Feckinirish's travel blogs:
|
|
  | |  |
Towering Temples Tomb Raider Style
Entry 71 of 87 | show all | print this entry |
Monday 13th August
We get an annoyingly early boat to Siem Reap- home of the Khmer/Angkor civilisations. Before we go - our hotle gives us loads of bananas and a colourful scarf for free! Eeryone - stay at the Royal Hotel in Battambang - friendly staff too. And for an added bonus they bring us to the boat whic is miles away coz the river is not high enough yet [rainy season hasnt really kicked off yet - only spurts of a few minutes]. The boat took a bit longer than it was suppose to, but sure isnt that the way here. The journey was cool, through same narrow riverways either surrounded by bamboo forests, floating villages or paddy fields. The river really did snake through as we regularly would be whacked by branches sweeping in as we went around corners. This would also bring in all sorts of weird catapillars, bettles and grasshopppers, making a few passengers scream!
Off the boat we are swarmed first by tuk tuk drivers,and then begging children which are trying their best to grab the bag of fruit I have. they really are in a bad state. Mainly 4-5 years olds with scraggy clothes sayingÿum yum"and making eating movements - very sad to see. We are brought to a driver and I give the fruit to his guy that collected us on the boat and tell him to hand it out to the children coz they would have ripped me apart.
At Siem Reap we head to the Smiley Gusethouse - the one with a big smiley on its wall- very orginal! We also hire our driver for the next fewdays to drive us around the ruins. Seemed like the best way.
In the evening we head to Angkor Wat - the main attraction - for sunset. It was cool. Nice driveway up through forests and then you come across the huge moat (nearly looks like a lake - its 190m wide!!) and there she is. Maybe not as awe inspiring as I was expecting (its the hype you see) but way more impressive than the Taj Mahal[ahh..what marketing does]. WE dont get to seeright in as the places shuts at sundown so maybe my view will change. [WE find the next day, the other places are unbeliveable - just spectacular]. It was going to be an expensive few days, as the entry, accomodation and food costs are generally higher and then there are the constant beggars and touts looking for money - thats what mass tourism does I suppose.
Tuesday
We head on the tuktuk to explore the huge overgrown cities.
These places are cool but it would be too boring to go on about all of them.
The temples are spread all over the place - the civilization was massive, recently discvered to be the biggest at the time and the forests have all overgrown the areas in between. There used to be wooden buildinga nd roads everywhere but now all taken over by the forest.. really interesting ...indiana jones style..and of course some of the rich stuff has disappeared to thieves over the centuries.
For my own records Im going to write alist...skip if you get bored.
Banteay Kdei (entrance faces, lots of unstable walls)
Srah Srang (ancient huge pool probably for ritual bathing)
Ta Prohm (trees grown all over it, lots of tomb raider scenes from here)
Ta Keo (extremely tall with very steep stairs)
[city of Angkor Thom]
Bayon (temple of the huge carved faces on the tops of the towers, beautiful carved bas reliefs (stone carved drawings along full length of outside walls)).one of the best
Baphuon (closed off for renovation, outside impressive setting with pools and overgrown walls and forests around)
Phimeanakas (another tall one..partof the royal palace that was here)
Preah Palilary (probably was impressive in its hey day, now very dangerous been overgrown by tree roots causing lots of falling ceilings. A monk tried to show us this for money - Paula fell or his tricks)
Terrace of the Elephants (viewing platform for the royals, full of, guess what, elephant carvings)
[end of Ankgor Thom]
Phnom Bakheng (on a big hill, suppose to be good for sunsets for view of Angkor Wat and the huge resevoir they had however it was way too crowded to be enjoyed. You get an elephant up to the top of the hill - not worth it)
Wednesday
Back to Angkor Wat to see it properly as couldnt get in due to it closing. More cool Bas reliefs on the wall here and the climb up to the towers has also some major calf breaking steps...what sort of legs did these guys have? At the back of it, there is an exit with no steps...coz it was where the king got on/off his elephant..jayus they thought of everything! At the back there is also a road that headsoff into the forest. You can imagine what it used to look like.
Preah Khan (lots of corridors, most collasped, and a cool double tree act puling down a wall)
Banteay Srei (a unique temple, way out, small place, in a pink hue colured rock with extremely detailed carvings)
On the way to the next one, the monsoon weather came in in style, first huge winds blowing up the dust followed by thunder/lightening and extreme downpours. Our tuk tuk driver Thea got soaked and the wind just froze him...we thought he would collaspse..but he mustered on saying all the time he was okay and sorry for the weather (!) and if he hit a pot hole. On the way we popped back into the hotel. Paula got Thea a spare raincoat (part of a set she had bought just to get the trouser bottoms). Jayus he was so happy with it.
Banteay Samre (weird one this - like loads of little buildings squashed within other building walls. Steps leading down were immediately met by ones going up to the other building. Bit of pain to go around. One book said the place used to be full of water and a little boat was used to go around hence the steps either side..however other books said nothing about it.)
After here Thea brought us to his home.Wowser..eye opener!
It was about 15-20km outside of Siem Reap, actually out towards where we got picked off the boat, in the wooden stilt houses on marsh land (gets flooed in wet season). Lots of scruffy children and women with hugefruit baskets going around. and because of the time it was, mid evening, loads of people were washing them selves, al sudded up outside their houses with a bucket. Thea brings us in (shoes off of course), hmmm seems okay..no no he says...over here...there is another hut beside the one we are in (and behind another thats at the main mudtrack road we came on). We have to climb over this big gap (the marshy ground way below) across a sort of bamboo strips fence. His house had 2.5 walls, opened at the front of it, a corner seeing out to the road and a full view of the neighbours half wall. He told me when it rained, it would come on top of him sleeping (his whole family would sleep on reed mats placed on the rickety quarter bamboo sticks used as floorboards. His wife was just sitting there in a lotus position with their 10month old daughter (whom he kept calling his son to our amusment) in her arms. the baby was very happy to see daddy. They really had nothing there. An oilcandle for lighting, a pot with a charcoal urn for cooking and a couple bits of baby clothing hanging drying. They also had a little plastic barrel of filtered water. No shelves even..well I suppose they had nothing to put on them. Didnt seem like they had any clothes and not much food - his wife had cooked noodles with some veg for him, there may have been some rice lying about too. Im sure his daughter could easily get malaria, as this would be prime area and there is no protection for them. Thea then goes onto explain that he had a sister dye from malaria - only 14yrs old. We now understood why all the kids when we got off the boat were begging, they actually were just starving..hard hitting when you see real poverty! His wife did not know english, and was probably a bit intimidated here. However one has to think , how did they make a baby here...no privacy at all. The neighbours had a telly (some people have access to a petrol generator -no grid electricity here) and he would be so happy when it was on, to stop him going crazy with bordom. Thea was young, only 21, and as he tells us, a bit of a deliquent when he was younger causing his brother to get annoyed with him. But he was defient, saying he was doing it all on his own now...it was tough living here.
We were brought to his family home, his mum and 5 of his siblings (I think he said there were 3 others moved out), the youngest 4/5yrs old, a girl. Again no lights,except for a couple of candles (so dangerous in this wooden structure) and a b/w telly powered by the fore-said generators. The dad appears from the back - coming from the rice fields - and has the face of a weathered and worried man. I wasnt sure if Thea was saying this or not, but I got from it that his Dad worked for the Khmer Rouge - this is very possible as many of the "foot" soldiers were never tried...in fact only a couple have yet,even though it all happened 30 years ago!This country has so much hidden in the past. His family home wasa bit more sturdy,a nd even had a little porch, and a gate way in. This would seem like a luxury here, however we couldnt really see much as by now it was pitch black around and we were in a town!. We took some pictures so we could send them on. However, post address dont exist here - people just randomly put up houses, including ones, Thea said, that the people near the river would put onto borrowed cars and drive them away when the water would rise during rainy season. Its hard to describe the poverty around here...but it will always stay in my mind when I get a tuk tuk/moto driver aagin. Im sure there are many of them - make sure you are not that tight with money for them. Bargain with them, but then give a tip - most are desperate for a bit of money.
Thursday Morning
Got up at the unGodly hour of 4.50am to go for the sunrise at Angkor (it was all hyped up so we had to). Bit of a disappointment as it was cloudy - but a bit of a wait and there were a few beams of light making some cool pics. Not sure I'd do it again though.
Back to the capital - strangely we are only westererns on the bus...which is a good omen..we got the best price bus!
|
|
If you like this entry, search for other entries by feckinirish, from Cambodia or try a new search. |
| |
Back to Entry - Back to Home
|
4 votes 
