Cambodia

It was no surprise to me that entering Cambodia was not an easy affair. Well actually entering the country was, all you needed to do was give the officials all the extra dollars they were illegally asking for (a dollar here for a passport stamp, a dollar there for overtime as it was a Saturday) and Bob’s your Uncle, your in! That’s where the real fun begins! It’s easy enough getting to the first city and we wee lucky to grab a small mini van instead of the big bus so travelled for the first hour in relative comfort. However, after the lunch stop that took three hours and where they brought you out alternatives to your order when they didn’t have what you wanted, those of us in the mini van did not have such good luck. First they crammed an extra few people in so we were all bunched up (though I had grabbed the front seat so was doing ok) and this is how we drove for the next two hours. And then the real fun began! Three mini vans pulled up for drinks and one drove off. leaving three mini vans worth of people and bags to fit into two. The first one filled with eight people in an eleven seater and refused any more as they were uncomfortable with all their bags (no roof rack) but, as I pointed out there were eight of them and at that point 16 of us (plus big bags and day sacks and no roof rack!) Did they care? Heck no they took one more person and drove off so we were left with 15 of us to cram into an 11 seater. It was darn near impossible, no make that totally impossible. The back seats were folded 90 degrees down so that immediately took out at least three seats and every bit of floor space had bags on it. Finally, after an hour or two negotiating, two girls opted to stay behind and so 13 of us managed to squeeze in, knees to chin, elbows locked and bodies entwined (not as fun as it sounds!) Stu and I in the front were like sitting ducks if there was an accident and to top it off the driver’s wife then tried to squeeze in sharing the driver’s seat so that he was basically sitting on the gear stick and couldn’t reach the pedals. At this point we didn’t know whether to laugh or cry so instead we all just shouted an refused to let her in! So with that we drove off, now into complete darkness for three more hours of fun and games, the one saving grace was that all but one couple on the bus were a great laugh and pleasant to be around!

Finally we arrived in Kompng Cham and checked into a filth pit of a hotel with an ant infested bed - but then beggars can’t be choosers hey! Ironically we hadn’t even wanted to come this far into Cambodia but we had discovered that the initial journey we wanted to do would cost us over $150 so realised it was better to come further down the country in order to go back up on a decent road that would be cheaper as we could use a local bus. But then in another twist of fate we didn’t end up making that journey at all as I continued to be ill and we thought it best to head to Sim Reap where we knew I could find at the very least a clean hotel! I was not actually looking forward to Siem Reap as I remember it as a filthy and corrupt city where the people were particularly unpleasant but I was in fact completely surprised by what I found. Thank goodness, as I remained being unwell for another couple of days.

The city has had a complete overhaul. It is still pretty dirty but nowhere near so and most of it is confined to less touristy areas. The centre has developed into a lovely social area with a great strip which despite being called Pub Street had a really pleasant feel to it and one which wouldn’t go amiss in the centre of London. There are loads of restaurants and bars and some great markets including the newly set up night market where you can get nibbled at by fish! Doctor Fish is great, you dip your toes in a pool of water and the fish come up and nibble away at any hard skin - it’s a great little massage actually though I wasn’t brave enough to opt for a full body version!

Being that we were in Siem Reap we of course decided that we would in fact go to the Angkor Wat. I actually felt a little uneasy about this as I had decided that we should visit the less touristy temples as the main ones are being destroyed by the huge number of feet pounding them every day. In fact, even whilst at the temples I felt uneasy. They are of course undeniably beautiful and completely awe inspiring but they have also certainly lost some of their magic from when I was last here. And it’s not simply that I have seen them before. There were literally thousands more people visiting them, the locals seem much more distant to the tourists and the hawkers more intense (“only one dollar, you buy form me, I go to school” - “no money no honey”) and the temples themselves really didn’t seem to be in as good a condition as they were even eight years ago. There is indeed a lot of preservation work going on but it seems shoddily done and as if they are merely chipping away and adding modern concrete and bricks to the ancient sites. Thankfully, some areas have now been roped off but for the most part you can still climb amongst the ruins grabbing every which part of the temple you want. Looting apparantly still goes on and it is well known that the entrance fees go mainly towards funding building up tourist resorts on the seaside rather than back into the temples for maintainance. That said, as I was last time, I was simply blown away.

We were taken around in a tuk tuk by the lovely Mr Chum, a sweet young man with a simply gorgeous smile - I was rather taken by him in fact! He would drop us off at one temple and tell us he’s see us on the other side and then no matter where we were or when we were there he managed to find us amongst the thousands of others also looking for their tuk tuk! Lovely Mr Chum! We used him again on the second day when we went to a couple of other much quieter temple complexes called the Roluos Group and Bateay Srei.

The Roluos Group was the first site of the ancient Khmer civilisation and had three main temples. The first now exists alongside a modern working Wat, the second a quite small completely crumbling complex called Preah Ko (Sacred Bull) on account of the Nandi statues found on site and the third was one of our favourite temples, a large complex of perfect symmetry with a mix of well maintained and crumbling relics, including lots of elephants guarding the corners of the five tiered main pyramid, which became the inspiration for many of the temples that followed the building of this one.

Bateay Srei is the Citadel of Women. Dedicated to Shiva it is incredible to look at. It may be small but when it comes to it’s current condition and the amazing carvings, which are the most intricate of all the temples, you can tell that us women always beat the men! This temple was built entirely by women, for women and is certainly one of the most ornate and is actually believed to be the instigator of the Khmer art movement. Before heading back to drive through the main site one last time I was wrapped around the fingers of a few sweet vendors, picking up a couple of scarves and a bag or two!


We decided to have a final day in Siem Reap just kind of chilling and catching up and mainly to give me the opportunity to write all the travel pieces I need to for the hotels we have stayed in and to catch up on months worth of this blog, which has been more than just a little neglected! Tell me, exactly where does one find the time when they are busy doing nothing?