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Published: April 14th 2009
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6th April 2009
I woke Pili at 5:35am, we were running a little late but it didn’t really matter as it had been raining during the night and the sky was overcast, no sunrise. I suggested that we cancel and get picked up at 10:00am and do the normal tour, Pili and I had discussed this the previous night. WRONG!!! Pili in her usual morning grumpy mood decided we should go anyway as we were already up. Normally I’d have no problem with this plan except we had arranged to meet Smiley’s friend Gavin, the Elephant man at 3:00pm, that was a long way off and I’m sure after 4-5hrs of temples and tourists not to mention the heat & humidity we’d be knackered, but we’d still have hours to kill before our meeting, and to make it worse we had NO SUNRISE TO SEE!!!
Of course this reasoning was of no use and Pili continued blindly to argue her cause. When Pili has had less than her usual 8hr sleep she as mad as a bag of frogs. I gave in to save the obvious embarrassment of the tuk tuk driver and to suppress the urge to throw
her in the river to wake her up.
When we finally arrived in our stony silent Tuk Tuk at Angkor Wat the place was already heaving. The hawkers, street resturaunt and beggers were in full flow, this was as I assumed going to be a very long day.
First we entered the grounds to the vast temple built by Surya Varmon III (A.D. 1,112-1,152) to honour Vishnu and also to be used as his personal funeral temple.
First impressions were its big and dilapidated, it’s a circus show. What a dump, I’ve produced more impressive piles reading the paper on a Sunday morning! Maybe I’m being a little over critical but honestly it’s in a bad state, Hampi in Indian is way above this place in terms of architecture and preservation. The builder used sandstone which just about the worse material to use if you want your building to stand before the elements. It seems a lot of effort when all that happens is your work dissolves in the wind and the rain. The building reminded me of elaborate termite mounds. The place is also overrun with hawkers and street vendors. Their is next to no information
boards telling the curious visitor what the history is all about, sadly if you want any real info you have to purchase a book from one of the hawkers.
We spent a good hour looking around the once capital of Cambodia’s Khmer Empire whilst dodging over zealous Asian tourists to try and get a good photo. We did sit by the lake and have a warm coffee brought to us by a small boy. I realised quickly the day could get a lot worse as we have several more temple sites to see. The heat was already consuming everything around, my arms and legs were covered in a slick film of sweat and it was only just passed 8:00am!
Next stop was the ‘Bayan’ temple with its 216 giant carved faces of Avalokitestre Vara. This is very famous and these carving show up on all tourist guide books. This was much better but it still had the same problems as I’ve already expressed.
At the ‘Ta Prohm’ temple (this is the famous one with the large trees growing through the site, (very Indiana Jones film set). I think this site was used in the film Tomb Raider,
but don’t quote me on that. Some renovation work had been done at this temple and work was still in progress. The tourists all loved this place and by now I was starting to get into my zone and look around for the best photo ops. I’ve taken some very nice close up shots of some of the carved wall freezes. Lot of semi naked goddesses, all very pert, I noticed most had worn down nipples, hmmnnnn, as I said before very popular with the tourists!
I was definitely getting pissed off at the Japanese tourist, they never say thank you even as you wait in a doorway to let 30 go by. They tend to shove and push and have no regard for anyone else not in their group. This is peculiar behavior as Japanese society is build around respect & politeness; they’d obviously left their Samurai heads at home.
We stopped for a vastly overpriced lunch of chicken noodles and a beer, checked out ‘Banteay Kdie’ temple and then told our driver to take us along side the huge lake so that we could have a short siesta, it was now 1:30pm and we both agreed
we were templed out.
After a short nap we headed down to Gavin the elephant mans elephant stables, now this is more like it. We had to wait for half an hour for him to arrive. During this time we chatted with our driver and I also went to see a couple of recently purchased elephants that were being kept away from the rest of the herd to read ajust to their new surroundings. Gavin has been rescuing retired elephants, paying as much as $10,000 for certain animals, most cost between $2-3,000 each. Only about 100 elephants are left working in Cambodia and unfortunately when they are forced to retire, usually because machines are taking their place in the fields and forests so they tend to get neglected. Gavin spends his life getting them back to health & happiness and working giving tourist rides (only for 2hrs a day. He has a firm but loving way with them, each animal is very individual and posses their own characters. Gavin said it was like working with a group of two ton three year olds, I think he’s right.
One of the young females had a very curious skin complain.
She was covered from head to foot in thousand of tiny warts. Gavin said he tried everything to clear them up, he’s paid for load of tests but nothing has come up conclusive. I suggested he give her Aloe Vera in her diet and directly on her skin, he said he would definitely give it a go and I hope he gets back to me with the results.
We had a great hour at the ‘Campagne des Elephants d’ Angkor’, we adore these beautiful and charismatic giants, it’s always an honor to get close and personal with them. People like Gavin Bourchier are the unsung hero’s of real conservation; our respect and gratitude go out to him.
Exhausted but very content we headed back to Rosy’s for a couple of cold beers. Pili showered and crashed out for a while re-watching Slumdog Millionaire. I went to work downloading the day’s photos. I have to say this is the least enjoyable part of my photography; I spend at least 3hrs a day downloading and sorting through my work, the results are worth it but it can be painful and time consuming.
After watching her film Pili joined Smiley,
Anna, Sarah & myself as we talked away the evening over beers and wine before we crashed to watch the classic ‘Killing Fields’ all about the Cambodian war. Pili lasted about 10 minutes and I hung in for an hour before drifting into blissful collapse.
For the next couple of days we just kicked back and chilled. We spent the evening chilling with Smiley, Anna & Sarah, knocking back a few drinks and relaxing. We arranged for our Vietnam visa’s to be processed, this meant we had time to kill as we wouldn’t be able to collect them from Phnom Penh until Monday afternoon. This gave us some time to head to Kratie especially to see the highly endangered Irrawaddy Dolphins that live in a small stretch of the Mekong River. Little did we realise what a tortuous journey lay ahead.
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