We spent our last night in Cambodia in the town of Stung Treng, just to break up the journey from Banlung to Laos. We were expecting a gritty town without much going on, and it pretty well lived up to that reputation. This was without a doubt the least desirable place we’ve stayed since leaving the US just over six months ago — almost downright comical in its shabbiness.

I’d made a reservation at the Golden River Hotel, the fanciest place in town by far. They were out of the $20 river view rooms, so we had to settle for the $17 ‘standard’ room, from which we had this view instead:

For dinner we went looking for a place called Ponika’s, the only restaurant listed in our Lonely Planet guidebook. Described as a place where you can also rent bikes and arrange transportation, it sounded like the hub of tourist activity in town. The food really was quite good, though we were the only souls in the place — unless you count the cockroaches, of which there were plenty. Big cockroaches. Oh well, nobody said travel was all glamor.

This morning we headed back to Ponika’s for breakfast. Still not a single other customer. And the cockroaches were asleep at breakfast time. After a satisfying breakfast I took a walk through the lively market to say goodbye to Cambodia. The market was bursting with activity and color. And like everywhere else we’ve been in Cambodia these past weeks, people were super friendly. We’ll miss all those warm smiles.

Banlung, up in the northeast corner of the country, is essentially our last stop in Cambodia; we’ve got one more town for a night en route to Laos, but that’s just a travel stop so it doesn’t really count. So far we’re making the most of it here. We’ve walked out to Boeng Yeak Lom, a beautiful crater lake, twice, and biked to a couple of waterfalls. We’ve found two restaurants that we really like, and one great little local bar for after dinner drinks.

One of the most memorable parts of the stop was little VANessa, a six-year-old who didn’t want us to take her picture. Her father is Swedish, and runs one of the restaurants we really liked. Her mother is Khmer and I think does much of the cooking, while her Khmer uncle serves. And she apparently entertains the guests, or at least us on our two visits. She just came over and talked and talked and talked.

What was remarkable about VANessa (besides that fabulous name) was her English. She has an American teacher at an international school here, and she sounds like she’s lived her entire life in the U.S. Her dad said her teacher is from South Carolina – which some people consider part of the U.S. – but fortunately she doesn’t have even a hint of a southern accent. And no other accent either. Never a hesitation for a word; I totally assumed that she’d lived part time at least in the U.S. And her dad says she’s just as fluent and chatty in Swedish and Khmer. Too bad she didn’t want us to take her picture; she was a real cutie.

Here are a few shots of our experience in Banlung. Tomorrow it’s a reasonably short drive to Stung Treng before a longer drive the next day across into Laos.

OK, after a combination of short stops, no Internet, and our WordPress program malfunctioning, we’ve been offline for awhile. But all is good, we’re still healthy, and we’re back online. Here’s the quick story: from our last real post in Kampot we went a little further southeast to Kep, where we languished for a couple of days at a beautiful resort not doing much of anything except reading at the pool and going into the local crab market to eat.

From there it was north to Phnom Penh for a couple days of errands, including picking up my new Kindle that had been shipped to the same hotel we stayed at a couple weeks earlier. I’m in heaven with a reader that actually works. (If you’re wondering, I’ve gotten stuck in the early 20th century: first I read Scott Lawrence’s new Lawrence in Arabia, then Margaret MacMillan’s history of the lead up to The Great War, The War that Ended Peace, and now I’m in Scott Berg’s biography of Woodrow Wilson, titled, interestingly, Wilson. And that still doesn’t get to Doris Kearns Goodwin’s new book about Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. I may never get out of those couple of decades.)

From Phnom Penh it was north to Kompong Cham, a town on the Mekong River, where we stayed in a hotel with the biggest, heaviest wooden furniture you’ve ever seen, before moving further north to Kratie (pronounced kra-cheh), which is one of the most memorable places I’ve ever been. We stayed at an isolated lodge on an island in the Mekong River, surrounded by a genuinely local village. It was about as far off the beaten path as you could ever imagine. So far off, in fact, that the Internet hasn’t found it yet!

Those were all pretty short stays – a day or two in each – but now we’ve landed in Banlung, up in the northeast corner of Cambodia, for four days; we’ll definitely post pictures from here tomorrow. Though we’ve been loving Cambodia, this may be our last stop in Cambodia, as we’re now nearing the border of Laos. The travelers we’ve met coming south have loved Laos, so we’re pretty excited about getting up there.