Smiles 'n Curry

Yo, it's Cutie Mark Crusaders writing here again, from Koh Chang, Thailand! After saying goodbye to Tiina & Harry one month ago we started our journey towards the Kingdom of Cambodia. Our bus ride from Bangkok to Siem Reap was longer than expected (as usual) and consisted of a tourist scam at the border. If you ever go to Cambodia from Thailand by bus, please do homework and read in ANY guide about the scams (no need to pay double price for the visa to avoid a nonexistent queue).

After all the hassle we experienced a friendly and smiley Cambodia :) Despite of the cruel recent history people were very open and nice. If you're interested in the Khmer Rouge genocide, here's a link for more info.

Now that we were in Siem Reap, we naturally wanted to explore the temple ruins of Angkor, the world's largest religious temple complex. We spent two days walking and climbing around the area. Pauliina's favorite moment was to see a gorgeous Cambodian bride posing at the ruins and to catch a picture of her. For Yakov fave place was the Ta Prohm-temple where the huge trees have taken over. It reminded of the fact that no matter how much people will be around the nature will take care of itself and keep the balance.

Amazingly beautiful Khmer bride

The faces of Bayon

Embracing the hot April Sun

Running roots

The enlightened Buddha lost his head

Dancers of the temple

Flower of Life

Kampanainen!

Yakov made a flower origami for the girls

We had the intention to visit the temples two days in a row, but next morning 5 AM our tuktuk driver never showed up which turned out to be a blessing because our muscles and feet were aching from previous day's adventures. One thing that keeps constantly arising in our trip is the impermanence of life. Never give too much importance for your plans, they always change!


Inspired by the jungle-like Ta Prohm temple, we went to watch Tomb Raider (which is partly filmed there) to a nice cinema where you can pick a movie any time of the day and have your own room and privacy.

Angkor Wat at dawn

Yako and the Roots <3

Climbing in the midday heat with sweat pearls all over the body

Ta Prohm

Shamaim at home

Cambodian kids are so cute!!! Everywhere they were saying "Hello! Hello!" with the most adorable voices and smiles

"I can hear the roar of the lion... Over Zion..." hahahaa

Buddhaaaa

Family sticks together

A young monk at the Sunset spot

In Cambodia Buddhism is very visible with numerous temples and young wondering monks begging for their daily meal (this is a spiritual practice of overcoming self-arrogance). We shared a meditative moment in our local Buddhist temple in Siem Reap. When we entered the building we felt deep peace inside :)

We discovered the delicious Khmer Curry that we happily ate almost every day during the whole three weeks stay. Thanks to the French colonialism there were fresh baguettes in every corner of every street! (Finally got some crunchy bread, mmmm). Almost all the fruits were tastier than anywhere else before (to mention few juicy ones: dragonfruit, mangosteen and mango).

After the wonders of Angkor we headed to South coast, to Sihanouk Ville with a bus trip that took almost the whole day traveling through simple countryside roads. Here the buses really carry everything including scooters, rice sacks for the whole village and many more. After resting one night in the town we went to Otres beach that was suppose to be "the romantic and most quiet beach" in S. Ville. Well, reality was a bit different. That's another thing about traveling and life; many things may seem attractive on the paper while the truth might be something very different (and constantly changing of course!)

After giving up with Otres we wanted to check a nearby island Koh Russei. Things didn't work so well for this case either when Pauliina got fever, intense diarrhea and vomiting. Only after five days of relaxing (that we actually really needed!) we got to the island itself. "The Bamboo Island with clear water, clean white sand beach and excellent opportunity for snorkeling with only one bungalow place guarantees a peaceful and relaxing atmosphere". Sounds good, right?

Well... Let's put it this way. It's really mainly about the people and the energy of the place whether you will enjoy it or not. And we didn't! :D Noisy drunkards who think they're living the Beach-movie life. And the food was vomitable. After two days we had enough and wanted to leave. This turned out to be quite life changing experience when we hit a monsoon storm in the middle of the ocean, with a very simple wooden boat that was carrying dozen people. Yakov's thought were pretty much like this:
"I hope it's not gonna rain. I hope our stuff will stay dry. I hope we're gonna stay alive!" And in the end: "Life is just a dream". :)

In the end everything worked out for the best. We got a refreshing shower from above and below and hopefully new phones, thanks to having a travel insurance! After this we settled down in a cozy guesthouse Geckozy and enjoyed simplicity in life.

This is what we were doing with our "spare time" ;)

After a week of doing absolutely nothing we traveled to Koh Kong, a town at the border with Thailand. We wanted to experience our bodies in other ways than just walking to restaurants and eating, so booked ourselves for a jungle trekking trip to Cardemom Mountains.  

The morning water was too low for the boat so we got a mud massage for the legs

Our guide Jake (means banana in Khmer)

Cooling down at the waterfall, aaah

Crew going back home

Cambodian life next to the river

Next week's Wednesday we're gonna fly to Calcutta, India! The only thing we basically "know" about this place is Dr. Bombay's Calcutta from the 90's. This can't be anything else but GOOD! Until then, Sayonara amigos! <3