Cambodia

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New Year’s Eve was a good party and we had alarms set for 3.45 and the tour guide was booking wake up calls for 4am to ensure we were all up and ready to go at 4.30, trouble was the hotel made those calls at 3am, so, no sleep, however once we arrived in Siem Reap in Cambodia the day was free. After a snooze and a swim, we venture out and hail a tuk tuk for a great ride into town which takes 10 minutes but was great, we felt like lord and lady muck sat in the back of this little carriage being pulled by a motorbike, quite a skill I would imagine to keep them balanced.

Siem Reap has grown hugely in the last 5 years, the road where our hotel is had nothing 5 years ago and because of the boom in tourism for the area, hotels have sprung up all along, however, sadly for them, the economic down turn has taken its toll and some of these large would be 5 star hotels stand empty, some incomplete and some becoming derelict. The town itself, still has an old market and night market but also lots of smart bars and loads of restaurants. The first night we eat in the Ankhor Palm which has lovely big wicker chairs outside and we have a traditional tasting meal of all sorts which is delicious, we eat with a couple of others from our group and have a great evening, later we walk down through some of the small market and pay a visit to Dr. Fish, probably disgustingly unhygienic, but you stick your feet into a big pool of water which is full of fish who supposedly nibble at the hard skin on your feet - weird sensation!

We have a great guide, female called Sophep, she was the first female guide and has had quite a tough time of it as it is custom for the girls to marry and raise children not have careers. She was probably in her late 20’s but told us she was considered to be a ‘tough chicken’ (we probably say old broiler) as far as the chances of marrying were.

Our first day with her was to be a very full and active day visiting the grand highlights of the area and the tour which are Angkor Thom with the smiling carved Buddha’s, more of a village as well as the temple and the big daddy of them all Angkor Wat, Hindu / Buddhist Temples, going back nearly 1000 years. They were both stunning and it felt like an honour to walk about and visit such amazing places. At Angkor Thom, we visit the south gate, Bayon Temple, Phimeanakos, Royal Palace, Terrace of Elephants, Terrace of Lepper King and Northgate. The heat made it hard work, we know at home the temperature is minus something with snow on the ground, we were probably experiencing somewhere in the region of 40 degrees, it was so hot, the moment we got our of the air con coach, we all broke into an instant sweat and we spent the rest of the day wiping our brows and other sweaty bits!

Half of the group took a ride in a tethered balloon to get a view of Angkor Wat which was brilliant, Col was fine whilst it was going up but not so happy when it stayed still!

We were out for 8 hours exploring these amazing sites and together with the heat, felt exhausted when we got back, but headed straight for the pool and Sal had a massage as well. Later we hit the town and have a disastrous meal, Col and Seona’s was cold and Sal’s never arrived at all!

Next day even earlier start, the first visit is to the jungle temple called Ta Prohm, trees envelop different parts of the building and make a very unusual sight, the whole place was used for filming tombraider and you can imagine Indiana Jones popping up here too, we also visit the oldest temple Banteay Srei and Pre Rup. Lunch like yesterday is in a large café, doing a good range of rice and noodle dishes, washed down with lots of beer as usual, very tasty.

After lunch, we know we are going for a boat trip, but I don’t think any of us were prepared for what we got. We pulled off the main road and headed down this bumpy rough old track to a small village called Tonle Sap. Loads of kids were there to meet us as usual but this lot just wanted to wave and smile, usually we are accosted by 100’s of kids selling god knows what. Some kids get an education though it would only be a few hours in the morning or a few hours in the afternoon as the rest of the day they would have to earn some money as all of them come from very poor families, rare that they would be wearing shoes never mind anything else. However, they were all quite happy kids and had a great English patter, some of them spoke good English, one rattled off statistics of the UK, made up of England, Wales etc. population, colour of the flag, Gordon Brown was PM and Col usually ended up having a laugh with them and Sal bought something else that we didn’t want or need!!

We precariously pick our way over a wall, down sandbags, over a bit of wood acting as a bridge and down a muddy slope to this boat which didn’t really look like it was sitting in any water. Very slowly with this big long propeller on the back it starts to move down this inlet. The propeller was churning up all this sludge that was best not to think too much about! We start from one end, so the water stops here but it is more like slurry as we could all imagine what we were floating in. Surprisingly, it didn’t smell too bad but it looked disgusting. As we moved along, god knows how, we then started to see people in the reeds and bushes at the sides up to their necks in this slurry and they were fishing - god it would have killed us if we had eaten anything from here. They wouldn’t be able to see anything and the fish must have taken a wrong turning to end up here. Gradually the water became more free flowing until we reached the lake and the purpose of the trip which was to see the floating village, these wood, reed, metal, plastic sheeting, sacking shacks where people survived were dotted along the lake side. People were fishing, cooking, washing, life just going on. When the rainy season comes, they move downstream. It made you feel very humble as these people had nothing but as we went by, there were big smiles and lots of waving particuly from excited children. Again, when we got back, the kids were very excited to see us, and even little tots were giving us high 5’s.

Through the day, we had stopped at various places to see sugar being extracted from coconuts, water buffalo, paddy fields, a huge wagon being pulled round the country on what appeared to be a 2 stroke engine selling clay pots from the south of the country, when he has sold them all, he goes home. More pigs being taken to market, this time they were strapped down behind the seat of the motorbike, on their back, poor things. Our guide kept up a good commentary not only about what we were seeing but about Cambodian customs etc. She didn’t say much about the war, particularly Khmer Rouge and we got the feeling that her family had been affected.

Completely exhausted, another swim then we ate in the hotel and collapsed on the bed for the evening.

Due to a change of flight plan, we were unable to leave the following day which we were very pleased about as it meant that at last, we had a free day - a lie in bed - no schedule to follow - this was a holiday but seemed more like an endurance test at times, not that we would want it any different as we have seen and experienced so much, we wouldn’t have wanted to miss anything.

We got up a bit later and took a tuk tuk into town and had some decent coffee and toast which was a treat - there are only so many hotel breakfasts you can put up with. We visited the old market which sells tourist tat, general household stuff and the food market. This was like no other food market, we thought the previous one in Vientiane was something else but this surpassed it. Ladies sitting or squatting on the counters surrounded by their goods, the veg looked good as did the fruit, but the pig’s heads and the scraggy chickens with their prized heads and feet sticking up in the air really didn’t look so good. The fish are alive to prove their freshness, some of them wriggling about on the counter in little water, we even saw a turtle, on its back being sold for some delicacy. When we had visited the paddy fields, the frogs were making a huge racket, they obviously catch them as lots of restaurants have them on the menu but we didn’t see any for sale, though we had seen huge toads in HCMC. We did find the flash fried cockroaches, cooked ready for us to try and a pretty revolting looking street café, funnily enough we passed.

We met up with Seona, another of our group and watched the world go by for a couple of hours over a couple of beers, which was very enjoyable - I think everyone was tired and various upset tummies were rumbling about (though we were ok) so a quiet day was much appreciated.

More tuk tuks later to take us back to town and a very good meal again, followed by a spot of retail therapy in the night market. Still boiling hot at 9pm and most of the stalls all sell the same stuff, no idea how they make any money but we have enjoyed the bartering with them, I am sure we end up paying too much, but they are happy and so are we!

Now sitting in Kuala Lumpur Airport with for an 8 hour wait between flights but time to sit and talk about what a fantastic time we have had. This truly was a magnificent holiday and we feel very lucky to have seen and experienced so much, met so many lovely people in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

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