Christmas & NYE in Siem Reap
Trip Start
Nov 01, 2008
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17
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Trip End
Nov 27, 2009
Siem Reap, Cambodia
Thursday, January 1, 2009
I was on my way to the 'toilet' or rather squat shed at the back of the building when a charming young girl shoved a half dead rather large banana spider in my face just for the fun of it! I obviously shrieked as I am terrified of them and legged it back to the bus, on my sprint back through I noticed a large bowl of the same species which had been fried, yummy! Not my cup of tea thanks.
We arrived in Siem Reap on Christmas Eve at around 6pm and checked into our "upgrade" stay at Bou Savy (a Christmas present to ourselves.) We had planned ahead to stay here for seven days because we thought it might be difficult to get somewhere to stay during the busy period but the only problem with that was were had to plan a lot of thing around this week. Anyhow our stay at Bou Savy was lovely, our "upgrade" included a room in a modern small hotel, complete with TV, air con, fridge plus free water and towels everyday! We felt like two truly spoilt backpackers. That evening we arrived in Bar Street which is literally a small street full of bars and restaurants aimed at tourists and found our friends Brendan and Anna, which lead to quite a boozy evening as everyone seemed to be enjoying the festive mood; they even had Christmas decorations which seemed a bit out of place.
Christmas Day was quite uneventful we had scrambled eggs for lunch and in the evening we went to the Khmer Family Restaurant for the most delicious spring rolls and selection of Khmer curry dishes, not your average Christmas meal.
We took a few days just to chill out in Siem Reap itself which has lots of shops, bars, restaurants and several markets which sell all the lovely local hand woven fabrics all "same same, but different" as the saying goes over here.
Once we were feeling rejuvanated again we hired one of the drivers Bunthon (pronounced 'wanton') from our hotel to take us on his tuk-tuk for the three day tour of Angkor Wat and the outlying temples. On the first day we toured the mighty Angkor Wat which I have to say is quite impressive on the drive up to the front of the ruins, cruising along the dirt road which runs parallel to the still green waters of the river. The landscape in Cambodia is also really beautiful its really green with lots of tropical palms dotted around here and there. We saw nine other temples that day which was very tiring in the tropical heat climbing up and down lots of steep stairs in order to enjoy the view from the top, our mountain climbing in China really should have prepared us for these small climbs. I have to say my favourite temple from the three days was Ta Prohm also where they filmed Tomb Raider, the trees here are huge and are really impressive in how their roots have grown up through the ruins and the trees perch on top of walls.
The second day of our temple tour we had to drive right out into the rural countryside with our driver, which took an hour and a half on a very dusty dirt road in order to get to a pretty waterfall at a site called Kbal Spean. Here it took us about 40 minutes to climb uphill through a rocky valley in the jungle to get to the stream. At the bottom of river there are detailed carvings of figures and animals, we are not quite sure why it is set in the middle of nowhere but then the temples of Angkor are all scattered over a huge area. This trip also allowed us to see lots of the local villages and people in their natural surroundings which was a nice change from the tourist traps, as all the children we saw were smiling and waving at us as we went past on the tuk-tuk, they are so cute.
After three days of touring Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples we became what is known as "templed out" and gave ourselves the following day off to chill out.
For New Years Eve we had planned a slightly more serene hedonistic day at a hotel and spa called Palm Village which is about ten minutes away by tuk-tuk. Here we could be pampered all day long with massages and the use of a lovely swimming pool, but at the last minute we thought nah sod it let's do something alternative this NYE and so we signed ourselves up to 'A Day In The Life' tour run by a local hotel called The Villa Siem Reap, and we spent the day working in a local village about 25km south west of Siem Reap. Hmm might not sound like your average NYE but it was fun and we wanted to give something back that would directly affect someone.
We started the day off with a taster of what was to come on a local farm by being driven down a dirt track on the back of a rickety wooden cart pulled by two "bulls" and a driver, and as we entered the soggy paddy field (note to self: why was I wearing a white top?) the "bulls" started kicking up the mud from the field which got into their tails and ended up on my arms. Good thing the scenary was so beautiful then, the paddy fields are so vibrant against the blue sky. Next we were driven back down the lane to the host family house where we were shown how to weave palm leaves into roofing tiles for their new roof. It's quite amazing how plam trees can last for four years as a roof cover, mind you i'm not sure how long mine will last if you had seen the quality. James was being his usual perfectionist self and was sowing in neat little lines (bet mumsy is proud). Apparently you need to make at least twenty of these per day in order to make a living of $1 to buy food, unfortunaltey we only made nine between us as James was going to quality and not quantity. Then we went to the village school which has three classrooms where around eighty pupils attend and also a small nursery hut which has half a wooden roof, and is a bit like a shanty. We used the shanty for our lesson and around thirty children showed up from the ages of four to tweleve and were keen to learn any basic English.
Apparently the Cambodian children have to pay around $10 per month if they are older than primary school age, but they also have to buy school uniform and books in order to be able to attend; so we were glad to be able to help out. James and I got involved in the lunch preparations for the local family, him as the sous chef and I adding all the ingredients to the boiling pan of water, (this is the the kind of cooking I like). Sokhar our guide showed us how to make two local dishes, first a fish soup which was quite nice if a little salty, and a main course which consisted of a lot of fish paste, garlic, herbs and large red ants cooked in banana leaf. Yes we did actually eat red ants, they were quite crunchy actually. After our lunch of sandwiches supplied by the tour, we got back down to some more sewing. We also got to visit the village monastry before gettting back to our hotel for a quick swim in the pool and then out for some quality drinking time.
The evening was spent with our friends Jessica and Ben and was fairly eventful with an hour long powercut ending at 11.30pm (we weren't sure if they were going to come back on in time for midnight); allowed us to improve our pool skills in the dark. Then out into busy Bar Street for a street party and several buckets of the Mekong variety, which is cheap whiskey and sprite in a bucket. We rounded the evening off with a ride in a tuk-tuk back to Palm Village which took well over half an hour in the pitch dark and ended up with our driver getting completely lost. Luckily we recognised some lights from a small hotel which helped us to locate it, otherwise I felt like wewere going to be circling around all night.
The next morning with hangover we left Siem Reap by bus for Phnom Penh.
