In early November, Luke and I took a guys trip to a secluded area of the country known as Koh Kong. I have wanted to get out of town with Luke on a more regular basis, just dad and son.  I have known other dads in my circle that do this on a regular basis and I feel that it helps Luke and I grow ever closer.  While on the trip we have plenty of time to talk about life or whatever is on each other’s minds.  As Luke gets older, my prayer is that he will want to continue these trips and we can remain open and honest about life, girls, school, or anything else.

In Koh Kong, just over the bridge is the border with Thailand and it’s about a five hour drive from our home in Phnom Penh. The first three hours of the drive is the typical “highway” driving in Cambodia.  Speeds can range from 10mph to 50mph depending on the area you are in, and small villages and homes are plentiful.  Once we reached Road 48 we took a hard right turn and followed it for another two hours.  The view changes completely once we got about 30 minutes past the 48 junction.  It turns into hilly roads with tall trees and not a soul in sight.  Every now and again we would see homes or villages but they were few and far between.

Luke has talked in the past about starting a YouTube channel. We made a short “Luke Perfect” movie and posted it to Facebook a few months ago but we decided to vlog our trip.  Below is Luke’s first entry as “Luke-a-Tron” and my first entry into video editing.  Enjoy!

Upon reaching Koh Kong town, I realized that it felt like a small east Texas town.  The town has two main roads that run perpendicular to each other and a few side streets in between.  That’s about it.  Friends from our church in Phnom Penh graciously opened their home to us to spend the night and fed us heartily while we stayed with them.  On the next day we drove over a long bridge to get to the Koh Kong Resort.  The locals refer to it as “The Casino.”  We arrived and spent nearly four hours swimming in a huge swimming pool and only saw two other people the entire time.  We packed our lunches on the trip so we had peanut butter sandwiches and Pringles by the pool. It only cost us $4 to get in. Later that day we visited a smaller beach a few miles away from the resort.  Back in town, we stopped and visited the McKong Ice Cream shop which is run by a local Christian pastor.

The next day we visited the Ta Tai Waterfall which was back up the road towards Phnom Penh.  It was a gorgeous waterfall but difficult to get to.  The entrance fee was $1.25 and it was about a mile to the waterfall from the entrance.  We were in four wheel drive the whole way going over rocks and small streams.  Once we got done we jumped back in the truck, had lunch, and drove back to Phnom Penh.  It was a quick trip but Luke and I had a wonderful time.