To Angkor Wat and beyond

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Siem Reap

The road to Siem Reap was worth the trip in and of itself. A constantly blending and weaving of cars from one side of the road to the other with nary a painted line to direct drivers for the entirety of the recently paved main national highway of Cambodia. After the first few hairy minutes, I just accepted that I was in the car and there was very little I could do to control what was happening so I just relaxed.

Despite the fact that there was minimal leg room, and the people in front of us had the seat before the stairway down to the bathroom (and thus tons of leg room themselves) they felt the need to recline their seats all the way. This made the ride extremely uncomfortable, particularly for Ski who is 6 foot something tall. He was in a constant battle with the man in front of him, having locked his knees in place and refusing to let the guy recline his seat. It ended up being a moral victory for Ski, as the guy was never able to put his seat fully back. Meanwhile, I was completely absorbed in the low budget Cambodia soap opera on the screen in front of me. The plot of every show seemed to be overbearing housewife berates husband and abuses him physically while he tries to sneak around enjoying himself. And then the music videos started. The most popular male singer was an older fat gentleman with a giant mole, and all the women he was doing duets with seemed to be in their 20s at best.

We finally arrived in Siem Reap and had a tuk-tuk waiting to take us to Happy Guesthouse. It was just dusty everywhere, with people going about their daily chores along the small main street. The guesthouse was situated just down a dirt road off of a main street. It was tucked away enough, and the owner's daughter came out to greet us. As she was helping us with our baggage, she asked our names. As I introduced my self as "Brad", she, like many Asians I've met, assumed I said "Bread" and proceeded to introduce herself as "Baguette" which was what we called her for the rest of the trip.

The guesthouse itself was pretty nice. Nothing special, but who can complain for a private, 2 bed room at $2.50 per person, per night a 20 minute walk away from Pub Street and the famous Siem Reap night market? The showers were cold, but we needed that to wake ourselves up in the mornings anyways. Needless to say, as our trip went on and our love for Siem Reap grew nightly, conversation began in earnest about the cost effectiveness of an extended stay there.

Ski and I were meeting our friends Marc and Laura in Siem Reap, and we were excited to expand the party a bit.

The Night Market and Pub Street

Our first stop was a bite to eat. Yellow flat noodles with chicken was my choice, and it was cheap and delicious as is most food in the region. We proceeded to the night market, which was a thick maze of merchants shouting their wares, which included (but were certainly not limited to): bracelets of every style, shape and material; bottles of liquor with various insects and animals, spiders, snakes, scorpions and giant centipedes being the most common; t-shirts galore; artists displaying their paintings and sculptures. Right near the entrance, however, we found it impossible to resist the lure of a $2.50 Dr. Fish foot massage that included a free beer. The larger fish were a bit terrifying at first, but soon I had a beer in my stomach, and the smoothest feet I've ever had.

After this we took our first trip to Pub Street. A dizzying display of lights, people and music to shock the senses. We ended up at a bar we would come to frequent for its' 50 cent draft beers and buy one get one free cocktails. After enjoying a few establishments, Marc and Laura went off to their luxury hotel that came with some lovely amenities including a pool and a curfew. The boys proceeded to Temple Club, where we earned a free t-shirt through the difficult task of drinking a booze bucket.

That night we made the decision that Siem Reap had warranted another night from us. We extended our visit for a day so that we could share a taxi with Marc and Laura to the Thai border where we would go our separate ways again until meeting in Kuala Lumpur later in the trip. The next morning, we saw a few temples, some Cambodian schools, a lot of poverty and a curious and disgusting dam which was composed of a river spanning net which had caught loads of garbage from upstream. After our brief walkabout, we decided to indulge in a local pizza that is one of the popular delicacies of the area. Hours later, we felt the need to eat again and found ourselves at a barbecue joint that specialized in odd meats. That night I happily added Ostrich and Kangaroo to the list of delicious meats I've consumed, and relegated snake and crocodile to a much lesser position in my own personal meats hierarchy.

The following day was dedicated entirely to touring Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples. Taking a very chilly and terrifyingly fast tuk-tuk at 5am, we arrived in time to see the sun rise over Angkor Wat, which is an experience that should rank high on anyone's bucket list. It was serene, and glorious despite the large crowd of Westerners huddled around the lake situated in the front of the site. Angkor Wat commands a silent dignity and respect from all who view it. The next several hours were spent riding with our personal hired driver as he stealthily pinched bananas from us. The bunch had cost 30 cents, so I wasn't too upset about the man's illegal activities. As we journeyed deeper into the temple complex, we saw some temples almost completely overgrown by the jungle they were situated in, as well as temples with stairs too steep for a person with my delicate heights issue to climb. And the seemingly half domesticated monkeys being fed by granola bar wielding tourists everywhere. We got back to our hostel many hours later and discovered the price of a personal tuk-tuk driver for a day's work: $12.

As we piled into the taxi that would be taking us all to the Thai border the next day, we had time to reflect on the adventures and the beauty of the country which we were leaving. I don't know if my travels will bring me back to Cambodia, but the inspiring strength and kindness of the Khmer people and the nation they're still building up from such recent and devastating tragedies is a memory I will certainly take with me wherever I go.

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