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feel the magnitude Karaoke in this part of the world is rife. You can’t avoid it. You could try, but you would not be successful. They go mad for it. In every club or bar there’s always a machine and enough people lining up to embarrass them selves to warrant having one. This said, it’s actually really endearing, it totally sums up the general South East Asian public, there’s no bullshit and no façade. This is who I am, take it or leave it. I only wish that there were more people, my self included, like this in England. Having said that, quite why they felt the need to pump it out at an annoyingly oppressive volume for the entire seven hour bus journey to Siem Reap, I don’t know. No one was even singing. I even tried to drown it out with my MP3 player, but to no avail. This was ridiculous! Certainly no chance of sleep. You just had to grin and bear it. On the way the journey was broken by the obligatory stop for lunch. I ordered beef and was satisfied, Martin ordered chicken and was not! When it arrived we took one look at it and were shocked
Garden Village
Where everyone is welcome! to see that the pieces of chicken that they had carefully selected for this particular delicacy, were actually all bone and gristle! “What am I supposed to do with that”? Asked Martin, in utter disbelief. Suffice to say that he sent it back and chose the beef.
We arrived in Siem Reap in the late afternoon and were once again dropped at a bus station positioned out of town. Finding a lift there was easy. We were greeted by more offers of a tuk-tuk than you could shake a stick at. We hooked our selves up with a lift and as long as we chose to stay at the guesthouse that he took us to, then we wouldn’t have to pay for the ride. Most of the drivers run on a commission basis and this meant that if we made it our home for the next few days, then he would be making a buck or two. Despite our reservations, the guesthouse turned out to be awesome and for three dollars a night we had our own bamboo hut fully equipped with mosquito net, electricity and skyfan. We were sold. Welcome to garden village.
The tuk-tuk driver, Kim,
also turned out to be a bit of a dude, and over the next six days he would become a great friend. We spent the rest of that night sat in the sunset bar situated on the top of the guesthouse, had a drink or two and chatted to Kim about the temples of Angkor. For $40 we could get a three day pass and he agreed, for a small fee, to be our guide for the duration. We also spoke to a few people who said that three days was too long and that after one, we would have had enough. They obviously had no idea, they’d gone about it all wrong.
Martin & Pete: Here’s how to do it Cambodian style:
1)Hook yourself up with a super cool local guide who loves relaxing as much as you do.
2)Obtain a three-day pass for $40
3)Pack bag with essentials, i.e water, camera (with huge memory - we took 300+ photos), sun cream and plenty of money, as drinks and food are expensive. However, if you successfully attain step one you will find that the cost of beer and food does drop.
4)Day 1 -
avoid sunrise - you don’t know where you’re going. Stay relatively local. Do not, I stress, DO NOT go to Angkor Wat first thing as this is guaranteed to be a schoolboy error and tourist madness. Instead, start at the smaller lesser-known temples close by and work your way round backwards.
5)Take lunch and a mid day power nap in a hammock. This will rejuvenate your energy and set you up for the afternoon. There are hammocks everywhere so it won’t be hard to find one.
6)Take regular beer breaks.
7)Explore Angkor Wat in the afternoon as it will be much quieter and you know where to position yourself for sunrise on day three.
8)Round the day off by heading to Phnom Bakheng for sunset. It is situated at the top of a large hill and so gives a great view. From here you can appreciate Angkor Wat itself bathed in the evening sun. It’s stunning and not worth missing. A word of warning, everyone will be there as it is clearly marked as a sunset point on the map.
9)Day 2 - Don’t even bother going to any temples today. You will be pretty
tired and will appreciate a day of rest. Instead spend the day relaxing and chilling out. We spent this day driving around - three on one bike - with Kim. He took us to his sister’s house where we watched in amazement as he climbed a Coconut tree like it was a ladder. He then watched in amusement as we failed to get even a metre up it. It’s bloody hard but well worth the try. We then chilled at the beach in hammocks, drinking beer and eating frogs and various insects. Tasty!!
10) Day 3 - Have a really late night, only around 3 hours sleep and then decide to get up to watch sunrise at Angkor Wat. You will feel shit but it is worth it. Your day one recon should have been successful so you will now know where to position yourself for this spectacle. You have already explored Angkor Wat on day one so get out of there as soon as possible before all the Japanese tourists and their ridiculously huge cameras arrive.
11) Straight after sunrise head towards the outer temples. Find some breakfast and then sleep in a hammock for at least
Ta Phrom 4
Parts of Tomb Raider were filmed here.No pictures of a scantily clad Angelena Jolie were obtained. the next two hours. This should be ample time to convalesce.
12)Explore the outer temples. Banteay Srey is worth checking out as it is made from Pink Sandstone providing variation.
13)Drink plenty of water and DO NOT get heatstroke. Martin failed on this step and after mentioning that he felt a bit tired and ill successfully threw up his recently digested lunch. Not good. Luckily he was able to sleep it off in a hammock. God bless the hammocks.
14)After this the rest of the day is up to you. But by now you should have seen a hell of a lot of both Buddhist and Hindu temples with as much variation as you need. You could spend a month here and still not see everything as the place is so vast. If however you select carefully and get a good guide you can get a good feel for the place and have time to fully appreciate the temples you see in just a few days. There are even still a number of temples that are impossible to visit because of the unfortunate proximity of landmines. Also many of the temples were destroyed in the late 70s
Ta Phrom 5
Martin looks awefully pleased with the way that the day is paning out. under the Khmer Rouge regime.
15)Have a victory beer, safe in the knowledge that you have done Angkor Wat the Cambodian way.
Kim, Sunny and Big Tiger These guys became great friends of ours during our prolonged stay at Garden Village. Kim and Big Tiger are both tuk-tuk drivers and it was nice to see this way of life from their point of view. We did send most of our time just cruising around, chilling and drinking. They took us to a Khmer Boxing match, which was a lot less flamboyant and a lot more brutal than Thai Boxing. We also played a couple of games of snooker, another little taste of home. Cruising around with these guys kept us out of the grasp of the tourist trap. The local way is always the best.
We were also amazed to notice that unlike many other South East Asian countries i.e. Thailand, Cambodian people don’t spend all their time hiding from the sun and applying unnecessary wads of talcum powder to make their skin look white. It was nice to see that the people are not afraid of who they are and as a result have dark
Hammock Time!
The three of us enjoying Angkor Wat thoroughly the Cambodian way. skin, which makes sense as they live in a ridiculously hot country.
Sunny was a journalist who used to frequent the sunset bar at Garden Village in the evenings and we spent many a night chatting with him. He was an interesting guy as he had travelled a lot and was also in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime. He told us of his experiences trying to get Visas for certain countries. When applying to go to the USA he was denied entry due to the fact that he fitted into a category, this being a Cambodian male in his late twenties and was deemed dangerous. This is total bollocks. He was one of the nicest guys we have ever met. Add to this he undeniably spoke better English than half of America. He had spent six months London and picked up a nifty British accent with his favourite saying being “Oh really”? In fact at some points his accent was so broad he sounded more English than we did. He was also denied entry to Spain where he was told that his country wasn’t on the list and therefore he was unable to enter the country. “Well I
Nap time
Sweet dreams live there” he protested, “its called Cambodia”. This was to no avail. It shocked us how someone so articulate and well educated was treated like this.
During our time at Garden Village we also met a really cool French dude called Thierry. He had been travelling for around two years and was looking a little weathered (see pic).
A day in the life of a tuk-tuk driver On our last day in Siem Reap we told Kim that we wanted to be tuk-tuk drivers for the day. With both Kim and Martin sporting their England shirts we all went to the bus station to hassle some tourists as they got off the bus with the intention of getting Kim a fare. We acquired two garden village signs and mingled in with the rest of the tuk-tuk drivers. We really learnt to appreciate for the first time the hardships of their profession. We also now understood why the bus stops were so far away from town as it gave these guys jobs and without this they wouldn’t be able to make a living. Tourists and travellers began to arrive and we set about hassling them with shouts of
Relax
Garden Village has this effect on people “ Hey Mister! You want tuk-tuk? Hotel cheap price” It was so much fun and using our extensive English vocabulary we managed to get a fare or two. In fact we were beginning to get a bit of a reputation among the tuk-tuk driver troop. We saw some funny shit as well. One guy was holding a sign saying “No Hassle” and was taking great pleasure in ramming into one girl’s face. Yes mate… no hassle indeed. It was a bizarre experience when a chap stepped off the bus and Martin jumped in with his Garden Village sign yelling at him. The chap looked up and said “ MARTIN”!?. It was Cody, a Canadian guy we shared a boat with around Halong Bay. “What happened? Have you run out of money”? he asked. It was odd for us to see him under these circumstances, but we can’t imagine what he must have felt. More to the point it was another fare in the bag and we set off back to Garden Village satisfied with a job well done.
Cleansing of the Buddha We had arrived in Cambodia at the end of their New Year celebration, which lasts for
Kids
Fun! Fun! Fun! around 3-4 days. It basically consists of a massive water and talcum powder fight. Kim took us to an after New Year celebration, celebration out of town. It was basically a huge party and you guessed it… a massive talcum powder fight. Needless to say we got stuck in and as the only two westerners there we got pelted. It was a lot of fun. They also had a mesmerising game for the local kids. They erected a bamboo pole about 18 ft high, smothered it with oil and attached a bag of money to the top. It was now up to these kids to retrieve the bag of money, which was theirs to keep if successful. We can’t begin to imagine how hard this must have been and it was great to see them all working together by climbing on top of each other’s heads.
We headed from here back to garden village. On route we saw a local MPV (see pic). Bizarre. Kim had a surprise for Martin’s birthday. We did however get a little sidetracked and ended up in some guys garden dancing round a pole to some phat Cambodian beats.
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Vron Lyons
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Similar Experience---- Thai New Year.
When in Chiang Mai it was Songkran Festival (13-15 April) and I was soaked numerous times from hosepipes and buckets full of ice cubes just to add to the shock! It was also deemed fair play to spray you through open car window or back of bike as you travelled past. Answer was to wear not a lot and dry out quickly in the heat unlike the locals in their ubiquitous denhims. Dutch Courage gave me the stimulus to join the locals into running into the crowded road and put wet floury hands on peoples faces as they passed by! Great fun.