Indiana Jonesin' it at Angkor Wat
Trip Start
Feb 01, 2006
1
21
37
Trip End
May 04, 2006
Siem Reap,
Cambodia
Friday, March 17, 2006
I'll start from the beginning...
The bus from Bangkok was completely miserable, well not completely, the ride from Bangkok to the Cambodian border was fine, but after that it was all down hill. It took quite a bit of time to get through customs, and I ended up having to pay five USD for every day that I had over extended my Thai visa (9 days in all), but that actually wasn't that bad considering starting three days from then they were upping the penalty to thirteen USD per day. I ran in to a little black market money scheme after that, it was stupid because I knew exactly what was happening, but in the end I only lost maybe five dollars, so it wasn't a big deal, but still I know that five dollars is a decent amount of money here so it was annoying none-the-less.
Back to the bus ride... after we got to the Cambodian side of the border the road turned to complete shit, I would describe it like this: picture the worst pot-holed road that you've ever been on in the US, now picture riding on that road constantly for six hours in a bus that clearly had done that same trip once a day for the last fifteen years. My seat wasn't even attached to the metal underneath, so I either had to push it back every five minutes or leave my foot or knee wedged in between it and the seat in front of me to keep it from falling off. Once we arrived (from guest house door to guest house door the trip added up to an even fourteen hours), we were dropped off at a random guest house that had clearly given the bus driver a commission to deliver us. That was pretty annoying because I had planned to meet Alejandro (friend from Koh Phangan) at a different guest house, but luckily a nice canadian couple (Lorne and Allison) that I had met on the bus happened to be heading to the same place, so we split a tuk-tuk there. Leaving the first guest house was not a fun process, first we had to deal with about five people from the guest house getting mad at us and trying to covince us not to leave, then we were swarmed by tuk-tuk drivers, it was one of those times where I was just like "dude, I've been on a bus, and not a fun one at that, for the last fourteen hours, just shut up and get out of my face for five minutes", I know that all of these people are just trying to do their jobs and make a few bucks, but at the same time they can't be surprised when people are less than courteous towards them. So once that was all taken care of I met up with Alejandro and some people that he had met in Siem Reap, it was definitely nice to see a familiar face. He was only around for a couple days but hopefully we'll be meeting up in a couple of weeks in Vietnam.
The first day at Angkor Wat (it is an enormous complex of ancient temples, google it if you've never heard of it, I definitely hadn't before I started planning this trip),I shared a taxi with an english speaking guide with Allison and Lorne. I figured a guided tour was a good way to get a general feel for the place, plus we had AC which is key in this kind of heat (probably around 100 F during the middle of the day). The tour was pretty good, and our guide started off pretty strong but he seemed to lose steam towards the middle of the day. I may be way off base here, but in Siem Reap at least (Siem Reap is the town right next to Angkor Wat), it seems that guides and vehicle drivers seem to lose a lot of their motivation once they know that they are going to get paid. It would be offensive to some to say that they are lazy, but I honestly have felt like that over the last few days. It's like Once they know they are getting paid they kind of jsut want to coast through the day, (I know its hot and looking at the same temples every day must get boring, but hey it's your job, every job gets boring). Overall I would say they could learn something from western-style customer service. Hmmmm, nice rant there huh?
The next two days I hired a motor bike driver to bring me to the temples. I would have preferred to drive myself, but apparently three years ago they made it illegal for foreigners to rent moto bikes. Apparently there had been too many fatalities and injuries. I'm sure there had been some, but I tend to think that they were more interested in creating jobs here by forcing more people to have to pay for tuk tuk and moto-bike drivers (more ranting sweet;)
Anyway. I did a lot of drawing during the last two days. Drawing was a nice way to take in the temples, I was able to just sit in one spot and really appreciate it rather than running around from complex to complex and getting completely sick of he temples. I think I am finding my groove with the drawings, and am creating some of my best stuff so far. Once I get home I will scan them all in for all of you blog readers to check out.
Today I just relaxed ,read a bit, and worked on finishing up my temple drawings. Oh yeah I also went to the Childrens hospital in Siem Reap, I got the idea from reading another persons blog (FindNathan.com, check it out if you have some time to kill at work). It definitely seemed like a good thing to do. I really don't like to give money to beggars (there are TONS here), and this seemed like a good way to do something positive while I'm here. If you end up traveling to Angkor Wat I definitely recommend donating. The Hospital is right in the middle of town, and I believe that it is the only Childrens Hospital in the entire country. A lot of times peasants will travel a very long distance to come here, and will bring their entire family, who will either sleep in the room with the sick child or sleep in hammocks outside of the hospital.
Again I'm running out of time here and the internet shop is closing. There are just two kind of diasturbing things I wanted to share with everybody out there...
One.) I caught this little fucker trying to pick my pocket the first night I was here.
I had just gotten out of a tuk-tuk, and was immediately approached by a group of five or six little kids trying to sell me the same book, and an old man with an amputated leg asking for money, at the same time I was taking out money to pay the driver and messing with the small bills, I caught this older kid trying to stick his hand in the pocket where I had my wallet. I grapped a hold of the pocket and told him to get lost. Instead of slinking off the kid followed me to the restaurant saying "why you grab your pocket like that mister", I would expect that he would have run off, but he was almost taunting me!
Two.) Last night I was walking home after dinner when a man with both of his arms amputated above the elbows came up to and started pressing the stumps of his limbs against me and saying "Give me one dollar, Cambodia land mine BOOM! Give me one dollar, Cambodia land mine BOOM!" I felt really bad and sickened at the same time, I probably would have given him some money if it had been readily accessible, but I also just wanted to get out of there. Land mines in Cambodia are a huge problem, I read that something like 1 in every 235 people in Cambodia are amputees due to them, which is one of the highest ratios in the world. Pretty sad. One of the ends of his amputated arms was wet too, it was really pretty sickening...
