Category: Châu Đốc

Hello Cambodia!

Today we left Chau Doc took a boat to Cambodia!

We were picked up from our hotel by cycle tuktuk to take us to the river where we caught our speed boat.

It was a fairly short journey to the border post where we first had to go through the Vietnamese border controls, then back on the boat for 5 minutes and then through the Cambodian border controls.

It sounds quick but all in all it took a couple of hours to get through.

Following this we spent another couple of hours on the boat until we reached Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.

I wasn’t well that day and it was a bit of an ordeal for me, though I think the others quite liked the experience.

It was noticeably hotter when we got onto dry land and we had to drag our luggage up a long pier following a taxi man who had our biggest case – “follow that man Sam” I said!

It was lovely to finally reach our first stop, the Blue Corner Hotel.

To Châu Đốc, Sam Mountain and Tra Su Bird Sanctuary

We left our lovely guest house in Cần Thơ on the 17th October and took a 3 hour bus journey to our next destination – Châu Đốc which is near the border with Cambodia.

We stayed in Châu Đốc for a week to recharge and catch up on some school work. We didn’t venture far during our time there – we just mooched around town visiting the local market, cafes and restaurants, and the riverside where there were exercise machines for the kids to play on.

We made friends with some ladies from a local tour agency who wanted to improve their English so we chatted with them and let them photocopy Martha’s English textbooks!

They organised our visit to Sam Mountain to visit the Hang Pagoda and the Tra Su Bird Sanctuary for a day which we all enjoyed.

Sam Mountain

Hang Pagoda (or Chùa Hang, or Cave Pagoda) on Sam Mountain is a Buddhist temple and is reached by climbing a few hundred steps up. There were some great views of the surrounding countryside of the Mekong Delta when we got to the top.

There were several levels to explore, as well as a network of tunnels deep within the mountain with various rooms and places to worship.

Tra Su Bird Sanctuary

In the afternoon we went to Tra Su forest which contains cajaput trees and flooded mangroves and areas turned green by water ferns during the rainy season.

We took a boat trip through the flooded forest along narrow channels, which the kids enjoyed, and then climbed a watchtower to get a view above the forest canopy.