More travel planning, and an afternoon by the pool

I spent a couple more hours planning onward travel yesterday. While it would have been much easier to only have to book one direct flight from Bangkok to Istanbul, it's going to be a lot more interesting doing the four flights from Bangkok to Maldives to Abu Dhabi to Kuwait to Istanbul!

So I booked the remaining two flights yesterday. In total, it is costing $513 USD ($691 CAD) each for the four flights, which is actually a few dollars cheaper than it would have cost for the one direct flight.

This is MUCH better... and, some exciting news!

We moved yesterday... to a much nicer spot. 

Before we left though, we walked into town to do some stocking up. The new place isn't walking distance to any worthwhile shops, and we knew we were going to have a fridge in the room at the new place, so we could do our own breakfast. And keep some beer cold!

We needed to do better!

If we wanted to stay at our current accommodation, we had to change rooms. The host offered us an interior room with no windows, for only $9 USD ($12 CAD), compared to the $12 USD, ($16 CAD) we had paid for the first night.

For that price, we would give it a shot for a night. It's not really the type of place that we'd like to spend more than a couple of nights, and in all honesty I'm not enjoying the heat, and without air conditioning it's pretty darn warm. On the other hand, the price is very attractive!

I wanted to leave our options open

We finally made it out of Phnom Penh. 

Even when we're in a place that we really like, we feel the need to move on after two weeks or so. So when we're in a place that we don't like, five days is about four days too many! And so it was with Phnom Penh.

Still in Phnom Penh!

We got up Thursday morning to find that Ruth had a bad stomach. There was no way she was prepared to sit in a minibus for three hours! So I went down to the front desk to make sure we were able to stay another night, which was no problem... so we are still in Phnom Penh!

Ruth never left the room all day. I went out for a half hour power walk just to get some exercise.

I guess we're going with plan B

Well, it's Thursday morning here in Phnom Penh, and our eVisas to Vietnam still show as "in processing". Due to Chinese New Year celebrations, their office is now closed until the 14th, so we're stuck here in Cambodia until then.

So, plan "B' it is!

Stuck in Phnom Penh

We're here in Phnom Penh waiting for our Vietnam eVisas to be approved. A bit frustrating because Phnom Penh was never on our "go to" list in the first place. But, totally my fault for not planning the eVisas in advance.

And the secondary problem is that the visa department is closed February 8-14 because of Chinese New Year. They did say standard approval time is within three working days, but they probably have a rush of applications prior to the closing. Anyhow, two days have passed, and the website still says "in processing".

Phnom Penh Red Light District

Yesterday, we spent a couple of hours wandering Phnom Penh in the baking heat. It never really cools off here. When the overnight low only goes to 27C (81F), it doesn't take long for things to bake as soon as the sun rises.

And yet, over 2 million people call this home. And there are quite a few expats here. We don't get it, but once again, it's good that we don't all like the same things.

Arrived in Phnom Penh

We said goodbye to our host Manel at Manel Guesthouse in Senmonorom. We had a really good stay there. Manel and his family treated us really well. He even gave us each a hug when we left. Can't recommend them enough. We can tell already that this will be our best memory of Cambodia. 

The minivan was there to pick us up at 9:15am for our six hour drive to Phnom Penh. 

A few things to talk about...

After we got back from the elephant visit and jungle trekking, we just hung out at the guesthouse and relaxed here in Senmonorom the last couple of days. We had a lot of onward travel planning research to do, and some decisions to make, and really... we just needed to take a couple of days and do nothing!

But with that done, there's a lot to tell you about!

January Expenses

Not bad, all things considered, but still more expensive than we thought it would be given that we are in "cheap" countries. Also considering we spent almost a week with our friends Han and Michelle and they hardly let us pay for anything! (Thanks again!)

And of course I had my heart health tests done during the month, which added a lot, however even taking that amount off it was more expensive than we planned.

Jungle trekking in Cambodia

We woke up from a poor nights sleep in the indigenous homestay hut. The bed itself was comfortable enough, and we weren't bothered by bugs... it was the dogs barking! No idea how everyone sleeps around there. Like in Mexico, they must have an afternoon siesta!

But... we had some hiking to do! 

A day learning about the elephants!

On Tuesday, we did the first part of a two day tour here in eastern Cambodia. Day one was a visit to an elephant sanctuary. It's actually called The Elephant Community Project. 

Interesting story behind how it all works. The guy running it was hired in 2015 to do a study about how many "domestic" elephants there were in Mondulkiri province. He visited all of the small towns and villages and farms and at the time of his research, the final tally was 64 elephants. 

Cambodia's highest waterfall

The guesthouse where we are staying has scooters for rent. So we paid the $10 USD ($13.40 CAD) daily rental fee and hopped on a scooter for the 35 km (22 mile) ride to Cambodia's highest waterfall.

And our host Manel gave us a list of things to see along the way.

Our first day exploring the area...

Senmonorom is known as an "off the beaten path" destination for tourism. There sure are a lot of guest houses and hotels here, although they seem to be mostly empty. The guest house where we are staying has 10 rooms, but we were the only ones here last night. 

Our host Manel says that tourism here hasn't yet recovered from Covid. And because Cambodia charges a visa fee, most tourists who like SE Asia flocked to Thailand first.