Cambodia 7th - 20th November

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Cambodia – the country where you have to think in pounds, buy in American dollars and receive change in Cambodian Riel!

We crossed into Cambodia on an empty bus and had our easiest border crossing yet where we didn’t even have to get off the bus! We travelled on surprisingly smooth roads to our first destination – Siem Reap. We checked into a modest hotel which was fine for our three nights stay, apart from the abundance of flies and frogs must to Laura’s dislike! We instantly felt comfortable in Cambodia and found the people to be much friendlier and helpful than most of the Vietnamese we had met. We spent our first day here getting our bearings, visiting the markets, the Royal Independence Gardens and strolling along the river. We found the Angkor National Museum, but decided the 12 dollar entrance fee was too high for our backpacking budgets (the woman working there even took pity on us and reduced it to 10 dollars which we still rejected!) That night we sampled our first Khmer food – amok curry – and so begun our love for Cambodian food. Seb ordered frogs for dinner which tasted like chicken but was more hassle than it was worth! The next 2 days were spent visiting the Temples of Angkor on bicycle. For those that don’t know, these are a collection of temples covered in beautiful carvings, constructed between the 9th and 13th century and include the world’s largest religious building – Angkor Wat. We calculated that we cycled 45km the first day and about 30km the second – thank goodness the roads were flat! On the second day we set alarm clocks for 4.30am to get up to Angkor Wat in time for sunrise. We donned our head torches and cycled in the pitch black up there and were surprised by the number of other tourists doing the same (although they arrived on buses and tuk tuks). The sun rise over Angkor Wat was beautiful and well worth the early start, it was a little cloudy but that didn’t spoil this very magical experience. After 2 full days of exploring the ruins we decided to have a few drinks in the evening, so headed to the aptly named ‘pub street’ to a bar called Angkor What? Here we ordered a beer tower and Dan took great pleasure in playing bar man for the night. We left Siem Reap on a luxury (by recent standards) recliner seat night bus to our next stop – Sihanoukville.

Our coach rolled in at 5.30am but this didn’t seem to limit the ever present tuk tuk drivers from surrounding us as soon as we stepped off. We found a friendly looking one and asked to go to Serendipity Beach on the basis that our Lonely Planet describes a visit as ‘bringing bliss and relaxation by day, drinking and decadence by night’. As we navigated the bumpy roads (passing the bars which were yet to close) we got the impression it wasn’t the quiet beach retreat we were looking for. After an hour of searching for a nice place to stay, Dan and Seb returned with the conclusion that this wasn’t the place for us – took many tourists, too much rubbish and too many bars (we didn’t want to stay in the Koh Phangan of Cambodia!) We decided to ignore the local’s advice that this was the place to stay and instead caught a taxi to Otres Beach 6km along the coast. On route we were becoming a little worried following a dirt track that looked like it hadn’t been used for a long time (we’d been told that they had knocked down most of the accommodation at Otres Beach and sold the land to the Koreans) but luckily we rounded the last corner and found a small number of beach side shacks and small restaurants. Thankfully ‘Mien Mien’ had 2 rather basic bungalows for us to rent. It was perfect... our little huts were 20m from the sea, split only by golden sands, sun loungers with wooden umbrellas and the comfortable chairs of the family run restaurant. The furthest we moved during our 4 day stay was from the bar, to our huts and to the sea. We knew Mat and Amber were heading to Sihanoukville around the same time, so gave them a heads up about our beach paradise and 24 hours later we were reunited as a 6 again. Dan managed to get stung by a jellyfish which appeared out of nowhere whilst carrying Laura on his shoulders in the sea. Selflessly he managed to carry her to the safety of the shore before dealing with his injury. This unfortunately meant we needed a fast cure and being far from any pharmacies, we went for the next best thing –urine (a DIY job as Laura refused to help!!) Less said about that the better but he made a full recovery! Mien Mien only had 6 bungalows and we were luckily as the other visitors were fun and friendly and we spent our evenings chatting with them. Ange and Lucy provided us with some good advice for when we visit their home country, New Zealand. Dan, Mat and Zee Germans made full use of the free pool table. Other popular activities during our 4 day stay included sun bathing, swimming and playing in the sea, eating and drinking, reading, playing hacky sac, watching the sun set and generally soaking up the fantastic location. There was never a shortage of locals selling their trade; they offered everything from handmade bracelets to massages. Laura took advantage of the manicures and pedicures on offer whilst Dan enjoyed the fresh lobster, all at a fraction of the price you would pay back home! Thanks to the free wi-fi we even managed to stream the season’s final Grand Prix on the last evening of our stay. On our penultimate day here we experienced a true monsoon storm that came out of nowhere, produced the heaviest rain we have even seen, and an hour later the sun was back out. The 6 of us made the most of this by running into the sea which was incredibly warm compared to the cold and painful rain drops! We said goodbye to Mat and Amber once more (they were headed for Siem Reap) but we are meeting them in Australia to give our secret Santa presents to each other! We were sad to leave Otres, we’d love to go back, but worry that the whole area will soon become a big tourist development and the real beauty of it will then be lost.

A 5 hour bus journey took us to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. Again, the boys took charge of finding accommodation (only their second time in 2 months!) whilst Kate and Laura sat and enjoyed some happy hour cocktails. Dan and Seb returned to say they had found a place, it might not be the Ritz, but it would do. On seeing the room we realised that girls and boys have different priorities when looking for a place to stay! We ended up staying above an Indian restaurant in rooms with very uncomfortable beds and the smell of the various foods being cooked below. We had to pass the kitchen to get to our rooms and on seeing how the unidentified meat was being cut on the floor, decided against eating at home! Instead we went to Velyo Tonle Restaurant where all proceeds go towards helping poor and orphaned children, of which there are a lot in Phnom Penh. The following day was to be an emotional one. We visited Tuol Sleng Museum. This used to be Tuol Svay Prey High School, but in 1975, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge begun using it as their biggest security prison (S-21). Our guide had lost her father, a brother and a sister during this time and only survived herself by escaping to Vietnam. We could not believe the horrors of what had gone on here. We learnt about methods of torture used by the Khmer Rouge against the Cambodian People, it was horrific. Of the 20,000 people brought to S-21, only 7 survived. The rest were taken to the killing fields of Choeung Ek, which was our next place to visit. It was hard to imagine the brutalities that had occurred here whilst walking among the grassy fields, but the pieces of clothes of victims that were surfacing on the ground after the heavy rain was a constant reminder of the horror of this recent piece of history. The mass graves had all been excavated and the skulls, bones and clothes are now displayed in a Stupa as a memorial to the people who died here. This was a very sad day and left us all shocked and emotional.

To mark the end of our time travelling with Kate and Seb we went to the well renowned Foreign Correspondence Club (FCC) and made the most of the happy hour prices. The following day we tried to visit the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, but unfortunately we arrived just half an hour before the president of Vietnam and prime minister of Thailand meaning it was shut to us minions. We said our goodbyes to Kate and Seb and the next morning after a brilliant 2 months (they left us for Kuala Lumpa before heading back to the UK). We booked ourselves onto an early bus to Battambang – our final destination in Cambodia.

As the second largest city of Cambodia we expected it to be busier than it turned out to be; a welcome surprise after the craziness of Phnom Penh. Dinner at the Smokin’ Pot was excellent, as had been the case with all Khmer food we tried. We shared a Beef Volcano which came as raw marinated meat that you had to cook yourself at the table, it was delicious! The next day we set out to hire a moped, and after some searching to find an automatic one, we hopped on and headed down the road. It soon became apparent that it hadn’t received a recent MOT. We battled on with only one working break, the bike veering left, whilst not being able to come to a stand still for fear of stalling and followed the rather basic map to Phnom Sampeau Killing Cave (via a minor unintentional detour - thanks to our map reading geographer – the map was RUBBISH!). Here we found a young girl to guide us up the mountain to the cave – another site used as a slaughter chamber by the Khmer Rouge during their reign. The site was surprisingly peaceful and much less of a tourist trap that the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh. We continued up, past the many small statues built into the hill side; saw the old redundant heavy artillery left by the Vietnamese following the war, and on to the summit, where we were rewarded with beautiful views of the surrounding land as far as we could see. We tried to visit the bamboo train (another attraction the area is famous for), but unfortunately we didn’t make it due to a puncture so we slowly headed back to return the useless moped. Thankfully Laura has become a much more relaxed bike passenger compared to our first ride in Koh Phangan! We spent the afternoon at an orphanage/school for poor children, helping to teach them English. We hadn’t even made it to the entrance before we were surrounded by about 20 smiling faces all battling for our attention and tugging at our hands to come and sit with them, it was organised chaos and we didn’t know where to start or what to do. We needn’t have worried as the kids took charge of us as and practiced their English by taking it in turns to ask us questions. “Teacher, Teacher, where are you from?” “Teacher, Teacher what is your favourite animal?” “Teacher, Teacher do you like beer?” this went on for about 15mins until they satisfied their curiosity!! It was amazing to see their enthusiasm and interest in us, and their English was brilliant given that they had only been learning for 5 months! One of them picked up a hacky sack and before we knew it we were whisked out the entrance and into a mud yard to play with them (thankfully our short stint on Otres beach had provided us with a few basic moves). We proceeded to knock the shuttle cock up in the air for as long as possible without letting it fall to the floor using any part of our body necessary. This continued as small groups broke off and played new games which Laura quickly had to learn! Once energies we dwindling (ours more than the children’s!) we were ushered back into the classroom where we sat and the kids got out their American reading books (how do you explain what a dishwasher and hoover are to Cambodian children?!). They took turn in reading sections to us whilst we helped with pronunciation and correcting mistakes they made. There were only about 12 of us around our table, but as Dan was dealing with 6 students at a time it quickly turned into a shouting match where they wanted to show how well they could read. By this point we hadn’t said a word to each other for 2 hours! We took a break from the reading and then the second round of the Spanish inquisition began with their well rehearsed questions. We in turn fired back some questions hoping to test their understanding. Then came the question “Teacher, Teacher can you sing?” Err no, but that didn’t seem to matter, and so we spent the remainder of our time here joining in with some well known classics such as Rudolf the red nose reindeer, jingle bells, old MacDonald had a farm, twinkle twinkle little star, the alphabet, head shoulders knees and toes and many more! As the children left, they all individually came and said goodbye and thank you to us, they were so polite and grateful! We chatted to Sophorn Sem who had founded the organisation; it was clear he was doing a great job with the little he had available to him, but they desperately need a sponsor to allow them to build another classroom behind the original (which is situated below his family home). This was by far the most rewarding thing we have done to date; it was only a shame we had to leave the next day. That evening we were left to reflect on what a wonderful day it had been and how we could help out in the future, the children’s happiness seemed endless and we wish them the best of luck.

After a good night’s sleep we awoke early to catch the bus back to Bangkok, as we checked out the receptionist realised he had mistakenly not booked us on the bus, apologetically he suggested a shared taxi to the border and a bus from the other side, still wiping the sleep from our eyes we begrudging accepted (thanks also to a complimentary scarf) so he scurried away to make a call. The taxi arrived, seemed to run errands for over half an hour with us the only passengers in the back, picked up 3 more passengers and off we went hurtling down the ‘motorways’. The journey, although clouded by a child being sick in the front seat and the driver constantly spitting into a plastic bottle, was quick and we were at the border in a flash, and as if good karma was pushing us along our way we swiftly stepped onto a coach to Bangkok. In the end we made it a good couple of hours earlier than we would have done if we caught the bus as originally planned! We spent one night near the Khao San Road in Bangkok as a stopover before getting a 22 hour train down to Malaysia.

Cambodia was a country that has far exceeded our expectations; we’d rank it as a joint first place with Laos as our favourite country so far. We’d highly recommend it to anyone (in fact we met lots of people who had flown into Bangkok and were doing Cambodia as a 2 week holiday). Next stop, Malaysia.

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Comments

[karen]

brilliant blogs
absolutely brilliant blogs the way you both write them makes you feel as if you are there too. can we do anything practical to help the children and the building of a classroom.?photos are stunning as well. id been looking out for the next blog so keep it up its great. your next adventure in anzac will be very different! lol x