Advertisement
Published: January 27th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Sua s'dei from Cambodia, the land of bruised bottom's, amazing temples and friendly joyous people. Before we get on to that though I'll fill you in on our last days (for the minute) in Thailand. We left the Khao Yai National park and made our way to Nang Rong, via Nakhon Ratchasima, to use it as our base for exploring the temples of Prasat Phanom Rung. We stayed in a lovely homestay (basically a locals house that opens a couple of rooms up to paying guests) where we met a really nice Italian couple (who we were to randomly meet twice later) and again indulged our stomachs at the local night market. This time Anny and I both tried fried cockroach! They have a distinct nutty flavour and a real crunch as you bite through the carapace to free the sticky innards. Delicious! At one point as we ambled around I felt an alien hand reaching for my bag of food, I turned around to confront the culprit but got more than I bargained for as the prospective thief was a baby elephant! It's one strange country.
Phanom Rung is beautifully and atmospherically situated atop an extinct volcano and comands
glorious views accross the flat arable land of North Eastern Thailand. We had again rented a motorbike (this one, to my mild alarm, requiring me to use gears) to better facilitate independant viewing of sights. On the way back from the temple I kept taking smaller and smaller roads untill we were deep in the countryside, driving on rough dirt roads that skimmed small rivers and passed tiny farming settlements. At one point we were completely stuck for twenty minutes due to a heavy build up of water Buffalo! So good to get away from some of the more developed places that we have seen thus far.
From here we took a bus to the border at Aranya Prathet and "enjoyed" our border crossing. We had to stand strong against the attempts at extortion and petty bribery untill we were issued with our visa for the correct price. Accross the border the fun really started. As we were traveling to Batambang, rather than the more common Siem Reap, we found it hard to find other travelers to join us in a share taxi. We spent a while scouting around, but to no avail. In the end we paid $10
each, on the proviso that we were to have the back of the taxi to ourselves. We set of in the taxi with a Cambodian couple in the front (driver and wife) and started driving in completely the wrong direction! This got my antenna well and truly prickling. We stopped at a small village where four large Cambodians were standing expectantly outside a shop; evidently an extra four fares. At this point I have to admit that I got not a little angry, shouting at the driver that we had paid for this taxi to take us, and only us, to Batambang and if they insisted on filling it that i demand to be taken back to the taxi rank for a full refund! This caused much hilarity. They explained that we would indeed, as agreed, have the back seats to ourselves and that the four new passangers would all get in the front. It happened. So on we went on the five hour journey upon some of the worst roads you could imagine.
Batambang is Canbodia's second city (after Phnom Penh) but felt like a small provincial capital. It is surrounded by farm land and is situated on
the banks of a slow, lazy river. Parts, though few and far between, retain their old French Colonial charm; the rest being the usual Asian concrete conglomoration - but in no way "ugly" for that. We again rented a bike to visit Wat Ek Phnom and Wat Banan, both of these were really lovely but the real fun was the roads. In Cambodia driving seems to have two distinct dangers; driving in the city and driving in the country. In the city the traffic is as thick as a West Country boy and crossing a junction as perilous as a skinny dip in the Amazon, with bacon round your winky! If you were to wait for a suitable gap in the traffic you would not move all day. The trick is to close your eyes and slowly move out into the oncoming six lanes of speeding vehicles and trust all to the Buddha. In the country it is the roads themselves that prove the major obstacle. They are so rutted, and above all so dusty, that travel is really hard. If you can avoid the potholes then, everytime a car drives past, you will be blinded by the dust and
quickly chewing mud. On a couple of occasions the road dropped so precipitously into a two meter ditch that we had to push the bike up the other side whilst gunning the throttle. Another method of slightly dangerous transport we used was the weird and wonderful Bamboo train. Essentially this is a bamboo platform loosly strapped to some wheels with a large petrol engine driving the bogies. It hurtles along some seriously buckled and bent track, jolting you all over the place. At one stage the grass between the rails was on fire; another pleasant experience for my bottom! The countryside is beautiful and the people we met so incredibly friendly.
We decided to haul arse out so we booked ourselves a "seat" on the boat frm Batambang to Siem Reap. We placed ourselves (at 7am) on the roof of the boat and set off. Only for today to be our first day of rain! Rubbish! Thankfully we befriended a resourceful Russian who spread his tent accross the deck as a makeshift shelter. The day did eventually turn the standard hot and sunny and on the eight hour journey we saw some fantastic sights. The river was home to
some fishing communities who live on floating houses (the better to survive any floads) or houses on huge stilts (for the same reason). The village folks were to be seen going about their everyday lives; setting fish traps, fishing, or just passing the time of day at floating shops, restaurants or schools. The usual melee ensued at the docking point, with Tuk Tuk drivers boarding the boat upon docking, like ragged pirates, to try and procure a fare.
So, we arrived in Siem Reap (the town nearest the Angkor temples) and secured ourselves a bed for ony $1.50! Today we have been looking around the incredible temples. I shall not attempt to describe them, for they are so magnificent as to defy description, and besides, an awful lot has been written about them previously. We hired push-bikes for this trip and set off at the Godly time of 5am (the better to catch the sunrise over Angkor Wat). Angkor is the biggest religous building in the world, but even that fact does not prepare one for the glorious splendour that is Angkor Wat. Just mindblowing. Incredible carvings, 50 meter high towres, huge baths and the best bass reliefs I've
ever seen. We covered 36km over 11 hours and saw many amazing temples. For me, after Angkor, the best were Wat Bayon (that had hundreds of huge faces carved into the towers and possesed an incredible symmetry) and Ta Prohm that has been left essentially as the French explorers "re-discovered" it more than a century ago, with huge Bayan roots covereing many portions of the large structure. An incredible and memorable day, but an exhausting one. I am currently typing this back at the guest house with a retorative Margaritta or seven; we have earned it. Tomorrow Kompong Thom to conect with Kratie (to hopefully see the Irrawaddy fresh water dolphins), and from there, off the beaten track to Mondulkiri province.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.31s; Tpl: 0.021s; cc: 25; qc: 124; dbt: 0.1947s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.5mb
Bradley Lucas
non-member comment
Loving it
Hey mate the blog is amazing i think you have found your calling scotty my boy the fearless and weathered travel writer. The blog is unbelievable and the photos are increadible. I cant express my joy enough for you two sorry i didnt get a message to annie for her bday so in one way or another this is a late blessing for her. Keep up the travels and stay safe and away from goons with machetes, dont take any guff from those swines and look forward to the next blog take care you two and god speed. x