Cambodia

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On Sunday we were up at the crack of dawn to catch the bus and cross the border from Thailand to Cambodia arriving later in the day in Siem Reap at the Freedom Hotel.

The mini-bus trip was uneventful and we travelled through land that was reminiscent of other parts of Thailand with the rural sellers selling a wide range of food on the sides of the highway and the roads in good condition.

Before we got to the border, we needed to complete our passport details and hand over 1000baht so we stopped at a 7/11 for a bite to eat where there was plenty of choice from local to fast food. I had some vegetables with rice. Many of the others had not got into the habit of eating the local food and chose to eat from the 7/11. Here we filled out and completed our passport details.

The people on this trip are older than the last group. We have a retired couple from NSW, two girlfriends who have left husbands and children at home in Perth and one is a financial planner and the other an editor for a travel magazine, a town planner from Melbourne who is not yet 40 and a widow, an older man on his own from Auckland who works part time and organises book festivals for a living, a couple from Wgton who are on their way to visit their adult children in the UK, a younger couple from Auckland who work in engineering and forensics and my new friend and roomie Darra who is a chemistry teacher in Denver, Colorado and who is about my age. We appear to be a good group of people who all get along.

The border crossing was quite an experience as initially we had to visit the Cambodian consulate about five kilometres from the border, but mostly because we had to move through a market area that was particularly busy and quite dirty with dust and mud on the roads and men pushing or pulling very rickety carts that contained produce mostly in sacks and of course luggage going from one border to the other. Then we faced a long line of locals and tourists all aiming to get through the border as quickly as possible. It was a little like arriving at an airport where you had to pass through airport control and the office workers processed our papers and checked out we were who we said we were. We were not searched and nor did we pass through any machine that checked our bags and hand luggage.

Many of the locals were crossing the border from Thailand to Cambodia so that they could go to the numerous casinos that were mostly built in the no mans’ land between the two countries. Thailand does not allow gambling so it explains why the casinos are built near its borders.

As we crossed yet another border crossing into Cambodia you sensed a real change in standards of living. Here beyond the Cambodian border were many stalls selling similar products you would find in Thailand at their markets, but the shops and stalls appeared dingy and dilapidated and grubby with dust everywhere and the streets were very dirty and the cars now drove on the opposite side of the road. Although you had to look hard to realise that as the motorists seem to have a rule that anything goes and cars, tuktuks, bikes and people jostle each other for right of way..

We travelled for another few hours to Siem Reap which has been through a growth spurt in the last ten years with considerable construction having taken place and many hotels for tourists are quite new with no building about six stories (the reason for this is that this city can’t be built higher than the capital city) and tourism only beginning to take off, now that the country is more stable.

Siem Reap is the gateway to the magnificent temples found in this region of Angkor of which we have now visited in two days, five of them.

The Cambodians use the US dollar; although it is the unofficial currency; as the local currency is the riel and 4000 riel is equivalent to one US dollar.

For 40 US dollars we bought a three day pass to see the temples. The first temple we visited was Bayon and it was constructed between 1100 and 1200AD with amazing bas-relief carving with mysterious Bhudda faces carved on the towers at the third level. This temple is made of stone and has since been partially restored with many of the original carvings intact. This temple is in the area of Angkor Thom and is surrounded by other temples. The structures at the site were built as a temple to the king who could have been dead before its completion as the workers’ spent up to 35 years building them. After the king died they used it for his funeral. As is their custom he would have been cremated.

The Cambodian people who are predominantly Buddhist also embrace aspects of the Hindu religion. The little that I know is that Buddhists are about Knowledge and are peaceful people and the Hindu are the ones that are happy to be warriors and fight battles. Over the centuries battles have been won and lost and pieces of land changed hands many times.

One story our guide shared was the time the king decided his fighters were tired and they needed to go home to their families and a battleground was no place for women, children and the aged, so he checked it out with the warlord he was fighting and they agreed to send all the soldiers home for a rest and to plant their crops before being summoned later on to return to the battle. Weird eh.

The relief on the walls of the buildings is there to tell stories of the battles and the lives of the people as very little written records are available. To this day the Cambodians do not actually know what all the rooms in the temples were used for but they were homes to the Buddhist monks and the Brahmins of India who were the most spiritual of the people and they refer to these building now as library.

The next temple we visited was the Baphuon and it is a pyramid type temple with a couple of swimming pools and a long walkway leading to it. Lots of the temple appears to be intact and once you climbed to the top of the purpose built staircase that would have been at least at 80 degrees the view was amazing.

Yes and yet another temple to visit and I am lost as to what this one was called even though I thought at the time I would remember it. Hopefully the photos will sell it to you as a breath-taking experience.

Finally after finishing the day we were going to wait for the sun to set, but realised that that was not likely as it had started to rain and the cloud had made things overcast. Fortunately we were all pretty tired so getting back to the hotel was quite desirable.

I quickly organised myself and went for a walk to initially look for a massage but only found a local market that was quite filthy to say the least. The local people were happy, as we completed for minimal space from trucks, motorbikes and people. The lanes were mud and potholes and these appeared to have been filled with plastic bags and other rubbish thrown on the ground by the people. It looked like they were living on the rubbish tip as we would know it at home. Interestingly enough there were no real strong smells of anything although at one end they were selling all kinds of sea life from crabs to eels to larger fish and spratty things. Then there were the plucked chickens as well as those chickens about to die and the pork laid out in the warm air waiting for a customer.

Once over this, Darra and I went in a tuktuk at a cost of 3US dollars to the night market to have a look around. We pretty much only got as far as the jewellery and eventually spend some money here, Darra on a diamond bracelet for $30.00 and me on gold earrings for $20.00. Yea! Right! The lady tried to tell us that she had a machine that would tell her and us if something was made of a precious stone and offered to do this to the jewellery I was wearing….so my garnets were rubies and my zirconia was a diamond….no we did not believe her, but bought the jewellery because we liked it.

The Cambodian people have had a rough time to say the least over the last fifty years in particular what with Pol Pot and other factions involved in the fighting in their country. The landmines in their country have killed millions of people alone. It seems that they do not follow genealogy as they do not write much of it down. A citizen will not necessarily know their true birthdate as it is not considered important. To recall your genealogy you generally learn up to your great grand- parents. On one day of the year the children of the family pray to their parents and also apologise as parents are revered by their children and are looked up to by their children and looked after by their children in the parents’ old-age.

Another story shared by the guide is that he is officially 29 years of age, but really he is 34. That is because children of a certain age had to go to military school at the time and when his parents were asked they lied making him about 4 years younger so that he could stay at home.

Children here are used to sell wares in the streets. Primary schools have two sessions in a day with the first one starting at 7.30am and finishing at 11.30am. Then there are afternoon classes for another group. This is because there are not enough buildings to have all the children at school at the same time and teachers’ are also in short supply but that does not surprise me as the poor old teacher has to teach a morning and an afternoon class. So when they are not at school they are on the street selling to the tourists and they are very insistent. As their English is excellent I have started saying after the first no, “Are you not listening to me? I said No.” And wow that works such a treat, but others just ignore them and I think that is sad….maybe this is a cultural difference that needs sorting.

Tuesday was a 4.30am beginning as we needed to get to the temple at Angkor Wat to see the sun rise. The place was busy with all the other tourists arriving to do the same as us and people walked to a structure that would give them the greatest vantage point. Mostly there was a sense of expectation and calm around the place as people waiting for the magnificent spectacle of the sun rising up over the temple. The silhouette it created was worth the trip although there was too much cloud again to truly see the stunning sunrise. There is a pond here too and I have a lovely photo of the silhouette reflected in the pond.

Angkor Wat is currently being restored too but there was heaps to see with the structures and the stories carved into the walls as relief. A lot of sandstone has been used. This building is considered to be the supreme masterpiece of Kymer architecture and the relief is a combination of Bhuddist and Hindu ideologies. This temple is built in the 12^th century and a moat; that at first looks like a massive, very beautiful and scenic river but in actual fact is a moat; surrounds it with four sides and has an entrance and an exit going through the centre of it.

The final temple was like something out of Raiders of the Lost Ark with the roots of very old trees entangled in the ruins of the temple that is also currently being restored to some of its old glory. In fact it seems that aspects of this temple were used in the movie.

There are so many photos to show you here to do justice to these temples, but you will need to be content with a handful of photos used today.

Food is very cheap here too. A meal is between $2 and $4 and a cocktail about the same. Thailand is expensive in comparison. Bottled water 25 cents. The red ant and beef meal was purchased by our guide and yes! We all had a taste….rather crunchy and not willing to try them again. Yuk!

Very hot here with temperatures in the 30’s.

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Comments

[robbie]

hidy ho
Hi Lynnie, off again on your adventures. Stu and I are off to queenstown 23 -26 July so won't be home when you get back. Will have to catch up asap after 27th. I am trying to book trip to Loz 5-28 Oct. Still waiting for chicken dates so stu can come too. Got Ruby here this week. Had both last week. Jo sold house. Yeah! Andre been headhunted for a forestry job in Napier with a tempting plus $40thou paypacket...... now we will see what they decide. It will be a greater effort to see them but his career path is important. Jo likes having mum handy so she is having problems! Waiting for developments. OK betteer prepare some dinner. xxx