Siem Reap and Ze Temples

Once installed in siem reap, We had booked for a walk in a village a little bit outside of town, and hoped to have a good insight on how cambodian live, on a child-adapted level. We booked with an association Beyond Unique Escapes so that half of your fee goes back to the community you visit, and walked around for two hours. We still are champions in leaving just in the middle of the heat, so that didn't help. Also, as Pierre and I are blessed with some previous travel, and me having experienced from up close life in poor communities (microfinance project outside of Buenos Aires, street children around Tegucigalpa) it wasn't really an eye opener, as it might maybe be to less traveled people (not aiming in particular to certain countries at all....) We got greeted by a dozen of smiles, tried to explain / translate to the kids what they saw, and prevented Bill to steal the very one piece of toy we had seen in the entire village. I guess after two months our kids miss toys a bit. Confrontation with luxury problems amidst pure poverty. Poverty just a ten minutes tuktuk ride away from thousands of visitors. probably filling the pockets of just some happy few businesspeople. Pushing up prices of goods and land. Let's say there is room for some sustainable tourism development, eco and people centered!

Another excursion we had booked with the same people, was to a floating and a fisherman village. That was a better shot. Having heard of it being more and more touristic we opted for this one. Hoping to avoid the half real half fake made up floating village on Tonle Sap. It was nice.

First we stopped along the road to taste some sticky rice in bambu , then in a crossroad market for some more 'pluah?' Pluah? from cambodian side, and "oh look here, that fish is still moving! Or 'look, snakes!'  and a lot of " c'est quoi CA?' Followed by the inevitable "why?" Questions from our kids side.

Then to the fishermen village of Kampong Khleang. In this dry season, you see the houses perched some 4 to 5metres above the ground, during wet season or even monsoon months, water comes up till their doors, fields and bushes disappear and all is done by boat.

A 20min trip down the stream brings us to the lake  where we take in some nice views of the Viet floating village and Cambodia's biggest lake. The houses are build on bambu or boats and move up to 8 times a year depending on water levels. There is the mechanical shop, the meeting point for buying fish, .... Intruiging... Beautiful sights.

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 ;-)

Anyhow, le grand voyage, Les grands temples, une grande famille et de grandioses souvenirs, en havaianas autour d'un cocktail! Santa Claus has been good for us! We hope he'll be generous in 2016 for everyone, and above all that people will be generous with each other!

Inside cambodia

After three days in Phnom Penh, we travelled to Kratie where we arrived some 4-5hours of mini-van later (yep a full 250 km northeast) Kratie is a quiet and nice little town**, with still some pastel colored colonial architecture, along the Mekong river. Things to see and do are spotting the rare irrawaddy river dolphins and wandering around the center or on the little Island of Kaoh Trong just in front. And that's what we did. 

A short boattrip away (which makes for big adventures with three kids) the walk on the island was a bit short and it would have been fun to have some more time to get lost a bit more. Unfortunately with limited time, (tuktuk for the dolphins was picking us up at 2pm), no prior organisation and three small kids, some options where not for us (motodrop -just sit on the back of a motorbike and they drive you around - or biking )/and the cow with carriage that could come and pick us up wasn't available before 1 (?). The Mekong river really gives for a great backdrop of every activity, every drink you take, every little bank you sit on, all the nice, interested, cheeck-pinching and photo-taking Khmer people you meet on the riverside. 

(We decided now to do a picture for a picture, and when they are finished with their phone, we give them ours to have a picture as well) Kids played some cambodian instruments while we enjoyed the sunset and a drink over the river at the very nice Jasmine Boat café  restaurant.

Nice and honest by the way, as they stopped me on the street next day to give me the bottle of water we had paid for but not received!

The kids did their siesta in the tuktuk on the way to the dolphins, where we were indicated a small wooden motorboat to float a bit on the Mekong, spotting some of the 78 dolphins still alive. We did see some coming to the surface once in a while, but spoiled as we are, it wasn't the most exiting thing I ve seen. The calm river and the soft light of the end of the day, with three happy kids (not at all a guarantee on afternoon trips!) Did make for a nice trip out.

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.

(Along the road)

** 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...

In the river dolphin hotel in kratie Mattthias started to walk a little bit with help. Then fooling around he fell out of our bed, hurt his leg and we would have to wait some more days before he regained confidence again... 

Culture shock?

Kids are doing amazingly well I think in this completely other world. They do express some questions or doubts of course. 'Are we sure they could just sit in the tuktuk, without helmet or safety belt?' (We crazy freaky parents who carry around safety harnasses around the world to countries where family of five just simply sit all together on a motorbike...)
'They should throw things less on the street, c'est de la pollution et ça abîme la nature'. I think they had noticed already in Argentina that things where not clean or as clean as we are used to in Barcelona, sidewalk  not even, etc.. Arriving in Buenos Aires Amélie had decided that it was OK, that Argentinan where simply less clean than we are. "Sauf (uncle) Thomas et Teffi, ça se sont des  argentins propres."

I was 'concerned' about the food, although I read how delicious Cambodian cuisine is, rarely really spicy, and so easy for kids. I also do know that,  especially our boys, have a really bad character when it comes to food. Mainly No vegetables (having of course the great example of their dad, the only green thing you might see spontaneously on his plate is probably wasabi...) So the mixed fried rice things with all sort of undefined coloured elements, no go. The soups, no go. Add to that the fact that we are not very food-adventurous people and rrrreally don't want to risk to be stomach-sick (again) result: We have put them on a regime of fresh fruit , fish rolls, chicken and ... Steamed rice. I think they could eat just that all day.

And then came the tarantulas! We went to a social project / training restaurant and Pierre ordered three of them. I think no psychologist could ever think of a better test than that.  

Matthias (my son, I mean, really, looking and acting most like me) screamed almost hysterically that he wanted rice!! He didn't touch the spider. He got rice.

Amélie, after receiving some objective information and confirmation about the spiders being comestible , decided she could and would eat them. And she would eat every single leg and the body. And she did.
William looked at Amélie, followed her enthusiasm, took off a leg and ate it, as if he had done nothing else ever since he was born, but then had a better look at his brother and his plate, and decided to offer me the spider " maman, c est pour toi. Je partage." steam rice for Bill. And for me.

And with that same "smoothness" they sat on a tuktuk, they sipped on a rooftop bar from our cocktails, they navigated the Mekong on a sunset cruise, they put their hands together to say goodbye, they got to play some music and fought with their sticks to catch their food in their plate.

Aside from that we also went to some markets (Central and Russian), the wat phnom temple, absorbed the vibes of early evenings along the river and got really silent (well, we adults) at the killing fields. It wasn't the easiest place to visit with kids, so Pierre walked around with the boys, I had Amélie and an audio guide. Her childish naivety was strikingly in contrast with a place that has seen so much horror and terror. Counting butterflies and Asking a wandering chicken if she was looking for her friend's bones...

After three days, four nights, we took a minivan to Kratie, up the river, and after walking around the town with some old French architecture, we sat town to watch another spectacle of the sun over the river.

Asia touchdown - phnom penh

So the 9:10 flight went just fine. After 24 lovely hours in Bangkok, where our Amélie fell in love with the little puppy, the boys got a new best friend ever with Matteo, and we enjoyed seeing them all play together (kids really happy to have some real toys again) and some adult talk with Big Amelie, we flew to Phnom Penh, Cambodia for our first Asian country together! It was already our 10th flight of our trip (I really have to compensate our terrible ecofootprint now...), the shortest of all with just a bit more than one hour to go, and of course, life would be too easy otherwise, the worst of all! Amélie, who has been really great since the start of this trip, had a MAJOR meltdown in-flight that lasted for about the whole flight, starting when she discovered (or maybe for the first time thought about) that oxygen masks should be put around the adult first before helping the children. poor little girl, she felt it as a huge illogical and criminal thing that a kid should not be helped. I am not sure our neighbours had a lot of empathy. Well. No. I am sure by the furious look in their eyes, the turning around frequently, ... That they did not understand how helpless and in panic Amelie felt. Of course, Pierre had just that one hour to fill in custom and immigration paper which are 3 pieces of paper, a person ... So he wasn't really able to help to calm Amélie. And i was seated four rows away with the boys. Then Mat choose to need to go urgently to the bathroom just at the precise moment where landing was started. The airhostess was about to tell me to go back to my seat, but then Mat screamed 'caca caca cacaaaa!' With almost the same panic in his eyes as his sister and so she wisely decided to let us go.
I felt so relieved when we got out of the plane, that I even managed to keep calm - which is per definition quiet rare on traveling days - when Pierre had to fill in even more papers and our eVisas bought online where - of course - not accepted and we had to pay again, queue every possible queue and finally got out last, with only our luggage turning around on the belt. Luckily the minivan we ordered through the hotel was a real one and we all fitted for our first drive through heavy end of day traffic to our little nest, okay boutique hotel, for 4 nights. 3 seconds pop up tents , 10seconds to put "" just""" the feet in the pool/ aka to have full clothes wet splashing around and another 5minutes to realise kids where just to tired to eat (still some 4hours jetlag with Sydney).

So logically, we woke up really early next day to discover the nice breakfast and even nicer personal. They looked honestly happy when we answered we would stay 4 days!  In our first days the kids where touched in their cheek and blond hair a hundred times, a thousand pictures where taken, and don't ask me how you say thank you to Cambodians (putting hands together and a little elegant movement of the head will do) , but I do now that what sounds as 'plhua' means twin! 

Kids are dealing quiet well with the attention, they learnt not to give the bad look to everyone approaching, and when bill asked why everyone was touching them, sweet Amélie answered "c'est parce qu'on est tellement mignons". Cambodians are, as is said, really nice, and compared to other countries we have visited, I have to say there s a hectic buzz but  you don't feel harassment nor insecurity.

Given the heat and jetlag, we opted for some excursions in the morning, then pool/lunch and siesta before heading back to town around 4/5 (sun goes down quiet early unfortunately)

There was some disappointment that we didn't see the king when we visited his palace, but receiving some flowers you can make tea with compensated perfectly

We had a very nice driver who was usually available when walking out of our hotel and at the end he knew which was the walking twin and the 'he doesn't walk' twin. (Mat got rid of his cast, but is still not walking, which is logical as he would have been with a cast till Christmas normally for his broken leg) Pierre tried to take along the stroller on our first day, but he ended up walking on the street, which is not necessarily the best place to be walking. So we are carrying mat around in the manduca/carrier. 

And the tuktuk does the rest. And the magic! I think I will never forget the look in their eyes during their first tuktuk ride!

A week in Sydney in a nutshell?

We are facing 9:10min flight to Bangkok - did I mention it is a day flight? - so I might as well take the time to do a "quick" review of our Sydney week while at the start of that adventure. (Read: now that the three kids are still more or less under control - i don't fool myself anymore that they are ever completely under control - and our neighbours in flight still have decent levels of tenderness and patience )

We booked an Airbnb to have a bit of a home feeling and to have some space after the campervan. Also, sydney is reeeally expensive! Even if we d take bunkbeds in backpackers hostals, i got around a 100-130euros a night! Let's not talk about hotel rates, which also would have meant we d had to take all our meals outside, expensive joke as well. So we opted for a "stunning little townhouse" in Manly, known to the kids as 'la petite maison où on peut faire des barbecues". just a 5min walk from the green ferry to the opera and citycentre. Locationwise perfect!

 Manly is really a relaxed family friendly suburb, and the 30min ferry to city centre is just the good start of an excursion. On weekdays at 6pm you see all the whitecollars getting of the boat and take a quick dive in the sea (manly has got two sides ; open to the ocean with big waves and surfers, and the more enclosed harbourbeaches) on weekends the beaches and every spot of grass available along the beach is taken by picnics & aperos! It is quiet animated, sometimes loud (the youth of today) and we just enjoyed it from a little distance, grateful (again) not to be here during high Holiday season! Longing (a bit) to those years without kids/tantrums/rithms/strollers/.... ;-)

After a first day in Manly at the beach and on a kayak, we headed to the city on sunday. Aussies seem equally relaxed and friendly as the kiwis. I have to say we have never felt insecure, though of course downtown is a big city. We where all kind of exited to see the opera and the bridge. Kids even managed to be excited over the opera every time it appeared in sight. And again, and again, and again. We combined a walk with a hop on hop off bus tour, lunch at the rocks, stroll through the botanical garden, turning around the ópera, icecream in Darling harbour,....

On Monday Pierre took Matthias to the doctor in a Southern suburb to take off his cast. As it is a bit early (they said 4 months) we have to respect Mat in his progress... Concretely, cast off + 4 days, we feel like having a litlle toddler, exited about him crawling alone, then making his first steps at our hands, then 3 steps alone.... But I think we ll have to be patient before he really walks and we can get rid of the stroller.... So Cambodia with a stroller but without cast, here we come!

 

We had another day at the obligatory 'family in Sydney' spot; the zoo! Completed by a koala encounter. It is a nice zoo, still a zoo, but it has STUNNInG views on Sydney's harbour!
Rainy day at home, another day around manly and litlle manly beach , then the ever challenging fun of packing!

We where supposed to go to the blue mountains but .... Didn't want to spend double money on Airbnb in manly + accommodation in the blue mountains // didn't want to spend 4 hours in the car ida y vuelta (especially me, as Pierre seems to have superpowers for not hearing screaming/fighting/... kids while driving.)// weather forecast wasn't great great//..  Moreover, some nice friends are moving to Brisbane (more or less) shortly and we like leaving a country with some excuses to come back! So blue mountains (and all the rest of Australia.....) + friends  are adding up for some more planning, dreaming, .... Of coming back one day to the Aussies!

After this lovely 9:10hours dayflight (i already said that.no?) We will be spending one night at Amélie and Manu's place in Bangkok (well amelie and the kids, as manu unfortunately is running away from us for some professional urgency) and then Saturday we will fly into Cambodia for three weeks of new tastes (omg... That is going to be fun with our no vegetables, nothing Unknown or too exotic eating kids!) New sights, new adventures and new language - after learning the tank you very much - which really sounded like perfect Flemish speaking kids 'tank Joe very motch'  and asking for the bill instead of la cuenta - Williams nickname surely helping in remembering that word.

(Before going back to Bangkok, probably on Jan 1st)

Rotorua and exit campervan & NZ

So we went to Rotorua to discover some of nature's volcanic wonders. Although we had very little time we where served some beauties visiting a park Te Puia. A gheyser, some mud pools, a lot of smoke and a nice walk around. 

Then we went to Cosy Cottages camping to complete the volcanic experience: kids on the beach of the lake where digging their own spa pools with warm volcanic water; you could steamcook on hot volcanic air (we didn't) or relax in the hot pools (we did!)  the water they get is at boiling temperature so they need to cool it down before filling the pools; kindly asked not to touch the water from the river, when you see the smoke you do get why. Impressive stuff at easy reach! It s the only thing we visited in Northern Island and I am glad we did!

Then off to Auckland on Wednesday. After three weeks of travelling, mostly in southern New Zealand, we said good-bye to our campervan. Kids where a bit worried about  where 'she' would go to, a bit hesitating about whether they would accept the idea of someone else travelling with her now, and worried about how on earth they would sleep and move around now?!!?! So we took our litlle booklets again which represent the countries we will visit and more or less what and who we will see so the kids know what to expect (merci Caro pour le conseil), promised two nights of hotel in Auckland, then a white plane with red kangaroo (Qantas) to Sydney and one week of airbnb at Manly Beach, in a little house where we can do a barbecue.

We definitely realise that after three weeks of campervan, we are somehow changed.... Some behaviours just simply don't lie about having spent a lot of time in the limited space of a campervan:
- you feel lost in the huge hotel bathroom! All the different functions are so far apart. Now you can sit on the toilet without having to fold the water basin, or if you are to quick at turning on the tap for washing your hands without giving it a second thought, you don't get showered instead (no tap for washing hands separately, in the campervan just a tap for the shower so no errors accepted!)
- kids react verrrry enthusiastic at the idea of taking a bath , it has been a highlight for them when asked about Auckland's must DoS and what they ll remember.
- they flush a few times not believing there is continuously water (we ran out of flushing water more than once... But then hey there s always thé shower on a different waternetwork)
- Pierre has the need to touch the wall with his head when lying in his bed; got used to sleeping in a mini troll bed.
- you caught yourself analysing the bed's horizon to see which side to put your head, in case underground of the campervan isn't flat.

It was fun traveling around with the van, though it sure has some challenges - but hey, wouldn't every way of travelling with three kids be challenging - I also think it was a secure way in every meaning to get the kids used to us traveling. Cambodia, if and when we get there (mat's cast)  will present a lot more changes of transportationmode and of sleeping place. Which will ask more flexibility from the kids, .... And some more being zen from us (we managed to have a fight over transportationmode back in our hometown in Belgium just the two of us, so imagine how well prepared we are in the Big Unknown with 3 kids!)!

And now today Friday 4th off to Sydney for a week of Airbnb up in Manly Beach!