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Published: November 9th 2007
The World's bumpiest bus journey is undertaken from Bangkok to Siam Reap, so bad that I am surprised the buses survive the journey at all. We saw one car on this five hour bone rattling test of endurance that had slid into a river off the muddy, slippery roads. Re-assuring. We stopped to ask if they needed help, but a truck and some rope were on the way. So we left on our arse numbing way and arrived in Siam Reap late at night, thankfully to available rooms at the lovely Rosy's guesthouse on the river. The road in to Siam Defeated is lined with expensive looking detached hotels/resorts/casinos, like a leafy neon Las Vegas strip. So far removed from the cramped bustle of inner Siam Reap.
We got us a tuk-tuk driver for a few days and set off toward the Angkor Temple complex, via a booth where we we had our photos taken and 3 day passes issued. The complex is a phenomenally huge sprawl of some of the most beautiful architecture anywhere on earth, I had no idea how truly huge it was. There was me thinking it was a just a few temples, with Angkor Wat
at it's glorious centre. I was so wrong, it goes for miles! And there are temples which could outdo Angkor Wat for beauty. Maybe. We went to a few of the smaller temples to start with; Angkor Thom, a self contained city in itself and home of the famous Bayon - the Egotistical and amazing towers of faces featuring the likeness of King Jayavarman VII as a Bodhisattva (a Buddhist who has achieved enlightenment but delays Nirvana so they can remain and help others less enlightened than themselves). He was a modest guy.
One of my favourites was a simple site which was once a place of healing. A hospital temple sat in the trees behind and the main site consisted of four pools around a central pool, and at the very centre of this pool was a raised round building with a louts flower at it's apex and coiled serpents at it's base. Each of the pools represented an Element (with an animal spout for the water to flow from the central pool - which represented the Fifth Element) which was associated with a humor or illness. too much fire in your body and you would bathe in
the water pool, if you were lacking strength you could bathe in the Earth pool etc. How cool is that?
A few more temples and it's getting so hot I start to feel sick. We get to Angkor Wat and it's jammed, we climb the central tower bit and it's amazing, it is the most amazing temple I've ever seen. The whole complex is just breathtaking, both in magnitude and in detail. There are also various temples dotted around Cambodia which were like pre-cursors to the main deal. Mental.
I do get sick so we decide to leave for the cool of our hostel room and attempt the rest at sunrise the next morning. But I see a poster for 'Happy Ranch', which turns out to be a horse ranch just outside the city. The prospect of riding through the countryside dispels the pain (that and a couple of Anadins). Rosy's guesthouse helps me book a two hour ride out into the countryside. It's a very bumpy tuk tuk ride to find the ranch (getting a little lost along the way) but we get there eventually and it's lovely! A pretty, long stable with green grass and a
circular coral outside with many glossy, healthy looking horses. I'm the only one booked at that time so I get the German lady instructor all to myself and a large-ish brown horse called LA. She's on a grey stallion that is tetchy and doesn't like my horse much at all. The feeling is mutual I think, although mine is a touch more competitive. Every time we break into a canter, LA goes to Gallop in an effort to overtake her horse (called 'Grey' in Cambodian) Fine with me, but not with her horse, who goes to kick every time.
But it's good fun anyway, cantering along compacted dirt roads, green flat lands stretching away to distant mountains, only a few coconut palms and wooden stilt houses to break the level. At one point we find ourselves racing against an old man on a bike, at another running away from an old drunk singing karaoke who had taken a shine to the horse's tails and wanted them for his own.
But for the most part were were splashing serenely though the warm water of the rice paddies, the surface of it grazing the soles of our shoes, watching the
people work in the field transplanting the 10 types of rice they grow in the area. Wandering through wooden villages with papaya tree gardens (and the occasional huge stone villa built by remaining French) where the kids would run after you and shout and wave from all directions 'Helllo! Helloooo! Hullo!!!' In English too! If you responded in Cambodian ' All you'd get was a giggle and even louder 'Hellos!'.
A highlight was a tourist free tour of an Angkor-era temple nestled in the heart of one of the little villages, decorated by the orange robes of monks left in the sun to dry. Just like the ruins in the more famous temple complex, looking like it was built from lego bricks, it was built by the same king who built the bigger temples, but it pre-dated them. Apparently he went through a few before he was happy.
A bit worrying, when mid canter through a deep flooded field, my horse (out in front)came to a dead stop. We'd come across a Water Buffalo and it's calf. German lady came to a halt behind me too and the horses seemed reluctant to move forward, as the Buffalo moved
toward us with threatening noises. Apparently they can become very aggressive if they think their offspring is in danger. so we made a hasty exit and took a little detour back to the Ranch where the Tuk Tuk driver was waiting for me. It's a little on the pricey side, at about $28 for two hours, but if you get a chance to go to Happy Ranch, I highly recommend it, a brilliant way to see the countryside and get out of Siam Reap for a while.
In the evening we head out to the appropriately named 'Bar street' where all the westerners segregate themselves. There is a 'butterfly bar' nearby, basically a net over an outdoor garden filled with trees and plants and flowers, and filled with colourful butterflies! All the tables are located in the garden to give you a rather lovely dining experience. Although the automatic reaction to swat away something hovering around your food must be resisted at all times!
Bar street lives up to it's name and we go for food at 'Dead Fish Tower' A bizarre tree house of a restaurant with traditional Aspara dancing and a pit of crocodiles you can
feed tuna to with chopsticks.
Next morning, a little before 5am, we set off by tuk tuk into the cool pre-dawn. We arrive at Angkor Wat while it's still dark and there are already so many people. I leg it down the causeway , searching around for the best spot. I think I've found it, when everyone else congregates in a totally different place. The sun starts to rise but this is not where I want to be, I want to watch the sunrise from the main tower, right at the top. As I walk/half-run down the causeway, the people thin out until I get to the temple entrance a minute before 6am and have to wait until 6am before it opens! But I make it into the temple and I'm totally alone, or at least it feels like it.
It. Is. Awesome.
Alone in Angkor Wat, in the early dawn, the blue hues outlining the ornate towers. I half scramble, half amble up the central tower, wanting to take in as much as I can, alone in Angkor Wat! The passageways and stairways dark and imposing, only the slightest smell of incense drifting on the cool
breeze without the throngs of bodies to dilute it. In the tallest tower the light begins to flood through the passageways, filtered oddly by the bobbin pin shaped window bars into jagged columns of gold.
I pick a spot at one of the main windows, in perfect view of the sunrise and watch as the colours change from blues to pinks and finally to bright, thick golds and reds. I forget to take photos until someone disturbs me. I take a few but they are disappointing compared to the spectacle in front of me, so I move, get a couple of shots of people climbing the Wat in the golden light. Eventually I climb down, when the sky has melted into the light pink and grey of the beginning day and many more people have arrived. Off to explore some more of these amazing buildings. We go to one of the temples on the outskirts of the main complex (really, it goes for miles). this is one of those places that you've seen so many times before in magazines or on the TV but still has the power to floor you.
Off to Phnom Pen on a rather
nice air con bus, with huge seats, free water and even a face towel, a painless experience, until you are literally mobbed by tuk tuk drivers before you can even step off the bottom step of the bus! It was seriously mental, people pulling you and your luggage in all directions, calling out prices and waving leaflets for guesthouses in your face. The prices kept going down the more we struggled not to freak out, '$2' '$1' Eventually we even heard a couple of cries of 'Free!' $1 was fine for us and it was a relief to hand over our big bags, made it easier to fight through the crowd, who continued to ask us even when we were sat in a tuk tuk pulling away.
We stayed on the lake, a lively little area of backstreets away from Phnom Pen's bustle (although there were times when people were convinced cars, trucks and tuk tuks could fit - they couldn't) The guesthouse was basic, but had a terrace out over the lake with hammocks, a big TV with many DVDs and Cd's to play and even served 'Happy' pizzas, like many guesthouses in the area. Anything with the
word Happy in the title is pretty much guaranteed to contain weed, or in Laos, Opium. Although we did not partake in the happy dining experience, we can say that a group of people staying in the same guesthouse seemed more than pleased with the service.
We had dinner with a girl who'd been teaching English in Seoul for the past few years in the most amazing tapas place EVER. Seriously, Go to 'Friends' the cafe in Phnom Penn, it's in the Lonely Planet. It's set up along the lines of Jaime Oliver's '15 restaurant in that it teaches former street kids skills to work in hospitality and sets them up with a future they never would have had. There are three training levels, 'Friends' being the last stage of training for chefs/managers/waiters/bar staff before they are found employment in the city's other establishments or hotels. And the food is Brilliant. A million veggie choices too, including home made, sun dried tomato hummus, mmmm. It was pretty expensive though (well, for us), at $11 each, but it was so worth it and we got loads of food.
But of course, one of the main reasons people come to
Phnom Pen is to visit the Killing fields and the Tuol Sleng S-21 prison, which between them saw the death of over 14,000 prisoners accused of being enemies of the Revolution founded by Pol Pot as his closest Allies. Although eventually it was only Pol, as he ordered the killing of even his closest friends and cadres as it was coming to an end. This place will absolutely make your stomach clench with what happened. Only 6 or something prisoners ever survived, from closing days of this genocidal regime, the guards and workers that survived have never been brought to justice. You may argue that they were doing their job, and it's true that it was kill or be killed - many workers at the S-21 prison ended up as prisoners if they so much as hesitated to inflict torture or listed strong flaws in the self criticising notebooks they were required to fill in. But few of them ever expressed regret and that is staggering. The guy that ran the prison was called 'Duch' and he lived into happy old age. One of the 'Upper Brothers' from the Khmer Rouge is even the Prime Minister!
It gets compared
a lot to the Holocaust, but it was so different in that they killed ethnic Khmers because they believed they were enemies that must be weeded out of society before they destroyed the ill planned revolution imagined by Pol Pot (real name Saloth Sar - educated in Paris although later anyone who could speak a foreign language and was educated elsewhere would be killed). Fulled by paranoia and arrogance and god knows what (because seriously, how could people DO that? What could be going through their heads?!) They thought they were the best Communists in the world and in their superiority they killed men and women and babies and entire families of those accused. And considering those imprisoned people would list hundreds of names as enemies, any names they could think of - work colleges, neighbours, someone they once met at school (they would say anything when faced with such horrible torture), who exactly did the party think was going to be left at the end? They created their own worst imaginings. And then they killed everyone by clubbing them to death (to save bullets, if they hadn't died in the prison) and dumping them into mass graves. There are
still the beds and bars and cups used and blood stains on the floor.
And how strange it is that S-21 prison was a former school, run by a school teacher (many of the upper brothers were teachers surprisingly) and employed mainly children (boys as young as 14) to control and torture the inmates.
Taking solice in Capitalism, we took a wander through the Russian Market (devoid of anything Russian at all) for DVD boxsets (22 DVDs for $30) and possible watches (seriously, I've not known the time for about 3 months) but instead ran across a friend from our course at university and his brother! A very pleasant surprise. They'd just completed a long trip to the Cambodian jungle and so we went out for drinks with them and the rest of their jungle friends. Apparently the trip purported research but included very little other than walking through jungle for an hour a day. Although they had fun with such a great group of people, none of them would ever recommend Frontier, the company organising the trips (for a massive fee) again, to anyone. Even the guide quit.
So yeah, $1 cocktails by the lake and
Ta Phrom
the Tomb Raider templethen the riverfront, although Phnom Penn seemed unusually sleepy that night so we headed back to their lush accommodation on the lake (huge balcony on the water, hammocks, bean chairs and pillows everywhere) To watch a film and generally catch up. We were heading down to Sihanouk ville the next day so we said our goodbyes about 5am, just before the sun rose.
Sihanoukville is the Costa Del Sol of Cambodia, where Cambodians go for weekends and to kick back in the sun. It's developing a kind of Koh Phangan-esque feel, but it's not there yet. Maybe it's because we were there during low season, or because the beach isn't as nice as others I've been to (kind of dirty and the sea really stinks, you can't swim without your towel and swimming costume smelling for days - even after washing!)
You can't even lay in the sun without being mobbed (really mobbed) by adults and kids either trying to sell you something or asking for money. And they will wake up you to do it. I had a pedicure and manicure and that was it, I had 10 kids around me at once, all pushing things in
my face and I couldn't escape because my hands and feet were being held while my nails were being painted. And the reasoning is if you've bought one thing you have enough money to buy many more things. They are very very persistent and it's not a very pleasant experience when you only came to chill out on the beach and not spend any money all day.
But we still stayed there a bit too long thanks to good friends, bars with good music and cheap drinks. Our hostel was brilliant, called Monkey Republic. I highly recommend it, just north of Serendipity beach - brilliant food, perfect cocktails, it's built like a wooden tree house with hammocks at the very top so there is somewhere cool to sip a drink and read a book. There's a pool table and two TV rooms with massive screens and a huge choice of DVDs. Gets a little easy to do nothing all day. Plus, the rooms are $5 between two people. We did however discover there is FREE accommodation at a brilliant bar called The Frog Shack down on Occheuteal beach. We met some friends who we originally met on the bus
from Bangkok to Chang Mai. We all pulled huge chairs and a table with candle to the edge of the sea - sat with feet in the sand, cold beer on the table, the water lapping at our feet with every wave. Perfect.
Then came Kampot, famous for it's pepper in the French colonial days. It's good too, you get it fresh with every meal, that was a new experience, so much better than the dried black stuff at home! A little branch of tiny green balls that are both hot and juicy at the same time. Tasty.
Kampot is also the place to see Bokor National park hill station - an entirely self sufficient town built 1,000+ meters above sea level between 1900 and 1950 which was abandoned, taken over by the Khmer Rouge and then battered by the invading Vietnamese. You can do up yourself by motor bike but it's an arduous (and VERY bumpy) 3 or 4 hour ride up a steep and muddy road (I say 'road'...) So we went by pick up truck, stuffed in the back and holing on for dear life. I really can't describe how bad this road was, worst
than the ride into the country with the road sloping off to the cliff edge! We trekked through the jungle for a little while, across dry rapid river beds before continuing our ascent. The jungle is really wild here, deeper in there are tigers, elephants, bears...and of course poachers who will shoot you if you disturb them.
The sweltering heat gave way to cool air as the vegetation and geography began to resemble that of Dartmoor. We stop at a collection of three houses that once made up a resting point for King Sihanouk (and his concubines) on his way to the hill station in the 40's/50's Called the Black Palace because it was once lined and filled with Ebony wood furniture. Not entirely deserving of the name 'Palace' as it resembles more those Spackled prefab 1950's Holiday Camp style houses. Sat on the edge of a cliff it had some pretty impressive views over the salt farms of the plains below and out over the sea. Unfortunately the Vietnamese destroyed it and it is now just a shell. But it looks cool. I like ruins, all the more odd as they are ruins of a modern building.
Onward and upward and we arrive at the first of the deserted buildings of the town as the mist engulfs us in thick waves. They couldn't plan it any better to add a sense of dread and mystery to the experience. I half expect to see the Hound of The Baskervilles come bounding through the fog. Past old generals houses, the rusty gates still closed, the 1960's-esque police station with it's outside spiral staircase, the post office on stilts with a drawbridge like walkway to the door, a side wall ripped away to reveal the shiny white tiles of a bathroom. It was getting cold and the mist was thinning as we approached the Silent Hill-esque old Casino Hotel. Truly imposing and bleak. It's had a pretty tragic history. It was used as a prison and place of torture/execution by the Khmer Rouge. Thousands of people were carted off from the towns and villages below, tortured and simply thrown off the cliff. It's a 1,000 foot drop straight into thick jungle, so people didn't know what had happened to to their friends and relatives. Bones were recovered after the Khmer Rouge were disposed by the Vietnamese, but no one knew
to whom they belonged. Before that, when it was a functional casino, people who lost a lot of money would throw
themselves off the cliff in despair!
We had lunch under a little makeshift gazebo in the shadow of the hotel, as the rain came down, us wrapped up joyously in jumpers, Jumpers! After months of sticky heat the cold was such a welcome relief! What with the Dartmoor scenery and the weather it was almost like being at home. We were even enjoying a nice hot veggie curry!
Walking round was so strange, It's supposedly haunted. I scared myself silly wandering in the cellar by myself, convinced round every corner I'd find bones, or the ghost of some Cambodian victim. Or in my wilder moments, a zombie like the Silent Hill Video game/film. Of course I didn't but it didn't stop me imagining.
It's weird though, walking through En suite rooms with the tiles smashed and the ornate patterns still visible through the grime.
There was a church too, I climbed the little hill behind it to get a better vantage point and discovered a huge rusting gun mount, of which the gun had only recently
been removed apparently.
There were so many buildings to explore; govrnemnt buildings, schools, a hospital..but we had a boat trip to catch so we went back down the mountian, 3 hours, passing muddy looking tourists on the way who were attempting to drive up on mopeds!
A beer and a pleasant river journey took us back to Kampot and back into the heat.
In the morning, we watch a dvd in the wooden villa like chill out room, lounged on cushions before we jump in a taxi to take us to the border. We hear it's a local crossing and has only been open to us Farangs for a month, so we hope we're not going to have to bribe them to leave. We've got seriously limited funds as our driver does not understand our requests to take us to an ATM or bank (even in Cambodian!) and speeds straight off into the Buffalo filled countryside. Would have been okay, was supposed to only take an hour except he broke down, TWICE, taking over and hour each time to fix. And when we get a replacement taxi we are asked to pay extra for the broken down
guys fuel. normally I wouldn't mind but we were panicing a bit about funds. But it all works out and we speed into Vietnam on the back of Mopeds, it's obscene how quickly things change as in a matter of minutes we're in a bustling town full of cafes and pastry shops and banks. So different from Cambodia. I think the French kind of let Cambodia wallow while developing Vietnam.
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