Advertisement
Published: December 20th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Well one week has gone by and we are steadly heading east towards Vietnam. Since our last posting we dropped back to Bangkok for another day before our train to the Cambodian border the following morning. The highlight of this was a visit to the "Snake Farm", on the grounds of a local hospital. An assortment of venomous snakes are kept for research and anti-venom production, with a show illustrating a range of snakes, venom collection, snake feeding and a chance to cuddle up to a friendly Boa Constrictor. We also took in a couple more temples and spent the afternoon riding the sky train, which gave a nice overview of the city.
The following day was one of the more interesting so far, and not one toursit attraction in sight. We caught a Thai train to the border with Cambodia (5 hours, $2 each) and then crossed the border into Cambodia at Poipet.
We were hounded through customs by succesive touts for bus companies, finally getting through no man's land (which incidently houses 7! casinos, go figure.....). Once we emerged into the street we were hit by the aroma of rotting fish, with an undercurrent of garbage and
dust. We tried to cross the road to get away from the current tout, but the smell got stronger and drove us back. We resorted to hopping on the tout's "free shuttle to the bus station where ALL the buses and taxis leave from" (being his premises, with no other buses in sight) where at least the smells had backed off a bit.
After escaping our 'friendly' tout and having a pit stop for some dodgy chicken and rice, we scored a taxi from another slick operator with broken English. As we were about the leave, the first tout re-surfaced and saw his commission dissappearing, so started demanding a "tip" for all his help!!
Things got a little better once we started the 150 km drive to Siem Reap (our destination) although the road has to be felt to truely get an idea of how crap it was. Think of a four lane dirt highway which had pot holes big enough for primary school kids to swim in, with a mixture of overloaded cycles, motorbikes, trucks and other vehicles all trying to simultaneously avoid them - the horn is obviously a very important driving tool and used to
A rat snake in action
This one was great. It actually bit the guy on the "upper thigh" and then crapped itself! excess (i.e when passing every vehicle going both ways)! The taxi however only took 3 hours to travel the distance, instead of 6 hours for the bus - definitely money worth spending. Our driver even had to stop to wash out the air filter half way.
Nevermind, the Temples of Angkor were worth the hassle. We spent two days buzzing around them with a local tuK-tuk driver as Angkor Wat is just one temple out of many. Again the photos kind of speak for themselves. On our second day we also visited the land mine museum which bough home the advice - don't step off the beaten path in Cambodia. It was quite supprising how small the anti-personel mines could be, sometimes just the size of your fist.
After an overdose of temples (we are still recovering) we grabbed the 6 hour bus to Phom Phen, which stopped at a few interesting rest stops with purchasing opportunities on offer. We could have picked up several live chickens (sold by weight off a motorbike on which probably about 50 were hung by their feet), or some fried crickets and spiders to keep us muching till lunch time.
Unfortunely
Sandra started feeling a little under the weather during this bus ride (even though we stuck to the more conventional food options) and used up all of our plastic bags (very discretely), so we decided to camp for a few days in the city (all better after an afternoon crashed out in a rather noisy guesthouse - i.e. loud music to midnight and people trampling up and down outside your room).
As the photos show, we found a great replacement guesthouse (the next day) hanging out over the waters of the local lake with a deck and a kitchen serving up yummy local food.
While in town we spent a day checking out the local history - mainly focused on the Khmer Rouge genocide. We visited the killing field used by the main political prison in Phom Phen, and then the prison itself which has been turned into a museum. The killing field was a very sobering place, with signs setting out how the prisioners were dispactched with blunt 'gardening instruments' to save bullets. The whole area was covered with pits used for this purpose, or as mass graves. Almost 9000 people are thought to have been killed
Poipet
Yes, a very nice town. Lonely planet calls it "the cess pit of Cambodia". Note the petrol station (glass bottles) on the right of the image at the one small field we saw, with many other similar sites being located throughout Cambodia.
After our whistle stop tour of Cambodia we have just arrived in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, around which we will be travelling for the next 3 weeks or so.
Will update you again next week.
Merry Christmas to everyone.
S & S
Advertisement
Tot: 0.29s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.1009s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Sofia
non-member comment
Cambodia
Loved your entry from Cambodia. I know exactly what you are talking about in all of the above. Looking forward to hear about Vietnam! Im glad to be leaving the dirty capital of Ecuador in a few hours and I cant wait to be back in the rain forest again. Take care!