EC-Rider Travels

Today has been a travelling day and a sad farewell to lovely Serena, it has been such a treat having her with me and cannot believe how quickly the time with her has gone. It was all very efficient at Phnom Penn airport with the plane again leaving early. I sat next to a charming…

This morning we visited the Royal Palace, which was near the hotel overlooking the river. It is the official residence of King Sihamoni, so only part of the palace is open to the public. Neurosis about the king getting COVID, or perhaps one of the king’s men, meant we had to wear masks, despite being…

We really were quite sad to leave the very comfortable Shinta Mani hotel and its completely adorable staff. Goodness the Cambodians are just the sweetest, they are so welcoming and smile all the time with the broadest smiles I have ever seen. No one more so than Mr Seng, our driver, whose whole face turns…

Today was very special, visiting the floating villages of Tonlé Sap. We drove about 40 minutes from Siem Reap, through the countryside and then a further half hour or so along a very bumpy dirt road, which in the rainy season would be under water. We came to the crazy little Port of Mechery, buzzing…

Up at 4.30 this morning, we headed off for Angkor Wat, the world’s largest religious structure. It was built by Suryavarman II as his mausoleum and took thirty-seven years to build (1113 to 1150), originally as a Hindu temple to Vishnu. 300,000 people were involved in its construction together with 6,000 elephants bringing sandstone from…

Today was a day of temples. Starting early to beat the crowds we purchased our passes for the next three days (at a very modern booth, producing passes with our photographs) and entered the 400 sq km Angkor National Park. The Khmer were prolific builders with each king, considered to be of heavenly descent, needing…

A power-cut struck first thing this morning which made packing our bags a little tricky, but hopefully we have everything, at least we know we have not left anything under the concrete beds! Not so sad to leave Mandala Ou Resort and didn’t feel the maitre d’ was too heartbroken either! We have since discovered…

We had a rather leisurely start this morning, meeting Pang and Hell at 9.30 to be taken to the other end of the village, where a lovely traditional long-boat was waiting to take us up the Nom Ou river. It rained last night and the smoke was definitely a little better, but still masking the…

5am start this morning to take part in Tak Bat, which is alms-giving for the monks. We were picked up by Pang and Hell and taken back to L’Elephant where Pang had arranged little seats for us and ordered some sticky rice and biscuits to give to the monks. We were given a sash or…

We spent the most amazing morning with a pair of elephants at the Mandalao Elephant Sanctuary. This was set up by two Americans with the help of Prasop Tipprasert, a Thai, who had worked with elephants for many years and set up a similar project in Thailand. Prasop was sadly away, but his apprentice/successor welcomed…