Angkor Wat sans mon appareil photo

Having intended to get up early, by the time I'd slept in a bit, had breakfast, gone through every bike at the guesthouse and finding none fitted even my accomodating standards (the key criteria of which are: ability to change through more than 1 gear, air in tyres and one partially working brake) it was gone 10.30 When I got to the bike shop I found all of their bikes with gears were being comendered for a charity bike rally the following morning. One of the organisers gave me a leaflet and encouraged me to join in. So I hired one of the remaining ladies bike and decided to take it easy and get up the next day. Unfortuantely it took me another 2 1/2 hours to get to Angkor Wat after stopping to get photographs and waiting an age for them to print and cut them out and then going the wrong way to the temple and being sent back to the ticket office with rubbish directions that meant I went up and down the same road twice. The photo stop was on the advice of the Lonely Planets advice, which was completely uncessary as the ticket booth they took my photo for free in about 10 seconds. (See my Lonely Planet Review see bottom panel) So after stopping for some noodles, I finally got to Angkor Wat at about 2pm.

No superlatives do justice to this place and pictures certainly don;t convey it's impact. It is simply awe-inspiring. It the largest religious building in the world and an archetectural wonder the likes of which the world will never see again. And I'd left my camera battery recharging in my guesthouse.

Yet after cursing myself queitly for a few minutes, this act of supreme absent-mindedness even by my low standards was actually completely liberating as I was able to take it all in and soak up some of the splendour of it without trying to capture it in inferior pixels.

Walking across the moat, you enter through the Western entrance and coming out the otherside is an incredibly uplifting experience as you witness a huge stone causeway leading up to this huge structure looming up out of the green against a clear blue backdrop.

I then moved on to Angkor Thom and it's central Baphour, a facscinating mass of face-shaped towers. At this point I was still seriously considering getting up at 5am to see the sunrise and go on a 50km cycle rally, so I cycled back into town. However by that evening I'd decided to downgrade to the 5km run on the Sunday as I didn't feel too well.

Photo of Ankhor Wat taken on 2nd December:

Siem Reap journey

I thought the bus left at 11.50, but having put my bags on and wandered off to find a pharmacy for more bandages for my motorbike burn, I returned to find the bus gone. This caused me a few minutes of panic, before I was informed it was in the petrol station across the street and so I was able to reboard, which was fortunate as it never returned to the bus stop.


I was sat next to a chap who wore a surgical mask for all but the last hour of the journey. I wondered whether he was just mistrustful of the air in Phnom Penh and a 200km radius, initially mistrustful of me but I won his confidence, or just got a bit sweaty. He also looked uncannily like Dr Marvin Monroe off the Simpsons (I had to google that).

When I arrived at the bus station in Siem Reap I became embroiled in the most ludicrous bartering dispute. While the the three other tourists seemed to have already booked guesthouses and made quick decisions about who to go with I waited until my bag was unloaded, leaving me alone and surrounded by at least 25 men all shouting and tugging at my shirt. When I shouted at them to get back while I decided they would take two steps back and then be back in my face after about 5 seconds. What made the decision confusing was that they were offering somewhere between free and 50p for a ride to the guesthouse of my choice which was disconcerting. However, somewhat surprisingly but thankfully, the instant I had pointed at my chosen driver, everyone simply turned and walked away.

It seems that the reason for the free rides is that the drivers then try to get you to agree for them to be your driver round the temples. Unfortunately for this driver I said myself and friend would be cycling around, though he seemed nice enough to say if I needed a tuk tuk I'd ask for him.

Siem Reap seems a bit more touristy than Phnom Penh and livelier because all the bars etc seem to be in one place. Bumped into Tom again at the guesthouse before our previously agreed meeting at Angkor What? bar (ho ho) and found he'd already agreed to be chauffeured around. Went to said establishment later anyway and met some nice Aussie girls, one of whom was a car salesperson, which I found mildly intriguing.

Lazy blog day

Today I've done not much at all but sleep, read and set up this blog that i've been meaning to do for roughly two months. Don't expect posts of insightful musings - this is really just an electronic diary, though I have offered a few opinions here and there in case anyone is interested. The intention is that there will be an entry for each day of my trip when I get the opportunity, however brief or long-winded. 'You, long winded?', I hear people say... not literally of course I only hear voices on Larium night (the anti-Malarial drug that has some strange side-effects for the uninitiated, anyway I digress...)

Hopefully updates won't be too infrequent as I'm going to dispense with the paper diary in favour of notes and this blog. So far you will see below that I've documented my time here in Cambodia to get this thing started, but I will endeavour to copy up my diary from Nepal, Thailand and Laos by... let's say New Year.

The Killing Fields

Today Tom, Juan and I undertook some of the serious stuff by going to the notorious S21 prison and associated place where inmates were, to use a blunt but accurate phrase, finished off. It is obviously a very harrowing experience.


The site of the Killing Fields, which we visited first, is about 15km outside of Phnom Penh and actually looked quite pretty in the sunshine. There's a river, lake with lillies and trees and it is all very green and peaceful - an image shattered not just by the huge monument surrounding a glass cylinder full to the top with skulls but by your mind trying to envisage and make sense of what was committed there. One's imagination is stirred further as one notices fragments of clothing and bone poking out of the ground.


The incongruity of the bright sunshine and trees with the painted memory of the past was similar to what I experienced at Auchwitz (as opposed to Birkenau which was a more brutal landscape). I also started to get the same seething annoyance at the tourists taking umpteem photos and videos of the skulls, hardly seeming to pause to actually experience what it means. I have to say though I've mellowed a bit on this subject now, basically because everyone seems to do it and I guess if I'm honest I do have the temptation to document experiences and did take a couple of shots from further away (see above), so maybe I'm being hypocritical. However, while it's important to remember and share, it just still seems a bit disrespectful and unecessary to treat photgraphing human remains the same way as you might take photos of your (living) friends. At least I didn't see anyone posing with the skulls as in Auschwitz (look at me; 'arbeit mach frei!') it wasn't as bad as the tourists photographing cremation in Kathmandu.



The information boards scattered around for the most part seemed to lose something of their gravity in translation, plus many felt as though they were trying too hard to make the point, but one plaque in particular struck me as being quite arrestng in its simplicity. Placed next to a beautiful knotted tree it reads 'Magic Tree. The tree was used as a tool to hang the loudspeakers which make the sound louder to avoid the moan of victims while they were being executed."



We then went to the S21 prison or Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Tuol Sleng actually has a double meaning - 'poisonous hill' as well as 'mound for those who have guilt'. It had been a primary school before being wrapped in barbed wire and converted into a place of torture. This fact gives rise to some unforgettable images of exercise bars being used to hang people.





The final Auschwitz comparison comes from seeing the rows upon rows of mugshots of those killed and spotting the children already robbed of everything. Apparently girls and boys of 14 and 15 were trained up as the camp guards and these impressionable youth used to then commit the most evil deeds.



I think it is remarkable that, as far as I can ascertain so far, the genocide was indiscriminate of race in that there was no ethnic group specifically targeted and I wonder if this makes it unique?
It seems a bit shameful now but in a think it is explained by a release of emotional tension, but the three of us went out that night and got drunk. The bar/club we spent most of the night at: The Heart of Darkness.

Phnom Penh Day 2

Today we went to the National Museum (interior courtyard pictured), which was a little dull in terms of exibits: there were a lot of statues. Most were much older than the typically un-lionine lions pictured, including some huge 2,500 year old vases and some prehistoric shaped stones.

Marijn and I were the annoying ones reading everything, the highlight being an explanation of the creation of the winged god Garuda, who is Vishnu's 'vehicle'. A fantastic story of jealousy, deals, quests and snake-eating which is as entertaining as it is nuts. I don't think saying this is offensive as no-one really professes to believe in the actual stories, plus blasphemy seems to be taken a lot more seriously in other religions. It appears to be a cultural and traditional religion and doesn't really pretend to be much more, with some of the more spiritual side coming from, as in Nepal, Buddist theology.

Juan, the Argentinian guy I travelled with in northern Laos turned up at the guesthouse in the evening and and the six of us headed to the lakeside for dinner. Our restaurant location was right by the lake and the food was pretty decent, but we hadn't fully appreciated that this was actually the backpacker headquarters of Phnom Penh and myriad pool and film bars had meant it felt like a less frenetic Khao San Road in Bangkok. That desn't mean we didn't play pool of course and I had one of those wonderful moments when I'd had just the right amount of alchohol to be a pool legend, rattling off 6 winning frames in a row against I suspect much better players in Tom and Juan. Said goodbye to Marika, Marijn and Kim again, I guess I'll stop running into them some time, but hope to again as they've been brilliant fun travelling with.

Water Festival

It was the last day of the water festival, which basically consisted of an afternoon's dragon boat racing and some fireworks. There appeared to be a few different varieties of boats, but the main ones had about 75 oarsmen. We watched for a while, before coming back later to watch the final. However by this time the streets were so packed it took us an age and we'd missed the final races. We were inevertheless treated to a firework display and a nuber of barges lit up in various emblems, maps and symbols.

The crowds were scarily large and once away from the river we had to wait 15 mins to move and then quickly retreate4d in the face of a rushing torrent of people, with the usual drunks idiots pushing and making things worse. I kept tripping as I couldn't balance with my hands in my pockets and sure enough as soon as I put my camera and wallet in Kim's bag, within 2 minutes the 1000 Riel in my pocket had gone. Note 1000 Riel is about 13 pence. I managed to burn my leg on a motorbike exhaust while trying to shepard Kim back when she went a different way, but otherwise we escaped unscathed.

Marijn and I then went to Sparks night club later for some dance action. Though to be fair it was quite late when we got there, it seemed to be like the reverse of an English club, with the dancefloor jam-packed and the bars empty. It soon transpired that I was at least 12 years older than the average and would have felt more awkward if it wasn't for the fact that in SE Asia they really can never guess my age . We boogied away for a bit, but evidently something was said by the DJ, becasue the dancefloor completely emptied within about 2 minutes. We got a lift back to the guesthouse on a motorbike, probably would have been a lot more frightening if it hadn't been at the end of a long night.

Irrawaddy dolphins and getting into Phnom Penh

Marika, Marijn and I had a really nice bike ride, each with our own driver, out to a place on the Mekong where the fesh-water dolphins evidently like to hang out. We saw lots of them, but only briefly each time as they're much more shy than the classic flipper and only surface for a second, this shot being my fairly rubbish best.

The rest of the day was a bit of a trial starting with the bus to Phnom Penh being 2 hours late, but this didn't deter the driver for stopping for a break seemingly every half an hour.

When we finally got to the outskirts of Phnom Penh, we then had to negotiate a deal on a tuk-tuk and then our way into the city as the roads were blocked due to the water festival. Fortunately we befriended a Cambodian who shared and persuaded the driver to soldier on through the crowds all the way to the guesthouse.

Border crossing into Cambodia

I decided to be a bit more adventurous on this day and make my own way to the border, rather than paying $25 for a minibus all the way there. Ultimately I only saved about $5 dollars but got there the same time as other trips and had a lot more fun, though looking back I spent at least half the journey wishing I had paid out.


While the minibuses left at 8, I allowed myself a lazy breakfast by the Mekong, waiting for either the boatman to lower his price, or more people to arrive. I spent the short journey to the otherside persuading him in my very poor French that I didn't need to get a moto to the border for $7. I knew from the Lonely planet that one needed to be at the border before midday, but figured if I didn't get a lift before 10.30, I could stump up. There wasn't much traffic going the right way and though several people stopped to offer me a lift to Paske (presumabley assuming a stupid Falang could easily be standing on the wrong side of the road) , the first truck gong the right was shook their heads. Fortunately just as I was questioning the wisdom of my decision, a van pulled up and offered me a lift for $3 bucks to the border and I didn't bother to haggle. I elected as usual to stand on the back, though this was the first time in flip flops and this added an extra dimension to the balancing act. Sure enough we stopped at all the villages on the way to load and unload people and goods.




Having helped unload a few things I was ordered by an elderly Laotian lady to move two 15kg sacks of rice, to the evident embarrassment followed by amusement of the locals as I initially staggered around holding it in front of me instead of tossing it onto my shoulders.



The conductor chap was enjoying trying out his English and was telling me all about the cheap horses in Cambodia. I wasn't convinced that he was an equine lover and concluded he meant to say 'houses'. Given the amounts of $5, $10 dollars he was saying, I enquired as whether this was a weekly or monthly rent. He laughed heartily at this and slapped me on the back several times, giving me some concern as one of my flip-flop really needed rescuing before it slip off my foot. It took me another five minutes to realise he was actually talking about 'whores' and a similar length of time explaining that I wasn't travelling alone in SE Asia to shack up with a lady be it minutes, months or years.


He was soon jumping out again as we had arrived at a customs Control point. Before we'd come to a halt he'd run over to the gate, raised the bamboo pole serving as a barrier as we sailed through, let it down again, waved to the customs man and we were off. He pointed to the blue sacks lining the bottom of the truck, explaining that it was coffee and they should be charged at $1 a sack. Presumably this is why he'd avoided confrontation with the customs man by operating the barrier himself... So far it had cost me $4 to the border, half the guesthouse price and so despite the meagre saving this represents when in England, made me feel quite pleased with myself. On top of this I managed to get away with a bribe of only one dollar for losing my departure paper. There would have hardly been time to debate the causal link between pride and falls when I accidentally got myself kidnapped.

It was a stupid move really, I should have taken time to investigate where my friendly Saganthew had gone, but as there didn't seem to be many vehicles around, I accepted the offer of a lift over the border for 1 dollar in a taxi. There were some other falang in the taxi, a couple of Canadians and an Aussie, but within a few minutes I realised my mistake as instead of crossing the river, we headed off down a dirt path for about 20 minutes.

Of course it soon transpired that they'd already paid the whole way and still needed to get visas, so I had to wait for them and then be charged a hefty price for the onward journey as there were no cars left. Fortunately we didn't have to undertake the whole journey with 7 people in the care as it soon became apparent we would also be towing someone with a stick.


As I got onto the ferry in Stung Treng, I heard a familiar voice and it was Marijn again, so I decided to continue down to Kratie with the girls and managed to blag my way onto their bus. Except my bag got on that minibus and I ended up on the Irish bus. Ten lads and lasses from Limerick, plus five others from the Emerald Isle they'd picked up on the way. So for the next 2 hours I was treated to various renditions of contemporary and a few classic pop songs. The most apt for me being Madonna's 'holiday', which seemed to capture exactly why they were in Cambodia. Hilarously, they were so unprepared that they didn't have any money between them as there were no ATMs south of Pakse in Laos and they had managed to let the company take them to Siem Riep, with their passports being taken for insurance. Not everyone in the party seemed aware of the arrangement that had been brokered and so there was some discussion before all the passports were collected and passed to me for safe-keeping to everyone's amusement. Running into them again that evening, the girls all dressed in hotpants and skimpy tops made me again question the purpose of their visit to Cambodia, as well as where they'd found the money to be able to tuck into the pizzas they were devouring.


To cap an eventful day I managed to get locked in my hotel room and fortunately someone was in next-door to call reception whose spent 10 minutes trying to get in before smashing the lock in.