hundreds of hanging hammocks........ and temple running

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The MRT stopped at the Suvarnabhumi airport with only 75 minutes to spare until our flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia was due to depart. We eagerly awaited at the closed doors of the train, ready to bolt for the check in desk, probably resembling greyhounds frothing at the mouth in the gates in anticipation of chasing that mechanical rabbit around the track. We certainly still had some ground to cover and we knew it was going to be tight. Bangkok airport is massive! We felt like we had been running on an endless loop of conveyer belts and escalators when we finally reached the departure screens to find the right desk. The flight was nowhere to be seen on the screen so we high tailed it to the airports info counter, by this time dripping with sweat, and running a lot like we had just stepped off a horse after following Khal Drogo’s Khalasar for 90 days, you see we had just the day before punished our legs in the gym. With a bit of frantic sign language between exhaustive breathes, we managed to convey our desperate search for the Cambodia Angkor Air desk to the clerk….. her blank stare said it all really, we were too late. We had missed our flight to Cambodia, and thrown the hard earned money down the drain with it!

Exchange Rate $1USD = 4000 Cambodian Riel

Just 10 hours earlier we had finished packing our bags in our lazy Koh Samui resort and finally convinced the receptionist to allow us a single free photocopy of our Cambodian Visas instead of paying the exorbitant 40Baht price she was trying to rip us off with. We gave ourselves ample time, leaving the resort 90 minutes before we had originally planned so that we would hit all of our connecting modes of transportation without any stress. It was going to be a long day with 7 modes of transport to get from Koh Samui to Siem Reap. It was to be a Songthaew, Ferry, Bus, Plane, Taxi, Plane, Car 12 hour marathon combination. The first 3 went without a hitch, although we had to catch 2 different buses between the ferry and first plane in Surat Thani, adding an extra mode and taking it to 8. Unfortunately good ol’ Air Asia delayed our first flight by half an hour so we were always going to be pushing it getting from Bangkok’s low cost Don Muang airport over to Suvarnabhumi airport with originally a 3 hour layover between touch down and departure, but now we had only 2.5 hours to get our butts there and through check in, security, and immigration. Landing in Bangkok from Surat Thani for some reason our instinct (or Vince’s anyway) pushed us towards a waiting bus transfer direct to the MRT which would then get us to the underbelly of the other airport without the risk of any on road traffic delays (especially being rush hour as it was). Thus skipping the taxi leg and instead adding another bus and MRT leg, taking the planned modes of transport to 9 for the day. After arriving at Suvarnabhumi airport we sprinted like marathon runners through the airport, up the myriad of travellators, along the numerous aisles of counters finally to our check in counter only to find out our efforts were in vein, our flight had closed and so had our hopes of making it to Cambodia that night.

Effectively this meant an unplanned night in Bangkok waiting for the next morning’s flight and $60AUD total fee for changing the flight. So not the end of the world, and it could have always been a lot worse. However, it did add another 2 modes of transport to our tally, being a taxi both to and from our unplanned Bangkok Hotel, taking the total travel time to 13 hours and 11 modes of transport. Now if that doesn’t qualify us for contestants on the Amazing Race I don’t know what does!

Thankfully, the following morning we boarded our flight with ease and made it to Siem Reap. The only gitch we experienced that day was the airport security taking our vegemite off us when boarding the flight, we begged and pleaded trying to argue this was not a liquid, but lost our brown gold, much to Suz’s disgust. In Siem Reap we had chosen to stay at the HI Siem Reap Hostel and before we go any further with this blog we need to get our gripe out on this place to avoid future people with high expectations staying there. The reviews are great, but we had no idea why after staying there. They left us high and dry at the airport waiting for them to pick us up, the advertised cold water cooling and refreshing spa was not in use, there were more tuk tuk drivers than guests loitering in the common areas, the ensuite had undulating aromas of rust, blood, urine, and sewerage. The aircon was perhaps 26 degrees at the coldest. The free breakfast consisted of stale baguettes and a bowl of fly infested jam. So overall, NOT a pleasant place. Luckily for us all was not lost, as the location was absolutely perfect, and we laughed it all off and made it a big ongoing joke between us- if you didn't laugh you’d cry! Ok…...rant over.

So, Siem Reap is a charming walkable compact town, bursting with entrepreneurial locals, adventurous tourists, and free spirited expats alike. The two focal points for orientating yourself in the town is both Pub Street and the Siem Reap River. The river is cooling and calming and the few criss crossing bridges provide welcome respite and shade from the heat of the day with a gentle breeze following it’s current. Locals fish from the banks and play a happy sack like skilful game together in the afternoons, although they use something that resembles a shuttle cock instead of a grain filled ball. At night the bridges and banks are lit up with colourful neon strips and the locals and shoestring backpackers park themselves on the benches eating noodles from one of the many street food carts. Pub Street is pretty much just that, a tourist street full of pubs, coupled with restaurants and bars. Although really the whole area around Pub Street is very similar and takes up an entire neighbourhood. There is certainly something for everyones taste and you could spend a year here and still not eat at the same place twice. Besides this there are also many alley ways and markets across the town selling all types of clothing, books, and souvenirs that you can wander down and get lost in. But of course what everyone is in Siem Reap for, not discounting ourselves, are the mystical temples of Angkor.

We organised a private tuk tuk driver for $40USD for 2 half days to take us out to Beng Melae (75kms and 2 hours away from Siem Reap) on day one, and then touring around the Angkor temples themselves on day 2. We opted for the cheaper and more scenic but less chosen option of a 2 hour tuk tuk instead of the 1 hour taxi to Beng Melae. We set off from our hostel at dawn (5.30am) and motored our way down the red dirt country roads with the wind in our hair….. and occasional dirt in our eyes. The scenery and journey certainly didn’t fail to disappoint. It was absolutely beautiful with flat terrain but green and lush vegetation as far as the eye could see for much of the trip. The roadside was lined with banana, palm and bamboo trees, which camouflaged the high set timber cottages. Observing the morning routines of the locals from the rambling comfort of the open aired tuk tuk was extremely rewarding also. We saw hundreds of hanging hammocks with sleepy Cambodian eyes peering through, immaculately uniformed gangs of school kids (mostly girls) riding their bikes for miles to start their school day, free range pigs and chickens and cow pulled timber carts stacked with local produce. We were just the second group of tourists to arrive at Beng Melae and for pretty much the entire 90 minutes we were there we hardly stumbled upon another soul in the same section as us (although as we were leaving at about 9am the mass tourist buses started arriving).

Beng Melea was a brilliant unique temple. It is very much decrepit and overrun by vegetation, almost like it has been forgotten. We decided to hire a local guide for $5USD so they could show us the best paths to clamber up and over the temples themselves and also the best vantage points for photos. I would really recommend grabbing a guide, it was well worth it. The eery thing about this temple is that no one has really discovered anything about the history or purpose of the place. The lack of carving, inscriptions, and statues has historians a little dumb founded. It was a cracking way to start our 2 day temple run and it really did give us that true “Indiana Jones” feeling that we had read so much about.

The next morning we were departing on our tuk tuk at the ungodly hour of 4.30am to catch the best spot for sunrise at Angkor Wat. For those interested, we managed to park ourselves at the waters edge on the left hand side of the main walkway as you are facing the temple. This way no one could interrupt our gob smacking views of the Wat and sunrise by standing in front of us. There were perhaps only around 15 people at the viewpoint when we got there, and I would think 15 minutes later there would have been over a hundred, and by the time sunrise came, a couple of hundred. So we got there, although what felt early and in darkness, at the perfect time. The sunrise at Angkor Wat is an absolute must see! We certainly aren’t the type of people that enjoy being around a lot of others, but for us this (along with Everest views from Gokyo Ri) was a highlight of our last 2 months travelling by far. The photos say it all really, and it exceeded our expectations immensely.

In fact all of the temples we visited exceeded our expectations. Our perfectly timed self organised itinerary was sunrise at Angkor Wat followed by a browse in the temple itself, then we went to the temples of Bayon, Prea Kahn, Ta Prohm, and finally Pre Rup. We arrived back at our hotel 7 hours after departing, and just as the sun was starting to become unbearable. Bayon is famous for the many guarding stone faces that depict the king of the era. Prea Kahan although not famous was very large and just as impressive. The highlight receiving a prayer and wrist band from a tiny local buddhist elderly woman. Ta Prohm was made famous by Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider. The temple is a jumble of tree trunks grasping to life with exposed roots that strangle the man made structures. It makes for some stunning photography and I guess a bit of a conundrum is left in ones mind. Does this represent the constant struggle of nature’s will to survive against the formidable spread of mankind? Pre Rup was our final stop and a great temple to visit for the overly steep climb to it’s top and for the spectacular views that we were afforded. We really do think it was the perfect itinerary for a taste of the spectacular Angkor Temples.

In terms of life in Siem Reap, we need to constantly try to remind ourselves that pretty much every Cambodian over the age of about 40 both lived through and probably remembers the horrifying Civil War and reign of the Khmer Rouge, a scary thought, and an experience which has no doubt shaped their beings in some way or another. The locals also seem to us very similar to their Thai neighbours in that their work is low on their priority list. They also tend to have very little grasp of anything outside the “norm” or what we would think is logical. Such as buying a pair of pants off them for $4USD, wearing them for a day at the temples, selling them back to them for $1-2USD, only for them to turn around and be able to sell them to someone else for $4USD. Even offering to give them back the pants for free (as we didn’t need them anymore) was a complex thought process. Or packing your guests a take away breakfast the night before as they need to leave before the free breakfast commences. Or even buying a drink and getting one free during happy hour but not pouring the free one just yet, and instead giving it to the customer once they had finished their first drink. Quite funny really, and what we have come to expect now when dealing with them.

In saying that, we are off to Phnom Penh next to learn a lot more about this shameful past. We are somewhat apprehensively looking forward to clearing up our naivety of the genocide and political situation here in the late 70’s and spreading our knowledge to those we know and even those we don’t but are willing to learn and listen.

Favourite Food Finds:-


• fish amok at, of all places, a Mexican restaurant
• all meals and coffees at our regular haunt, Cafe Central (great Wifi here too)
• not quite Cambodian, but the butter chicken at Dakshin restaurant was amazing too


Favourite Exercise Experience:


• the humorous turbo showers to avoid the putrid ensuite stench
• the constant taking off and putting on of your shoes at the no shoe policy HI Siem Reap hostel
• sweating it out all day long in the extreme April heat


We'll Remember This Place For:


• Sunrise at Angkor Wat
• the well planned city layout itself, such a great walkable city with stunning adjacent river and neon lights
• Need I say it again… the absolute horror of the stench coming from that bathroom

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Comments

[Matt and Roberta]

Beautiful!
Great and informative post - we look forward to talking with you about Cambodia on Sat night!