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Published: November 1st 2007
Suoh s'dei from Siem Reap Cambodia. I have been travelling here in Cambodia with my Gap tour group for the past 5 days. We met up in Bangkok, Thailand. There are 2 people from Sweden, two from the UK, 3 from Australia (one from Tasmania), 3 Canadians (from Ottawa, Yukon and me), 2 Americans and one from Switzerland. All of us are professionals in different fields... many people just taking a vacation and for almost all this is our first time in this part of the world, more specifically Southeast Asia. I am among the younger part of the group but that has been fine. These new friends have travelled quite extensively which has made conversations on these trips all the more exciting.
Monday morning we boarded the bus to Cambodia. It is about a 7 hour drive through beautiful countryside but very rocky roads. When we got to the border we actually had our luggage carried through in a wooden cart and we walked over to and through customs. Out of Thailand and then across a bridge and a casino in "No Man's Land" and then into the line for Cambodia. Many of the Cambodians ride motorcycles and often there can be entire families of 5 or more people on the same bike. There are lots of people caring goods in carts and many cover their faces as to not breathe in the pollution.
The next part of the journey through to Siem Reap was another 6 hours on what our tour guide Rith called -"the dancing road" It was a very very bumpy ride. There are really no lane lines and you drive to avoid the potholes. Sadly, the infrastructure for roads is still in progress. On the side of the road are children swimming in the river and setting up nets to catch fish. Gasoline is kept in glass bottles on the side of the road and people drive up and have their tanks filled as they run out. When we stopped to take a break in the "Happy Room"-how they refer to the toilet here we were approached by children to buy postcards, candy, drinks et. I got into a conversation with a girl named Lisa and bought some postcards from her. Her sister Wanting gave me a bracelet and I met her friend Sate too. The persistence of these children to make a sale is relentless, but as I have been learning-this is their livelihood. Children in Cambodia are only required to go to school until Grade 9 which means you have a lot of children at home and not in school. This frustrates me somewhat, however, while the government is making some positive steps there is still much corruption.
After a long and bumpy ride-my back and bum were so sore! We arrived in Siem Reap around dinner time and checked into our hotel. We walked down to the market area and ate at the Khmer Kitchen. My friend Nick ordered for me- a bit of a game and chose well. I had a potato/meat and onion and cheese pie. A lot of the food is like thai food-curries, the favourite is amok fish curry (catfish). We took tuktuks back to the hotel and then got some much needed rest.
Day 2-the Angkor Complex. We spent most of the morning at Angkor Thom-the ancient village in the complex and climbed up Bayon which is one of the famous temples with the smiling buddha faces. It is hard to describe their complexities because there are so many designs and things to describe. In the afternoon we went to see Ta Prohm where they filmed Lara Croft's tomb raider. This is the temple that is overgrown with trees. It was agreat but it was pouring rain! In the evening Sandy and I, my friend from Connecticut found a Khmer family restaurant and had curry.
Sunrise on Day 3 we got up at 4:30a.m. to go and watch the sunrise behind the Angkor Wat-as you would have seen in the last photos. The size of the wat is huge and there must have been at least a few thousand tourists who got up early for the sight. Even the young monks and monkeys showed up to see the beautiful reflection of Angkor in the pond in front. Inside the temple are incredibly well preserved reliefs of the history of the temple and its people.
After breakfast we arranged to take our bus to the Tongle Sap Lake. This is where many Cambodians, Vietnamese and Koreans live on floating houses. It is hard to believe that people's entirely livelihood is carried out on water-from their fishing, schools, hospitals and even basketball courts. Lots of photos to show more of this later.
On the way back to town we went to the Artists d Angkor workshop where they use apprenticeship training to teach youth a trade-silk weaving, silk painting, stone carving and wood carving too. All of the silk painters are deaf and hard of hearing. I got to sign with one of the girls named Channy and was able to tell her how beautiful her painting was. We took a photo of us that I will send back to her. That was a very special interaction for me.
After lunch of khmer noodles with chicken, Sandy, Phil, Ed and I hired a tuktuk back to Angkor. We returned to Ta Prohm to see it in the sun and then went to Phnom Bakheng to watch the sunset. It was beautiful.
This morning I am flying to Phnom Penh where we will be learning more about the war and the khmer rouge.
Should be pretty intense.
I hope you all had a happy halloween. Congrats Ryan about Costa Rica.
love you all,
Katy
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Jenn
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Elephants, Markets, The Kwai AND a Whole Lot o Buddha???
Wow! You have been busy! I have finally caught up on all the blogs. Don't forget to just "take a moment" like we did with Mona.