CamBO'dia

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Hello hello my lovelies and welcome to a bumper edition of Ang’s Round The World Extravaganza, brought to you courtesy of Bec’s Laptop!!!

I believe when I left you last we were sitting in Trat waiting to get across the less useful border point into Cambodia. Well! We went to find dinner at a place recommended by my guidebook, but all we could find was a pile of rubble. It did not look appetizing. We ate somewhere else.

We got up very early the next morning to get a songathew (truck) to the bus station, from where we took a minivan to Hat Lek, the border town, where we crossed the border without incident, but got hounded to get into taxis on the other side, we chose one which took us to the bus station, where we literally JUST missed the bus, and so ended up paying US$50 between us for a ride to Phnom Penh, for a “whole car” (ignoring the driver’s mate whom he picked up along the way), a broken speedometer, and non-functioning door handles. Reassuring! It took about 6 hours or so to get into PP (including lunch - a BBQ’d banana in banana leaf with rice - surprisingly delicious), where we were dropped off at an entirely random point, and so ignoring continuous calls of “TAXI!!! TUK TUK!” we walked until we found a bookshop that sold maps, and then figured out where the flipping heck we were going, which was still a bit of a trek in hot weather, UGH! We found our guesthouse eventually, a large ramshackle hut set over the massive lake in the middle of the city (probably best not to swim in it or even look at it for too long....).
We spent 2 nights in PP, where the streets are unlit and everyone seems to work at a moto-taxi driver, even the people who at first appear to be working in reception in your guesthouse..... So we came to an arrangement with one for him and his mate to drive me and Rob on a day trip the next day. The only allow one westerner on a taxi it seems, but locals it’s more like how many you can fit on, I saw one scooter with 3 adults riding, one of whom was holding a small child.... in each arm. No one wears helmets either.... what the hell is health & safety?
Our trip took us to the Killing Fields (Cheoung Ek) and the S21 detention centre. The former is where Pol Pot and his Khmer cronies killed people when they were done with them at the latter, which was one of many centres where they tortured people into admitting doing awful things like speaking foreign languages or being a teacher. This is back in ‘78 or so, so when you think that this is within the lifetime of most people who you meet around, it’s rather chilling, and also perhaps goes some way to explaining the oddities of the population, which are multitudinous but hard to describe.
The following morning saw us up bright and early again to head to Siem Reap, home of the Angkor Wat. One of the worst moments of my travels so far came when we got off the bus, and our indecision meant we were surrounded on all sides by moto drivers trying to sell us their guesthouses or just a lift. It sounds minor, but we had about 15 people EACH pulling at us and shouting in our faces and waving keys and guesthouse leaflets at us, just shouting shouting shouting, it was really horrible and NOT conducive to decision making!! Eventually we picked one at random and had to fight our way out of the sea of short loud guilt-tripping men. After we’d reached our hostel, we arranged with another moto-driver to take us to The Wat to see sunset (which you can do if you buy a ticket for the next day).... after buying our tickets and having our pictures taken and being warned that if they got ruined we’d have to pay for new ones, we began our walk up the hill. And the skies OPENED! I am not kidding, I’ve seen my share of heavy rainfalls and this was ridiculous, especially as it went from bright blue to blackish-grey within about 20 minutes, and I’d left my raincoat at the guesthouse!! We got SOAKED, passports, iPods, cameras, tickets, EVERYTHING GOT WET.... I got so paranoid about it all I was really miserable, and we had to go out for an Indian meal to sort out my misery. It was really good, and all my misery was unfounded, as everything was fine, they even let us in the temples the next day because whilst the tickets had run quite badly, we were JUST about recognisable... just as well as Angkor is STUNNING, a lost wonder of the world and no mistake, it’s really beautiful, intricate and the attention to detail is just beyond belief. Huge long corridors lined with immaculate (even after 600 years) carvings detailing various Hindi legends or stories... and also actual battles that were fought. We spent the whole day going round and looking at all the different temples (because there are LOADS of them all scattered round) including ones where Tomb Raider was filmed, but really they look more Indiana Jones to ME. Anyway, astounding stuff. And we finally got to see our sunset! Lovely. I must have taken about 300 pictures.
Then the next day another early start, and cramming onto a bus that was so full that they just 2 plastic chairs in the corridor for Rob and another girl, because apparently the other bus had broken down so there was only one going.... I think this is just one of the many scams run by Cambodians to make more money out of westerners; there are a SHITLOAD of them. The road to the border.... well we’d been warned about it but I was still unprepared.... there are farm tracks that are better quality than that road. The longest stretch of concrete/tarmac was MAYBE 4 miles? The rest was mainly dirt. Rutted dirt. We and our sore sore bums finally got to the border and back into Thailand where they have proper roads, it felt like coming home, with all the massive pictures of the King around (they LOVE their king here, I’ve never seen anything like it!!). When we eventually got to Bangkok we stuffed ourselves and conked out. It was glorious. I spent the whole next day on the internet uploading pictures, until my bus for Ko Tao left (which I almost missed due to buying sunglasses, oops!!) and there ended travels of the Brixtonite Crew. It was a lovely couple of months, but the time had come for me to strike out and further my diving career with Buddha View diving resort..........

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