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Published: July 15th 2008
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Leaving Bangkok early one morning by bus we thought arriving in Siem Reap, Cambodia would be a straightforward journey. Wrong wrong wrong! After busing to the Thai-Cambodia border crossing the border took an hour or so at immigration. As soon as we crossed the border everything changed so dramatically. The landscape became flatter, the children skinnier and the people far poorer. We had been warned about the trip to Siem Reap and thought maybe we would be there before darkness, but that wasn’t going to happen. The 150km journey can take from 3 and a half hours to 7 in a bus, so we took a share taxi with a Belgium couple and ended up in Siem Reap at dinner time.
We both woke up in our cute guesthouse in the middle of an old Cambodian neighbourhood and started talking to the locals. We love Cambodia! First day Jane went to the Angkor Temples, while Matt stayed in bed sick again. The ‘moto’ driver Jane hired took her firstly to Angkor Wat, the world’s largest religious building. Firstly before getting into the temple sights, Jane spotted a group of young Buddhist monks near the opening of the temple. While wondering
how to approach them for a photo one of them ran over and asked to take a photo of her! After talking to the monks for a while Jane followed them around for the morning, teaching them English words and asking about their temple. They were so friendly and were more excited about asking Jane for a photo on their camera phones (!) than vice versa. After they said goodbyes the young monks kept running after Jane and waving and taking photos. Other tourists were all crowded around trying to get some photos…good fun!
The kids here are totally amazing! So many young children everywhere, largely naked and dirty but so cute. When we stopped at a village on our travels a little boy came up to Jane and asked her if he could come home with her. Heartbreaking! The temple kids are from a local village and come to the temples to sell bracelets, water, postcards, ripped lonely planets, scarves, etc. Then there are beggars everywhere whispering ‘can I have a dollar please, just one dollar.’ They run around saying ‘I give you one postcard for one dollar.’ Then it turns to ‘I give you five postcard one
dollar.’… etc etc. Some even say ‘If you don’t buy from me I will cry!’ They each learn about five languages to speak to tourists (usually Japanese, English, Korean, and bits from other languages) and learn most countries capitals. Matt started teaching some of them Maori words such as tamariki, kia ora, etc and they thought it was the funniest thing they had ever heard! At the special needs school we stopped at the kids were signing to us and doing cute little dances for us. They thought Matt was so tall, probably the tallest person they have ever seen out in their little village! They kept gesturing at me to go and get Matt, by walking like monkeys (implying he looked like one)! The kids were also very cute at a shelter run by Korean evangelists that we ran into. They set up a large kitchen and feed 600 children a day from local villages! We happened to arrive at mealtime and could hardly move through the sea of children running around with their meals. Amazing work by these people, who also run chapel services daily for the children in Khmer.
Cambodia is one of those countries that
just takes hold of you so strongly - with the history, the people and the ruins. One week just isn’t enough! We found a tuk tuk (moto-remork) driver who we just clicked with. He is so sweet and polite and gentle and we spent four of our five days with him. He took us places he wasn’t allowed, bought us things in local prices, showed us secret sights and even invited us to a wedding! We spent three days in total at the temple ruins, which is a good amount of time before getting ‘templed-out’ and spent the next few days at a silk farm, museums, village trips, orphanages, schools, deaf and mute centres, shelters, dance shows, art centres, etc. We went to a village with bamboo stilts that had children running around begging us for money and posing in our photos. They had a local ‘crazy’ man who speaks to himself and wanders around all day restlessly. The children were throwing rocks at him and screaming ‘jayan, jayan’ (scary). We tried to distract them by showing them how to do high fives and take photos of them.
We took a very moving trip to a local Buddhist tower
full of bones from the Khmer Rouge killing fields, with skulls piled on top of each other and clothes mixed between all the bones. There were photos of all the prisoners just before they were told to dig their own graves before they were executed. Most were clubbed or killed with weapons such as machetes to save the Khmer Rouge’s precious ammunition. The photos show the emaciated prisoners, shackled to the floor in large prison camps. Some show the people being tortured and babies being killed. Very shocking and sickening. Even more sickening to read how Brother No. 2 soldier of the regime is still alive and living comfortably in Cambodia. If you consider that one quarter of the population was killed (1.7 million) then pretty much everyone you speak to has lost someone in their family or friends. Lots of the people just a few years older than us were the little orphans who had to restart their lives after the regime. Another sobering aspect of these long suffering people is the number of land mine victims trying to live normal lives. Amputated limbs are common sites and we have seen more than one man with one leg riding
a bicycle with a stick as an aid. These landmine victims are often working as street musicians trying to raise money for their futures.
We went to some Khmer classical dancing one night (also Apsara) which is very special and unique to any other. The dancing is very slow, with beautiful costumes and a key feature being their arched feet and hands. Some of the dancers are very flexible! At the various children’s homes they teach the kids how to do these dancers so that one day they will be able to perform for tourists.
On our final day we met up with our driver Soktear, and spent the day teaching him English words and looking around Siem Reap. We took him out to Indian for our final meal where he tried his first curry and naan bread (which he loved). He has plans to expand his driving business and offer various experiences for tourists. Such a great guy, that there were definitely tears when we all said goodbye. He has invited us to his wedding next year, so who knows! (We miss you Tear).
This is the last of our Asia travels (for now)? We are
driving back to Bangkok before flying to Bahrain in two days as a two day excursion before Greece and Europe!
PS A couple of very amateur videos (from our cameras) will be uploaded very soon to this blog!
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Marg
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Sidetracked
I came into school to do some work and noticed on my emails a notification of a new blog. Got sidetracked so easily!! You will never be the same after these experiences! What amazing interaction you are having with locals.