Upon arrival in Siem Riep in north-west Cambodia I sighed with relief. I heard that it was another city but in reality it was a rural town. I instantly liked it - less hustle and bustle than Phnom Penh and more palm trees animals and dirt roads. People usually go to Siem Riep to see the Angkor Watt temples (one of the unofficial wonders of the world, apparently) but it is also a nice place to go to see another side of Cambodia. If Phnom Penh is the ferocious then Siem Riep is the free-spirited. Of course I am not the first to notice the potentional of Siem Riep, this place is a backpacker's paradise - as Lonely Planet puts it: "Tourism is the lifeblood of Siem Riep and without careful management it could become Siem Reapolinos, the not so Costa-del-Culture of South East Asia." Hmmm, while it might be a popular spot, the "nightlife" veers on non-existent except for a handful of cool bars and sophisticated eateries but after midnight, Siem Riep is snoozing. Yes, it attracts tourists but more for the cultural side of things. It is a pretty town and would fit right in in Spain's, Greece's or
Jamaica's countryside until you are reminded by the sea of tuk tuks and cheesy shop signs that you are not in Europe-aica. Being in Cambodia it is poor and amidst the poverty, there are hints of Western wealth in the form of four-wheel drives and blinged out cars but these people have certainly made their money elsewhere. And I doubt legitimately. There is a nice quarter on and around the street which has been unofficially dubbed "Bar Street" where, you have guessed it: all the bars and cafes are. I really liked this area - you can see the French influence here where they have intelligently preserved the old buildings like Phnom Penh's riverside and have made them into nice spots to eat some amok or pizza if you so wish. In the evening when there are most people about, the street reminds me of what I would imagine the main street of New Orleans to be, sans the tack and bead/boob flashing! We tried to rebel against what we saw and got a tuk tuk to take us to a club called "Zone 1." Bad idea. We took one step towards it and saw that it was full of
Asian hookers staring at confused-looking Westerners edging back towards where they came. It was time to admit to myself that Asia sleeps and rises early (except in the true -olinos places I have not yet visited).
Everything in this town capitalises on the glory of Angkor Watt with hundreds of tailormade trips to the temples, clever punning for bar names such as "Temple Bar" and my favourite: "Angkor What?!" and one restaurant even dedicates a whole page of their drinks menu to Angelina Jolie crowning her favourite drink as the Tomb Raider cocktail. When you see the temples though, you can see why the locals are so proud of them. The temple area is huge and they say you would need at least a week to see them all. As pretty as they are, no thank you! I think our group did it the best way - we arranged for a tuk tuk driver to drive us around and bought a ticket for $20 that covers seeing the sunset over Angkor Watt on the first day and the sun rise on the second. There is no way in your right mind that you would be able to walk around
this place and you would have to be pretty tough to be able to cycle in that heat. By 10am on the second day I was ready for my bed, you need a lot of energy for the temples and the sellers and it might be a better idea to come when it is cooler and not in the hottest month of the year like us planks. We saw some pretty impressive stuff and even though there were thousands of tourists, the place still managed to have an air of serenety and calm about it - especially when I heard the monks chanting in the forest before the sun rose over the main temple. My favourite part was not the main complex but Bayon for the intensity of ornate details on the stone. Imagine these were all hand-carved! One particular temple was covered in Bhuddha-type faces and it seemed to work really well with the sunlight. What I really liked was how communities of people, pets and wild animals have settled so close to this area. I saw an elephant, dogs barking at a monkey up a tree and we even had a dog guide us around the whole of
Ta Phrom! Another area which I liked was the one used in Tomb Raider - over time, trees have grown through the temple so at some points you can see trees on top of parts. If you looked at it quickly, you might mistake it for an optical illusion or a Dhali-inspired photoshopped image. It is a moving metaphor for the triumph of nature. One thing that struck me from my Angkor Watt experience was the amount of times parts of the temples resembled works done by the Greeks, the Egyptians and the Romans with the columns, the pyramidesque shapes and how the architecture was centred around the movement of the sun. I find it amazing how many similarities exist between such differing cultures who would have never known about one another. I did learn from this though that I prefair natural beauty to man-made beauty - I was quite templed out by the end of it.
One of the things I found more intense than Phnom Penh was the length people will go to to sell you things. The locals have definately figured out where the money is at and will be waiting for you with fruit, ice-cream
Tuk it up!Just off the tuk tuk after a long day at the temples...
and water as you exit another temple, sweating. I witnessed a young kid putting on a limp outside a hospital as I walked past him on the street. Another kid waited three hours outside an internet cafe for me to sell me postcards when I had told him earlier in another part of town that I may buy something off him later (NEVER say maybe if you don't want to buy something - these kids are on the ball!) A tiny girl came up to me and on hearing that I was Irish she told me Ireland's population, who Mary McAleese was and even said "Conas ata tu!" The one experience which really moved me was when we were eating at one of the food stalls, I pushed my dodgy dinner to one side after eating a mouthful and next minute, a malnourished child was standing behind me. I offered him my plate and I think I really made his week, he was so happy. He ran over to his little brother and they sat on the wall and gobbled up my dinner. I then discovered he cleaned the plates at the stall to get the leftovers from people's plates
in return.
We had an amazing meal our last night in Siem Riep in a restaurant called Chamay - go there! I was in particulaly high spirits when I got to have some red wine (it's quite sparse over here). While I may not remember Cambodian food with a tender heart (except that meal), I will remember it for the people, the sad and glorious history and my first time experiencing Asian culture. I reckon three or four nights in Siem Riep is perfect unless you want to hardcore the temples for a week. We found a nice clean guesthouse (number 10 guesthouse) for a $9 double room with air con and a shower. The rooftop bar is really cool but it wasn't the best place to meet people. After the cultural overload of Cambodia, me and Emma were ready for the relaxed party atmosphere of Laos. Now to get there...
