Karma Cambodia

  Siem Reap, Cambodia
Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Independance Monument

Well Cambodia I heard was going to be a tough country to travel in, a very poor country and would offer the biggest culture shock of the South East Asian countries, but to be honest I found it completely fine.  Understandably there was a bit of apprehension about the capital Phnom Penh when within the first hour of being there, quite a few of the locals told us to watch out for our valuables as drive by thefts were common.  From what I saw though the people of Cambodia were friendly, smiley and very helpful and much less scamming going on than in the other Indochina countries I'd visited.  On the way down to Phnom Penh we sailed down the Mekong and there were tons and tons of kids on the banks all smiling and waving at the boats as they went by.  I'd read about this and thought it was an exaggeration because kids aren't gunna stand there waving all day at boats surely, but nope it is definitely true.

Anyway after arriving in Phnom Penh on the Wednesday night I checked into the guest-house and went to bed at 8pm - thats an early time to go to bed I hear you say?   Well that was for two reasons, 1) I'd been up since 5.45am and 2) I had to be awake 6 hours later to catch the big and very important England v Croatia game.  The next few hours passed as follows:

20.00 - Went to bed
02.00 - Get up and have a few beers to get me in the mood
03.00 - Kick off - Come on England! 
03.14 - England are 2-0 down - England you are s#$t.
04.16 - England recover goal back - Come on England!
04.25 - England equalize, much rejoicing, Switzerland and Austria hear we come!
04.37 - Croatia score again - pit of despair
04.45 - The shambles that was England are out
04.46 - Go back to bed

Later the following day when I finally got out of bed we were greeted with lots of genuine condolences from the staff at our guest house, particularly from a guy called Penh Penh who was a big England footy fan.  The rest of that day we spent doing the two main tourist attraction in Phnom Penh, the killing fields and Tuol Sleng Museum/Prison.  Penh Penh took us to these places in his Tuk Tuk and told us more about the places, but just to give you some background information on the history, during Pol Pot's dictatorship of Cambodia during the 1970's his government were responsible for the murders of millions of Cambodians in what can only be described as an operation of ethnic cleansing - I wont go into the full details now but it is worth reading up on if you don't know about it already.  The killing fields of Cheoung Ek is the most famous of the killing fields and is where the majority of the prisoners from Tuol Sleng prison were taken to to be executed and dumped into pits.  At the fields you can see the various pits where these executions took place and there is also a monument where thousands of skulls that were recovered are displayed behind a very tall glass cabinet - sorry no pictures of this but I didn't feel comfortable taking photos of this.  This place I can only describe as being very eerie and somber but the prison was even worse.

The Tuol Sleng prison is nearer to the town centre and this school converted into a prison held over 14,000 prisoners.  Many were tortured here and eventually sent to Choeung Ek for execution.  Less than half a dozen people survived Tuol Sleng.  It's amazing to think that this happened between 1975-78, barely 30 years ago.  The prison has been kept in it's original state and as I said before this place is just really earie and I had the hairs stand up on the back of my neck for most of the visit, I even felt a little sick at the end of it, it really is that moving.  Anyway it's an amazing history and well worth knowing about and I'll leave it at that.

Cambodian Tiger

After this Penh Penh took us to the national stadium which was more lighter relief.  The stadium itself was quite impressive, a big place holding maybe 50,000 or so but the best bit was that anyone can go to the stadium at any time and within there we saw thousands of people either playing football on the surrounding football pitches (and basketball courts) or taking part in huge aerobic classes.  It's nice to see a national stadium that really belongs to the people.

Among some of the more crazy sights I saw on the roads that day were 6 people traveling on a motorbike (I heard from someone who saw 10 in Vietnam), a people cruiser that was packed to the rafters and with people sitting on the roof too (I'm sure you cant get away with that in the UK) and lots and lots of cows and other farm animals roaming by the roads completely unattended.

Golden Lions In Sihanoukville

The following day we were up early and taking the 4 hour ride to Sihanouk-ville on the south coast.  A lot of people I've met raved about this place so I had to check it out and it was a very nice beach resort.  Lots of beach bars and much more like how I imagined beach bars to be than the ones I'd seen so far in Vietnam.  It was a very cool place and we ran into Kerry and Darren who were an Irish couple we'd met the night before in Phnom Penh so we spent the night eating and drinking with them.  The following day we were back to Phnom Penh so just a fleeting visit to Sihanouk-ville but we were trading it off against more time on the beaches of Thailand.  Back in Phnom Penh they were having their annual water festival which coincides with end of the wet season in Cambodia.  This consists of lots of boat races on the main river and the city is flooded with visitors from all over Cambodia for what is essentially a big 3 day party.  Down at the riverside it was absolutely rammed with people walking up and down the main riverside road (thankfully closed of to traffic) and with various food and novelty stalls, so spent the rest of the night soaking up all that.

Don't Push Me! (Rambo)

Shooting Some Gun Thing

Big Grenade

Following day was a bit of chilling day.  Penh Penh took us to the shooting range where we did a bit of shooting with rifles and hand-guns (but not too much as at a dollar a bullet it quickly adds up).  When we got back to the guest-house Penh Penh also then obliged with the traditional Tiger shirt picture, although on reflection I should have took them down to the shooting range as tigers with guns would have made a good picture. 

The following day was a 6 hour bus ride up to Siem Reap in the north.  Usually not too grueling a journey but I'd made the mistake of drinking and dancing with the locals the night before (they're heavy drinkers) so the bus journey wasn't the best in the world - I've learnt my lesson for now.  For those doing a double take on the fact that I was dancing, yes it is true although I don't like doing the dancing thing back home.  The day before was the last day of the water festival and so our guest-house was full of Cambodians dancing and drinking away into the early hours and their dancing was so awful I thought I could fit in reasonably well here, which is how I ended up there.  Anyway back to the bus journey - landed in Siem Reap 6 hours later to be greeted by 101 tuk-tuk drivers claiming to have been there to pick me up.  There was a guy on our bus who worked at the guest-house we were heading for so he sorted out our tuk tuk.  I had an early night after that to make up for my previous nights lack of sleep and so I could get up at 4.30 am the following day to see Angkor Wat at sunrise.

Angkor Wat at Sunrise

Angkor Wat

Bayon Temple

I think Angkor Wat is what everyone comes to Siem Reap for, it's one of the grandest temples in the whole of asia and has adorned many a Cambodian postcard.  There was about 1000 people who went to see the sunrise and it was spectacular to see although most photos of it looked pretty rubbish because of where the sun rose from.  We spent the rest of the day until 6pm looking at the other major temples in the area including the Bayon temple, Ta Keo temple and Banteay Kdei temple, which was practically being held up by wooden poles.  Then there was my favourite, Ta Phrom, also known as just Tomb Raider by the local tuk tuk drivers who thought that was a better way of explaining it.  This temple was indeed used during the filming of tomb raider (although I haven't seen the film and couldn't find Angelina Jolie anywhere even though I really tried hard to find her) and it was an amazing temple with lots of undergrowth and trees somehow growing out of the top of buildings even though I couldn't see any sign of roots anywhere.  The great thing about these temples is that you can walk almost anywhere you want in them, which I found very unusual especially as there are lots of project boards about the place with information on the need for restoration projects on the temples.

Temple Held Up By Wood

Tomb Raider Temple

Very High Up On A Temple

We finished the day back at Angkor Wat to take some better pictures with clearer light and then headed up to the main hill to see sunset, which was a bit disappointing as I thought we'd see the sun setting behind the temples but it was just another ordinary run of the mill sunset.  Had a few drinks in the towns bar street that night before retiring to bed for another 6.30am early start (can't wait for my next lie in) and the 12 hour trip back to Bangkok.  The first 6 hours took us to the border town of Poi pet on what was basically a dirt track rather than a main road so there was lots of dust and bumpy travel, but it wasn't as bad as some of the descriptions I'd heard from others.  Once on the Thailand side it was a nice air conditioned coach on smooth roads all the way back to Bangkok.