the storyline. It was a basic storyline about a group of friends , a soft love story, but also the mix of traditional culture and new modern influences. Mixing the import of headphones, iPhone and others with some old traditional fishermen dances... Probably a very real topic for this actual generation !
After that we went to a good restaurant, yet another one said to be about training people and investing profit to the community. (Reeeeaaally good food!) Of course, at 21 o'clock after 1,5hours of being seated more or less in silence, our kids where not going to make that the easiest calmest dinner ;-) when a cockroach we had seen already in the bathroom came to the restaurant part they started chasing it singing 'La cucaracha, LA cucaracha, ya no puede caminar,....' Sorry people!
I think we could have stayed for another day, easily. And tuktuk driver peter wouldn't have mind I guess. But the seaside is calling! As it is a long road to our final cambodian destination, we cut the road by staying a night in Phnom Penh.
As real "whoesies" (softies) we skip the 8hours big bus and opt for the minivan (only 5hours). We start off being alone. After an hour the inevitable happens, and it starts to stop along the road to pick up people. Luckily, never more than the available seats. Of course, just when Bill fell asleep they stopped for lunch, which really was fine with us (a bit early though, 11am, so we skipped) some digestions sounds left aside...;-)
We stay one night in Phnom Penh in Villa Borann close to the big playground next to the Royal Palace. Our kids are kind, playful and smiling, as always
Next day, on the 28th we drive west to the beach, the little town of Kep sur mer will be our last spot in Camboia and of 2015. It used to be the preferred coast town of the French then later of the Khmer upperclass, which made it the number one target of the Khmer Rouge. Still today all this history can be told with some old villas, abandoned, destroyed and with more bulletholes than people living in them.
Based at kep lodge just on the border of the national park,we make some small excursions to the (empty) salt lakes (January February is when activity starts), the pepper field, the butterfly garden, the locally worldfamous crab market, Amelie showing the selfie concept to some kids, meeting up with one of Pierre s colleague and friends, enjoying some beautiful sunsets and sip some cocktails at the sailing club, venue where we will spend New Year's Eve (well at least the short version of it, till 22 o clock)**dont get me wrong , we had our share of kids terror as always, maybe as a highlight the big wooden boat used as decoration in the sailing club that fell down "tout seul" with our three kids in it. Or the sand wars just before dinner ending up with our kids punished in the corner, and the strange Look on the faces of the serving staff. Cause yes, we are on travels and yes they are kids and we are parents, so we can't afford to "let go" everything without educating once in a while...
25/12/2015
Siem Reap and Ze Temples
Then came our big d-day! Visiting the temples! Seen our special gift of leaving when it s hot, we where lucky that it was a cloudy day, cause we where going to bike it all! The people from Grashopper Adventures prepared our bikes and the 35km tour.
We had a great guide named Lot (multitasking guide, as he was towing Amélie, giving Bill a hand on stairs, putting Mat in and out of the baby carrier, taking (really good!) Family pictures and providing us information about the three temples we where visiting that day, all in one man! All with a smile! Obviously, we couldnt have done it without a third man!Our trip to new Zealand freshly in mind and Williams castle hé is still talking about, we decided to appropriate each temple to a kid, which works greatly to keep them interested!
So the first one "with all the trees on its roof" also called Ta Prohm was Williams. The one with all the enigmatic smiling faces, Prasat Bayon, Matthias's and of course the biggest, most wellknown, Angkor Wat being for Amélie. Three kiss, three temples. Perfect Match.On the last afternoon of our 4 days stay, we went back with a tuktuk to see just some more places we liked to see, like the Neak Pean in the middle of water, the elephant terrace we hadn't stopped at and going back by sunset to Angkor Wat (as we would not wake up at 4:30 for a sunrise, as is the popular thing to do )
the moon and clear skies treated us on a nice spectacle, before the night took over the sky. We headed back into town, to listen to Santa Claus singing under the lighted palmtrees and beside a giant Iced Christmas tree. Oh! Oh! Oh! It is Christmas (eve) at FCC! Amélie decided (alright, maybe I had told her already ages ago) that our gifts this Christmas would be the 'grand voyage' , I couldn't agree more. So did Matthias with his collection of tickets (he s the one who started collecting coins prior to the trip. He is now the one carefully keeping all sorts of tickets, putting them in the hotel safe whenever one available - in new Zealand's campervan, he used the microwave for this- remembering us that it is not a free trip ;-)Inside cambodia
Some more hours of minivan away, back to the main road between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, we had a 2 nights stop in kampong Thom to cut the road in two (kids will refer to that trip as the trampoline van... So it was a welcome stop) and visit the less known (pre angkorien) temples of sambor prei kuk hidden in the forest.
A nice local community guide, local kids walking with us (and then at the end of the visit trying to sell us some scarfs) and being almost alone at this site (in huge contrast with what we would be experiencing in Siem Reap!!) Was great. Also the comfy hotel and pool we had almost for us alone, was nice and relaxing (as real kids do, i guess, our kids remember this place as the bats' place -/for a colony of hundreds of bats we went to see on our first night and 'the hotel where Amélie got bitten by two red ants'. Life can be really hard for those little ones!On the 20st we made it to Siem Reap. Our hotel being a little bit out of the centre, we didn't realise from the beginning just how touristic SR was!
What a difference with Kratie! Or even PP, though a lot of tourists, at least the capital seems to have a life on its own. Of course, in SR it is high high highest season with Christmas holidays just starting, a lot of Europeans, Australians and also Asiatics or Asian based expats come to SR , and of course, they do that to see the temples of Angkor, among which the wonder of Angkor Wat.** quiet, unless on the two nights of stay you culminate the noise of some construction works with the neighbours of our River Dolphin Hotel having their wedding party. When I first saw the street blocked by a colourful tent, lots of well decorated round tables with little plastic chairs, I thought 'great, how local! A wedding! Then when the van stopped and I realised it was really just next door we thought damn, a wedding next door. We ve seen a lot of weddings in the meantime, all have the same tents, decorated tables, plastic chairs, and seem to be organised that way. All have really excessively loud music...