Blogs from Angkor, North, Cambodia, Asia - page 18

Depois de encarar algumas das mega-cidades asiáticas e comprovar in loco a definição do caótico, eis que aparece Phnom Penh. A capital do Camboja, de nome impronunciável (tente Nôm Pên) reúne tudo o há de pior no continente: "prédios" feios, ruas lotadas, trânsito insano, vendedores de ruas, mendigos, crianças órfãs vendendo de tudo, algumas com o saquinho de cola à mão, aleijados de todos os tipos. Exceção à regra são alguns templos budistas e o palácio real. O Camboja ainda recolhe os cacos de uma guerra civil terminada há menos de dez anos. O país, literalmente, foi ao inferno e voltou. De 1969 a 1975 sofreu intensos bombardeios dos EUA na tentativa de dizimar os guerrilheiros do Vietcong infiltrados na região da fronteira. O cenário serviu para o fortalecimento do movimento revolucionário comunista Khmer Vermelho, que ... read more

Phnom Penh, Camboya, a 2 de abril del 2009. Saludos. Despues de casi 6 horas de viaje en carretera finalmente arribamos a la capital de este pais. Bueno, señoras y señores, les presento Angkor... Para quienes pensaron que el unico motivo de mi viaje era tirar party con las asiaticas, se equivocaron... porque como dice Doña Margara Francisca: "aqui somos muy culturales" (aunque yo no tenga al Pato Zambrano como mi asesor, ni seccion de frases celebres). Bueno, enough con el rollo... Angkor. Por ahi lei que lo calificaban como la 8a maravilla, cuestion en la que no puedo opinar porque me falta mucho por visitar y ver en esta tierra. Es un complejo de mas de 100 templos dispersos en un area de muchas hectareas, localizado al norte de Camboya. En realidad fue la capital ... read more

So we departed Ban Lung and by bus (again) continued to the other side of country, to Siem Reap - it's Indiana Jones time! Siem Reap would be a sleepy village without this world famous Cambodian tourist attraction - I'm of course speaking of the temples of Angkor, and as the brightest gem in the crown - Angkor Wat. There's not much to say about Angkor, since you can read all about it from Wikipedia, but at least I'd like to tell some views of my own. As an ancient capital of Khmer Kingdom it's still unbelievably well preserved. It's thousand times bigger and mightier than its little brother Wat Phou, as you careful readers may remember, that we visited in Laos. All the tourists do at least Angkor Wat and most likely also Bayon (those ... read more

Another month and another country. Cambodia was in our sights on the six hour journey from Bangkok to the border. Once there we were greeted by a whole host of scam artists. "come with me for visa", "you have to have visa before you go passport control". This although not entirely wrong was a scam as they were charging about $5 more for a visa than at the actual checkpoint. The problem was that there was no signs explaining this so we just had to stay strong and push our way through to the correct visa point. Relieved to be through we then had to find a bus to Siem Reap which is a further three hours from the border. All tourists coming through were met by smartly dressed 'government officials' who supposedly were there to ... read more

Having had our fill of temples in the heat, we wanted to do something else. Shea suggested we visit the museum and a tuk-tuk driver had mentioned the cultural village, but on checking out the cultural village I was under the impression that it catered more to large groups of tourists, there was nobody there! So we did a u-turn and headed to the museum. Pricy at $12 ea and we weren’t slowed to take pics unless we paid extra, like $3 I think, hence, no pictures! We did enjoy the experience, learnt a lot about the history and saw a lot of statues and carvings. Was it worth it? If you are into stuff like this, certainly. It was well put together and there were quite a few people there. Shea liked it, so what ... read more