The Three Kings asked us to come home earlier

During our last days in Cambodia, Pierre's work asked him to get in a few days earlier. When work calls, there's no escape to it. There was an important meeting on the 7th of January, which was the day we where supposed to fly from Bangkok to Dubai (and friends in Abu Dhabi) so even calling in for a telemeeting wasn't an option. After checking our options, we decided to go back home a few days earlier, so that Pierre could assist to that meeting. To tell the kids about our change of program, we made a drawing of the 3 Kings in their travel booklets and told them we should be home a bit earlier so not to miss the arrival of the Kings to town (by the way a beautiful parade every year on the 5th of January!). They where a bit upset about missing out on their birthday in Abu Dhabi (we had been brainwashing them: Julie & Gregory have 3 kids - that is the place where you'll turn 3). Luckily the kings came by 3 as well!  Plus they brought a little plane, symbolising their 'present': a trip to Belgium.*

* we got away quiet well with that symbolic gift, until school started and the kids were allowed to bring a toy from the kings every day of that first week. Those are 5 days of comparing the nicest Frozen Barbie, the most agressive Ninja turtle (yes, they seem to be still alive) etc. Our kids where so lost after the first day with their little plane, that the following days they grabbed anything they could find in the house (they do have toys) but I got to explain that really, bringing our Scrabble game is not the idea of the 3 Kings week. Anyway... Consumption consumption consumption... It didn't take long before that reality hit!

Anyways, so we had to cut short on Bangkok, which was more than anything a shame cause we wouldn't see our friends there anymore, and the kids who had been looking forward to see the little boy and the baby dog where a bit sad. And so where we, about Bangkok and Abu Dhabi and our friends over there. We now have even more excuses to make new travel plans (as if more where needed!)

Pierre did take us on a one-day tour to Bangkok. Now, as usual, we leave at the best moment of the day. That is, when it's starting to get hot, kids tired and mum hangry. Almost noon? great! Let's go! So we took a cab to an upper part of the river, where we took one of those public transport boats. You navigate along the river, and seeing the life and the houses changing as you get closer to the city centre. You also have more and more people (and tourist) getting on to the boat. And more. And more. A Thai lady with a very cutting voice is screaming things, that I understand must be 'get more to the front' 'there is still place' 'more to the front of the boat'. I get even more nervous as she seams to be. I have rarely been quiet so relieved as when the screamed "stop - next boat - no more place" and people stopped adding up! 

And so that's when we got off ;-) 

We tried to get into the Royal Palace, but seen  the huuuuge amount of people, our perfect timing and state of mind, we only walked around its premises for a while. Then we did enter to pay a visit to the lying statue of Buddha in Wat Po and finally had a walk along the river before heading back to our (invisible) hosts. With the other family squatting Manu & Amélie's place, we went to a fancy rooftop bar, to enjoy a view and a cocktail, and we left just before they put us and our kids out I think ;-) Rooftopbars and 5 kids, it's just not a very long-lasting match I think.

After those 2 days in Bangkok, we took off and got ready for our flights back. They went amazingly well. Seven hours or something to Dubai, 2 hours of transit , and another seven or eight hours to Barcelona. On the 4th of January we came home.

I quickly found the (very) positive side to it; kids would be out of jet lag by the time school starts, we would have some time to settle back before starting "normal" live again, but above all ! I convinced Pierre to go to Belgium for the weekend, and that was a jackpot of great encounters and family& very good friends - moments! The boys had their birthday amidst all their godparents and aunties they adore, we got to be spoiled by the grandparents, we invited friends over in our ex-garden for a real spanish winter-paella, and of course, I got to escape to Brussels and Holland to catch up with some precious friends! The 3 Kings really had a great idea bringing us that trip to Belgium as a gift. 

As I write this, we have been back home in Barcelona since 3 weeks already. Coming home felt good.

Kids ran to their toys and rooms, we rushed to the beach, we had an intense week of catching up - diners, had a picnic in the labyrinth park of Horta (now see, we still are tourists here as well ... we got some really strange looks and not the friendliest comments, in Spanish, 'cause of course we look so blond we couldn't possibly understand spanish). We barely had the time to look back on our Grand Voyage! The bags are (finally!!) unpacked, I uploaded the 45Gb of pictures (oops), kids are back to school, our first friends and family came for a visit (and took me out to visit the beautiful Hospital de Sant Pau!), and already left and Pierre got back to work. We changed their Keen sandals for some decent winter shoes, put our jackets on and got back on our bike! 

Everything is a bit back as usual, the difference being that our eyes have seen so much more the last 3 months, our little family lived so many good moments (and others ;-) , our kids learned so much (Amélie's teacher is not having an easy time now ...) 

Maybe we should get some holidays just to reflect a bit better on that Grand Voyage!Or maybe Barcelona is just the good spot to softly land after a great trip...

Battambang and kep 2016

Our last day in Siem Reap came just in time. Our kids' bodies appeared to suffer from the overdose of chemicals in the swimming pool. Now three days later Amelie's hair starts to feel again like hair. And no longer like dried straw and we have found the clue to her mysteriously burning red fingertips.

Mr Google says it is typical for kids her age who spend more time with their hands hanging on the concrete border of the swimming pool as they are starting to swim alone. But the boys' skin is still really harmed and irritated in their neck, underarms and legs . especially sensitive skin boy Matthias. So we even used the neck protection integrated in their spare sunhats. Merci #decathlon #tati Olivia et #tonton Axel (on peut dire ça? - sorry #tioMil)
So that place will be referred to as the hotel with the bad swimming pool. And I can't contradict them.

So off to battambang. They say the boat trip to battambang is one of the most beautiful of whole asia. They say it's an adventure. You start on the lake and then enter the river. They say you get to see the real Cambodia. Then they say it s a wooden little boat. That traveling time depends on water level. Anywhere between 6/7 up to 10/hours. Water is low now, yes.
So , diehard family Van Meerbeeck wisely decided to take the Mekong express... A minivan that is. There where dolphins painted on the inside , little blue curtains (Bill happy) and not all seats where taken. Me happy, everybody happy. Merry Christmas by the way, as that was on the 25th!

Battambang would be the city of children's activities in our trip. We started the day with a ride on the localy world famous bambootrain.

That is I think the closest we will ever get to a flying carpet.  Driven by a motorbike kind of motor, two axes on the rails, a chain and off you go. Whenever you cross oncoming traffic tthe one with the smallest number of people on it, has to make way (read : dismount it s train, put it aside, wait for the other one to pass, and rebuild your train.) Maybe it is also the closest you ll get to basic mechanics for kids. If the idea is to see some of the nature and land, forget it.

The grass and bushes around the rail are too high. But if you are sensitive to details and you manage to dream the story around, then we might have intercepted some of the cambodian life on our little train, starting with the lady who lifted with us on the first few minutes with a little plastic bag filled with snakes. Then we slowed down to pick up two boys carrying what must have been lunch for their dad working in the fields, as they got off in the middle of the (invisible) rice fields at the place where a man was sleeping in a hammock. And when we crossed a bridge, two kids jumped of it, right into the -what must be - refreshing little river.

Now of course, you cross more tourists than daily life episodes; and as i said, you don't get to see a lot of landscape, just the bumpy rail speeding underneath you, at the end of the trip you stop in the middle of the souvenirshop, and you are informed well in advance that you are allowed to tip your 'driver'. Though at the end , after escaping the little shop, we had the usual twin questions, but this time with very enthusiastic reactions, cause the girl was herself also a twin. That made for the "you take picture, we take picture' of the two twin couples and amelie.

We accepted our nice tuktuk driver peter s suggestion to go and see a crocodile farm. It wasn't on our list, but Amélie understood the driver (who of course had asked directly to her in English if she wanted to touch a baby crocodile.... Don't need to be a super polyglot powered girl to answer yes to that) she reminded us we had said it was going to be kids' excursion so we went.

They touched some small crocodiles and then we went to see the real stuff. Crocodiles (way too much of them in a few concrete 'pools') of up to 40 years old , each of them worth a little fortune (5 to 600dollar) in skin in Thailand and meat in Vietnam.

We closed the kids day by going to the Phare Ponleu Selpak circus. They also run shows in Siem reap but are originally from Battambang. It is a complete project for educating in performers skills, they have schools nursery, arts, musical, etc...

The show of about an hour was great, the kids where scotched to the scene, smiling and clapping, and almost crying when they understood one actor was left out in the storyline. It was a basic storyline about a group of friends , a soft love story, but also the mix of traditional culture and new modern influences. Mixing the import of headphones, iPhone and others with some old traditional fishermen dances... Probably a very real topic for this actual generation !
After that we went to a good restaurant, yet another one said to be about training people and investing profit to the community. (Reeeeaaally good food!) Of course, at 21 o'clock after 1,5hours of being seated more or less in silence, our kids where not going to make that the easiest calmest dinner ;-) when a cockroach we had seen already in the bathroom came to the restaurant part they started chasing it singing 'La cucaracha, LA cucaracha, ya no puede caminar,....' Sorry people!

I think we could have stayed for another day, easily. And tuktuk driver peter wouldn't have mind I guess. But the seaside is calling! As it is a long road to our final cambodian destination, we cut the road by staying a night in Phnom Penh.
As real "whoesies" (softies) we skip the 8hours big bus and opt for the minivan (only 5hours). We start off being alone. After an hour the inevitable happens, and it starts to stop along the road to pick up people. Luckily, never more than the available seats. Of course, just when Bill fell asleep they stopped for lunch, which really was fine with us (a bit early though, 11am, so we skipped) some digestions sounds left aside...;-)

We stay one night in Phnom Penh in Villa Borann close to the big playground next to the Royal Palace. Our kids are kind, playful and smiling, as always

 Next day, on the 28th we drive west to the beach, the little town of Kep sur mer will be our last spot in Camboia and of 2015. It used to be the preferred coast town of the French then later of the Khmer upperclass, which made it the number one target of the Khmer Rouge. Still today all this history can be told with some old villas, abandoned, destroyed and with more bulletholes than people living in them.

Based at kep lodge just on the border of the national park,we make some small excursions

Crab market

to the (empty) salt lakes (January February is when activity starts), the pepper field, the butterfly garden, the locally worldfamous crab market, Amelie showing the selfie concept to some kids, meeting up with one of Pierre s colleague and friends,

enjoying some beautiful sunsets and sip some cocktails at the sailing club, venue where we will spend New Year's Eve (well at least the short version of it, till 22 o clock) 

Sailing club kep

Wine made for us / named after our blog

**dont get me wrong , we had our share of kids terror as always, maybe as a highlight the big wooden boat used as decoration in the sailing club that fell down "tout seul" with our three kids in it. Or the sand wars just before dinner ending up with our kids punished in the corner, and the strange Look on the faces of the serving staff. Cause yes, we are on travels and yes they are kids and we are parents, so we can't afford to "let go" everything without educating once in a while... 

After 4 nights in kep, on the first of january, we flew out of Cambodia, back to Bangkok. Cambodia has been great! Beautiful, safe, rather easy, .... An incredible nice and smooth encounter with Asia!

Siem Reap and Ze Temples

Once installed in siem reap, We had booked for a walk in a village a little bit outside of town, and hoped to have a good insight on how cambodian live, on a child-adapted level. We booked with an association Beyond Unique Escapes so that half of your fee goes back to the community you visit, and walked around for two hours. We still are champions in leaving just in the middle of the heat, so that didn't help. Also, as Pierre and I are blessed with some previous travel, and me having experienced from up close life in poor communities (microfinance project outside of Buenos Aires, street children around Tegucigalpa) it wasn't really an eye opener, as it might maybe be to less traveled people (not aiming in particular to certain countries at all....) We got greeted by a dozen of smiles, tried to explain / translate to the kids what they saw, and prevented Bill to steal the very one piece of toy we had seen in the entire village. I guess after two months our kids miss toys a bit. Confrontation with luxury problems amidst pure poverty. Poverty just a ten minutes tuktuk ride away from thousands of visitors. probably filling the pockets of just some happy few businesspeople. Pushing up prices of goods and land. Let's say there is room for some sustainable tourism development, eco and people centered!

Another excursion we had booked with the same people, was to a floating and a fisherman village. That was a better shot. Having heard of it being more and more touristic we opted for this one. Hoping to avoid the half real half fake made up floating village on Tonle Sap. It was nice.

First we stopped along the road to taste some sticky rice in bambu , then in a crossroad market for some more 'pluah?' Pluah? from cambodian side, and "oh look here, that fish is still moving! Or 'look, snakes!'  and a lot of " c'est quoi CA?' Followed by the inevitable "why?" Questions from our kids side.

Then to the fishermen village of Kampong Khleang. In this dry season, you see the houses perched some 4 to 5metres above the ground, during wet season or even monsoon months, water comes up till their doors, fields and bushes disappear and all is done by boat.

A 20min trip down the stream brings us to the lake  where we take in some nice views of the Viet floating village and Cambodia's biggest lake. The houses are build on bambu or boats and move up to 8 times a year depending on water levels. There is the mechanical shop, the meeting point for buying fish, .... Intruiging... Beautiful sights.

Then came our big d-day! Visiting the temples! Seen our special gift of leaving when it s hot, we where lucky that it was a cloudy day, cause we where going to bike it all! The people from Grashopper Adventures prepared our bikes and the 35km tour.

We had a great guide named Lot (multitasking guide, as he was towing Amélie, giving Bill a hand on stairs, putting Mat in and out of the baby carrier, taking (really good!) Family pictures and providing us information about the three temples we where visiting that day, all in one man! All with a smile! Obviously, we couldnt have done it without a third man!

Our trip to new Zealand freshly in mind and Williams castle hé is still talking about, we decided to appropriate each temple to a kid, which works greatly to keep them interested!

So the first one "with all the trees on its roof" also called Ta Prohm was Williams. The one with all the enigmatic smiling faces, Prasat Bayon, Matthias's and of course the biggest, most wellknown, Angkor Wat being for Amélie. Three kiss, three temples. Perfect Match.

On the last afternoon of our 4 days stay, we went back with a tuktuk to see just some more places we liked to see, like the Neak Pean in the middle of water, the elephant terrace we hadn't stopped at and going back by sunset to Angkor Wat (as we would not wake up at 4:30 for a sunrise, as is the popular thing to do )

the moon and clear skies treated us on a nice spectacle, before the night took over the sky. We  headed back into town, to listen to Santa Claus singing under the lighted palmtrees and beside a giant Iced Christmas tree. Oh! Oh! Oh! It is Christmas (eve) at FCC!

Amélie decided (alright, maybe I had told her already ages ago) that our gifts this Christmas would be the 'grand voyage' , I couldn't agree more. So did Matthias with his collection of tickets (he s the one who started collecting coins prior to the trip. He is now the one carefully keeping all sorts of tickets, putting them in the hotel safe whenever one available - in new Zealand's campervan, he used the microwave for this- remembering us that it is not a free trip ;-)

Anyhow, le grand voyage, Les grands temples, une grande famille et de grandioses souvenirs, en havaianas autour d'un cocktail! Santa Claus has been good for us! We hope he'll be generous in 2016 for everyone, and above all that people will be generous with each other!

Inside cambodia

After three days in Phnom Penh, we travelled to Kratie where we arrived some 4-5hours of mini-van later (yep a full 250 km northeast) Kratie is a quiet and nice little town**, with still some pastel colored colonial architecture, along the Mekong river. Things to see and do are spotting the rare irrawaddy river dolphins and wandering around the center or on the little Island of Kaoh Trong just in front. And that's what we did. 

A short boattrip away (which makes for big adventures with three kids) the walk on the island was a bit short and it would have been fun to have some more time to get lost a bit more. Unfortunately with limited time, (tuktuk for the dolphins was picking us up at 2pm), no prior organisation and three small kids, some options where not for us (motodrop -just sit on the back of a motorbike and they drive you around - or biking )/and the cow with carriage that could come and pick us up wasn't available before 1 (?). The Mekong river really gives for a great backdrop of every activity, every drink you take, every little bank you sit on, all the nice, interested, cheeck-pinching and photo-taking Khmer people you meet on the riverside. 

(We decided now to do a picture for a picture, and when they are finished with their phone, we give them ours to have a picture as well) Kids played some cambodian instruments while we enjoyed the sunset and a drink over the river at the very nice Jasmine Boat café  restaurant.

Nice and honest by the way, as they stopped me on the street next day to give me the bottle of water we had paid for but not received!

The kids did their siesta in the tuktuk on the way to the dolphins, where we were indicated a small wooden motorboat to float a bit on the Mekong, spotting some of the 78 dolphins still alive. We did see some coming to the surface once in a while, but spoiled as we are, it wasn't the most exiting thing I ve seen. The calm river and the soft light of the end of the day, with three happy kids (not at all a guarantee on afternoon trips!) Did make for a nice trip out.

Some more hours of minivan away, back to the main road between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, we had a 2 nights stop in kampong Thom to cut the road in two (kids will refer to that trip as the trampoline van... So it was a welcome stop) and visit the less known (pre angkorien) temples of sambor prei kuk hidden in the forest.

A nice local community guide, local kids walking with us (and then at the end of the visit trying to sell us some scarfs) and being almost alone at this site (in huge contrast with what we would be experiencing in Siem Reap!!) Was great.

Also the comfy hotel and pool we had almost for us alone, was nice and relaxing (as real kids do, i guess, our kids remember this place as the bats' place -/for a colony of hundreds of bats we went to see on our first night and 'the hotel where Amélie got bitten by two red ants'. Life can be really hard for those little ones!

On the 20st we made it to Siem Reap. Our hotel being a little bit out of the centre, we didn't realise from the beginning just how touristic SR was!

What a difference with Kratie! Or even PP, though a lot of tourists, at least the capital seems to have a life on its own. Of course, in SR it is high high highest season with Christmas holidays just starting, a lot of Europeans, Australians and also Asiatics or Asian based expats come to SR , and of course, they do that to see the temples of Angkor, among which the wonder of Angkor Wat.

(Along the road)

** quiet, unless on the two nights of stay you culminate the noise of some construction works with the neighbours of our River Dolphin Hotel having their wedding party. When I first saw the street blocked by a colourful tent, lots of well decorated round tables with little plastic chairs, I thought 'great, how local! A wedding! Then when the van stopped and I realised it was really just next door we thought damn, a wedding next door. We ve seen a lot of weddings in the meantime, all have the same tents, decorated tables, plastic chairs, and seem to be organised that way. All have really excessively loud music...

In the river dolphin hotel in kratie Mattthias started to walk a little bit with help. Then fooling around he fell out of our bed, hurt his leg and we would have to wait some more days before he regained confidence again...