Greetings from Siem Reap, Cambodia

Hello everybody,
I've had quite a few interesting days since I last posted. Lets see, I think I was Koh Tao last time wrote. The sunburn I got snorkling only got worse. It was impossible to sleep the next on my back and I had what felt like shocks of electricity flying over my back the throughout the following few days. The thought of lugging a heavy backpack on it didn't seem like the best idea so I stayed in Koh Tao a little longer then expected. Most of the days were spent reading from my porch and if I did swim, I was like the fat kid at the pool, my shirt was always on.

Everynight I'd head out to Lotus bar to watch the fire dancers. There were some characters at the bar too. I met an Austrian guy who is a freediver and planning on training for a year to go for the record depth. More people than I ever could imagine were on Koh Tao for months at a time, content with cheap housing, fun nightlife and postcard perfect beaches. If fact, most people I met were there for over a month. Why did I leave?...

Eventually, I knew I had to head back to Bangkok to make my way into Cambodia. I took a ferry to the mainland then a large coach bus back to Bangkok. The trip took all day. The guesthouse I stayed in last time, "The Smile Inn" had a room available when I arrived at night and I booked two nights. While in Bangkok I needed to get my laundry done, buy a camara, figure out how to get into Cambodia and rest my back more. The next day was spent doing all those chores. For the night I just watched a movie ("21") with my dinner (many, many guesthouse restaraunts play movies during meals).

I found out getting into and around Cambodia would be a little trickier than what I hoped. For one thing, I read you needed a passport sized photo to get in along with your passport. I didn't want to spend another day in Bangkok getting a picture taken so just got on a bus the next day after breakfast and headed for the border. The bus reached the border just before it closed and there were no photo booths that I was hoping for. A british woman who was in Cambodia for a few month for a charity service said it shouldn't be a problem. It just required a bribe of about seven dollars and I was off.

Siem Reap is at least a three and a half hour drive from the border city and no more taxis were going (buses are a scam). I had to spent the night in the Cambodian border citym Poi Pet, something I read not to do on the web the day before. The British lady I met arranged with a tout to get me to a decent guesthouse for the night and a taxi to Siem Reap for 10 in the morning. When we arrived at my guesthouse I asked her if there were any places open to get something to eat. She looked at me very seriously and said, "Oh, you don't walk around this city at night." Good thing I ate that morning breakfast.

The difference between Thailand and Cambodia is apparent right away. Crossing the border here is similar to the change between the border at Southern California and Mexico. Poi Pet has no paved roads, heck not even decent gravel roads, and trash is everywhere. My room was surpisingly nice though.

At seven AM there was knocking on the door to my room. It was the tout we arranged to set up the taxi to Siem Reap. He said there was a taxi ready to go and I had to leave quickly if I wanted to catch it. This was actually a good thing for me. You don't actually pay for a taxi for the roughtly four hour drive to Siem Reap, you pay for a seat in it. Taxis don't leave till they have enough people and there are stories of travelers waiting for hours. I sat in the passenger seat and there were three people in the back. The lone English speaker was me.

The road was horrible the entire way. Giant pot holes forced our driver to slow down frequently but we made decent time to Siem Reap, right under four hours. I got a tuk-tuk to a guesthouse on the river that Lonely Planet recommended, The Shadow of Angor and booked for a few days in a room with AC and hot water. The guy running the place told me that at 4:30 I could take a tuk-tuk to get a ticket to Angor Wat the next night (save the lines for tomorrow) and see the sunset ontop of the hilltop temple ruins, Phnom Bakheng, a popular tourist activity. It was absolutely stunning despite cloudy weather and I used my new camara to excess.

The next day I got up at seven (never get to sleep in...) and headed off to Angkor Wat. Technically, I went to many temples (via a tuk-tuk driver hired for the day) in the Angkor Archaeological Park, Angkor Wat is just one of them. Its impossible to explain what these places looked like. Its one of those places your eyes are constantly bugging out in disbelief. My driver would point out on a map what to see and we'd head out from one to the next. All in all I think I saw five different temples/cities ruins. One of the places used to be the capital of the Angor Empire and held a million people in its city. This should help you understand the scale we're talking about. My driver saved Angor Wat, the world famous Hindu temple, for last and I'm glad he did. My vocabulary just isn't good enough to describe it the whole experience.

That night I walked around Siem Reap, at least the traveler area. There are so many people walking around to the restaurants and shops that the police block off the area from cars. The restaurants are all open walled with fans twirling above you. Its like being in some old novel. There are a lot of families here too which is kind of odd since I was repeatedly asked by guys on scooters if I wanted any pot or a boom-boom girl for the night. Honestly though, even with that I still didn't get a sense that the area is dangerous. Even the scooter pimps are polite when you turn them down.

Today I met my tuk-tuk driver from yesterday downstairs at my guesthouse after breakfast. I asked him to take me to the "floating village" which I assumed he'd take me to the area, I'd snap some pictures then we'd take off. Not so. After driving over a half hour we got to a place where you have to buy an expensive boat tour ticket to see the area. When you have your ticket you go down another two miles to this dock on the river where I was met by a tour guide and longboat driver. It was just me on the boat. This village of 6,000(?!) is amazing though. Everyone lives on boats or on a rafts (anything that floats I guess) and fishes for a living. The spend part of the time on the river and most of the time on the lake, depending on the raining season. There are little boats with minishops that people paddle from houseboat (more raft really) to houseboat. The school and hospital are floating even.

After stopping at a floating restaurant (I ate some expensive water snake meat...delicious) we then went to a store to buy some school supplies. I got a packet of writing books and pens for the floating school which was very, very expensive. We pulled the boat up to the school and met the teacher and kids. I passed out some of the books and pens to the little Cambodian village kids while the tour guide took pictures. It was a memorable experience obviously. As much as I want to pat myself on the back though, I think it's become part of the tourist money experience. The pens and paper cost way too much and I saw a couple leaving right before I came and another docking as I left down the river. I'm figuring they don't really need the supplies but imagine, or at least hope, the school gets a nice cut from supply selling. Its got to be easier to convince people to buy supplies to personally give them to school children than to just ask for a donation to the school. Whatever works, I guess. It was still worth it whatever it really was.

After we docked, and I paid an expensive tip to my guides since I didn't have any small bills and they sure didn't have change. My tuk-tuk driver was waiting for me and I told him to bring me to a gun range. From the floating village it took a good hour to get there, all the while I was stewing at how much money I had just spent for the floating village. Don't get me wrong, it was worth it but they squeeze every nickel out of you.

The gun range, or as I call it, Disneyland for Guys, is just an old, unused Cambodian military base. There's a large white wall with M16s, AK-47s, Uzies, Tommie guns, M1 Carbines, various 50 caliber machine guns and a few rocket launchers. The place was out of bullets for most of the guns (and unfortunately rocket launchers) but still had enough for the carbine, AK-47, tommie gun and the 50 cal. The prices had also gone up from what I read on the internet even last year but hey, it takes money to have this much fun.

I started off with a clip for the AK-47. They bring you into a one of four shooting ranges and give you five seconds of instructions. I fired a small burst from the AK and started laughing uncontrollably. The guy helping me even started laughing. Seriously, little school girls don't giggle as much as I was when firing. The AK jams a lot but it was sure still a fun. After the AK, I went for the more expensive Tommie gun, the gangster classic. I know from the history channel that the clip (the cool round clip too!) only has four seconds of continuous fire so I took my time with it using short bursts. So cool. After that I was wanted to try the 50 cal but wasn't going to pay over a hundred dollars for 100 bullets. The guy gave me 50 bullets then for half the price. That gun has some kick to it too. When I was done firing the 50 cal I took a picture of me holding a rocket launcher and went back to my guesthouse where here I am writing about it.

Tomorrow I'm off to Phnom Phen, Cambodia, to do what I don't even know. Take care everybody. Hope your summer is going as well as mine.

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