Distantpeak.com

Happy new year to everybody! I am still in Southeast-Asia, escaping the cold nights of Northern Europe. Here is a short update of what I've been doing lately, and where I'm heading next.

Xmas was spent in Boracay (see photos here) and Puerto Galera (see photos here). Boracay is certainly the whitest (and most expensive) beach in Philippines. Puerto Galera was just a big disapointment.

Then back to Manila for New Year (see photos here), but the celebration went down into the toilet with my diarrhea. That also put a final end to my 2 months of backpacking in Philippines.

Then I flied back to Bangkok, hurried down the southeast-coast of Thailand to Trat and Koh Chang (see photos here), before I crossed the border into Cambodia. Now I'm in Sihanoukville, probably the most touristy beach in Cambodia, and not exactly what I'm looking for (see photos below). That's why I'm only going to spend two nights here, and move on to Phnom Penh already tomorrow.

Most itineraries head to Siem Reap (Angkor Wat) from here, so I will certainly end up at those famous temples next week. In the mean time I will try to find a feasible route through the jungle and to the top of Mount Aural (1813m), the highest mountain/hill in Cambodia. It's not only land-mines to worry about, but also tigers and mosquitos (malaria). But most of all, there are hardly any information at all about Mount Aural on the net, so I even don't know where to start....