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Published: October 8th 2007
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Border Town
Border town in Cambodia, Poipet. Not a great introduction eh!! well I left Ko Samui and decided I had had enough off lazing about on the beach and fancied a bit of culture, sight seeing and a history lesson.......so I chose to add Cambodia to my itinery!! see that is one of the advantages of traveling on 'yir jack jones'....you can go where you want, when you want and for as long as you want and nobody can stop you!! to get there I had to make a 15hr boat/bus trip back up to Bangkok then spent the following day sorting out transport to Cambodia and a flight back......so finally I began another road trip....this time only the 10 hrs!!
whilst in Bangkok I bumped into a lad from back home in Falkirk who was flying back home that night after a year of travelling.......and it was so good to be able to speak in ''Fawkirk'' slang....with the words..''ken''...''like''...and ''aye''......etc. instead of speaking clearly and properly to people that canny understand you!!
tues- bus at 7am which would take about 5-6hrs to the border crossing then we would have to change buses once in Cambodia for the final leg of the journey to Siem Reap......on the way
The Bumpy Arse Road
It's just a free for all as u can see!! to the border in Thailand we had to stop off and arrange our passports....which obviously meant we needed a passport photo....which I never had. so I tried explaining to the guy and once through to him he produced this old skool beatamax camera.....the thing was about the size of a 32" TV!!
I had another 'first' on the trip at the border....I had never physically walked from one country to another through passport control until now!! nothing to exciting right enough!!
as soon as you get through into no mans land....between both countries.....there are big massive fancy casinos, cause betting is forbidden in Thailand. so thais head over for a flutter quite regularly. then after getting through into Cambodia the poor standard of living becomes clear!! young kids lying about the pavements begging, many of them naked, also the state of the place...litter everywhere and really dusty and dirty ''roads''.
so there was another few guys on the bus and when we met the Cambodian bus driver we asked how long and he said cause of the rain they had had recently it will be 9-10 hrs with no air con!!! or a shared taxi would be 3.5-4hrs....and
Bumpy Arse Road
A small road side cafe....haha. cost 15 US$ each.....no brainer really!! so the taxi was the choice. the reason it would take that long was cause although the distance to Siem Reap is only 160km it's not a proper road......it's the worst road ever, massive pot holes all over the place and really dusty, busy roads and wild animals running out in front of you!!!! kids running about naked next to the road and playing in dirty flood water puddles....to be fair they did look happy. also woman washing clothes in the puddles and people on mopeds with dead pigs lying across the back!! the pictures that I have included will hopefully show and explain the standard of living!!
so as we drove towards Siem Reap, out of nowhere a golf and country club appears....well fancy looking too......then when you hit Siem Reap there are 5 star hotels all over the place......so on one side you have poverty then a few km down the road you have a standard at the opposite end!!
there is a well known rumour in the ''travelling circle'' that a major airline company that flies between Thailand and Cambodia are paying massive sums of money to the Cambodian Government not
Typical Cambodian House
this was the kinda houses that were dotted along the roadside headin into SR. to upgrade the road......as alot of people tend to be put off by the roads and choose to fly instead!!
the currency is the riel but you can use US$.....so for working it out it's 4000 riel to a dollar....so if you buy something and it's 1.25 US$ u just give over a dollar and 1000 riel!!
we arived about 6pm and went for dinner in the guest house which was fine then we met a few dutch chicks and we ended up just sitting till midnite playing cards and talking about travelling....the usual chat!!
wed- we headed off to the Temples of Angkor, these temples were all built between the 9th and 13th centuries, the reason there are many temples is because every Cambodian God King wanted to out do his ancestors by size, scale and symetry.........first stop was Angkor Wat, the worlds largest religious building, then we went round all the others including Angkor Thom, Bayon, Baphuon, Ta Keo, Ta Prohm and a few more. about 10 in total got boring once we had seen the main ones....and we were there for about 8hrs.
Angkor Wat was really impressive to see and
Bumpy Arse Road
A town that we stopped off at for a stretch of the legs and fill up the car wi LPG. then to think that it was built hundreds and hundreds of years ago!! between 1112-1152, the skills that were used back then are unthinkable.
went to Ta Prohm which was used in Tomb Raider and also another film that I had never heard of........a did look for Angelina Jolie but couldn't find her.........she was probably away adopting another Cambodian kid!!
alot of the temples were under construction, like stabilising the structure etc......so you would expect there to be alot information about how, when and by whom the temples were constructed by originally, yeh??.....but it was just information boards on who was funding the stabilising project etc.....a major mistake if you ask me!
there were kids everywhere trying to sell braclets, books, bamboo flutes, silk and t-shirts etc......and to be fair to them there patter was class and so is there english when your talking about kids aged 5-11....the best bit of patter a heard was when we went for lunch, it went like this (read it and put on a Cambodian accent if u can).
"two bracelets wan dolla"...."no thanks"......"'three wan dolla''...."'no thanks''.......''you buy for galfriend"....''no girlfriend''........''no galfriend, no buy, you no nice mista"'.........."you buy five wan dolla
Angkor Wat
The scaffoldin and sheeting kinda spoils the pic but u couldn't get away from it to get a decent pic....sorry!! you get bootiful galfriend"..........so a quickly weighed this up in my head....a dollar for 5 bracelets and maybe getting a nice girlfriend or a can of Lao Lager back at the guest house........yeh, you guessed it right....the lager was lovely!!
then her pal came across and asked where I was from and she said she'd be my ''galfriend'' if I would take her home to Scotland cause she wants to be white....I was like you come to Scotland and you'll go blue wi the cold!! (you see alot of woman covered up or wearing whitener on their faces, cause the darker skin you have the lower you are looked upon in society, so they all want to be white)
eventually I got talked into buying a few things.....2 t-shirts and 2 cambodian ''Krama'' head scarfs. well it was only 2 quid for 2 t-shirts, and a quid 50 for the Krama's!!
went to see the sunset but the sky was too cloudy to see anything....headed back to the digs and got shifted then we went out to ''Bar Street''....yeh, and I thought that was only in Falaraki too......got a Cambodian Curry and some draft
Angkor Wat
Inside of Angkor Wat........surprisingly no construction work....lol. Angkor Lager....then of all places we ended up in 'Temple bar/club' for pool and Lager....much cheapness....4 pint pitcher for 3 US$!!
not too heavy a night cause I had a bus to catch at 7am to head down to Phnom Penh.....which was a 6hr bus ride.......buses are not only driving me all over the place but drivin me nuts too!!!
S XXX
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