Week 19 Angkor Wat, Siem Reap to Hong Kong

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The main portion of my South East Asia tour has come to an end and I have loved all of the marvellous countries I have sped through. I know I have only had a taster portion, but I am leaving with a mass of fabulous memories of tastes, smells, scenes and experiences to add to the privilege of having met some of THE most interesting and charming people, throughout the last four countries, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.

The week was made up of two distinct halves. The beginning was not so great with residual effects of my food-poisoning, having to bid farewell to the members of the group that I had travelled with for the last 23 days and missing out on the last dinner and the organised temple tours. However, I left my sickbed briefly to say my goodbyes and to swap contact details and to see them all pile into the back of an open truck to go to a local house 45 minutes away for a home-cooked Cambodian dinner. I was not at all envious as I could not have stomached any food, I didn’t want the embarrassment of constantly using the poor hosts toilet in my condition and it was starting to pour with rain. All in all I was happy to go back to bed.

I was even more glad that I had skipped it when my roommate Mel paid me back with a night of chundering and was challenging me for the precious loo rolls. Yep, she had contracted food poisoning from the group’s last supper in addition to coming home soaked to the skin. We spent the whole of the next day holed up in our room watching rubbish TV and mugging the maid for more toilet paper. I think she thought we were making some kind of giant paper mache statue with the amount she gave us, but to be honest it was singe ply and would disintegrate in the steam of a hot shower. I never knew I would crave western bog rolls.

The next day Mel and Kim left and I moved to a new guest house which was light, clean and had a friendly owner who helped me organise my onward journey and also a private guide and a tuk tuk driver for a days tour of 4 of the main temple complexes the following day. There are dozens to choose from as there are more than 160 square kilometres of temple sites around the town of Siem Reap.

In order to avoid the hoards of tourists who descend like an invasion from another planet from about 10am onwards, Mr Tan and I started at 6.15am and arrived at the first site of Angkor Thom just after dawn. It was serene, quiet, atmospheric and although busy, had a manageable number of people looking around. The first sight is the gateway and causeway lined with dozens of statues depicting the story of the tug of war between good and evil. You can tell the evil team as they have bulging eyes and many have their tongues out while the goodies have smug but kind expressions. The complex is huge, being over 2 kilometres square and contains the Bayon temple that was next on our tour.

Bayon was built in 11th century, has many wonderful carvings and lots of towers, each with a giant face and the Hindu influences are strongly evident throughout. There was quite a lot of climbing over rough ground and up and down uneven steps and vertical ladders, but at that point is was merely hot and sticky, not like the furnace that we were to suffer later in the day. I will let the photos speak for themselves regarding some of the intricate bas relief carvings and the amazing architecture.

The main construction material of most of the temples is limestone blocks laid without mortar and with clever gutters, drains, pools and moats to ensure good drainage and constantly dry buildings, in an area that floods the surrounding countryside annually. Fantastic feats of engineering. What is also amazing is that the Angkor Thom complex was host to upwards of 1 million people from the surrounding villages and countryside during major festivals and celebrations in the 11th century, at a time when the total population of London was around 30 thousand people.

It was excellent having my own guide as we chatted as we walked so no waiting for others and having to gather to hear. We found comfortable shady stones to sit on when we first arrived at each site, where he would give me a comprehensive history and let me know what to look out for during the visit. I learned absolutely loads about the history of the courts and the commoners, the religious practices and beliefs, the wars, the traditions and the current views of the Cambodian people. Mr Tan spoke good, if heavily accented English and was very knowledgeable. He knew I had been sick so was a bit over cautious and insisted on giving me a hand whenever there were steps which was sweet and mainly unnecessary, although there were times when the terrain was so steep or uneven that I was grateful.

After a brief stop at the “five star toilets” which were spotlessly clean, we made cur way to the long causeway entrance of Angkor Wat. The past few days had been cloudy and overcast, but this day was bright sunshine and not a breath of breeze. It was good having blue skies and light for the photos but was hard going on my weak and wobbly (in every sense) body as it was roasting hot.

Angkor Wat is probably the most iconic and recognisable image of Siem Reap and is a large complex of 1.5 by 1.3 kilometres. This is probably the best example of the long and intricate restoration programme that was started by the French in the 19th century and continues under the funding and expertise of dozens of countries today. I was told of one of the most disappointing moments in history. The French archeology team had spent dozens of years cataloguing and detailing the puzzle of the tons of broken and jumbled stones that were scattered over the ruins of the site, and were almost at a point where a whole new phase could be rebuilt. The Civil War and Pol Pot’s army hated any sign of culture or intellect and destroyed all of their paperwork and catalogues. It must have been devastating to see your life’s work gone in moments.

We spent quite a long time at Angkor Wat and explored the first two levels but sadly the top level was closed for the day. To be honest I wasn’t too sad as the thought of yet more vertical steps with jelly knees was not appealing. My favorite part was the stunning wall that is 160 feet long depicting the tug of war between good and evil in the form of gods and demons (yep, same story as the statues at Angkor Thom) which is beautiful and powerful.

By the time we arrived, so had the hoards, so we had to content with thousands of other tourists and lots of very loud groups. Sadly there were some very dubious fashions on parade, with people looking like extras from Indiana Jones, TombRaider or Out of Africa and many old rich westerners that were totally clueless dripping in gold jewelry with high heels, designer bags and big straw hats the size of a planet. If you looked closely their faces were puce and sweaty under their caked makeup which threatened to slide down and cause gravitational damage to one of their facelifts.

Lastly, after passing several smaller and older temples, we arrived at Ta Prohm, otherwise known as TombRaider temple, thanks to the film with Angelina Jolie that was shot here. This is the one where the jungle had reclaimed the site and you can still see large multi-rooted trees growing over and through the building walls. Its also one of the places I had to utilise my new-found skills at crowd avoidance when taking photos. As the place was packed, you have to take pictures over people’s heads or wait patiently for the brief second or two where a gap opens up between the bodies, then take a quick burst of shots, hoping that one of them is good enough. It was crazy busy and the main iconic scenes had queues of people waiting to have their photos taken. Mr Tan was very good at finding good angles for me to take photos or finding a high area where I could perch to get overhead shots. He was also expert in finding short cuts through corridors and over piles of stones to avoid the worst of the queues trying to get through narrow gaps on the popular routes.

After nearly 8 hours, most of it in full sun and high heat, I was done in and we called it a day. I got dropped off at the Blue Pumpkin Cafe in town for my first proper food in 3 days and had some pasta. The tuk tuk driver came back to collect me and I spent the rest of the day relaxing, talking to family and friends on skype and sleeping under the airconditioner.

A purely personal observation. In a strange way Siem Reap reminds we of a wild west frontier town during the gold rush. I am certain that the treasures of Angkor Wat and the other incredible temples will last way longer than the fleeting boom of the gold mines, but the atmosphere and the focus on a single customer base is similar. Everything here has evolved to service the rapidly increasing tourist trail around the temples. The rather awkward juxtaposition of countless soulless high to mid-end hotels does not sit well with the ragged souvenir shacks that line every road around Angkor Wat.

The bus loads of wealthy tourists pouring endlessly into the crowded temple ruins probably spend most of their dollars in their 5 star hotel or upmarket restaurants and the smattering of posh silk shops, rather than the local eateries and markets. This town has recently been through a mini building boom, with foreign investors having built roads lined with modern ugly “luxury” apartment complexes and retail outlets, all standing empty in the wake of the global recession.

The people here are almost entirely employed in the service sector, pandering to the whims and needs of we tourists. Cambodians are such a warm and engaging people, I hope they manage a balance that retains the wonderful local character and charm, whilst continuing to profit from of this magical place in the midst of their countryside.

I spent some of my final day in Siem Reap searching for soup. I had a real craving for some western style soup and good bread, so first tried down Pub Street where the favours on offer in the restaurants and cafes were not very appealing. I caught a tuk tuk to the Foreign Correspondents Club (yep they have a branch of the FCC here too) as a last resort and blissfully they had cream of vegetable soup as a special - its the little things in life that mean so much. It was just what I needed and was delicious.

To get back to Phnom Penh I had 3 choices of boat, bus or plane and after much consideration I chose the 6 hour bus ride for a couple of reasons. Firstly I wanted to see more of Cambodia and the route would take me through a good portion of the country and secondly it was about a tenth of the price of a flight. It was not a bad trip, once we had persuaded the staff to turn down the awful local pop video sound to a tolerable level and to turn down the airconditioning to slightly under Arctic setting.

The bus itself was quite comfortable with seats that reclined a little, a hostess that dispensed a welcome wet wipe and bottle of water and an onboard toilet. The hostess made random announcements in both Cambodian and English in a really robotic voice (I think she had learned them by rote) about items of interest that we passed along the way. Some of them were interesting such as the different regions we passed through, the bridges we crossed, temples and some Killing Field sites, but some were just plain weird such as “that was the fork in the road where the left hand side goes to xxxx village”. I was lucky and got one of the front seats where my neighbour was a nice man from Taiwan who spoke good English, but was a bit of a chatterbox. Luckily just after we set off he moved to another empty seat, which gave us both room to spread out as the leg room was a bit narrow.

I learned pretty quickly only to watch out of the side window and not the front windscreen, as it was nerve-wracking seeing how many near-misses we had with other vehicles, pedestrians and animals. So I did what the locals do and put my faith into the hands of fate or a higher being and just enjoyed the trip - luckily it proved not to be my last one.

The hotel in Phnom Penh was very ropey and none too clean so I spent as little time as possible there. It also had a disturbing amount of exposed wiring immediately behind the bed, inches away from my head. I went back to the familiar FCC just before happy hour on a tuk tuk that had the engine power of an electric toothbrush and a driver who thought I needed Kenny Rodgers music piped into my left ear, which left me humming country and western songs for most of the following day.

At the FCC I met up with a really pleasant lady from Germany and had a good chat, as she had done a similar tour. Her fiance and another chap joined us for a few drinks later in the evening. Its one of the lovely bonuses about travelling when you meet interesting people and get into interesting conversations.

I was up early to travel to the airport for my 3 hour flight to Hong Kong on Dragonair. Being a small world, in the terminal I also bumped into the man from Taiwan who was my bus neighbour and we greeted each other like old friends.

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