My new year!

So I had a different kind of new year this time and end of the old one! I figured I've had so many crazy party and dinner filled new years, what should I do this time? I mean I am in Cambodia and Asia, I should definetely do something diffrent from home! I admit bubbles and foie gras is lovely but this is rather not the time for that.....
Hmmm of I was to the remote eastern Ratanakiri province of Cambodia, covered in jungle and the red dust roads (if you can call them roads)!
Now getting to this remote place called Ban Lung is not the easiest.....comfort travel is excused away quickly as it is 6h by minibus on the roads from hell!! Oh that is 6h unless the minibus doesn't brake down...of course in the middle of nowhere, 2h away from civilisation by car =) The road is so covered with red dust that all windows must be closed during this travel for it get's everywhere!
Needless to say the bus took 10h to Ban Lung and I arrived completely broken from dust and a cramped position next to a Khmer family, picture a toyota minibus with about 20 people inside and you will get the picture! (it's designed for 10)
Off I was to the jungle the next day with a young french couple I met on the bus! 2 days in the jungle I guessed would be a different enough new year for me, visiting far away hill tribes and sleeping in their village!
Christ was the jungle trek hard at times!! We descended waterfalls and we climbed up them, we crossed rivers and we hiked through thick jungle covered in icky spiders and other creeps! We had lunch next to a waterfall and by the river, oh this scenery was to die for!!! Just like Hollywood! So quiet except the jungle life that surrounded you, miles and miles away from any kind of civilisation!! However I come quickly aware of the fact that A. you are in a remote (real) jungle and B. there are creatures here that you don't have home, having lunch and being surrounded by...and I'm not kidding the biggest, ugliest, ickiest and dangerous spiders I ever saw...and yes they could kill a man by a bite, I'm talking tarantella size now! Man did it scare me.....and then the scorpions.....jeez, we had scorpions running around and ant's big as cherries not to mention snakes and tigers as well!! One part of the trek we descended to a small valley or path you might call it and it was so filled with spiders and their webs I quickly named it spider valley =)
We finally got to the tribal village and spent a night there in their tribe hall, cooking on open fire, drinking local rice wine with the tribes men and sleeping in hammocks. Just hadn't accounted on one thing, that the temperature would drop to nearly 0 degrees in the hills of the jungle!!! Woke up 2 h later in my hammock by shivering! I had only thin as paper pants and a thin shirt on! I rolled myself into a blanket in the bag and to fetal position but I could not sleep more....for the love of god it was so cold!!!!!! I prayed that the sun would go up, but the bloody thing never did!!! Well eventually it did of course, but that was first after turning me in to ice =)

The next morning we continued our trek heading back home and after a good 10h trek we were finally picked up by motorbikes and taken home the last 20km!
So there you have it folk's, my new year 2010 and it was pretty awesome even if it didn't include any bubbley!!!
Now it is time for me to kiss goodbye this beautiful country and tomorrow head for Lao land and the 4000 islands where I will seriously rest my body and soul for they need it!!! First though there is the way of getting there as it involves the same kind of buses and the same road, plus some over corrupted officials at the Lao border and a ferry trip to the islands.....I already feel this can be reason enough for another blog =)

Happy new year dears!