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Published: November 3rd 2007
Ta Phrom, Siem Reap
Nature strikes back.After nine months of travelling we have crawled (in buses mostly, a few planes and a couple of trains) through nine countries. And now we have passed through yet another... Cambodia. After possibly the easiest bit of travelling / border crossing yet, we found ourselves in the city of Siem Reap, many tourists first choice visiting Cambodia. We set up camp at a hotel our taxi driver insisted we check out. The beds were soft, the rooms had cable TV and a half-decent fan. Although the street looked like a possessed pneumatic drill had just wreaked havoc from one end to the other, it was close enough to the main strip of restaurants and bars, and so suited us fine. In the city there is not a whole lot to do other than stroll around the markets, drink the 75 cent glasses of local beer and marvel at the crocodile pit dug into the foundations of the Dead Fish bar. If you are feeling generous you can even buy a bowl of fish to feed to the ever hungry residents. They were apparently caught in the Mekong River, the same river we had been travelling down in a sketchy little wooden
Angkor Wat, Siem Reap
The daddy of all temples. boat only a couple of weeks ago!
Everywhere you walk around town little kids follow you trying to sell books and postcards. To try and impress you enough to make a sale, many of these kids ask where you are from and then tell you the population of your country, the capital city and the last five or six prime ministers. You can give them every excuse in the world but they will always hit back with a response you can't come back from. If you try to shake them off and simply say sorry, they will reply with something along the lines of... 'i don't want sorry, sorry doesn't buy anything!'
It is not the city that draws tens of thousands of visitors each and every year, it is the city's proximity to some of the world's most famous temples. We gave in to the persistent taxi driver who dropped us to town from the airport, hiring him and his car for a day, taking us around the most impressive examples. The majority of the temples were built in the 12th and 13th centuries, many under the order of King Suryavarman II (you know who i mean...).
Inside Angkor Wat, Siem Reap
One of the many pools in the entrance of the temple's main building. Our first stop on the circuit was the most famous and largest temple in the world - Angkor Wat. It was originally built as a Hindu temple but changed to Buddhist as the country's primary religion changes over the centuries. The sheer size of this place is shocking. It takes a good ten minutes to cross the moat, pass through the surrounding walls and walk through the grounds before you even set sight on the temple's centre. The attention to detail in all of the stonework makes your jaw drop. Every single stone face, pillar and step has been carved into artwork depicting historical and religious events, or simple patterns to decorate an otherwise plain stone canvas. To think this place was built over 900 years ago makes you realise just how much of an achievement it really was to create something so detailed and on such a huge scale. Words can't really do this place justice so i will have to let the photos do the talking!
After a good half hour of testing the local kids world knowledge while waiting for our AWOL driver, we drove a short distance to my favourite temple of the day (actually,
favourite of all our travels), Angkor Thom's Bayon temple. You have probably seen this temple in magazines, on TV or in films without even realising. I instantly recognised the tall towers of four giant faces that look down on you wherever you are in the grounds of the Bayon. Again, it is difficult to comprehend the effort it must have taken to build this place. It took over forty years to finish, and the detail in each and every slab tells the story of why. This temple was a fraction of the size of the Angkor Wat, and a complete and utter maze. I would have loved to have played hide and seek here as a kid. The steps throughout the temple are tiny and ridiculously steep. The only way these stairs could have been practical was if the users had tiny feet and really long legs! We lost Lucy and Couch for much of our exploration, and we accidentally stumbled across a dark room of people praying who then insisted the two of us join in... and, of course, make a donation before leaving. As with the previous example, i really must leave it to the photos to do
the talking!
I said that the Bayon temple was my favourite but i will have to rephrase that - it is my favourite maintained temple. The final temple we visited goes by the name of Ta Phrom, and you may have seen it in scenes from Tomb Raider (take you eyes of Angelina Jolie for just one second, it is in there...). This temple was made in a similar style to the Bayon temple yet on a much smaller scale. Whereby the other local favourites have been mildly restored, this little beauty has been left alone for nature to play with. When you first enter the surrounding walls it just looks like it needs a good scrub, but search a little deeper and you soon see why it is one of the most photographed temples in the area, possibly the world. Buildings with whole trees bursting out of their sides, vines a foot or two thick crawling across the whole length of long walls and archways, roots strangling smaller buildings, weaving in and out of doorways and windows, massive trees sitting on the top of buildings. It just goes to show that if you leave nature to do as
The Bayon temple, Angkor Thom
The famous faces towering over the Bayon temple. it pleases it will claim back what it rightfully owns... pretty much everything.
Time to move on and we took what turned out to be the bus trip from hell to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. The bus was completely rammed full and the air-con virtually unnoticeable... just your average Asian bus trip... that was until we got on the open road and the bus driver got horn-happy. To say he beeped the horn every fifteen seconds would be quite an understatement. In England we use the horns to prevent a possible accident. This guy used his horn every time he passed any vehicle, bike or pedestrian, regardless of what direction they were heading. I think this may have been because he was driving down the middle of the road the whole journey so both sides of traffic were in an equal amount of danger. When you are trying to get into a new book this kind of behaviour makes you a tad hot around the collar ('its a metaphor, but seriously, i'm joking'... that's a quote from Dodgeball by the way... watch it because its funny and stuff). Just when we thought matters couldn't get any worse
black smoke began to fill up the front half of the bus. We were sat in the second row. The driver saw this wee technical hitch as perfect timing for a well coordinated refreshment stop at a roadside cafe. I looked for the 'gas out the tourists' switch but failed to locate it.
A few hours after the near-death experience we stumbled into another. This time it was trying to survive the crowds of tuk-tuk drivers mobbing the bus as it unloaded at its final destination. Phnom Penh seemed like a hectic mess of motorbikes and street vendors, but we soon found peace at the backpacker friendly lakeside area of Boeung Kak. The East end of the lake is littered with guesthouses on stilts above the lake, offering uninterrupted sunset views across the city. In the past few days the capital had been hit with torrential rain and many of the guesthouses were now part of the river. We found a nice place with a watery bar but rooms at least two feet above the water level. We took the good with the bad and made it our home. The lakeside area is home to some really nice cheap
Ta Phrom, Siem Reap
An interesting place to plant a tree. bars and restaurants which meant that other than the odd bit of sightseeing we didn't really need to move more than a hundred paces from our beds. Perfect. The city seemed so far away. Where Siem Reap attracts attention due to its proximity to engineering feats of centuries past, Phnom Penh attracts attention due to its dark and evil past. A nice guy from our guesthouse drove us around in his tuk-tuk for the day so we could have a play, have a cry, and wonder what is wrong with some people (i will explain...).
'Do you want to shoot guns?' we were asked... i did to be quite honest, but after spending a few hundred pounds on ammunition in a two month visit to the States a few years ago i think i have done my fair share of expensive destruction. The girls were not too fussed. Couch on the other hand wanted to shoot an AK47 Kalashnikov... and so he did. Our driver drove us into the middle of nowhere to his friends shooting range. They immediately locked the property's gates behind us and told us to not take photos of the menu. The said menu was
Time for some repairs?
Don't be silly, this is Ta Phrom! Time shows just how artistic it can be. a who's-who of cold steel. You want it, they had it. There was even a Tommy gun to play with('say hello to my little friend'... come on, you must know what film that quote is from!). For $200 you could blast away the side of a distant mountain with a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher, if that's your bag. Don't fancy shooting guns and don't have enough funds for the rocket launcher? Then why not see how far you can throw a grenade? Needless to say Couch had a good time. He even got 18 body shots out 25 rounds on his cardboard enemy. Is there something he is not telling us?!
A short drive further out of town and we arrived at Choeung Ek Genocide Centre, more commonly known as the killing fields. From 1975-1979 the Khmer Rouge executed around 20,000 nationals and foreigners on these grounds at the order of the communist leader Pol Pot. As the Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Penh they rounded up near enough anyone they could find. Being a policeman, civil servant or soldier earned you the death sentence. The lives of no relatives to the accused were spared whether the relation be through
Choeung Ek, Phnom Penh
A few of the mass graves in the killing fields, grassy again 27 years after their discovery. blood or marriage. The Khmer Rouge were known to take whole families to be executed as they did not even want the risk the infants growing up and creating an uprising against the new Cambodia they were trying to create. In 1980 someone made a grim discovery after the foul smell caused curiosity, leading them to examine a little closer. Over 86 mass graves were found, some with up to 450 bodies buried in shallow graves. As you walk around the site there are pieces of clothing and bones coming through the muddy surface from graves that have been left as they were found. Many of the victims were buried alive after being knocked down with farming tools, some had their throats slit, but no bullets were 'wasted' as they needed to be saved for the battlefield. At the entrance to the fields there is a tall temple which houses 8,000 skulls, stacked all the way to the roof. It shows the scale of the killing here and is a constant reminder of the darker times Cambodia experienced only a few decades ago.
After being silenced by the horrors of the killing fields we headed back to the city
S21, Phnom Penh
A classroom turned into a torture cell. to take a walk around S21, the prison where the victims were interrogated and tortured before being sent to the fields to face their death. Before the Khmer Rouge took over the city these buildings were a high school. We hired a guide to show us around and she began by telling us the story of how she had to flee the city to save herself after they came and murdered her father and brother. It made us realise just how many people we have met in this city must have a similar story to tell. The prisoners here were each forced to write a book of their whole life story and the story of their immediate family and friends for the ever suspicious Khmer Rouge. Out of the thousands who passed through here only seven people survived to tell the tale.
Each cell was a bare room with an iron bed and shackles.On the wall an enlarged photograph of the condition in which each prisoner was found when the Khmer Rouge were finally forced to vacate the city, the majority appear starved or beaten to death. Another room was full of mugshots of all the prisoners looking rightfully
S21, Phnom Penh
The walkways are lined with barbed wire to prevent suicides. If prisoners wanted to die, the prison officers made sure it was by their hand. scared for their lives alongside mugshots of the prison workers trying to look tough. Through the hallways there were a surviving prisoner's artistic impressions of the torture methods that he witnessed during his stay at the prison, and many that were described to him by fellow inmates. Some of the wings of the prison housed room after room of 3ft by 6ft brick cells that the male prisoners were kept in 24 hours a day as they were a risk to the prisoner officers. The majority of the prison officers were around 16-18 years old and some were as young as thirteen, often instructed to perform any medical procedures that prisoners may need to have so their interrogation could continue. All in all a pretty heavy day and a lot to take in.
It had been nearly six weeks since we were last at the seaside and so we couldn't miss the chance to drive four hours South of the city to the coastal town of Sihanoukville. There are a few beaches dotted around the town centre and we picked the interestingly named Serendipity Beach. The bungalows we hoped to stay in were fully booked but luckily we got
Serendipity Beach, Sihanoukville
Where the incident happened. And it looked like such a nice little spot. a couple of rooms in the place next door. We soon noticed a beauty of a business over the road, the Topcat Cinema. From the outside it just looks like a little building that may or may not have comfortable seating and a big TV. We checked it out on our first night and were more than pleasantly surprised. The seating was multi-level sofas and giant wicker loungers. In the back top end of the auditorium there are even two balconies of comfortable beds to relax on! Not only did it show great films every night but during the day and early hours you can come over here and play X-Box 360 or Playstation games on the 5 metre cinema screen through the cinema sound system! It goes without saying that we went there every night we spent in Sihanoukville, although we never once made it there at the right time for a game of Halo or FIFA. Doh.
Our main reason for heading down to the coast was so that we could all get in a few more dives together before Couch and Lucy head home in a few weeks time. With a day to laze around before
Safety second
These tanks of pressurised air are normally fixed securely to prevent an accident from happening. Things are done differently around here. heading out in the ocean, we hit up the beach. A lovely sunny day, lovely warm waters and sun beds right on the beach with cold beers a few steps away. It was all going so well... that was until we got talking to some local kids selling jewellery. Cheryl agreed to have a bracelet made by one girl and i wanted to take a photo. I reached down into my bag on the sand in between Couch and myself but no camera. The next hour or so i ran around every bar on the beach asking if anything had been found but nothing materialised. The nice little kiddies had done me over. I was a bit annoyed about the camera because i only brought it five months ago and it was anything but cheap. The loss of the memory stick on the other hand nearly drove me to insanity. Nearly 700 photos were on that memory stick. You may have noticed that a few of the photos (if not all of) on Cheryl's blog are the same as those on mine. That is because i have no photos of Cambodia... or Laos, or Northern Thailand. Grrrrrrr.
I told the lads back at the guesthouse what had happened and they asked me how much i would pay the police. What??? That's right... if you want the police to look into anything you have to pay them. And should my camera turn up i would have to buy it back from them too! Luckily, a barman we made friends with drove me to the police station to translate and make sure they did not try anything funny. In the end i got the signature for my insurance claim for $5 from a nice copper who had a wide selection of whiskey and brandy on his desk.
The following day i almost managed to go the whole day without sparing the thieving little s***s a single thought. We went diving. The conditions weren't the best and the marine life was not exactly great (thanks to the subtle art of dynamite fishing) but it was good practice and two more logged dives in the book. The first dive was the better out of the two but ended in a bit of a mess because of the currents. The second dive ended in even more of a mess as Couch was having buoyancy problems and then his fin snapped clean off! The next five minutes consisted of all of us trying to stick together in less than five metres visibility whilst the dive master tried to keep Couch down with us while they traded fins. It was all a bit hectic and by the time the exchange was over Couch didn't have enough air to continue because it had all been used up during the underwater struggle! Its all good practice though and in these conditions we didn't really miss much. Oh.. and we also were in our first boat crash! On the way back into the stilt village where we were to step onto dry land our boat's engine stalled. The driver attempted to re-fire it but didn't manage to in time and we ploughed into one of the houses! It was quite amusing. I can say this as no one was hurt and the house is still standing!
So our short stay in Cambodia was a complete roller coaster of amazement and emotions. I still find it strange that you get American dollars out of the ATM machines! We are now in Ho Chi Minh City in the South of Vietnam, dodging the scooters and wondering why there are zebra crossings when no one seems to understand their purpose. Crossing the roads back in Pompey will seem like a walk in the park! We are going to mission it up the coast in a few days time to spend a while kite surfing at Lovell's in Mui Ne for the last few weeks before Couch and Lucy head back home to the cold and miserable British winter. We were expecting to then be back to just the two of us for the rest of our travels but i have just received a message from uncle Chivo saying that he is coming out here in a few weeks so it is looking like four will turn into three. Exciting! Once again i have been on the internet for far too long and the others are going to be wondering if i wasn't as good at playing with the traffic as i made out to be. Catch you all later innit. Adam x
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bum out!
non-member comment
awww poor adam!
thats so shit about your camera!! im so sorry! i got my phone nicked out of my room in cambodia! its funny to see the photos of places i've been too!