Angkor What?

---

Welcome to Cambodia. As soon as we crossed the border from Thailand to Cambodia, the contrast between the two countries was immediately obvious. The crossing was quite tough. You had to que for Thai immigration, do a Cambodian medical form and then que for Cambodian arrivals. If we’d been alone, it would’ve been really hard because there’s just no signposts and no English but luckily we had our guide, Chenda to help. My passport is now very interesting with it’s various visa’s and stamps! After the crossing, we drove to Siem Reap, which is the nearest town/city to Angkor Wat, the main attraction we are here to see. Unlike Thailand, Cambodia is very rural and 90% of the population live in the country. You see just rice fields, traps for catching crickets, cows, water buffalo and houses. The houses are incredibly small and run-down and are built on stilts so the people can avoid letting insects in and also can use the space underneath the house to escape the heat.

Cambodia is even poorer than I first thought and Chenda told us loads of stuff about growing up there and some of the history. 50% of the population are under 18 because millions were killed in mass genocide by Pol Pot in the 70’s! Petrol is smuggled in from Thailand to avoid tax and it’s sold on the roadside in old glass bottles which is a funny sight.

Our hotel here is good again and the breakfast is tasty too so we’re overindulging a lot. After settling in, our group went out for dinner at a Cambodian families house! Our tour guide had organised it all for us and it was one of the best experiences ever. Firstly, the tuk-tuk ride there was mad because the roads are such bad quality so the ride is extremely bumpy. The house was down a maze of mud track roads which had flooded a bit. When we got there, we were greeted a pair of cousins and 9 kids! Their house was very small, they lived in total poverty but they had ear to ear smiles all night. Some of the group went into the fields to catch frogs with the kids and we saw a beautiful sunset over the village. Dinner was ginger and lemon chicken, a noodle dish, a curry dish, tom yam soup, rice and a fish dish and it was so so yummy. We all had loads and drank some local “Angkor” beer. After dinner, we all went into the fields and were just messing around with the kids, taking photos and eating dragonfruit. We were so lucky to get to do this and it’s a highlight of the trip for sure.

Back at Siem Reap, we went to the night market in town. They offer a fish massage for $2 including a free can of coke or beer. A fish massage is huge in asia and I know it’s getting popular at home too. For anyone who doesn’t know, you put your feet into a tank of fish which nibble the dead skin off your feet. Terry tried it but only lasted a minute because it tickled too much. I opted for a regular foot massage which costs $1 for 15 minutes. Cambodia use US dollars as their currency but they also have Cambodian Riel. The Riel is terrible because its 4000 to 1 dollar so you have to carry loads of cash for even the smallest amouts. All ATM’s given out dollars and most things in supermarkets and resteraunts are priced in dollars yet if you pay in dollars, you sometimes get riel back in change. Riel is completely useless outside of Cambodia as you cannot exchange it anywhere! I bought a t-shirt for $2 and flip flops for $3 while Terry got a new vest for $2 and I got a banana and chocolate pancake too!

Siem Reap has loads of tourists so the touts are out in full force trying to get you to buy stuff. They are not so bad as we’ve had practice in Thailand but the kids are everywhere selling postcards, bracelets and other trinkets and it’s just breaking my heart having to ignore them. They are so persistent and some of their English is so good. They named the last 5 Australian presidents for one of the aussie’s on the tour and say “please lady, I am soooo hungry” and tug at your t-shirt which is really hard. Unfortunately, if you give one money, they all want it and they spend it on crap. One girl tried to buy a kid some bread and milk and got sworn at violently because the girl wanted ice cream. Their so sweet but we just have to try and ignore them.

Siem Reap has a street called “pub street” which is predictably filled with bars. Our whole group went to one called Temple Bar which was really nice. It costs 50 – 75 cents for a beer, $5 for a whole jug of whiskey coke and $2 for a cocktail which is just dirt cheap and we’re loving it. There are so many bugs out after dark and at one point, I looked on my arm and this huge cricket was sitting there! It was gross, but over the past 3 weeks I’ve become slightly more tolerant so I just brushed it off. The mosquitoes are hardcore and we’re both taking malaria tablets every day. We put on repellent but still got bitten so we’re just covering up instead from now on. It’s very hot again here, but after dark a cardigan is not too unbearable.

On Monday morning, we set off for Angkor Wat which is massive site with temples and buildings dating back thousands of years. It’s world famous and people flock here in the millions over the year. I hadn’t heard of it until I started researching Asia for the travelling but I think thats because I’m so NOT into history. Anyhow, we had a guide and a bus for the day because it’s massive and also got unlimited water and soft drinks as part of the package. Look at the photo of my day pass, it’s so professional! We had one day pass but they do two and three day versions and I can see why because you could spent three days there if you were a history buff.

We visited Angkor Wat first which is the main attraction. I’m going to let the photos speak for themselves as we got some great photos but the place is amazing. Some is original and some is restoration work. After Angkor Wat, we visited Angkor Thom which is the city and Bayon Temple within the city. We also went to Ta Phrom which is the temple where Tomb Raider was filmed and while Angelina Jolie was here in Cambodia, she adopted one of her brood, a Cambodian kid. Oh, by the way, Cambodian people are called Khmer (pronounced Kai-mer) but I keep calling them Cambodian, trying to stop. The guide was very knowledgable and helpful but he went into too much detail for a group of twenty somethings. We did have quite a bit of free time to explore and by 3pm we were finished for the day and back on the bus. As it’s a religious site, you will see in the photos that we had to cover up a bit so it was quite hot and sweaty all day. I enjoyed Angkor Wat but I liked sitting around, chilling and thinking about life rather than learning about Buddhists and Hindu stories. The site had a great feeling of calm and also, great western style toilets. I’ve come to expect squat toilets now see. These ones had a great sign above them which was a picture of a western toilet with someone standing up on it, squatting with a big X through it!

After exploring the temples, we went back to the hotel to chill out and relax. In the evening, most of our group went out for dinner together then for drinks. We’d discovered pub street the night before so we spent the night there in Temple Bar and Angkor What bar. This night was very messy. We spoke to some Cambodian girls, Terry played a French guy at pool and we drank too much. We got home about 2am but I stayed up chatting to some of the girls from our group till much later. The next morning, I woke up at 8am and as I was still very merry, happily ate a huge hotel breakfast and went back to sleep. Terry woke up and threw up and continued to do so most of the day and throughout the 6 hour coach ride! A girl from our group has bad food poisoning too and some of the others are feeling quite rough so the coach journey was really bad for some. I spent most of the ride listening to my iPod and just looking out the window. At one point we almost run over a cow and then we took a huge branch off a tree.

We reached Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia at about 7pm and went for dinner by the riverside. Most of the group had hangovers so we were all craving western food like mad. I had pizza for the first time in weeks.
So we are now in Phnom Penh (pronounced p-nom-pen) which is completely different from Siem Reap. It is a lot more modern here and we are all really shocked at the city. Last night we drove past a “anti-corruption unit” building which is ridiculous because Cambodia is insanely corrupt.

I took a video from the coach for 30 seconds which just shows what 90% of Cambodia looks like so watch it and enjoy the photos. I’ll blog about Phnom Penh in a couple of days. I’m really liking being with a tour group at the moment as the group are all really nice. Our leader does loads of English impressions which is hilarious!

---