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Published: November 12th 2009
I’m going to try and not dwell for too long on our first impressions of Cambodia as it doesn’t make it sound like a nice place to visit. Saying that, by the time I’m finished typing what I have to say this could 1000’s of words long. Our bus dropped us at the Thai - Cambodia border. Our exit from Thailand was easy and all we had to do next was cross the friendship bridge to the other side. We were warned not to talk to any tout on the way over as they are ‘scum’ (not my words) and scam artists. When we got to the immigration we realised everyone, even the immigration official is a scam artist. Our visa should have been US$20 or 800B. He wanted €20 or 1000B. We argued with him that we knew it was $20 but he refused to budge. What do you do? He refused to even acknowledge us when we said $20. We had been told as well we would need to pay in dollars. He wouldn’t except it. He wanted his Thai Baht. He even said if we wanted to pay dollars go back to Bangkok. What else could we do?
This started a chain reaction for the rest of the day. We were ushered on to a tourist bus, which I knew we needed to get anyway to the bus station. A tout sat across from us giving us the low down on Cambodia. ‘Locals only accept and want Riel’ (the Cambodian currency), ‘taxi is the best way to Siem Reap from the bus station’. When we arrived at the station everyone on the bus was ushered to the currency exchange. I was told to change as much as I possibly could. I was feeling a bit dubious about it all so I only changed $20, just in case they were telling the truth. Then they wanted me to ‘pay now’ for the taxi even though we had to wait for 2 more to pair up with us. I told him straight out when my ass is on the taxi seat I’ll pay. Eventually we were paired up and soon away in the taxi. The guy who offered us all the advice then came and asked for a tip for ‘all his work’.
One thing he did tell us that was true was that there is no real side
to the road in Cambodia. I thought he was slightly exaggerating until we took the taxi. I have never in my life being on a road as crazy as this. It wasn’t even crazy, it was suicidal. Add to that an even crazier driver and I can say we feared for our lives. I wish now I could have took some video footage of it just to give people some understanding of how bad it was. They are meant to drive on the right side of the road and our car was a right hand drive. It should have been left hand drive. Cars, trucks, buses, moto’s all drive down the wrong side. A car passing out a car, passing out another car is a regular occurrence. Vehicles turn on to junctions, unconcerned about oncoming traffic. Everyone is constantly beeping their horn. Our driver drove like he had stolen the car. I looked over at his speedometer at one stage to see it reading 180mph. I then realise that it’s not actually working but it still send shivers down my spine. Michelle behind me has decided that her mp3 at full blast and try and sleep is the best way
to see it through. I don’t know how many times I stared at the driver after a near miss or some stupid driving. I lost count the amount of times I held my breath. Seemingly its ok to pass out a car, with another car coming in the other direction, as the oncoming car will just pull into the hard shoulder. It is mental to say the least. We had some hairy moments in South America with taxis and buses, but this was one hundred times worse. Of course the taxi didn’t bring us to the city centre. It stopped so we could get a tuk-tuk the rest of the journey. We were told this would be free. I laughed, but it sound more like the laugh of a man who was about to be sectioned into a mental asylum. Our taxi driver approached our tuk-tuk with that kind of look that says ‘any chance of a tip’. I replied with a look that said ‘would you ever go **** yourself’.
Travelfish.org, our bible on SE Asia, warned us that not to let anyone into the tuk-tuk with you, even if they say they are just getting a lift.
Temples of Angkor
See what i mean about the clouds!!This of course happened to us. The tuk-tuk was on the road and moving when I realised. I tried to whisper it to Michelle but she hadn’t a clue what I was mumbling. Soon the tout was underway, trying to sell us the sun, the moon and the stars. I ignored him and Michelle told him we were meeting friends in a certain café, which we had decided to go there anyway to use their free wi-fi to find a room on the internet. He kept going on and on. He said he would wait while we meet our friends and then bring us for ‘free’ to our accommodation. We’re travelling for far too long now to know nothing is free. He sat outside waiting while we tried to come up with a plan as to where our friends were! We found a place to stay and went to leave the café. He was over in a shot to help us with our bags. We told him our guesthouse and he loaded our bags onto the tuk-tuk. On route he was asking us for our plans for the next day. He wanted us to visit Angkor Wat by tuk-tuk. We
told him we were going to go by bicycle. He then said he would have to charge us for the tuk-tuk we were in, as we had stopped for awhile in the café. I had unusually stayed calm through out all of the day as we had been warned to practice lots of Buddhist clam on the route. We decided to pay the guy ($1.50), get something to eat and just go to bed early. No matter how frustrated you could get with the scam artists we are told never loose your cool. If you get mad or angry you lose face with them and others watching just think you’re a crazy tourist. Anyway, this was meant to be quick and brief so I’m going to leave it at that. Some nice locals make up for the touts later in the blog anyway.
The temples of Angkor were our reason to visit Siem Reap. It contains the worlds largest religious building, in Angkor Wat. There are hundreds of temples in the area all of which were part of a huge empire stretching from Burma to Vietnam. Angkor being the main centre. Built between the 9th and 13th century, Angkor
is some peoples most favourite place in the world. We had decided that we would rent out some high Nelly’s and get back on a bike to see the temples. ‘Pedal Power’ is apparently the way forward! We were unsure about renting a bike as we have yet to have a ride without a mishap on this trip. Our $2 (oh ya, I forgot to say that. Dollar is king here and Cambodians only really deal in it. Another lie from earlier) for our bikes went to charity so at least some good would come out of any misery we were about to face!
The plan was to get up at 4am and go to the main temple, Angkor Wat, to see sunrise. That didn’t happen. When we woke up at that time, the thought of cycling in the dark to a somewhere that we didn’t know, wasn’t a good idea. Anyway it was cloudy that morning so sunrise would have been poor. Our excuse anyway. We did eventually get on the road before 8am. It was easy to find the road to the temples and soon we had left the city confines. Before entering the area you must
pay the $20 entrance fee. It sounds expensive but worth it for what you get to see. There are two circuits you can complete of the temples. One is 17km long and the other 27km long. If you have only a day in Angkor, they say less is more. We decided to do the 27km circuit. This would mean seeing less temples on the inside but getting to see more of them on the outside. Anyway, we would have loads of time to visit the three main one’s we wanted to see, Angkor Wat, Bayon and Ta Prohm.
The temple of Angkor Wat is nothing short of impressive. You could spend hours here walking around the different rooms and courtyards. Because we’ve already seen so many other amazing temples it probably took away from how in awe we should have been by the place. As I said, it is more than impressive, but I never got that feeling you get when you are in awe of a place. That would come later. There are lots of other tourists there as well and I can see why people come early to escape the crowds. Half the time you are trying
to stay out of someone’s photo, the other half your wishing they would get out of your photo. I found it completely un-enjoyable. It just made it hard to get a feel for the place. There were lots of white clouds with the sun shining behind and this made any photo’s I took come out very poor. As good as the camera is, I just didn’t know how to combat the clouds. I decided to put it away. It was then I could relax and enjoy the place for what it is. Where we had parked our bikes two girls wanted us to buy postcards or water and when I refused they called me a ‘long time liar’. After a short while I told her that I had been lied to by many of her people and to leave us alone.
The next temple was Bayon. There are 216 giant faces on pillars all over the temple. After that we began a big part of our cycle. After visiting one temple I noticed a two small motorbikes with over 50 coconuts balanced on the bike. Anyone who’s been to Asia will know what I’m on about. It’s something to
be seen. Anyway, amazed at this (even though I’ve seen it 100 times) I was looking back at them. Michelle shouted ‘watch the pothole’, but I went straight into it. It wasn’t that big but very deep. My front tyre came out fine but my back tyre blew. Here we were miles from anywhere with a punctured tyre and no one we could ring for help. We walked back as far as a few food stalls we had passed. Everyone it seemed, came over to have a look at the bike. A tuk-tuk driver said he would have a look at it. He tried for half an hour to fix it but the valve had broken. His pump also broke while trying to fix it. I offered him money but he refused to take it. Then a girl came and said she could fix. She took the bike away and we waited. The food stalls then offered us seats and we wondered what that would cost. Instead the gave us fried rice and knocked a dollar of the price. The girl returned after 20 minutes or so with a fully healthy bike. I feared how much this was going to
cost me. Stranded tourist, no other option, the ball was in their court. I was shocked and embarrassed when she only looked for $1. I was honestly expecting a $5 charge. I gave her $2 and she was delighted. Just when you think the whole country is out to get you, they turn around and offer nothing but kindness. It’s hard then to give out about them. These locals had balanced up what their other country men had undone. For the rest of the cycle children, women and men, working the country side, had big hello’s and wave’s for us as we passed. We were now seeing them in a new light.
The last temple we went to is called Ta Prohm. This was the best of all. It had a real Indiana Jones feel to the place. Trees had started to grow on top of the walls and the roots swallowed up the buildings. I can only imagine that young kids would think that this place is the ultimate theme park. It sparks all the dreams you ever had as a kid to be in an adventure. Parts of walls had collapsed making areas impassable. Corridors ran throughout
the temple. It was also used as the set for Lara Croft’s Tomb Raider. It’s the tangled roots of the trees though, that give this temple its adventurous feel. I could have spent hours here but we had to get back on the road before it got dark. We got back to Siem Reap and must have cycled 30-35km that day. That night we ate in an Indian restaurant and had a few cheap beers in a bar for only $0.50 a glass. Next up we have to go to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. We’re not really looking forward to getting back on Cambodian roads, but what can we do.
In a bit. DH
Song of the blog: Walking In Memphis - Marc Coen
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anonymous
non-member comment
Good blog, it made me laugh because we had such a similar experience around two and a half years ago. (good memories) unfortunately you do get lots of hassle but in general the people are friendly, even generous. keep enjoying!! mytb.org/paul-and-emma