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Published: March 9th 2009
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in transit
phnom penh to Siem riep As many if not all of you know we are safely back in the states at this point. In fact we have been for a month and a half so my apologies on not getting to this post sooner. To be truthful, my memories of the trip are already starting to fade so I will write about a few highlights and the rest of the stories will have to be told by the myriad of images that we posted with this entry. I originally considered posting two entries of just pictures just to give people a taste of the visual splendor that is Angkor wat and the surrounding temples but now I am thinking that might be a little excessive.
On to the stories:
Story number one: The bus ride to Siem Reap sucked ass. Stuck in the back row once again. One and a half lane road shared between cars, buses, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, livestock, pedestrians, farming machinery and ox drawn carts. I'm pretty sure our bus-driver just did a whole bunch of Meth as he was truly possessed while driving. Swerving around anything and everything. Gunning it and then slamming on the brakes to narrowly avoiding killing people/livestock/all
in the back again
In cambodia we always end up stuffed in the last row of the bus of us. Not for the feint of heart, weak of stomach, those prone to seizures, anyone with a pre-existing medical condition or those wishing to live to see their next birthday. Not for anyone if they can help it. But we couldn’t help it so it was clearly for us. I think the scariest moment was when we came within inches of crashing into a Beer Lao truck. For whatever reason, the Beer Lao truck slowed down, our driver did not. Brakes squealed, I braced my legs against the seats on either side of me as I was in the back row, middle seat and had nothing but aisle in front of me and by some miracle the beer truck headed into one ditch and we swerved off towards the other missing the truck by 2 inches at best. This is where the pre-existing medical condition might have killed me, if I would have had one. The second near collision was a classic game of chicken with livestock. I'm not sure who plays chicken with a bus and livestock but as I mentioned earlier our bus driver was either very special or drug addled.
Story number two: I got
some gnarly food poisoning in Siem Reap. Actually it was at a food stand that our driver took us to inside the Angkor Thom complex. It was three times as expensive as it should have been and not very good by any standard. The food poisoning was the icing on the cake. Here's a tip for my fellow travelers; if your guide will not even try your dish but will eat from all the other ones, odds are that you shouldn’t be eating it either. So a couple of hours after lunch it started to become evident that something was setting up shop in my tummy that wasn’t supposed to be there. By the time we finished our tour and were headed back to the hotel in Siem Reap I was in serious pain and was acutely aware that I was mere moments away from crapping my pants. Every little bump we went over was excruciating and slowly humming along at 20 mph on a little tuk-tuk when you are in serious need of finding a bathroom immediately is torture. Somehow, we made it back to the hotel in time and I didn’t even ruin my trousers. So we spent
New Years Eve in my room within 10 feet of the toilet rather than out celebrating. Thankfully, A Chinese opera was on the TV that night. I'm not sure why I was thankful for that. I was more thankful for the flush toilet really. Except that the water would periodically shut off at the hotel. So it was an intermittently flushing toilet. But a quick call to the staff would always rectify the situation relatively quickly.
I spent New Years Day recovering in the hotel as well and then the following day we headed back to Thailand. I was still feeling pretty rough and could not stray overly far from a toilet. So when we got back to Bangkok we called Suthep and told him what had happened and asked which doctor we should go to the next day. His reply was "ok, ten minutes." Which is Thai for "my nephew will pick you up in 10 minutes and drive you to the hospital". Which he did. At the hospital they did some intake stuff and got me in to see a doctor very promptly and then gave me a small grocery bag full of medicine to cure my belly.
spot the chickens!
2 points per chicken!
5 points per shrubery! The whole ordeal didn’t take more than half an hour and cost me a little more than $25. That is the nice thing about traveling. Medical care anywhere in the world besides the US is relatively affordable. If this would have happened back in the good old US of A I would have likely had to declare bankruptcy or take out a second mortgage on my cat. But enough about all that nonsense, on to the next story!
Story number three: Upon pulling up to Angkor wat we were nearly assaulted by a mob of hawkers. Traveling in SE Asia usually entails hawkers, especially in tourist areas, but these were a different breed. Imagine climbing out of your tuk-tuk into a rugby scrum and you will start to have some notion of what it's like trying to get through the mob of hawkers at the temples entrance. They grab, they pull, they shout, they put their wares literally in your face and they don't take no for an answer. One extremely persistent hawker dogged Em as we kept walking towards the temple and she eventually agreed to purchase a book from him on her way out. Once inside the
temple we strayed a little off the temple tour path and were mobbed by an even more aggressive throng of hawkers. Here is one classy excerpt:
Hawker: Hey lady, by a shirt for your mother!
Em: My mother is dead.
Hawker: By a shirt for his mother then!
Classy stuff. Somehow one hawker managed to sell Em a book, despite the fact she had already agreed to buy the same book from the hawker outside the temple walls. But more on that momentarily. So we toured around Angkor and it was awesome. Incredibly beautiful, remarkably ornate and huge as well. The pictures describe it best so I will keep my blathering on the subject to a minimum. We toured around the temple for a couple of hours and then headed back out the way we came in. As you may have guessed the hawker that Em had promised to buy a book from was waiting for us and upon seeing the book in her hand screamed "Liger!" You are number one Liger!". He was absolutely furious. It was as if she had just burned down his house or scuffed his new Air Jordan’s. He was hopping up and
down shouting. Em tried apologizing to him but it was no use he continued screaming "Liger!" until he realized the correct word was "Liar" and then took up screaming that instead. He screamed at us for a while as we went searching for our tuk-tuk and then he screamed at us some more as we drove by him on our way out of the temple. I'm sure there are some lessons in there somewhere but I will leave that for you to sort out.
Note: Despite my caterwauling, Emily had a great time. I too might have had a great time if I were not me. So despite my misadventures I whole heartedly endorse going to Angkor wat before decrepitude sets in. It is truly an amazing place and a must see for those who are able to do so. Just bring a bag lunch.
So that is our Angkor adventure I hope you enjoyed it more than I did. This may or may not be my last entry for a bit. As I said I am back home and despite having many stories to tell I'm not sure when I will find the time to tell them.
So if this is goodbye until our next adventure then good luck and good day.
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