A Tale of Two Cities

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Motorbikes are by far the most common means of transportation in Cambodia. It is not uncommon to see a whole family on a motorbike: mom, dad, and a kid or two. We have seen motorbikes carrying as many as four or five people. We have also seen motorbikes carrying an interesting array of cargo: bicycles, chairs, bamboo, pipes, pigs, baskets of live chickens, several racks of dead chickens with the feathers still attached.

Well, today we saw a sight strange even for Cambodia: a motorbike with one person driving, the person in the middle receiving an IV, and the third holding the patient's bag of plasma. At least if the patient blacked out, the other two would hold him up and prevent him from falling off the bike.

Sihanoukville is a town on the seaside and is Cambodia's major port. We only stayed there for 2 days, which was enough time because we had already visited some beaches in Thailand. The Thai beaches are much nicer, mainly because the Thais regularly clean the beaches. Cambodian beaches could be nice if they were cleaner, but they have a lot of garbage on them and the water visibility is not as good. We took a boat trip out to an island to swim, which was nice. Sorry we don't have any photos of Sihanoukville, but we are lame.

Sihanoukville is full of interesting characters and there are a lot of stoners there. Many westerners run guesthouses, so they make just enough to stay afloat and spend all day hanging out and smoking pot. Some guesthouse owners and local Cambodians have been quite upfront about how active the local moto mafia is and how corrupt the government is. Moto (motorcycle) drivers in Sihanoukville have a well-deserved reputation for overcharging and being aggressive. They zoom up and down the roads constantly asking "ÿou want moto" and sometimes sneak up behind you revving their engines, scaring the living daylights out of you. These guys are total sharks, but they are knowledgeable about the area and they like to teach us Khmer words. They get a kick of us knowing a few words of Khmer, especially slang.

One person said he pays $10 a month in bribes to stay in business. Another told us that $1 of his $5-8 room rates goes toward the moto mafia (even if they didn't bring him the customer) and that he makes an annual payment $10 a year or a case of beer to some local official. Both indicated that you don't want to be too successful, or they will find a way to cut you down.

Corruption is a major problem in Cambodia. Primary and secondary education are free, but many parents cannot afford the $250 a year in books and supplies or the "teacher fees." In order to get passing grades or for the child to get assistance from the teacher, the parents often must pay the teacher. A physics teacher only makes about $75 a month ($900 as year), so you can hardly blame the teacher for supplementing his or her meager income, but this does not exactly help the Cambodian kids.

We stayed overnight in Phnom Penh before heading to Battambang, which is a town with many French colonial buildings that are unfortunately crumbling from lack of repairs. There are a lot of nice buildings along the riverfront. It is not a place with many attractions, but it is Cambodia's second largest city and a good place to use as a base for going out into the countryside. There are also some nice wats outside the city.

We hired a tuk-tuk and spent a day in the countryside. It was interesting to see the local villages and people are so friendly, though most of the villagers are incredibly poor. Battambang has more injuries and fatalities from land mines than any other region in Cambodia, and the mines have certainly not helped development in this area. Demining groups like MAG (Mines Advisory Group) are very active here, but removing land mines is a slow and painful process and sometimes the mines move during the wet season.

The kids have the cutest smiles, and they love to wave and yell hello when they see rare foreigners like us pass. They get really excited when we wave back.

We visited two wats, including one by several killing caves used by the Khmer Rouge. The second wat was especially nice, with lots of interesting temple remains and a huge climb to the top, with a great view of the surrounding countryside. We also visited a lake that was nice, but very painful to get there because the road was so bumpy.

Our last stop was the famous bamboo train. These are lorries that runs on track tracks near Battambang. Yes, there are actual trains that also use these tracks, but there are few Cambodian trains and they are extremely slow because the tracks are in such poor shape. The locals run these lorries to carry passengers, bicycles, bags of rice, chickens, and other cargo between the local villages. They also make money off tourists by taking them out on these trains. It was a lot of fun, sort of like Disney World, though bumpy at times because the tracks are so old.

We took a boat from Battambang to Siem Reap. Our main purpose for visiting Siem Reap is to see Angkor, which contains the fantastic remains of the capital of the Khmer empire. The boat trip takes 3-4 hours in the wet season. This is the dry season and the water levels of Tonle Sap are very low, so it only took 8 1/2 hours. More than an hour of this time was spent at a floating market/convenient store/restaurant/gas station waiting for the large boat to show up. Because the water levels are so low and the big boat cannot make it all the way to Battambang, you have to take a smaller boat from Battambang and switch to the big boat somewhere along the way. Besides a few tourists, there were locals carrying bags of produce and furniture purchased in the big city.

We passed some interesting floating villages on the way, which would be nicer if there was not so much garbage thrown into the river. We also battled the touts who boarded the boat and blocked the doorway when we were trying to get off in Siem Reap. We walked across a narrow plank to the pier while carrying our backpacks and being closely followed by about 10 people wanting us to take their tuk-tuks or look at their guesthouses. Fortunately, the rest of Siem Reap is better than the port and we have really enjoyed our time here.

I added photos from Ayuthaya and Phnom Penh to our website, so check them out in the "Wat-ed Out"and "Holiday in Cambodia" entries.

We hope all are well and that no one was badly affected by the big NE blizzard.

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