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Published: April 18th 2010
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The journey from Vientiane to Siem Reap was fairly trouble free, despite the not quite knowing when to get off the train in Bangkok and a troublesome tuk-tuk driver we had to take us to the Thai-Cambodian border, trying to rip us off at the Cambodian embassy. He insisted we couldn’t get a visa on arrival which we had been told we defiantly could and that we would have to pay an extra $10 to sort it out at the embassy. We nearly relented, thinking back to our past experiences of us believing people are trying to hustle us when they are in fact telling the truth and being helpful, however we (nervously) stuck to our guns and went straight to the border where we easily got our visa on arrival and felt rather triumphant that finally someone was trying to hustle and we hadn’t fallen for it.
Having passed through Cambodia’s pet quarantine (don’t ask,) answering the health questions correctly, we emerged into a town of casinos and were stamped into Cambodia. After wondering around bewildered for a while we found a taxi for a reasonable price to take us to Siem Reap. I immediately had a good
feeling about Cambodia - passing through miles of farm land, where houses were built on stilts with what looked to be tent houses made from hay in their gardens, the scenery was certainly interesting. An hour later we entered Siem Reap and Tom immediately saw a marked difference in the landscape, what he remembers to be a smallish, friendly town is now completely geared up for tourism with lots of international 5 star hotels and western restaurants. There is still a lovely atmosphere about the town and whilst it may have lost some ‘authenticity’ it should be a positive thing for the economy.
The taxi driver dropped us off at a tuk-tuk station in Siem Reap where a nice young man who spoke exceptional English, with a real English accent, drove us to a fantastic cheap guesthouse. In return we agreed to let him be our driver and guide around the Angkor temples the day after next. Once inside our room, we found ourselves very excited by the discovery of duvets in the cupboards. Almost immediately we whacked the air con to as low as it would go and snuggled under, just like home! It’s strange the things you
miss.
The next day we had a nice late start, before treating ourselves to a western burger for lunch. Afterwards, we decided to head out of Siem Reap to visit a Landmine museum, along the way we passed through rural villages, watching the local women selling their wares at the side of the street and seeing the children walking home from school. There must have been a charity in the area as many of the houses had wells and pumps in their gardens with a sign stating the donor’s name.
The Landmine Museum was truly inspiring, it was set up by a man called Aki Ra who had been recruited as a child soldier by the Khmer Rouge, he had been laying landmines throughout war torn Cambodia until 1992. When the war was over he returned to civilisation for the first time since childhood and saw what these mines were doing to the civilian population, he decided to begin the mammoth task of disarming these mines by himself, with no special equipment or training. As his collection of disarmed mines grew, he opened up a museum to display these mines to the public and teach people about the
reality of mines and the facts of Cambodia’s mine field problems.
Once the museum was fully functioning, Aki Ra set up an orphanage within it for children disabled by landmines, to give them an education and teach them the skills they would need for the future. Aki Ra now works for a de-mining NGO within Cambodia, but despite his and various other NGO’s hard work within the country, Cambodia is still the one of the most heavily mined countries in the world with over 3 million mines remaining and nearly 1000 casualties and fatalities recorded each year, many of these being overly curious children. (For more information on Aki’s life and work, visit www.landmine-relief-fund.com.)
After this incredibly inspiring visit we returned to Siem Reap with much food for thought. We decided to discuss the day’s events over a street BBQ, this consisted of a round BBQ being brought to the table, in the middle of which we fried Crocodile meat (which is surprisingly delicious and tender) and round the outside we boiled water for vegetables and noodles. During dinner, a street child came over to sell us post-cards, attempting to impress us as he rattled off hundreds of
facts about England, including the last 5 Prime Ministers etc. It really was impressive that he knew more about England than we did! We also watched other street children running past us playing, whilst collecting plastic bottles (presumably for recycling money) with very old, dirty clothes and no shoes. It was really sad to watch and made us feel quite confused and frustrated that people still have to live in this poverty, when we have so much. Nevertheless, there are charities such as World Vision working in Cambodia, slowly helping these children into education.
After dinner, we wandered past a massive tank filled with tiny cleaner fish and a man offering a ‘fish massage’ and we decided why not? 5 minutes later, and we were sat on the edge of the tank with a beer in hand, with hundreds of these fish biting our feet - it tickled like crazy! One hour and some very smooth feet later, we headed back to the hotel for an early night in preparation for the Angkor temples. Unfortunately, this was not to be. Tom realised that Arsenal were playing at 2am, therefore at 5am, after one and a half hours sleep, we
dragged ourselves up to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat, which is apparently the largest religious building in the world.
When we arrived there were already crowds of people there to watch the sunrise, so just before the sun came up, we headed inside to appreciate the grand scale beauty of the building in relative peace and quiet. We raced around some of the other temples, annoying our very grumpy tuk-tuk driver in the process, as he didn’t get much time to nap. Last, but not least, Angkor Thom was the temple that we found most impressive. It is known as the jungle temple and was the temple in which Angelina Jolie shot parts of Tomb Raider. Tom’s claim to fame is that the stone beam that Jolie smoothly walks under in the film, is the same one that Tom, less suavely, walked straight into in real life, nearly knocking himself out in the process. The temple is completely overgrown with huge trees growing through it; knocking down walls and uprooting the floor.
By midday we were completely templed out and decided to head back to the hotel for a nap. The tuk-tuk driver in a fit of
super grumpiness decided to crash us into another tuk-tuk, after a bit of squealing from the passengers, shouting from the drivers and studying of respective tuk-tuks, we made it back relatively unscathed. After a short nap, we headed down to the children’s hospital to give blood, as there is a massive shortage of stored blood in Cambodia and an equally massive need for it. I was slightly nervous as I hadn’t given blood before, but it was all very professional, clean and pain free and I would definitely recommend it to other travellers as a small way to give if you don’t have much money to spare. After all of the excitement of being drained, we decided to treat ourselves to a more upmarket version of the night before’s BBQ - unfortunately it wasn’t as good, so we headed for an early night to prepare for the next day’s journey to Phnom Penh.
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Gill Carr
non-member comment
Temples
This sounds great - I know you enjoyed it last time and after my initial horror that you had given blood in a foreign country, It sounded like a very good thing to do- as you say we have so much in the West whilst they are struggling in parts over there. - very proud of you both xx