Phnom Penh, a vibrant city

Hi dear bloggers!

I hope you are all excited to hear more about our adventures.  After a good night sleep we were ready to discover the beauty of the capital Phnom Penh. There was so much to see, just by looking around you could see that this was a very brisk city and there was a lot of diversity between the cultures. 

If you would like to know something about the economy of Cambodia I could tell you this: first the economy in Cambodia was really bad due to many wars but new hotels, restaurants, bars and residential buildings were built and the country grew. The city Phnom Penh relies on tourism, so more shopping and commercial centers were needed and now Phnom Penh is one of the major tourist destinations in the country. So we could not walk by this city without getting to know the culture a bit more.

We headed to our first curiosity which was a temple named the Silver Pagoda. It was a bit chaotic, there were so many people running around and traffic was terrible too. When we arrived we were really surprised. We had never seen a building like this before, it was gorgeous and we took a lot of pictures. 

Inside the temple there was this huge Buddha statue entirely made out of gold and weighed about 90 kg. There was also a huge marble Buddha statue. Definitely worth checking out.

There were also a lot of beautiful gardens such as ‘Wat Phnom’, where we ate a local specialty named ‘Ka tieu’ which is a rice-noodle soup. It took us a while to make sure we spoke these words out correctly.

After that we visited some other temples called ‘Wat Ounalom’, ‘Wat Lang Ka’ and ‘Wat Koh’. Very difficult names to pronounce. Afterwards we immediately went to  bed because we were really tired.

The next day we got up early  but still it was already 25° C outside. We went to visit the Central Market which is definitely one of the biggest and busiest market we had ever seen. A huge building was really dominating the market place  but it was quite nice to look at. We tasted a lot of local specialties and tried to catch up a few words. Still it was very difficult to understand and to remember them.

The people in Phnom Penh are really friendly, some of them even invited us to have a drink so they could tell us more about the capital. We were happy that we just could sit down for one moment and have a drink, enjoying the sun and still learn a lot about Cambodia and Phnom Penh. We stayed up late watching the sunset at the Olympic Stadium, that was a moment we shall never forget.

The next day we got ready, packed our bags to go on a trip to our new destination. We are going to Thailand just by crossing the border. We had to take a bus to get there. When we arrived we immediately checked in on a hotel and as they say in Spain, took a siesta.

Don’t forget to read our blog to read what will happen in our next adventure!

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phnom_Penh
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodja

Sofie Van Laeken

Hello Bloggers!

Our plans have changed a bit. Instead of taking a boat directly to Cambodia, which would have been a detour, we took a boat towards Kuala Perlis. In Kuala Perlis we visited a market,  which you find very often in these southern countries.

After eating a ‘Nasi Melak’ to fill our stomachs, a typical Malaysian dish with rice and meat we still haven’t figured out, we took the buss to Sakom. Crossing both Malaysia and the utter piece of Thailand (the land we are going to visit after Cambodia).

In Sakom we could take a boat again that would take us to a very idyllic place called ‘Thma Sa’. Seeing Thma Sa lies at the foot of the Boutom Sakor National Park, we decided to take a hike for 2 days. We knew we wouldn’t be able to get into the heart of the park, but we had to at least visit one national park.

2 days later we decided on moving towards Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh.

We could have chosen to cross the lake Chhak Kompong Som, but since we had already seen enough water the last couple of days we chose to keep our feet on the ground.

With no actual roads present we managed to borrow some donkeys to take us to the nearest road where we started hitchhiking. After waiting an hour a friendly man picked us up and we started our tour on route 48 taking us towards Phnom Penh.

The man only took us to Phumi Cham Srei where he invited us to have dinner with him and his family. His wife and beautiful daughters showed us their house and were as friendly as you would expect when you see them smiling.

After thanking them for their hostility we left again to go to Phnom Penh directly.

Seeing we had already lost a lot of time we really had to get going now.

We travelled about 2 hours when we arrived in one of the most amazing capitals you could ever imagine. But we quickly had to search for a motel to sleep, because it was getting dark already. We had a good meal and now Sofie, Delphine and Lies are catching up on their reading and personal notes.

As for me, I’m writing about what has happened the last couple of days to make sure you stay well informed. Well, we are about to call it a night.

Thanks for reading us today!

Julie Hamerlinck

Source:

http://malay.pgoh13.com

Cruising across Sumatra

Hello bloggers

Here we are again with a new update! After we visited Indonesia and Jakarta, like you can read in our first blog, we are now travelling towards Cambodia. At the beginning of the next week we hope being in Cambodia but we first want to visit Sumatra. We left Jakarta very early this morning because we don’t have time to lose if we want to visit the 12 countries and end our journey in Lithuania.

Saturday, the fifth day of our journey, we took the boat in Jakarta at 7 a.m. We had been travelling for about 5 hours when we arrived in Palembang, the capital of South Sumatra and the second largest city of the country. We could immediately see that Palembang is a rich city because there were nice buildings. We found out that the city is the richest city of Indonesia because of the oil that is a real source of wealth. The economy of Palembang also consists of coffee plantations and rubber.

Palembang is also called ‘Venice of the east’ because the banks of the river Musi are covered with water and regular intervals. We didn’t have a lot time to visit the city because we had to move on quickly but we did visit the Ampera Bridge, which was very impressive because of its dimension.

It was quite easy to get around in Palembang because there are a lot of public busses and you can also hire boats to cross the rivers. But to move on to Medan, the capital of North Sumatra, we took a domestic flight.

We could see a difference between Palembang and Medan; Palembang was a rich city but in Medan, things were different. After the city’s independence, there was a quick growth and Medan had difficulties to maintain the infrastructure. There are problems concerning water, electricity and sewerage. Also pollution and flooding are big problems. But the good news is that Medan is working on his economy and they are building a new airport, which will be finished in June 2011.

We rented a car because we wanted to visit the Toba Lake, situated 176 km away from Medan. We were overwhelmed when we saw the lake because it’s the biggest lake in the world, situated 1000 m above the sea level. There is even an island with a small village!

It’s time to move on again. Tonight (Monday) we are going to take the boat and probably tomorrow in the afternoon we will be in Cambodia. It will be a long trip but we guess it will be worth it.

Keep on reading our blog so that you stay in touch with us!

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palembang
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medan
http://www.indonesia-tourism.com/south-sumatra/places.html

Delphine Van Vooren

First experiences in Borneo

Hello bloggers!

This is where it all starts. My friends and I will be traveling for about 12 weeks starting today, the 15^th of February in Borneo. During these 12 weeks, we will pass 12 countries until we reach Lithuania. Once or twice a week, we are going to update our blog so you can catch up with our latest adventures. 

Being the third largest island in the world and located north of Australia, Borneo is really worth a visit. The island is divided in three main countries: Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia.

We started our first week in Banjarmasin, also known as the capital of South Kalimantan (Indonesia) enduring the tropical rainforest climate. With the Syamsudin Noor Airport located 25 km outside the town and the good transport facilities in the city, we were practically free to leave whenever it fitted us.  After tasting a local dish “Ketupat Kandangan”, a dish with chicken with coconut milk soup, we were ready to start exploring.

Banjarmasin’s main economic sectors are transportation and communication, processing industries, trade and commerce. The city is also served by an important deepwater port called Trisakti Harbour. Rubber, pepper, timber, petroleum, gold and diamonds are the most exported products. The city is home of the “Roman Catholic Diocese of Banjarmasin” with 96% of the population being Muslim.

Because we are all big nature and animal  fans, we decided on visiting the Taman Safari Indonesia park. It is a natural preserve of almost 300 hectares where we saw a lot wild animals like: elephants, lions, tigers, buffalos, rhinoceros and several rare bird species.  The fun thing about this place was that we could take a lot of pictures from nearby.

Visiting Java was also on our to-do list so we took a domestic flight and stayed 2 days in Java’s capital Jakarta before turning back to Banjarmasin. During our first day, we visited the National Museum in Central Jakarta also known as “the elephant building”. The museum is focused on archeological, historical, ethnological and geographical foundlings en researches. Extremely beautiful and instructive.

All of Jakarta area has their own shopping centre icon and characteristic of the shoppers. Of course, we had to visit at least one mall before moving on. From 1985 to 2000 a million square meters of shopping space was built.
Me and my friends visited the luxurious Plaza Senayan shopping mall that’s only a few minutes away from the Jakarta Central Business District.

We certainly enjoyed our first 4 days in Indonesia.
Please keep reading our blog so you can join us in exploring the world!

Written by Lies Descheemaeker

Sources:
http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Java/Jakarta/blog-501107.html
http://www.tamansafari.com/Safari_Trek.html
http://www.plaza-senayan.com/ 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borneo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java
http://jakarta-tourism.go.id/