Travel – Page 4 – Old & Lost

29 March 2018 – Kuala Lumpur – Day 5 – Batu Caves

Published on March 29, 2021 by Old&LostLeave a comment

I was up early and out on our balcony, looking around. Thought I would take some pictures that shows what I saw, the not so nice/clean areas. Our hotel, the Ramada Suites by Wyndham, was amazing and two streets over was Changkat Butik Bintang, the street with all the bars, clubs and restaurants.

Garbage collection at it’s finest. Didn’t empty the green bin and left piles of garbage on the ground

Since our Hop On/Hop Off bus tickets were good for 24 hours we were able to utilize it again this morning to get to the KL Sentral Bus Terminal. Yes, we did get the Hop On/Hop Off bus from the stop that was much closer to our hotel. In fact, it was right by the McDonalds that we ate at last night. From the KL Sentral Bus terminal, they bussed us to Sentul to catch the KTM line which took us to the Batu Caves in the mountains. Took us a while to figure out how to get there and where to go. Have to say, that we kind of surprised ourselves that we made it, with no issues or without getting lost.

A very short walk from the station and we were there. Quite a spectacular sight to see, I might say, even with all the maintenance scaffolding around. The staircase up to the entrance of the largest cave, Cathedral Cave aka Temple Cave and a 140 foot tall gold painted statue of Lord Murugan.

At the bottom of the stairs, there is a sign asking visitors to help out by carrying a brick or pail of sand to the top. I don’t think they were talking about me. We were still trying to figure out whether or not we, or I, would even make it up the 272 steps to the Hindu Shrine inside the huge cave in the mountain. We had to do the stairs in segments and take a rest in between. I have no idea how some of these people managed to get up here.

There were so many monkeys, actually, they are macaques, but none of them entered any of the caves. It was surprising, so we wondered if they had some kind of electronic device set up to keep the monkeys out.

One of the monkey’s tried to grab our Gatorade out of Doug’s hand. But Doug held on tight and won. We had been warned about the monkeys from Paden. You had to keep everything put away or it was fair game to the monkeys.

Once inside the cave it was so cool…..but so HOT & HUMID. The sweat was just dripping off me.

But the scenery was great. Too bad there were so much refurbishment going on though. It was huge inside!

Never fear, there were more stairs!

Time to head back down now.

Dark Cave. Ah shucks! Advance booking required. We did NOT do this cave and tour. After reading the sign, there was NO WAY in hell I would do that tour!!!!. “The highlight of the trip will be our infamous Crawl Passage and viewing the trapdoor spider in their natural habitats. There will be elements of climbing, sliding and of course, the epic crawl! Expect to get wet and dirty.” DEFINITELY NO WAY!!!!

I did take a few pictures in the entrance way, as the rock colours were amazing.

It was apparently cruise ship day today and we saw lots of people from the cruise ships. Chatted with one guy as he was asking if we thought they had time to go to the top and back. They had something like 30 minutes there. Crazy short amount of time to see such an amazing place. Really happy we weren’t doing this on a cruise ship excursion.

We wanted to see the Ramayana Cave also, but had to wait a bit for the ticket sales office to open.

While we were waiting we got to watch this guy for a bit. He was pretty big!

Once inside the cave, it was so different from the Cathedral Cave. It was so vibrant and all but filled with fluorescent lighting, Almost freakish. But never fear, this cave also came with more steps inside. Yes, we did go up them. There weren’t too many people inside here. I guess they just didn’t want to pay to go in.

I feel like these are an optical illusion. Are they going up or are they going down? I know the answer!

Getting the subway back was easy peasy now. We were subway pros and managed to get back to The Pavilion, Kuala Lumpur.
We decided to eat at Quivo, a restaurant in the Pavilion Mall, that I had seen people eating scrumptious looking onion rings at. We ordered a couple pints of draft and onion rings, to be followed by fajitas, that we shared. Onions rings looked a lot better than they tasted, but were still good. Fajitas were average, but what did I really expect?

For dessert we headed to Cold Stone Creamery and Doug got ice cream. Yum Yum Yum For some odd reason I decided to get a pretzel and took no pictures of my pretzel.

We headed back to hotel to pack for our flights to Singapore tomorrow. But, for one last time we just had to pass through rat alley where there about 5 rats scurrying around. GOODBYE RATS!!!

P.S. Saw this guy on the way to the bus this morning!

28 March 2018 – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Day 4 – Petronas Twin Towers & KL Bird Park

Published on March 28, 2021 by Old&LostLeave a comment

Originally we had only booked for 3 nights here. Lucky for us, we hadn’t planned out or booked anything past these 3 days. Since there was so much to do here, and we hadn’t yet seen the Petronas Twin Towers, we booked another 2 nights stay. We still had to check out and then back in for the other 2 nights.

We walked to Petronas Twin Towers and purchased our tickets, one Senior Citizen and one Adult. Senior Citizen was almost half the price of an Adult ticket! Our tour time was 11:30 am and it was 10:45 am now. So, not a bad wait at all, but gave us some time to browse around the lobby area. As I mentioned the other day, these are the world’s tallest twin towers at 88 stories each, with 5 underground levels.

We use to collect these Press A Coins from every where we went. We have so many now, especially from the Disney Parks, but did not get these ones. Have to stop sometime.

The elevators were super fast and super smooth. Sure is a good thing, since I am not fond of small spaces or heights. The first stop was the Skybridge at level 41/42. Apparently the bridge is not fully attached to the towers, to allow for movement due to winds and other unpleasant weather.

I certainly wouldn’t want this guys job! Scary just watching him.

From the Skybridge level we caught another elevator up to the Observation Deck – LEVEL 86! Spent quite a while taking lots of pictures up here. Didn’t want to mess up, as I doubt we will ever be back here again. The views were spectacular and the skies were quite clear, which was great for viewing. Great birds eye view of the cemetery.

The above photo is where we took pictures the first day. You know, where I succumbed to the sales pitch of the iPhone lens guy. It was a great purchase though IMHO.

Thought it was really cool how they made amazing designs out of all the solar panels.

We came back later tonight to see the fountains all lit up.

It was now 12:30 and we caught the Hop on/Hop off city tour bus just outside the towers (Stop 23) as we were heading for the KL Bird Park (world’s largest free-flight walk-in Avery) at Stop 15. We knew this tour bus went there and we had no idea how else to get there. Of course, we never even looked into other ways. We did, however, see so much of the city. If we ever come back, we would need to do this Hop on/Hop off tour again, but actually get off at the different stops. But, today was all about getting to the KL Bird Park.
It was a double-decker bus with half of the top open air. We sat at the very front of the open-air section. Thought we would like to get a little sun. Boy were we fools! The sun was a killer!

It took us approximately 1 1/2 hours to get there. This park has so many natural surroundings for the birds and is just great. I don’t think I have ever seen such an amazing variety of birds. It was like paradise.

Guess we were there at feeding time, but then again, feeding time is probably all day with so many birds around.

Of course we had to have some birds who were strutting their stuff to show off.

Our favorites were all of these guys. We could have chatted with them and watched them for hours. So comical.

We had one last area in the bird park to see, the Waterfall Aviary. It was quite the hike though, as we were getting tired.

They don’t kid about smoking. Too bad they didn’t actually enforce it, as we did see a smoker not too far from this sign.

We had been touring the bird park for at least 2 1/2 hours, but could have easily spent longer there. However we were tired and knew it would take a while to get back. We must have waited a good 30 minutes before the Hop on/Hop off bus showed up. This one was completely enclosed up top. Again sat in the front seats and had the sun still glaring on us, but through the glass this time! Still HOT!

We again got a great tour of the city. This time, totally different areas than the route to the KL Bird Park. The architecture here is amazing, both old and new.

We disembarked at the Towers to walk back to our hotel. I have no idea why we didn’t just stay on the bus and get off at a stop closer to our hotel. Yes, there was one closer.
Since we had to go through the mall, we decided to get some Gatorade, as we really needed some electrolytes. It had been so hot today, especially up on those bus tops. Will we ever learn that it is hot over here, in the sun? It doesn’t seem like it. We headed back to hotel to change, and just as we reached hotel, the sky opened up to a big thunder and lightening rainstorm. We sure timed that right for once. We were really hoping that the rain would stop as I really, really wanted to go back to the towers to get some night photos. It was torrential downpours for an hour or so, but did finally clear up, so we were off again. Back to the Petronas Towers.

The KLCC Lake Gardens at night. They put on a beautiful light and fountain show.

The Golden Arches are everywhere. MacDonald’s for dinner tonight. 9.50 RM = Cdn $3.00 That is for the full meal

Ended our exhausting, amazing day with doing some hand laundry. There is always laundry to do!!!

Fitbit tally for the day; 20,353 steps, 15.37km and 30 floors. A new record in steps for me.

27 March 2018 – Kuala Lumpur – Day 3 – Central Market

Published on March 27, 2021 by Old&LostLeave a comment

Kuala Lumpur has so many places to see. Where to start? We wanted to see the Central Market and I had a list of a few temples. We decided we would walk. Good old maps.me in use again. I swear that maps.me always takes us the longest and most touristy routes. Today’s route took us through Chinatown. We even saw a license plate with Canada on it. The red spikey fruit is rambutan. Very similar to a lychee nut once peeled. We had had them in Vietnam last year.

After what seemed like hours, but in reality wasn’t, we finally made it to the Central Market.

Saw some interesting things, but couldn’t buy anything as we only have our backpacks. No room for many souvenirs. Some items are expensive, but the hair and nail studio prices were cheap compared to Canadian prices. For a gel manicure it was RM 60.00 = Cdn $18.79 A cut/wash/iron, really iron? Hope they mean curling iron, was RM45.00 = Cdn $14.09

And then there are those stores where they really should hire someone to proofread their work. Picture is a little blurry but I had to include it. Guess I was laughing to much to keep the camera steady.

Doug decided to make lunch for us. LOL We did have lunch here, but again I have no pictures of it for some reason. It was a large food court with lots of ‘strange’ foods. Always hard for me to find food to eat, as I am such a picky eater.

You have to pay to use the washrooms, .50 RM = $ Cdn $0.16 Not much to us, but I guess it adds up for them.

Our bellies full, we headed out to find the temples. According to maps.me they shouldn’t be too far , but we all know how that goes at times. On our way we found this pedestrian shopping mall. There was a lot of stuff there! Apparently it is a great place to purchase knock off labeled merchandise. We’re not interested in that stuff.

We finally found one of the temples on my list. Sri Maha Mariamman Temple, which is the oldest Hindu temple in Kuala Lumpur, dating back to 1873. However, this is a new structure that was build in 1968.

Just our luck. The temple was closed. Thank goodness it was 3:50 pm and we only had 10 minutes to wait. That is 10 minutes Malaysian time!

Once we were admitted, and I don’t mean to the loony bin, I have to say that this place was beautiful. I just love the colours of this temple. A lot of interesting information can be found on this temple. Too much to include in this blog.

The 5-tiered gopuram (tower) on the gates is the tallest structure in the temple and is a 75 feet high pyramid-shaped gate tower that is decorated with depictions of Hindu gods.

On to the next temple, which turned out to be just down the street.

It still amazes me as to how there are old temples surrounded by new architecture.

Walked a little ways, and came across Petaling Street, which we decided to go down and take a look.

We decided to walk back. What were we thinking? Not only hazardous, a lot of it was uphill. Even these small inclines seem mountainous at this point in the day.

After resting up for a while, we headed out again to find some dinner. We ended up back at the Pavilion Mall and this time discovered a huge food court on level l, which was actually down one level from the entrances to the mall. There were all my favorites; Cold Stone Creamery, Pizza Hut, Krispy Kream, to name a few and Asian food. We WILL be back! SPAM is everywhere! I think it must be as popular as Oreos are.

While out searching for dinner, we came upon this alley/street. Yesterday there had been 2 people painting it. It looks finished now. I have noticed there are a lot of items painted here. Lots of staircases and even escalators.

So we decided on chicken shawarma sandwiches again for dinner tonight. Told you all that I am not too adventurous in the food department. We did try a new place though. They were good, but still not as tasty as what I get back home. We took them back to our room again to eat and called it a night. We were exhausted. I had put 14,020 steps on my Fitbit today.

26 March 2018 – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Day 2 – West Virginia Everywhere!

Published on March 26, 2021 by Old&LostLeave a comment

We slept in this morning and took our time as we were tired from our day traveling yesterday. On my list of attractions to see while in Kuala Lumpur was the Petronas Twin Towers, the tallest twin buildings in the world. It turns out our hotel is located within walking distance of the towers, so that was a bonus. We don’t have to worry about trying to figure out transportation to get there.

Love that once you get into the city center, all the buildings seem to be connected with bridges or covered walkways. You don’t have to go outside if the weather is crappy.

On our way to the Petronas Towers we found a Johnny Rockets in the mall, just like in America!

We didn’t spend any time looking at much as we wanted to get to the Petronas Towers. This was our first view of the towers. It is pretty spectacular. The weather today was great. Not a thousand degrees, yet!

Just our luck…closed on Mondays! And yes, you guessed right. Today is Monday! We really wanted to go up in them, as you can go up to the bridge and walk on it, so change of plans.

Like most tourist spots there are people trying to sell you everything, everywhere. However!!!! This time something really caught my ‘eye’. They were selling the fish’eye’ lens for the phones. Cool right? Yup, you guessed it. I bought one after the vendor took a few photos of us with it.

The fisheye lens distorts the picture a bit, but you get so much more in the frame. To bad it didn’t thin out the bottom portion of the photo instead of the opposite.

We wandered back around to the other side of the towers where there is TAMAN KLCC (KLCC PARK) and the beautiful Tasik Simfoni (Lake Symphony Fountain). Spent quite a bit of time taking photos. Who me take photos? Yup!

After this photo session, we headed into the Suria KLCC shopping mall. Apparently one of Malaysia’s premier upscale shopping malls due to its location. It was pretty spectacular.

We spied a Marks & Spencer store. Oh, how I loved that store’s food when we had them in Canada. Of course we had to go in and do some shopping. We bought a bunch of snacks and Doug got himself an expensive bottle of Shiraz. It was double to triple the prices back home. Alcohol is very expensive here, guessing maybe because it is a Muslim majority country.

Found some really nice jeans at a bargain price….NOT! 789 MYR RM (Malaysian Ringgit) = Cdn $248.61 That is right! For one pair of jeans

We decided to head back to hotel, but first we had to, yes, just had to stop for dessert and Ice Caps at Starbucks. Starbucks is everywhere! On our way through the mall to Starbucks I spied this sign. Guess what! SPAM is also everywhere, but not at Starbucks. Have to mention here that it seems like most of Kuala Lumpur are smokers. Tried to sit in the non-smoking section of Starbucks, but the smokers just take over the whole place. Lots of those Hookah, not hooker, places here also. Really have no idea about hookers, so could be lots of them also.

We decided to take a different street on the way back to the hotel. Completely different view on this street, which was only one street over. This person decided they weren’t going to park on the street, but right on the sidewalk. Good thing they stopped!

Back at the hotel we decided to check it out a little. There was a beautiful roof top pool AND LAUNDRY facilities. Always exciting when we find laundry facilities. Sure beats hand washing our clothing all the time.

Yesterday, while looking out our hotel room window I spotted a party street a block over, so tonight we went to check it out on our way back from picking up a couple of shawarmas for dinner. Up at the corner on one of the main streets, we saw an older homeless type guy sitting, strumming and singing “West Virginia Mountain Momma!” The John Denver, Take Me Home, Country Roads song. We couldn’t believe our ears and immediately thought of our cruise friends, Karen and Will who live in West Virginia. Guess I was in such shock that I forgot to take a picture of him.

We had to cut through an alley to get back to our hotel. At least that was the only way we could figure it out. OH GROSS!!! Rats in the alley scurrying everywhere. Oh course I was screaming and the construction guys were all laughing at me. These construction guys start early in the morning and work until late at night. Exhausting!
Back at hotel – ate shawarmas and Doug enjoyed a glass of wine.

25 March 2018 – Travel Day – Koh Rong Sanloem to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Day 1

Published on March 25, 2021 by Old&LostLeave a comment

When we bought our tickets to come over to Koh Rong Sanloem, we purchased return tickets. However, we later discovered that the ferry wasn’t all that reliable and could be late or even not show. Since we had a flight to catch, it was a little nerve wracking. Not far from our resort was another ferry and it had one scheduled that was a good hour earlier than what we had already booked with the other company. We decided to get a new ferry ticket. Not only was it earlier, it was a lot closer to our resort.

We got up and enjoyed our last breakfast at the Sara Resort and settled up our bill with the front desk. We had been given a credit of $80 due to the fact that our room had been advertised as having a refrigerator in it and it did not. We still owed a good chunk of change as the meals were not cheap here.

We grabbed our stuff and headed down to catch the ferry. This was a very frustrating experience, as the ferry was late showing up by almost an hour. We actually saw our original ferry booking arrive, and depart, before ours showed up.

Once everyone was loaded, the driver really booted it, but came to an abrupt stop. They pulled the engines up out of the water and checked them. I guess everything was okay as they lowered the engines back into the water and we were off full speed again. It was really hard to get any pictures as we were really going fast and it was bumpy and wavy. Banging across waves. No comfort on this ride. We didn’t end up docking at the port we were supposed to be at and where we had a taxi driver waiting, that the girl from the hotel had arranged for us. I felt really bad about this, but there wasn’t much we could do about it. Apparently, because the ferry had been so late there was no room for them to dock at the intended dock. We did get to see a couple of cruise ships in port as this is where they dock when stopping here in Sihanoukville, Cambodia.

Getting a ride to the airport wouldn’t be an issue as there were Tuk-Tuk drivers offering rides left, right and center. We asked one guy how much to the airport. He replied with $US50. I replied “no’. I offered $US20, which I already knew was the going rate. We had checked this out before we left our hotel in Sihanoukville. I always like to have an idea of what taxis should cost. The Tuk-Tuk driver agreed to the US$20 and we were on our way.

Had a short stop for gas on the way, but we still had plenty of time. Turned out this port was quite a bit closer to the airport than the original port was.

We had booked with Air Asia to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It took a little time to get checked in, as there were people who had not prepaid for luggage, and were arguing with the agents that they wanted to carry their large & heavy backpacks onboard and not check them. It was so much cheaper to prepay for your luggage than it is to pay once you get to the airport. I don’t know what happened, as they were still there when we had finished checking in.

Flight was uneventful with the tiny seats. Guess you get what you pay for. Took us some time clearing customs, but had no issues. I always get nervous when having to go through customs. Not sure why.

We purchased a pre-paid taxi voucher as that seemed to be the best method of getting to our hotel. We had booked the Ramada for three nights. The first 2 drivers refused to take us and this was getting a little concerning. Turns out that our hotel was over an hour drive and I guess these taxi drivers wanted shorter distances for the same amount of money.

The drive was really quite pleasant and there were thousands of palm trees along the highways. Our driver was friendly, spoke passable English and we were able to carry on a conversation.

By the time we arrived at our hotel there was a heavy rain coming down. We checked in and went to our room. It was really quite nice with what turned out to be a view of the bar area street.

Once the rain let up, we headed out to look around and get something to eat. Found a large shopping mall that even had an indoor basketball court.

It had been a long day and we called it a night.

24 March 2018 – Koh Rong Sanloem – Day 3 – Survivor Beach – Sok San Beach on Koh Rong

Published on March 24, 2021March 24, 2021 by Old&LostLeave a comment

Our private excursion was booked to depart at 1000 hours and was to take 1 1/2 hours to get to Sok San Beach. We were going on a long tail boat, which is not the most comfortable mode of transportation in my opinion. We made our way down the beach to the kiosk after breakfast. Turns out we weren’t going to have the tour guide that we had booked, as he and his wife had an emergency with their dog, and were going to have to take it to the vet on the mainland. So we were given a local. This was disappointing as his English was not good at all.

There was lots of great scenery on the way and we saw what looked like many resorts along the beaches.

Bottom Left is the Sara Resort, where we are staying

Passed a boat with what looked like a typical excursion group onboard. So happy we booked a private one.

The dock that they usually tie up to was kind of out of order and so we were dropped off at the next dock. Unfortunately, our guide could not stay there and would come back for us. We arranged a time to meet up and headed on our way to hopefully find the Survivor beach.

We appeared to be in a local village and proceeded to ask a few locals if they knew where Survivor had taken place. Most did not speak English and had no idea what we were talking about, even when we mentioned Survivor. This wasn’t looking to good. Were we even in the right place?

We found a path off to the left and took it. Ended up at a dried up waterfall and so turned around and headed back to the village.

We came across this place and went in to ask if they knew where Survivor had taken place. He mentioned that there were the remains of one challenge set up between a couple of buildings and set us off in that direction.

We SCORED and felt like a couple of kids in a candy shop, so excited to have found one of the challenges. Apparently, Julia had won this immunity challenge from Season 32, Episode 9 “It’s Psychological Warfare” which aired April 13, 2016.

We still really wanted to find the flags that Paden and Christine had found when they were here last year and so set off back down the beach to find the little bar where they had seen the flags. They had also found another challenge that had been set up on the beach. There was this set up and spoke to the person working on it, hoping he knew if this was another Survivor challenge. He told us that they had taken away the Survivor challenges and were setting up some games as the Prince or King of Cambodia was visiting the following week.

Have I mentioned lately how HOT and HUMID it is here? The beach was long and wide open with no shade. It was just spectacular fine white HOT sand. We walked for what seemed like hours and hours, but in reality was probably around 1 km. We were pretty disappointed as we came across no such bar so finally gave in and turned back.

We decided to take a hidden road that we had seen back as walking in the hot sand was difficult and we were tired from both the heat and the walking.

We came across the large resort near the end of the road and we were cutting through the bar area when I looked over to my right…OMG there they were!!! Survivor Flags!!! They had been moved to behind the check-in desk of the resort. We tried taking a few selfies, but finally asked one of the ladies to take a picture of us both with the flags. Our day had been made.

Headed back to the dock to be picked up by our guide and we were off to snorkel. Snorkeling was just okay and it was difficult to climb in and out of the long boat, so we only did one stop. Doug wasn’t snorkeling anyways. Plus we were tired from the long trek along the beach in the HOT sun.

Enjoyed the ride back to our resort on Koh Rong Sanloem and spent the rest of the afternoon lounging around on the beach enjoying a beverage or two or three. I enjoyed Sex on the Sara, while Doug had one of his usual favorites, Mojito.

We stayed on the beach until it got dark as we were just too tired to bother to move. Finally got up and had dinner at the resort, as we apparently don’t tend to venture out far to eat.

Total tally for today’s Fitbit count is 15,052 steps and the equivalent of 42 floors. That was all the up and down on the beach in the sand. No wonder we were tired.

Tomorrow is another travel day. One day I would like to go back to this island and hope to experience the beautiful beaches and crystal clear waters without all the jungle debris from the storms.

22 March 2018 – Travel Day – Sihanoukville to Koh Rong Sanloem – Day 1

Published on March 22, 2021March 24, 2021 by Old&LostLeave a comment

Today was a travel day to the island of Koh Rong Sanloem. We had bought our ferry tickets already, which included a transfer from our guest house to the ferry dock. Our pick up time was 1130 to catch ferry that departs at 1200.

We waited and waited and waited. Saw taxis and tuk-tuks come and go along the street, but none came for us. The owners saw us still sitting there and we mentioned that our ride hadn’t shown yet. Waited some more. Finally the owner got a hold of the ferry company and discovered that they had forgotten to pick us up. By now it was 1155, so the owners grabbed us a tuk-tuk from outside of our BnB/Guest House to get us there. The owner phoned the ferry company back to let them know that we were on our way. They were going to pay for the tuk-tuk as we had already paid for transportation with our ferry tickets, which we had purchased through them. I am guessing that the ferry company will reimburse them the transfer portion. We arrived at the dock around 1205 and the ferry had already pulled away, but was in the process of coming back to get us! Thank God as these ferries fill up days in advance. We had to jump from dock onto the boat, which was about 3 feet, while we were still wearing our day packs. It was scary!! Also didn’t get to take any pictures.

The 45 minute trip was a little rough as we were in a rain storm. Quite a bad rain storm.

Once we arrived at Koh Rong Samloem’s dock we had to walk across a very narrow wooden plank to get from the ferry to the dock. Not everyone was disembarking, as this ferry makes a few stops. The luggage was being thrown off the boat, which was a distance of approximately 3 1/2 feet to a crew member who would catch it before it landed on the dock, not always successfully. A wheelchair came flying out first, barely being caught. It was a scary sight to watch.

It was STILL raining!!!

We walked to the end of the pier only to discover that there was NO ROAD and that we would have to walk down the beach to our accommodations. We were able to find shelter where we converted our big backpacks to back-carrying packs, as we usually just rolled them along on their back wheels. However, the wheels were not good for off road. We had to get the harness out and cover up the wheels. After putting on their rain covers and hefting them onto our backs, we attached our day packs, which also had rain covers to our front. Big packs on our backs and day packs on our fronts, we headed off down the beach. Since my backpacks weighed approximately 51 lbs and Doug’s were lighter, he carried mine.
According to maps.me our lodging was 1 mile down the beach. Surprise! Maps.me showed the accommodations being in the wrong place and it was SO MUCH FURTHER!!

We checked in the Sara Resort. This is a refurbished resort with new owners as of December 2017. It was really quite nice. But not with issues thanks to the big storms that were going on. This was causing toilet issues and the toilet would not fill with water after flushing. Plus all the water was brown.We were hungry and decided to grab a pizza, beer and dessert.

Now it was time to relax and enjoy the sunshine. Watched a delivery arrive which was quite fascinating.We had a nice dinner at the resort, but it was not cheap here considering we are still in Cambodia.We enjoyed watching a kid practice his fire twirling talents.

There was another BIG storm during the night.

21 March 2018 – Sihanoukville – Day 2 – Will it Rain?

Published on March 21, 2021April 23, 2021 by Old&LostLeave a comment

I had a great sleep last night. Probably because I was exhausted and may have taken a sleeping pill. I needed sleep. Woke up feeling like a new person. Headed to breakfast by the river. Breakfast was great. Coffee was dark looking but had a medium taste. Good enough to enjoy a second cup.

The water in the river is a little low but that allowed us to observe tadpoles slithering around. Dunk themselves in the water and back onto the mud. It was quite entertaining.

Saw a few different birds but the Kingfishers were just stunning. An indigo blue colour from the back. It’s as if they knew I was trying to take their pictures as they just wouldn’t let me get a good one.

A few locals were ‘fishing’. He would bonk the fish with his machete type instrument and then throw the fish to his buddy standing on the bridge. A talent I would think not many possess. After breakfast we did some hand laundry.

So hot here we are hoping it will dry…..turned out it’s too humid and not drying. There was rain in the forecast for 10:00 am. Didn’t happen but some dark clouds all day. Guess we’ll be packing some wet clothing tomorrow as it’s another travel day. Sihanoukville was really only a place to stop to arrange the ferry. Turned into a great place to work on our blog as their wifi actually works. Hadn’t been able to upload photos for a few days. Took a few photos of the ‘resort’

We headed out to walk the beach. If we went right it would take us along Ochheuteal Beach and into town. The resort owner, Gerald told us this morning that going left would take us to Otres Beach and was a shorter walk. We opted for the shorter beach to start with. Cambodia along with many SE Asia countries just don’t realize just how beautiful their country is. Garbage EVERYWHERE! Just disgusting.As you get closer to the restaurants and accommodations, the beach was much cleaner, but definitely not clean by North American standards. It is such a shame. Take a week and clean it all up and this would be a true Paradise.We stopped at The Bamboo Restaurant & Bar to enjoy a beverage and just take in some of the scenery. Maybe to relax a little too.

We took a different route on the way back and discovered what seemed to be a little ‘resort’ at the top of the hill. They even had what looked very similar to Canada Geese.

So Our blog name is Old & Lost. We just had a great chuckle this afternoon as Doug is watching the series Lost on Netflix…….OLD (Doug) & LOST (Netflix series). Doesn’t take much to amuse us! LOL. The time we are spending here is rest time. We really need it.

We enjoyed some delicious Spring Rolls and a couple glasses of wine. Later we headed back to the restaurant to enjoy dinner by the river.

20 March 2018 – Travel Day – Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, Cambodia

Published on March 20, 2021April 23, 2021 by Old&LostLeave a comment

We had an early pickup for the bus today, so we were up early to get breakfast. Breakfast was once again pathetic. So happy to be leaving this hotel.

The bus showed up 15 minutes early. Good thing we were ready and just about to head down anyways.

We were the first two to be picked up and got to see many new areas of Phnom Penh City. I think we must have been staying in the grungiest area of the city as there appeared to be lots of nice areas. Not that we would ever go back, but if we did, I would stay in a better area. We had chosen our area of town to stay as it was close to the Kings Palace. Guess it was a mistake.

Our drive to Sihanoukville took approximately 5 hours once we got on our way. Traffic getting out of the city was totally insane. Until you have experienced it, you wouldn’t believe it. One way streets and then there is a scooter or a car coming at you. Doesn’t seem to phase anyone except us. LOL. We drove through jungle like terrain with the roads lined with palms trees and small villages. Mountains in the background, with some really beautiful scenery. Driving on the other hand was a little harey scary at times with all the passing going on. No pictures of the passing but saw this on the way. This guy had lost a cushion a few kilometres back.

Even saw a random cow every now and then, either walking along the road or crossing the road. There was pretty much everything on this road.

This is where we stopped for our bathroom break. The washrooms were really nice, especially by Cambodian standards.

Loved their Canadian Maple Leaf umbrella!

The bus took us right to our resort which was great since it turns out we are definitely out of the way. We are staying at Spayhiti Resort. It’s rated #1 of 242 in the B&B / guest houses category on a Trip Advisor in Sihanoukville. Great by Cambodian standards, but not 5 star by Canadian standards. Got all checked in which involved ringing a big brass bell to get service and being shown to our room. Room was nice.

Received our welcome drinks, which were a couple of beers and sat out on our patio to enjoy them. Ordered some food, fish and chips for Doug and fried noodles with chicken for me, which they brought to us, as their eating area is currently being reroofed. Not sure what it’s being reroofed with. I only saw large palm fronds heading in that direction.

Their ‘Chef’ is from France. They seem to be very proud of that. Food was good but it’s not like they will be cooking up French Cuisine here.

We made a new friend while sitting out.

It was a great, quiet, lazy day. Part of the reason we have stopped here, is to rest up.

19 March 2018 – Phnom Penh – Day 3 – Who is Conning Who?

Published on March 19, 2021March 24, 2021 by Old&LostLeave a comment

Today was going to be a busy day. We had arranged with the travel agent to hire a driver for the day to take us to see the Killing Fields, S-21 Museum, Watt Phnom and the Independence Monument. This also involved quite a bit of driving as the Killing Fields/The Choeung Ek Genocidal Center was approximately 15 km southeast of the city. It doesn’t sound too far unless you are battling rush ‘hours’ traffic in Phnom Penh. From the distance and length of time it took to get from our hotel I am guessing we were not located at the southeast edge of the city. Traffic was insane here but that seems to be the norm for all of these SE Asia cities.
Pick up time was 9:00 am from our hotel and the driver was right on time. We had paid US$35 but this was only for the driver and did not include admission to the Killing Fields or the S-21 Museum. Still a pretty good deal in my opinion. Here are a few sites we saw on our way.

The ticket pictures show admission being US$3 to the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center and US$3 for the audio headset. For some reason I thought it was more than that but honestly don’t remember now.

Choeung Ek is the most well-known of over 300 killing fields throughout Cambodia.

It is a sad place with a story to be told. A horrific story of how it was while the Khmer Rouge was in power. How they murdered close to 2 million people.

Many of the stops are now just a picture and a sign with a brief description. The narratives were more detailed and excellent. Very moving.

Locals came up to the fence begging for money. It was so sad to see. Above bottom right is Logan Orchard were people were worked to death by Angkar

From here we basically drove in silence as we processed what we had just seen.
Once we got back to the city of Phnom Penh I saw this building, Ashley Furniture. Same company we have at home.

Our next stop was the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum also known as Security Prison S 21, Interrogation and Detention Center of the Khmer Rouge. One of what I understand was many similar prisons. This had been the Tuol Svay Prey High School in the city, but was taken over in 1975. Again very moving with an important story to be told and to be remembered. Between the years of 1975 and 1978 more than 17,000 prisoners were held here and later taken to Choeung Ek Genocidal Center to be murdered. They would take before and sometimes after torturing pictures of each person who arrived here. Everything and everyone was well documented. Unfortunately, our driver did not give us enough time to tour the whole complex. Our admission ($5 US) and audio tour ($3 US) was so full of information.
Since we were running into rush hour traffic again, (I’m starting to think that it is always rush hour here), we didn’t really stop and get to see the National Monument. Our driver just pulled to the side of the road and I hopped out to grab a photo from there. Was a little disappointed in this especially since it was part of the package we had arranged. We also drove by the Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house.

From here we headed off to the Watt Phnom which is in Phnom Penh. It was built-in 1372 and is the tallest religious structure in this city. Our driver gave us around 30 minutes to tour here. Foreigners once again had to pay, but only US$1.

I thought that 30 minutes was not going to be enough time but it turned out to be plenty. Though it looked like a large temple and grounds from the road it really wasn’t and we finished in 20 minutes.
Our driver dropped us back at our hotel around 3:00. Have to say that it was really great having our own driver and not dealing with a bus load of people at every stop.
We rested up for a very short bit and then headed out search of food. We hadn’t eaten since our breakfast at the hotel. We headed back down to the main road by the water as this is where most of the restaurants seemed to be in our area. It was always so hard for me to find something that I would eat. We stopped and looked at many menus along the road and then decided to head back to one of the first places we had seen, Pka Chan Restaurant & Bar. Draft beer was cheap as it was Happy Hour. I know surprise, surprise. It always seems to be Happy Hour in Phnom Penh. Menu also had a good selection of food with reasonable prices.

Since I was starving we ordered a jug of Anchor Draft and a plate of spring rolls to start while we looked over the menu and decided on what to eat. Doug chose beef tacos and I went with chicken satay. Both were delicious and my satay serving was so large that I gave Doug one to eat. There was no way I could eat all three of them. But of course I had room for dessert! The ice cream with Baileys on it just sounded too good to resist. Doug ordered strawberry ice cream with no Baileys and I ordered vanilla ice cream with Baileys. Both came with Baileys! LOL The ice cream was more expensive than the jug of beer.

Total for our meal with a jug of beer was $21.75 US. There is a story behind this next picture.

There was a guy sitting at the table next to us who ordered Spaghetti Napoli with chicken. I know this because it appeared on our bill but was crossed off. He finished before us and was paying his bill with a $100 US bill. The waitress went to the bar to settle the bill but came back to him explaining she did not have enough change for the $100 bill. He had nothing else, so she went outside, to do what I assume was to try to find someone who could change the $100 bill, but she had no success. Next she was back saying to him that it was a fake (counterfeit) $100 US bill. She did not know the word counterfeit, but you definitely could tell what she was saying. He argued with her about this, saying that the bill wasn’t counterfeit for quite a while, but finally he offered to pay with his credit card which was declined so he tried with another credit card which was then accepted. He left the restaurant only to return a very short time later. He approached the bartender and was accusing him of making a switch, as the bill in question was not the one he had given the waitress. Next up, appeared another lady, who we are assuming was the management or owner. The bits and pieces that we picked up were in reference to calling the police and calling lawyers. So that is why I took a picture of our bill with the money that we were paying with. This wasn’t going to happen to us if in fact the restaurant did pull a change of bills on him. Guess we will never know the outcome of it. Neither side were backing down by the time we left and there were even more people involved in the ‘discussion’ by then.

After all this excitement we headed back to hotel and had a nap, snapping a few photos along the way. You can see the Monks robes hanging out to dry.
Not a high paying job by Canadian standards.

Later that night we headed to the Circle K that we had found on our street to pick up bottled water and snacks. On our very short trip there we had the pleasure of seeing a huge rat running along in the gutter. Gross!!! I will NEVER get used to rats!! Back to the room to pack up for tomorrow’s bus trip to Sihanoukville.