Just In The Kip Of Time

As the end of another visa approached we were at our last destination in Cambodia, Ban Lung in the Ratanakiri province. The dirt off the track for the last four hours of our journey covered everything in a think layer of red dust, just like how you’d imagine Mars to be, or a tropical Devon. On the mini bus we met a British couple who we befriended and both stayed in the Star Hotel. That evening we invited them to join us on the hotel’s balcony for a few Mekong whisky and Cokes, after that ran out we sent the girls down to try to gather more supplies from the mama who looked after the guesthouse. They came back twenty minutes later with a bottle of the Isle of Skye’s finest Talisker whisky, aged 10 years for a mere $10. That’s one great thing about Cambodia, they import all of Europe’s finest spirits through Singapore and sell them tax-free for cheaper than you can get them in the EU. Absolut, Gordon’s and Scotland’s best whiskies all for Asda smart prices, even though the $2 Mekong stuff actually tasted better.

 

 

The prince and the pauper

 

We’d arranged to be up early for a day on motorbikes with Matt and Cheryl and just as I’d finished throwing up the remains of the night before’s beef and green pepper and spirits, Matt knocked on our bedroom door. We struggled downstairs and eventually we were on the road to Ban Lung’s most spectacular natural wonder, a perfectly round crystal clear lake that the locals say was created 700,000 years ago by a meteor strike. A dip in the chilly water soon cleared the hangovers and we drove down some treacherous unsealed and slippery tracks to a couple of Rattanakiri’s other natural wonders; waterfalls.