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Published: November 16th 2010
We left Saigon super early in the morning.. we’re getting pretty good at making our own slap-dash breakfast in the hostel so we can make an early exit. Lugged all our luggage up to the bus station and made new mates the moment we walked in the door. A couple of very hungover English boys who had decided to head to Cambodia after meeting some girls the night before who were going there too.. of course the girls didn’t eventuate so here they were, heading off anyways and running around madly trying to sort out the passport photo that would be required at the border.. funny as. We arrived at the border within an hour or so and were all moved out to complete the border process. We had read in Australia that we needed two passport photos each for the Cambodian visa on arrival, but when we got there we found that the Cambodian’s were rather technologically advanced and had swanky cameras there, ready to take our photos instead… which was annoying as we had been carefully carrying those teeny photos for months! The bus ride to Phnom Penh was the usual.. 8 fun filled hours staring out the window
and/or trying to concentrate on a book or catch some zzz’s. On arriving in Phnom Penh (we were only there for an hour or so, waiting for our bus to Siem Reap), we were accosted by a gaggle of tuk tuk drivers and tour operators trying to scam us out of our buck. We quickly went inside to hide from them and savour the working air-con. Our next bus finally arrived and we hit the road again, for another 6 joyous hours. We stopped a couple of times but the conveniences were squats and the food stalls were buzzing with flies.. so disgusting. The only interesting thing on the drive was once it got dark as we were nearing Siem Reap. There were weird rows of black lights in the dark fields! We had no idea what they were. People would have them set up in their front yard. A bamboo frame covered in clear plastic, the frame and plastic created a container of sorts. Each of these frames stood about 1.5m tall. At the top of each frame (and each house would have several), there would be a black light (for those who don’t know what that is.. a
purple coloured fluoro light). Apparently the light attracts crickets, who jump into the container and get stuck.. the locals then eat them.. yum yum!
We arrived in Siem Reap 2 hours late and missed our lift to the hostel... so a cranky Coley scammed a lift for free with another van driver who had arrived to pick up other people on our bus.. well done! We finally got dropped off at our hostel and found the place to be a bit out of town and completely dead. Not to worry, we quickly checked into our room and hit the pool to cool down. It was around 9pm by this time but still really hot. Unfortunately the pool was like a rather warm bath, so much for cooling down! We had a yummy khmer meal at our hostel for dinner. Khmer food is way better than Vietnamese!
Next day we hired a couple of pushies and hit the busy streets to ride to Angkor. We had our trusty map and it looked pretty easy. Our bikes were rather simple affairs, no gears of course. But luckily the road was flat all the way and we cruised along the streets, following
our map. We found an ATM first and discovered that you can’t get Cambodian currency from them, only USD! You use USD to pay for everything and get a combination of USD and local currency as change.. weird. After about half an hour we found the entrance gate, paid our hefty entrance fee and continued on our way. Oh what a sight it was when the temple of Angkor Wat finally came into view.. the shitty trip all the way across the country already felt totally worth it. I’ve always wanted to see this place, pictures I’ve seen over the years have fascinated me. Angkor Wat was built for a king in the early 12th century. The whole temple area, including the surrounding moat, is only about 1km square. But the surrounding area, which includes hundreds more temples is at least 1000 square kilometres. The Angkor Archaeological Park includes about 70 temples and is 24km east/west and 8km north/south from the actual Angkor Temple. So since it was this huge, we had no way of seeing everything. We didn’t really realise how big the whole place was until we started trying to see it on bicycles!
As soon as
we looked like we were slowing down on our bikes, we were accosted by a horde of hawkers. They wanted to sell us tours and guides, water and food as well as minding our bikes. We didn’t need any of this and quickly chained our bikes up and high tailed it out of there. We made our way over the stone bridge, towards the awesome temples, the classic view I knew so well from pictures I had seen over the years. The heat was so oppressive we actually had to carry around umbrellas to shield us from the sun. We got ripped off the moment we walked into the first temple, a little man in front of a sacred statue asked if we wanted to light an insence.. and of course that cost 1USD... first and last time we fell for that sneaky trick that day. The temples were in such amazing condition as they are still used to this day. As you get further away from the main city, the temples are in a much higher state of disrepair. There was a lot of scaffolding while we were there as there is a lot of restoration work going on
at the moment. The feel of the place was just amazing, it felt a privilege to be there. As we entered the central structure, we veered off to the left where there was less of a crowd. All the surrounding walls on the temple perimeter were decorated with massive carved stone murals, all in almost perfect condition. The murals depicted huge fighting scenes between human and mythical beast armies. Other murals showed beautiful ‘Devatas’ (deities), dancing in groups. The architecture was awe inspiring, it was a shame it was so hot as we would have loved to just sit there for a while and soak up the special atmosphere.
We hit the road again after wrestling our bikes through the gang of hawkers trying to sell us junk. We consulted our map and it didn’t look far to our next stop, Angkor Thom, which is an area of 9 square kilometres and is home to the famous Bayon. The ride was really easy as the road was so flat, so we cruised along chitty chatting and enjoying the view. We soon came upon the next treat for our eyes, the magnificent South Gate, guarded by two rows of huge
garudas (mythical bird-like creatures) on either side of the bridge holding a long ‘naga’ (great snake, king cobra). The South Gate was huge and towered above us, the opening big enough for vehicles to pass through. The gate depicts ‘Avalokitesvara’, who is the one that embodies the compassion of all Buddhas. Beneath the huge face on either side of the gate, were a group of elephants, holding the gate up with their trunks. Another 1km of riding and the massive, serene faces of Bayon came into view. A lot of this temple is crumbling with age and its covered in lichen. But the faces in the high temples are still easy to see from every angle and on every roof, there are 216 faces in fact! Bayon was full of tiny little rooms that we could only guess what they were used for. We wandered through the labyrinth until we could bear the heat no longer and went in search of shade.
Next we explored Baphuon, which was being restored. We watched the men at work for a while and wondered how they could do such hard work in this heat. They were dismantling the temple brick by brick,
then numbering the bricks and laying them out in a field. These numbers and their plan would then be used to totally reconstruct the temple as good as new, amazing! We bought some pineapple from a local vendor (their pineapples are really small and sweet, the vendors cut them beautifully and then quarter a whole pineapple and put each bit on a skewer so it’s easy to eat)... yum! We got on our trusty bikes again and rode past the magnificently carved Elephant Terrace and the Leper King Terrace. We were going to push on through the North Gate but Aaron’s chain suddenly broke so we had a change of plans. Bloody crap bikes! Luckily we had just rode past some vendors who happened to have a little workshop. With hand signals we showed him the problem and he said 1USD, we said no problem! We bought a cool drink from the lady next door while we waited and her little daughter giggled big time when we said hello to her in Khmer, she was very cute and full of smiles. Once the bike was done we decided to call it a day. The map showed a hefty ride to
get to the next temple and we still had to ride the 8km back to town, plus we were pretty sure it was beer-o-clock by now and we deserved a reward for our hard work.
We hit the pool when we got back.. well.. it was more like a warm bath. We decided to hit the town and arranged a tuk tuk pickup with our hostel and scammed the fare for a mere dollar. The ride there was fun so when we stopped we gave the guy an extra buck. We got dropped at Street #8, or as its more popularly known ‘Pub Street’.. perfect! Pub street is one long street, basically for tourists. It’s wall to wall restaurants and bars, all with English speaking waiters and English menus... and of course, tourists. All of the venues had big signs advertising their drink prices and everywhere sold a glass of beer for under 1USD, heaven! We chose an interesting looking place and got a seat near the street, which turned out to be a mistake because of course you were easier to hassle for the hawkers. The drinks were cheap so we got into it and had a nice
big meal to replenish after our big day. There were little boys wandering the streets trying to sell books to tourists, lonely planet books and popular novels... all forged, photocopied books of course. There was also a man who broke our hearts. He was crawling around on all fours as he had no hands or feet. He had ladies plastic sandals on his hand stumps and he had a sign around his neck showing a photo of his family and telling why you should give him money, so of course we felt we had to, poor guy.
The beggars got a bit much for us to be comfortable sitting there for too long, so we went in search of the night markets. Fortunately for Aaron, I didn’t find much I wanted to buy there, so he breathed a sigh of relief. We came across an interesting bar in the middle of the markets though, so we settled there and bought some cocktails. The bar men there were very skilled at pulling in the tourists. The couple next to us said they had stopped for one drink and were now very drunk as the bar man was keeping them entertained
South Gate
This gate was huge and totally awe inspiringwith magic tricks. .. so we asked the bar guy to show us. He was really really good, every trick he did we were like ‘how the hell did he do that!’. The best one though was when he asked us for 1USD and put it inside a metal cup and put it upside down on the bar and says ‘I bet you I can get that dollar out without touching the cup’.. so we were like ‘ok, you’re on!’. So he starts waving his hands over the cup and we’re watching thinking we are gonna win this one. Then he starts waving his hands under the bar top, making like he is pulling the dollar through the bar. Then he pulls his hand out from under the bar and quickly puts it in his pocket and tells us he got it. We were surprised and Aaron immediately says ‘no!’ and picks up the cup, and then the bar man promptly grabs the dollar and puts it in his pocket.. clever bugger! So he kept us entertained with several more tricks until some more tourists turned up, then he met his match because one of that group was a professional
magician, so we lost our entertaining little barman.
Next day we organised a tuk tuk tour, to see more of Angkor. We decided it was just too big for us to pedal around. I think we paid 10USD for the tour if I remember rightly. The driver wanted to go his way but we wouldn’t make a deal until he agreed to go our way. So with map in hand, we hit the road, the easy way. Our driver was a lovely guy, his name was Tow. He was really shy but very friendly once he realised we were nice people. He took us straight to where we wanted to start, the temple of Preah Khan. Thankfully the tourists here were scarce. This temple was guarded again by the garudas holding the King Cobra Naga. The temple is surrounded by a moat and measures 700x800m and is in quite a state of disrepair. There are fallen bricks everywhere, in big piles. There were also huge fig trees that had started to grow in the brick work and were slowly tearing it apart with their roots. The atmosphere here was quite eerie without people around, it really was beautiful and
must have been a sight to take your breath away back when it was first built.
We headed out the other side to meet our driver. On the path back to the road there was a small music group set up on little seats. They were all victims of war, with missing hands and feet and blind eyes. They were silent until they saw tourists coming along, then they would strike up a tune and then stop again as soon as we were out of sight. Some little girls harassed me here and wouldn’t let up, trying to sell me some junk or other. They followed all the way back to the road while I was getting more and more annoyed. Then we got to our driver and were surrounded by yet more hawkers trying to sell us water and pineapple, both of which we already had. Tow saw us coming and got up from his nap and we quickly jumped in and sped off down the road. Next stop, Neak Pean. Some historians believe that Neak Pean represents Anavatapta, a mythical lake in the Himalayas whose waters are thought to cure all illness. It is based on the
ancient Hindu belief of balance. Four connected pools represent Water, Earth, Fire and Wind. The ancients believed that going into these pools would balance the elements in the bather, thus curing disease. In the middle of the four healing ponds is the central water source. There is a statue of Bahala, as a symbol of drowning prevention. This temple area was very small and we were out of there in 10 minutes to head to the next temples, Ta som, East Mebon and Pre Rup.
All of the next temples were much the same as the others we had already seen, so we quickly went through them. On the way we stopped at the vendors and got soft drinks for our driver, he was so sweet and didn’t want to accept it, but we eventually got him to take it and he had a huge grin on his face. We zoomed along in our little tuk tuk eating our pineapple on a stick and taking in the picturesque sights. Finally we came to the highlight of our day, Ta Prohm. Ta Prohm is where some of the movie Tomb Raider was filmed. If you look at our photos you
might recognise it. Ta Prohm was built so long ago, in 1186AD, and it is also in a state of disrepair, the jungle is eating it up. It emerges from the jungle as it comes into sight, there are big fig trees growing all through it. There are metal braces, supporting most of the windows on the site. There is restoration work going on here now, once again they are slowly taking it apart piece by piece and then putting it back together. The temple site was adorned with more large, serene faces and well preserved stone reliefs. We got a bit trigger happy on the camera and took as many shots as we could!
On the road again, two more stops. We asked our mate Tow if we could do a special stop at Phnom Bakheng on our way back. We had noticed elephants there the other day and were hoping to see them. Turned out that the elephants carried people up the hill to see this temple. We decided to walk it as the elephants looked a bit sad and we would have felt bad riding them. Tow told us to take our brollys because the weather
looked like it was turning, but we ran up the hill without them anyway. There was nobody around and we had this temple all to ourselves. The steps up to the top were a killer, they were so steep we had to walk up using our hands to steady on the steps in front. It started to rain just as we got to the top and it was such a perfect moment. The storm clouds rolling over and the rain getting heavy, we were on this temple top all by ourselves and could see majestic Angkor Wat in all it’s splendour in the jungle below. We basked in the moment and wandered around, wondering what all the strange little temple rooms were for.
Tow had a good laugh when we came down the hill all wet. He took us back home and we got ready and hit Pub Street again. At all the restaurants there are waiters hanging out the front by their menu, to try and convince you to come into their restaurant. We were reading a menu and the little guy asked us where we were from and Aaron said Australia and the little guy goes ‘bloody oath
mate!’. We both cracked up laughing and decided to eat there. We had a good little meal and our lovely waiter entertained us the whole time. He told us whenever he met people from a different country, he would ask them to teach him how to say a common phrase. So we taught him to say ‘you want to chups bro’.. in Kiwi of course. After having a laugh with the waiter, a regular customer turned up and started talking to him. He sat near us and we got talking, turns out he was Australian. He was a bit of a nomad and had been living in Siem Reap for a while and had somehow landed a job teaching at a Cambodian school. He had plenty of stories to tell but the most entertaining one was about his lady friend. He was complaining about how he didn’t earn enough money to get by so I joked that he should sell himself for cash and he goes ‘well, actually.. about that’. Turned out he had gone home with a street lady and she had paid him a dollar and made him breakfast! Unfortunately this happened a few times and then a
few weeks down the track said lady spotted him having dinner with another woman. So she went and got all of her friends and started a fight with him on the street! His new lady friend got so scared that she ran to the nearest cop to ask for help, who wouldn’t assist because she had no money to pay him.. only in Cambodia! After dinner we had a ‘fish massage’. There were loads of these places around. A bar with a big fish tank out the front, full of little fish. You would pay a small fee and then sit on a platform and put your feet in the tank, the little fish would go mad trying to eat the dead skin off your feet. We managed to scam a free beer out of our guy, so once we got over the crazy tickling sensation, we settled in for a drink while the fishies did their work.
Next day we hit the road again, the long road back to Phnom Penh. The bus was sooooo bumpy I swear it had no shocks whatsoever. The ride was crap and seemed to last forever. When we finally got to our
bus station we were accosted by tuk-tuk drivers to take us to our hostel. We grabbed the first one since we were already fed-up. Seconds after we got in this other little guy storms over the road and picks a fight with our driver to the point where he was holding the steering wheel so we couldn’t drive off and he was kicking the wheels.. what a baby! He was pissed because apparently Aaron promised him a few days previous that when we came back, we would let him pick us up. We had seen this guy before but had in no way promised anything, we had actually tried to get away from him and his mates and run inside so they couldn’t harass us! Anyway, I yelled at him and told him to stop being a child and get over it which of course he ignored. So we got our stuff and walked off. Found another bloody driver, what a hassle! Our hostel was bloody awful. The owner was this grizzled old white guy and all his staff were young, pretty girls. Our room was a joke, all the beds were on the floor, a slatted frame with a
thin mattress and a fan next to each one. There was no security for our backpacks, only tiny lockers out in a hallway for our valuables, where it would be easy for somebody to steal from. We asked to put our passports in the house locker, all good. We went out for lunch and had a few drinks and a nice relax. Ended up getting a bit hard since most restaurants have seating on the street and the hawkers can come right to your table. We got over it eventually and went home. We needed something out of the safe so I asked the owner and he sent me to the room with one of his staff. I was shocked to find that our passports were simply lying there on top of somebody elses luggage! We were very glad we would be leaving here tomorrow. I got our stuff and we went upstairs to bed and slept with it under our pillows. The night was one of the worst on the whole trip. It was so hot that the little fans barely did anything, the mattresses were so thin we could feel the slats underneath, there was traffic noise outside
and to add insult to injury, there were mosquitoes!
Aaron hit the road next morning and went to see the killing fields. I opted out of this one as that is something I never want to see.... so over to you Az for the next bit..
I wanted to get to the killing fields early cause I also wanted to go see Tuol Sleng (Famous Khmer Rouge prison). Talked my tuk tuk driver in to taking me to both for just 9 bucks. I arrived at the killing fields and was the only one there, paid my 2 bucks entry and made my way towards the pagoda that was erected in remembrance of the people who died there. As I slowly walked inside I could hear a hollow metallic noise in the background, “tong, tong, tong” and when I came face to face with the glass centre of the pagoda filled with human skulls I could hear children screaming off in the distance, or in my head. The killing fields has such a heavy atmosphere, turns out that I heard children laughing in the school next door but thought I could hear them screaming. As I left bus
loads of school kids showed up and the atmosphere changed, was it the killing fields or did I build it all up in my own head? Either way it had a deep effect upon me.
I jumped in my tuk tuk and made my way back into town for my second trip of the day, Tuol Sleng. Tuol Sleng was an old school in Phnom Penh, the Khmer Rouge decided that it would make the perfect prison and torture camp. Anyone with any sort of education were dragged to Tuol Sleng for “re-education”. The prison was made up of different sections, the first was for the torture chambers. This was where they found fourteen inmates dead when the city was taken back by the Vietnamese, pictures of these inmates as they were found were on the walls of the cells they were found in. The second section were the holding cells where they divided up the classrooms with brick and wooden walls so that the cells were so small that you could only just lie down longways. I went into one of these cells and closed the door behind me, I opened that door up real fast, I couldn’t
imagine being imprisoned there, scary thought. All through the prison you see photo’s of the victims in the form of there mug shots. Humans can be capable of the most horrid things, these to trips were not the most pleasant of the whole trip but I am glad that I went and saw the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng Prison, if these types of atrocities are forgotten then we learn nothing.
I met Coley back at the hostel and we used the same tuk tuk driver to take us to the airport, we decided to fly to Chang Mai cause of all the trouble in Bangkok and warnings by the Australian Govt of unrest on the border. Goodbye bye Cambodia, you are beautiful and raw and sad.
Hello Thailand!!!!!!
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