Ailie in Cambodia...

Sua s’dei!

I can't believe I could write so much last time and I hadn't even been out of the hotel! Well its getting much easier now apart from the strange nightmares about giant bugs and being entombed in temples, and not knowing where the hell I am everytime I wake up!
I meant to explain last time about my online travel journal, unfortunately the site has been having technical difficulties so I will have to find a better site when I get time, so for now it'll be group emails and not many photos.
Since I last wrote (in mild culture shock from Bangkok) I have made it all the way to Phnom Phen, Cambodia! In Thailand I experienced Bangkok city for 5 days while getting my visas for Vietnam and Laos. I got out of the hotel and into a guesthouse a bit further from Khao San Rd but a bit more peaceful. The temperature has remained about a constant 37 degrees the whole time I've been here! I visited Wat Pho and saw a giant gold buddha, it filled a hall! Then saw several hundred more gold and brass buddha. Met heaps of people, even some kiwis from Christchurch! I met an Argentinian, Julian, who is travelling in the same direction as me through Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and back to Thailand so I've started my journeys with him.

On Saturday I jumped on a flight from Bangkok to Siem Reap, Cambodia, where I had the best welcome I have ever had at an airport! A guy at immigration asked if I needed a taxi and then texted his friend outside. So as I emerged from the terminal about 20 guys waiting outside all started yelling my name and waving placards - I quickly shot over to the more official looking stand and before i knew it, myself and my pack were on the back of a motorbike, flying down a dusty road with bikes and motos all around us! Its hard to tell that they drive on the other side of the road around here. The first thing my sweet young moto-driver said was, "thankyou for coming to my country". Most of the children in Siem Reap speak fluent English, mainly due to the tourist dollars available. Also Japanese, German, Spanish and some even know slang complete with the cockney accents, etc. Amazing actors!

At the guesthouse (there were 5 kiwis staying there the first night!) we hired a Cambodian Tuk-tuk, a 2 seater canopied carriage towed by a motorbike, and hit the Angkor Temples! Very romantic gliding alongside rivers under giant trees, passing cyclists - aah, you can feel the French influence. Wandering through the temples is hot work, but the heat has its advantages as it is the low season so we had whole temples to ourselves - plus a few kids. The temples are incredible, so old and huge, but well built with intricate carvings, and layers of meaning. Each block of stone was carried 500km to here by elephants, from around 800AD - 1200. There are dozens of temples all through the jungle. The ones that still have trees growing up through them are my favourite, magic places! We saved Angkor Wat till last, the largest religious building in the world! All of the temples are a blend of Buddhism and Hindu, but unfortunately most of the thousands of Buddha statues had their heads smashed off by the Khymer Rouge. As we climbed the steps of Angkor thunder rumbled around us as a rare monsoon storm approached, the wind was blowing through the temple and the rain started falling heavily, with the sun still shining, I have an amazing photo. We sat in the top halls of the tower for over an hour, talking with young buddhist monks in their saffron robes. We saw some sunsets and a sunrise to get the best light on the temples. There are buddhist monasteries and nunneries (widows of the civi war) all around the ruins which adds to the atmosphere with their singing, incense and shrines within the ruins.

We soon learnt to avoid the young guys who started chatting and telling us about the temples as we then had to pay them, and they expected about $20 NZ sometimes! When they ask "where you come from?" we sometimes would say "Cameroon", they'd leave us alone then! If it was a really interesting temple with good photo ops we would use them as they have incredible knowledge of the temple history. The young children were very talkative and would ask for "$1 Madam?" yes, apparently I am married over here! hehee. Some would start pleading and end up giggling, the best way to deal with them rather than getting frustrated (which is hard not to in the heat) is to just laugh and joke with them. They are constantly trying to sell things for inflated tourist prices, and for some reason they don't know the meaning of 'no' but you just can't buy it all! My digital camera has been very useful, I take photos of them then show them - they love it and soon forget to ask for money. The main currency is probably US dollars, otherwise the Cambodian riel (4000r = $1), and they also take Thai Baht. They ask for different currencies to try to confuse you into paying more. It is still very hard to deal with the poverty here, around the temples women would be gathering foliage for fires, and edible plants. I have also seen quite a few amputees from land mines. The street food is not clean at all, with flies everwhere, so we usually pay a bit more for guesthouse food. My favourite dish so far is vege curry cooked in a coconut. And the fruit is amazing, fresh lychees, plus heaps more delicious ones but i don't know what they are. And i'm addicted to large bottles of Angkor beer. On our 9hr bumpy bus trip to Phnom Phen (good time to catch up on sleep) we sampled fried locusts and giant black hairy spiders! A girl was holding a live one so they musn't be biters. This small town probably started eating them during the Civil War (1975-79) as they were only given watery soup to eat each 15 hr working day.

Its hard to describe how wonderful this place is, there is a lot of optimism after all these people have been through. Most people lost several family members to the Khymer Rouge. There are killing feilds dotted throughout the country where nearly 2 million people were killed. Change happens slowly though as the country is so poor. A trip to the Royal Palace, showed this perfectly. Old exhibits of unpolished treasures, dust, mouldy walls, ripped paintings, and alot of their treasures were also destroyed by Pol Pot and his Khymer Rouge. On a side note, I went for a run through the sprinklers in the gardens at the palace and some high school kids asked if they could have a photo with me, hehee, celebrity treatment! The last 2 days in Phnom Phen we also visited S-21 the High School that Pol Pot turned into a prison and torture chamber for Cambodian intellectuals and suspected spies, including a few westerners. Of about 20,000 prisoners over nearly 4 years, only 7 were still alive when the Vietnamese invaded in 1979. The rest were bludgeoned to death (to save bullets) at the killing feilds we visited today. All the wives and children of the educated class were killed too, they showed us a tree where babies heads were swung against the trunk studded with nails. A massive Stupa contained thousands of skulls, most cracked and blood stained. The dusty paths through the mass graves had bones, teeth and clothing baked into the dirt.
The elections are coming up next month so I do not want to be here then, the last elections in 1998 sparked gun fighting in the streets of Phnom Phen for two days (don't worry mum).

OK, on a lighter note, we are staying in a beautiful guesthouse on the Phnom Phen lake front ($2 US/night). Lily pads stretch out from under our balcony, there is always a cool breeze and we see the sunset across the water every evening. Its hard to believe the dusty bangkok-like city is out the back door. There are hammocks too, but I am longing for a cold swim!
I've been hanging out with the Argentinian, a Mexican guy, Dutch guy, South African guy and a Swedish girl and last night we headed out to the bar 'Heart of Darkness'. When Marit (Swedish) and I jumped off our moto two guys erupted out of the club, fighting and covered with blood, so in we went! It was a bit like Barneys in Wellington, plus a lot of Cambodian girls who kept the guys occupied, and even tried it with the girls too! They were a lot of fun though. And there was a kiwi girl from Nelson! We are off to the National Museum today to watch the thousands of bats that live in the roof fly out at dusk! I think the boys want to go to Heart of Darkness again tonight (must be those cambodian girls!).

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