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Published: December 4th 2006
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So, to pick up where we left off. Having devised a cunning plan to avoid another marathon bus journey back to Bangkok, we carefully set out our plans to catch the late ferry from Koh Lanta, the last flight from Krabi airport and drop into the nearest hotel at Suvarnabhumi airport in the evening about 9pm ready for a very early rise to catch our flight to Cambodia the next day. However, the best laid plans all go to pot.
First off, we were told by the hotel we had to be picked up at 7.30am to catch the
only ferry of the day (much earlier than we'd expected). We were under the impression we would be going back by car ferry, instead we were dropped at the passenger ferry, but on showing our tickets were ushered onto the boat. Once back at Krabi however, it became apparent that there was no shuttle to take us to the airport and we should have caught a mini-bus on Koh Lanta. Our only consolation was that we were not the only travellers who had the same problem. Credit to the travel company though, they subsidised the taxi fare to the airport. Our
next problem was we were now going to have to spend 5 hours in the airport. No problem, just have a look at the shops, grab some food, find some comfy seats and grab a little shut-eye... err no. Krabi airport is very similar to the Greek airports I remember sitting in for hours whenever going on some "lads" holiday, no shops, marble floors and walls, plastic seats, save that it has one restaurant. *sigh* 5 hours of this... err, no again. When we finally check in we're informed that the flight is delayed by 2 hours (actually turns out to be more like 3 hours). Finally get to Bangkok about midnight, and after some confusion over where the hotel is (mainly due to the fact because Suvarnabhumi is so new there are no local hotels, the nearest is about 20km away), we get to bed about 1am after a looooong day, only to have to get up again at 4.30am to catch our next flight.
Having finally reached Cambodia, once again we were rewarded. From the reading we had done we were expecting a rather bumpy ride on some pot hole ridden roads, instead we found newly tarmacked
roads. This is due to the Angkor-Gyeongju World Culture Expo that was taking place and investment has been put into the road system.
Lor had once again done some excellent accommodation research and booked us into a beautiful traditional wooden Khmer (promounced Kymer) house call La Villa Loti'. The house is 2 storeys and made almost entirely of wood with only 8 rooms. We were on the first floor which has a wide, shared balcony with hammocks strung between the pillars to overlook the garden. Every local we met is extremely friendly, smiling and as helpful as they can be, especially the staff at the guest house who's English is very good.
We spent our first day getting our bearings and visited the Old market where most of the tourists and locals seem to congregate when not at the temples. Almost as soon as we stepped out of the tuk-tuk we were set upon by a couple of local kids of about 7 or 8 who immediately start trying to sell us books, postcards, trinkets or food. $1 it seems will buy an almost limitless amount of items. They tried to sway us into buying their goods buy
reciting the capitals and population of countries in the UK once they found out we were English. Next time I'm going to tell them I come from somewhere like Chile and see if they're so good. We take in the market and buy a couple of local souverniers and take a quick tour round Artisans D'Angkor where people from surrounding villages are taught some of the traditional Khmer crafts and techniques used for centuries. You get to go in the workshops and see everyone at work, their skill and technique is astounding, often making exact duplicas of ancient antiquities by hand.
The next 3 days were spent visiting the Angkor National Park. The site has been declared a World Heritage site and the jewel in the crown is Angkor Wat, thought to be the world's largest temple. The park is massive and I mean massive. We hired a tuk-tuk each day as temples are often a few kilometres apart and there are way too many to list all of them. We visited all the main temples, even Banteay Srey which is 37km north of the main park down a road which can only describe as...'broken'. Our favourite sightseeing moments
included the huge smiling faces of The Bayon, the 100m long Terrace of the Elephants, the the jungle encroached Ta Prohm, late afternoon sunlight at Angkor Wat and sunrise over Sra Srang (the royal bathing pool i.e. a lake).
Our final day was spent visiting the landmine museum run by former conscripted Khmer Rouge child-soldier, Aki Ra. This gives a chilling insight into the unseen side of Cambodia where the country is still riddled with undiscovered landmines and UXO, reputed to be in the millions. Hundreds of maimings and deaths occur each year particularly to children who mistakenly pick them as toys. Bearing in mind that some mines are not meant to kill, only maim, this paints a fairly gruesome picture. One of the most astounding revelations that neither of us were aware of, is that the U.S. declined to sign up to a world wide ban on the use of landmines. If anyone reading this is going to Siem Reap, we urge you to go and visit the museum (although the road to it is also 'broken').
Next stop onto the capital Phnom Pehn via boat on the Tonle Sap Lake and river.
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