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Published: January 25th 2010
“Aaaaaagghhhhhh, will you just get out of my face?!!” was what I
wanted to scream at the many touts that flocked around us as we crossed the border into Cambodia. They literally swarmed us, called out contradictory information and made it difficult for us to think straight. It was a truly uncomfortable experience, but we survived and didn't even properly lose our temper!
Earlier that day we chose to take a public bus to Aranyaprathet and take a tuk-tuk to the border from there. Taking a public bus was four times the price of the train but at four euro per person for a five hour trip it was still great value. Choosing the bus also meant that we could leave at the more humane time of 8.30am, in lieu of the 4am start we would need to make in order to take the train. It was an easy decision in the end.
Having successfully made it to the northern bus station in Bangkok, then onto the correct bus to Aranyaprathet, we negotiated a tuk-tuk to Poi pet, had our passports stamped by Thai immigration, had our e-visa's recognised by the Cambodian Officials only to come out on the
the other side to be attacked by a sea of pink shirted men touting for two different 'free' buses to the bus terminal. At one point we practically had our bags in the boot of a taxi when three different people told us not to trust the driver as he had no licence to carry tourists. 'You must take my bus!', but there was no one else on the free bus, and we were reluctant to board it alone. We were being suffocated by pink shirts clawing at us to give them our attention, and the result was us being angry and very confused. When we walked away from them, they followed us like puppies. When we asked for five minutes, they sent their friends after us, and when we spoke to them sternly, they got even more determined. It seems like an impossible situation!
In the end we heard a guy shouting out looking for two people to share a taxi to Siem Reap. I approached the couple and the lady agreed that we would split the price. As the four of us boarded one of the free buses, we left many disgruntled touts behind. It was unbelievable
and made us all the happier to get away from this bunch of madmen. About ten minutes later we arrived at a terminal in the absolute middle of nowhere. It was well equipped with restaurants, money exchange and toilets, but you got the impression that the goal was to get you as far as here, because you have no other options but to use them once you are here. In hindsight I don't think it matters which bus you take, both offer the same service. We were just so overwhelmed by the touts that we became suspicious of everything!
Our co-passengers were a Thai lady and her American husband. Both were retired and were using their new found freedom to see the world. As we were being bundled into the taxi, Philippe and I were amazed to see the same taxi driver that we had snubbed half an hour earlier because of what the touts from
his company were saying. It was cut-throat business, and the boys were obviously on commission to get us onto the bus. In the end, he wasn't our taxi driver. We got a nice young man who spoke no English but did speak a
little Thai.
It was a two hour drive from Poi pet to Siem Reap. A nice straight tarmac road has recently been opened, thus halving the travel time. As our driver did a steady 60kph no matter what the conditions, beeping his way along the road, I couldn't help but remark that they gave these people this nice new road, but no one told them how to drive on it. The basic rule was if I'm bigger than you and I'm beeping, you better watch out because I am coming through. If a similar deal is going on from the other side, then it basically just a big game of chicken. I had my heart in my mouth for a large portion of the two hour drive, because the landscape was so flat and barren that I didn't have much else to look at. Eventually we were dumped on a dusty patch at the side of the road in Siem Reap, where we were assured we would have a free tuk-tuk transfer to our hostel.
The transfer was only free if you agreed to book a tuk-tuk driver through them to see the temples. We were learning to
just go with the flow, and seen as this was our plan anyway, we agreed, and soon were making our way through the streets of Siem Reap with the wind blowing through our hair.
On first impressions, Siem Reap appears to be a prosperous town. There are lots of big posh hotels and a fair bit of building work still going on. We had chosen to base ourselves a few streets away from main street in the
Happy Guesthouse. When we arrived we were given a nice double ensuite room with fan for the huge sum of seven euros per night. We settled in, had a drink at the bar, and then wandered out of the hostel to find a restaurant.
The next morning we were picked up at nine as arranged and given a driver who didn't understand English but knew how to tell us where he would be waiting for us. We never caught his name but he had a fantastic toothless grin and was eager to do a good job, so the language was never really an issue. Our first stop was at Angkor Wat.
I wasn't fully awake when we left the hostel,
but as we rounded the corner and caught our first view of the Angkor Wat complex, I was immediately paying attention, and eager to see more of it. It is another one of those moments on this trip when I found myself saying “I can't believe we are actually here”. We walked across the large causeway and began to register the minute detail on the stone work in front of us. Every way you look you see stone carvings that must have taken hours upon hours of dedication to create. It is an absolute masterpiece.
We took our time admiring wall after wall of the stone art. I kept expecting to get desensitized to the brilliance of it, but I never did. We walked through cloisters, paid homage to Buddha by lighting an incense stick and generally just tried to soak up the amazing scenes around us. There were a lot of tourists around, but not as many as I was expecting to find. We still had space to stand our ground and gaze uninterrupted at the various images.
After two hours we left Angkor Wat and asked our driver to take us to Angkor Thom. He whisked
us off up the road and under a fantastic gateway that was guarded by 54 stone gods on one side and 54 stone demons on the other. Our driver left us at the east entrance to the Bayon temple. This temple has less well preserved detailed carvings, but is home to the best stone faces I have ever seen. As we rounded each new corner in the temple, another fine example of the large heads would come into view. It is easy to get click-happy with the camera when surrounded by such unusual sights because there is so much of it that it is impossible to commit it all to memory.
We had our fill of the Bayon temple and went to find some lunch. As we sat down we were immediately targeted by local children selling postcards, bracelets, fans, guide books, little Buddha ornaments and anything else a tourist might be convinced to buy. We quickly realised that Siem Reap is a city where everything costs 'One Dollar, mister'. The thing is, with our limited luggage, we normally manage to be logical and resist buying this stuff. However when a small Cambodian child looks at you with their
big, pleading, dark eyes you quickly find yourself handing over a dollar! We had lunch and walked among the other amazing temples in Angkor Thom. On our way back we were loaded down with artwork, fans, clothes and handbags, and had to have a word with ourselves about saying 'No' to pleading Cambodians. I can see why Angelina has one of them!
We asked our driver to bring us to Preah Khan, as we wanted to see a temple that looked more like how they had found them in the nineteenth century. When we got there we saw that restoration work was also underway, but we enjoyed walking around the ruins nonetheless. Our last stop was at Ta Phrom, where our guidebook assured us we would see an example of stone and tree battling it out. Sure enough as we walked through the temple we saw several tree roots gnarled around the temple walls, asserting themselves as king of the castle.
The photographs say more than I can about the Angkor Temples. They are a must see for anyone travelling in this part of Asia. Having seen both Machu Picchu and Angkor Wat, it is difficult to argue
that one is better than the other. In Machu Picchu's favour, they carried slabs of rock up steep mountains from miles around. Angkor Wat is situated on flat ground. In Angkor Wat's favour, I found the engraving phenomenal, and the dedication it must have taken to produce these scenes, is on a par with the dedication required to lug rocks around. Both are fine examples of the intelligence of those that came before us, but both, probably deserve to be considered independent of each other.
We spent only one further day in Siem Reap, enjoying a lazy Saturday spent walking around the city centre, soaking up the atmosphere. We encountered a strange throwback to French culture when, after wrapping our entire parcel up for us at the post-office, we were informed that we couldn't post it until Monday! By then we will be in Phnom Penh, so I guess the parcel is coming with us...
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Tee
non-member comment
Hi!
Amazing photos! I did some research on Angkor and I found out that their greatest achievements was not the temples and architecture but what they can do with water! Unfortunately their Hydraulic engineering made Angkor the largest city in the world ( the size of L.A.) before the Industrial Revolution! Amazing!!