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Published: August 26th 2008
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So I wound up heading back to Siam Reap. Why not right? It is just a 5 hour bus ride for $5. I had a much better time there this time than last actually. I did some things that I guess maybe are not as popular versus going for just Angkor Wat. I went along with three Cambodian girls and one Loation girl. They are the same ones that gave me a ride from Sihanoukville after my bike got stolen. It is interesting because they are like half local. One of the Loation and two of the Cambdian girls live in the states now, but they both have family here and one has a twin sister that lives here as well. So it like traveling with locals who speak English. Well some of them do, her twin sister and her sort of boyfriend don't.
I will say that I will probably not wind up back in Siam Reap again for a very long time for one main reason.
YOU CAN"T RENT A FREAKIN' MOTORBIKE!!! Seriuosly what the hell is that. It makes exploring so expensive you need to hire a moto or tuk tuk to go everywhere, and everything
Vast
At the end of the boat ride. It just makes me want to explore and see what is on the other side. is far. That is really lame.
Anyways, back to the good shit. We went to this floating village. Which is not really a floating village at all, but rather a village on sticks. I am pretty sure that during the dry season there is no water there so I guess sometimes it is just a village really. Anyways, it was still really cool. The road to get there is pure shit. All muddy with big ass ditches and holes. My driver almost took us down three times. He was not going fast at those points, rather relatively slow actually, but there were just really muddy patches that he went through versus stopping and having me get off and walk across. Guess it is a good thing I am used to driving motorbikes as well, since we both put our feet down to keep the bike from falling each time. I think he might have been able to keep us from going one or two of the times himself, but I know for a fact if my legs hadn't stood up just as quick the first time we would have both been laying in the mud.
The village was
Notepads and Pencils
I had the guy distribute them to the different kids. cool because you take this boat to get there through submerged tress in a narrow pathway, then it opens up and there is the village. People paddle up on their canoes and hold on to the side of the long boat and try and sell you stuff as they get pulled along. I bought a pack of pencils and notepads to give to the kids who lived there. It was funny to see how they even had pigs in cages on stilts. I don't think the pigs were very happy though.
We continued on past the village bit and through some more narrow trees until they end and it open so wide in all directions with nothing to separate the water from the sky. The ocean can be like that really early, if it is really flat and only sometimes, because it is hard to math the color of the ocean with the sky. This was different. The water seemed to be a pure reflection of the color of the sky and it was perfectly flat. It was just amazingly vast.
I have come to the realization that I really like flat places. I like mountains too they
Fried Tarantula Anyone
Most of it was not bad, until you get to the thick body at the end. are cool enough, especially when you are at the top and can see forever. But flat vast plains of water or land make you feel so insignificant in such a large and beautiful world. The sun always makes the plains look nice and they feel so peaceful. I just want to sit and watch the sun go down over them. That is probably half the reason I love the ocean so much.
I also wound up going by Angkor Wat again. It is one of the most amazing places I have been after all. I have noticed a few minor changes there. They light up the temple at night now so when people leave after the sunset they can look at the temple on the way out. I am pretty sure I don't like that. It just adds a Disney Land feel to it. They also created a new path to the Sunset spot. I guess they feel the old one was too dangerous. I am remember it being quite a bit difficult to get up and down last time because it was muddy, but all that is supposed to be half the fun. Another thing I couldn't help
Yeah You Know
You knew this was coming right? but notice was the lack of monks, maybe I was there at a different time of the day last time. but I remember running into like three sets of monks as well as seeing some living near one of the temples and this time that did not happen. I did learn about the smoking leaf from the boyfriend of the Cambodian girl. He showed which leaves I could use to smoke tobacco or more appropriately a little wacky tobacy out of. He even rolled one up for me.
We also went to the Cambodian Cultural Center. It was a showing of old things in Cambodian culture and definitely some thing that is more of a local attraction as you don't really see many other foreigners there and most of the things are in Cambodian. There are also a few shows there. We went to look at one and we got there late, but they had a white guy in the show that it looked like they probably picked because he was the only white guy in the audience. Little did I know that at the next show I would be on time and be the only white guy in
Grumpy Monkey
He doesn't look very happy does he. the audience. Oh yeah, thats right. I got a starring role. I was dressed up and married to a Cambodian girl and everything. I even became the new emperor. It was like King Arthur where they had a sword in a stone. Here it as a bow and none of the other warriors could pull it up and they called me out of the stands to pull it up.
At night we went to this Cambodian show. It is not really a show, rather a restaurant with live singing, obviously in Cambodian. I thought it was quite cool. Most everybody I was with seemed to know a lot of the songs, except the Loation girls and were sining along. I just know I had a good time eating and drinking and enjoying something new. It was the type of thing a well off Cambodian family would do I think. The guy order a lot of food and bottles of wine and then paid for everything. I actually had a really good time there, versus the night we went to an Apsara show. Apsara is traditional Khmer dancing. The difference was that the Apsara show was a tourist thing. It
I love It
The best part is the good luck at the bottom. As you might have guessed you are supposed to take off your shoes here was packed with foreigners and there was a really crappy buffet dinner. Things always get ruined when they start setting it up for foreign tourism. They take all the authenticity out of it as well as the hassle. I think the hassle and discomfort is good when traveling to interesting places, it keeps the undesirables out.
So I now find myself back in Phnom Penh deciding exactly how to spend my last few days in SEA. I am thinking time to head to an island. Man I love the islands. There is an island called Koh Kong about 10 hours from Phnom Penh. I think I am going to take a bus down there and relax a few days before I have to head to Bangkok top catch my flight. It is right on the Thai border and has a bridge that connects it to Thailand. I think it is only a 7 hour ride there to Bangkok which actually makes a pretty convenient way to get back to Bangkok traveling through places I want to go and have not been to before. I guess it is beach time again.
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The fun of Angkor these days...
Actually, you are pretty lucky to see Angkor now. When I was there like what, 15 years ago, there were still UN personnel on duty and lots of land mines!! Almost NO tourists and no charges - just me and the world's most delapidated scooter - which I couldn't ride anyway, and almost fell off a freaking bridge. There were no maps, and I ended up way way way out there somewhere. Came across some peacekeepers from Sudan who told me if a log was across the road, to avoid it because that indicated there were still land mines! I LOVE to hear of your adventures with the locals - absolutely fantastic. Sebastian