Craig and Ross in Cambodia

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Blog # 1: Siem Reap, Cambodia

December 25 , 2019 - Merry Christmas!!


It must be very obvious to you by now that I’m addicted to travel. I’m obsessed with it. I’m always dreaming of where to go next. My head says: save money as it may be needed one day. But my heart says: spend it now and enjoy today. After all, who knows what tomorrow may bring? I’m a biologist and I know exactly how fragile human life can be. I am passionately following the “live life now” option. I feel that I have indeed made precisely the right call.

So, I am pleased to say that we are back here in South East Asia, one of our favourite travel destinations. We booked flights several months ago and so here we are, in sunny Cambodia. The plan is to visit the world-famous temples of Angkor and some other cool stuff in Siem Reap, drop in on the capital, Phnom Penh, and then fly across to Singapore for New Year’s Eve.

We flew from Melbourne via Singapore to Siem Reap, Cambodia. The small city of Siem Reap only really developed as a tourist hub for Angkor Wat. The ancient temples of Angkor are Cambodia’s number one tourist attraction. (Hell, they feature on the nation’s flag). But the town of Siem Reap has blossomed incredibly and it is now a major destination in its own right, with great bars, restaurants, massage outlets, cooking classes, outdoor activities and a wonderful acrobatic circus (more on that below). Upon arrival at Siem Reap airport, the cab driver who took us to our hotel was quiet but pleasant. Almost at our destination, we were driving along, dodging tuk-tuks and motorbikes etc, when suddenly we heard a series of little yelps. WTF? Sounded like puppies. But where were they? We exchanged glances, while the driver said nothing. Upon arrival, we discovered that he had four little puppies in the boot with our luggage!! Not sure why, but we had to fish them out to get our bags.

Tourists say that Siem Reap looks like Bali's Kuta did 20 years. Never having been to Bali (yet!), we wouldn’t know, but it is certainly a nice place to hang out. As for the nightlife here, well, the Lonely Planet says that Siem Reap is now “firmly on the nightlife map of SE Asia.” All the action takes place on Pub street, reminiscent of Khao San Road in Bangkok or Bangla Road in Phuket. Thumping bars, busy restaurants, markets, music, buzzing tuk tuks and people everywhere. The alcohol here is dangerously cheap. Draught beer for 50 cents, cocktails for $2, for example. These riotous prices also extend to medications in pharmacies. Without a script, you can buy the following for about $2 a pack: Zoloft, Viagra, Valium, Xanax, Stilnox, etc. On our first night, we got plastered sideways on “two-for-the-price-of-one” cocktails on Pub Street. Oh dear. I then ate a fried tarantula, thanks to alcohol-fueled bravado. The spider tasted a bit like satay, but hairy. Eating bugs was typical in 1970’s Cambodia. That was often all people could find to eat during the dark days of the brutal Khmer Rouge. It also means there ain’t much wildlife here. However, I had heard of a place where gibbons come down in the early morning, so we caught a tuk-tuk there one day. People do zip-lining at this place, and it was run by a very engaging American, who shared my passion for wildlife. An amazing, inspiring guy. I could have chatted with him all day. Sure enough, we saw a family of Cambodian pileated gibbons. Black father, brown mother and little brown baby. They came down quite close and I got some ace photos. (Many people have seen the photos on Facebook). That means we have now seen all four apes in the wild (Gorilla, chimpanzee, orangutan and gibbon).

We had several days in Siem Reap, so the idea was to see a major archaeological sight in the early morning (around 7.30am, beating the heat and crowds), then relax by the hotel pool in the hot afternoons, then hit town at night. Then repeat with a different temple site the next day, etc. I put the whip under Ross to get up at 6am each day, so we could visit whatever site and be back in town by 10am each day. We were typically the first people down at breakfast in the hotel, tucking into bacon and eggs just after 6am. One morning, I left our breakfast table to get some fruit and returned to find Ross wearing the groovy white panama hat that he had bought the day prior. Yet it was not sitting on his head properly. It was raised off his head somewhat and he looked absurd. I said:

“What have you done to your hat – or is it your head? Looks like you’ve got encephalitis or something. Your hat is sticking up on your head. It looks stupid.”

“Shut up” he replied, “I’ll explain later.”

Well, we finished breakfast and made our way out the front of the hotel and got in the tuk tuk, and zoomed off. Ross carefully took off his hat to reveal two carefully wrapped ham and cheese croissants that he had clearly stolen during breakfast. This, he said, would be our morning tea. We have, of course, done this sort of thing a lot on our travels over the years. Nicked stuff at breakfast for a morning tea snack. I said:

“You could have just asked me to just put the croissants surreptitiously in my day pack, rather than you wearing them!”

“Well, yes”, he said, “except you failed to bring your day pack down to breakfast.” LOL.

Speaking of food, the tucker here had been superb. Perhaps the most well-known Cambodian dish is fish amok. It’s a steamed fish curry with coconut milk, galangal and lemongrass, usually served in a banana leaf. Our Melbourne friends will recognise the name “Amok” from that lovely Cambodian restaurant on Chapel Street that has a certain place in our hearts. I had fish amok while Ross had frogs stuffed with pork and spices at an excellent Cambodian restaurant called Chanrey Tree. (It would certainly have had the nod of approval from Ange). Right next door was Barcode, a small but fun gay bar. The shows were good, and special mention must be made of one guy in particular who was excellent. He did a very athletic and energetic version of Todrick’s “Nails, Hair, Hips, Heels.” (Check it on Youtube). This guy did an even better job than Todrick!! Anyway, other culinary delights included Khmer chicken curry and Kampot pepper squid at Sugar Palm. Today, I tried another typical Cambodian dish that was delicious: Beef lok lak (a beef stir fry served with onions, cucumbers and tomatoes, and dipped in a sauce containing lime juice, salt and pepper). In town, we went to other various great bars and eateries. One was “Miss Wong”, a classy cocktail bar, decked out like some sort of 1920’s Shanghai opium den.

There were four main archaeological sites we wanted to see; the eponymous Ankgor Wat, the city ruins of Angkor Thom, the “Lara Croft /Tomb Raider” temple of Ta Phrom, and, a little further afield, the beautifully preserved Banteay Srei. We certainly did not do them all at once. As I said, we visited one site only per day, then relaxed back in town during the heat of the afternoon. I often spent it in the hotel pool, while Ross enjoyed Magda Szubanski’s excellent book, “Reckoning”. To get around, we used tuk-tuks (or more precisely called remorks here; a little carriage attached to a motorbike). I love riding in Asian open air tuk-tuks, with the cool breeze against my face, zooming amongst the traffic. Most tuk-tuk drivers were great guys, taking us to a temple- then waiting up to 2 or 3 hours while we explored– then taking us back to the hotel. On one day, after delivering us back into town, one over-stepped the mark and wanted to take us to other places.

He said: “Can I take to you to more temples this afternoon?”

I said: “No thanks. Just Angkor Thom this morning was fine.”

He said: “Why? What are you doing this afternoon?”

“Not going to any temples this afternoon.”

He persisted. “Why not? What are you doing?”

“Staying at the hotel.”

“What are you doing there?”

I sighed.

“Well, I’m going to de-robe of this sweaty shirt, pick the fluffy stuff out of my navel, have a shower and lie by the pool sipping a Khmer Ginger Mojito”.

This did the trick. He hopped onto his tuk-tuk and drove off, muttering: “Don’t like ginger”.

One day, a different tuk-tuk driver took us to a lovely spot for sunset viewing over a lake. We stopped in the middle of nowhere just before arriving at the sunset spot and had about 30 minutes to kill before the sun exited the horizon. Ross and I wandered into a lonely ramshackle shed nearby. To call it a shop would have been generous, though it featured some rickety wooden tables and chairs and an old creaking fridge. There was a guy bashing a hammer at a motorbike nearby, some scrawny dogs asleep under the tables and some skiny-necked chooks standing gawking at us. A young woman came running out of nowhere and said:

“You want beer? I have beer.”

Ross turned to me and said: “Is she a relative of yours, Smiddy? How else could she possibly know that?”We had not expected the joint to have beer. We were hot and tired, so needless to say, we decided to take advantage of this splendid offer. The woman unceremoniously pushed a sleeping puppy off the lid of an esky and retrieved two chilled cans of Angkor Beer. We enjoyed the ales in the company of the dogs and chickens. Oh and the sunset was lovely, too.

So, what’s Angkor Wat all about?

In 1860, a French naturalist was hacking his way through jungle in northern Cambodia, looking for exotic insects. At one point, he parted some thick vines and stumbled across something incredible. He must have stood frozen in his tracks. There before him stood a massive complex of stone temples, never before seen by Westerners. He had come upon Angkor Wat, the largest religious complex in the world. Part of an ancient Khmer (Cambodian) city lost in time. Huge lichen-covered temples, towers, shrines and statues, shrouded by jungle and gripped now by the roots of massive fig trees. The expansive Angkor (city) has since been largely cleared of jungle, revealing an amazing site that is nowadays one of the most touristed places on Earth. It is estimated that the whole place once held between 80,000 and 150,000 people, making it the largest pre-industrial city in the world. Apparently, London at that time was a paltry 30,000. The citadel of Angkor Wat is just the most famous of many stone structures here, all sprawling across some 400 square km. A vast extinct Khmer empire. The place started being built in 800’s, reaching its peak in the 12-and 13^th centuries. Then it crumbed away, leaving an amazing array of ancient ruins.

We thought that the Hindu-cum-Buddhist monument of Angkor Wat was wonderful. Its iconic corncob-shaped towers dominate the whole area and it is indeed a sight to behold. Sans Ross, I crawled out of bed at 4am one morning to go see it at sunrise. Sunrise is notoriously crowded with people but is meant to be beautiful. As it turned out, I was the very first person at the gate at 4.50am, when it was still pitch black, ready for it to open at 5am !! One of the six park rangers on site insisted on me sharing my hotel-packed breakfast with him. Feeling he was a bit of an authority figure, I grudgingly obliged. Though I had a little snigger when the apple I gave him turned out to have a hideous worm inside it. He’d bitten it in half and failed to notice it until I shined my torch on it. LOL.

Well, anyway, by the time they opened the gate, it was a mad rush of people making for the left-hand side lily pond, where the silhouette of Angkor Wat is reflected at dawn. I ended up at the perfect spot, and set up my camera on the tripod. Lots and lots of people accumulated around and behind me. I guess hundreds. As the darkness started to recede, the sky turned an amazing purple colour and the silhouette of Angkor Wat emerged . This seemed to be the signal for everyone to immediately shed their civility. One large dude tried to push in front of me and proceed to flash his selfie stick about. His ample girth at one point wobbled across my line of sight, replacing my emerging temple vista with a sweaty $4 Siem Reap T-shirt. I really wanted to grab his selfie stick and shove it up his instagram. Luckily, he retreated. But in reality, apart from this, is was truly lovely. The sky went from black to a purple and then intense orange colour, with the temple complex now reflected in the lily pond. Then at last the sun emerged from behind the temple, shining shafts of light across the pond and lighting up the pink lilies there. I’ll never forget it.

After Angkor Wat, we visited wonderful Angkor Thom, the great Khmer city centre. The most famous feature there is Bayon, those huge carved Buddha faces staring at you from all directions. It, too, was awesome. After this, we retreated to our hotel during the heat of the afternoon. We emerged at 5pm to attend Phare Cambodian circus. This was great fun. Incredible acrobatics, juggling and overall top notch high energy entertainment (and deservedly the number 1 non-temple thing to do in Siem Reap on Trip Advisor).

Well, it looks like I’ve written enough, so I will continue this blog in four or five days time. It is Christmas night and the hotel has put on a BBQ that we are attending.

According to Facebook, it looks like everyone has had a lovely Christmas day.

Some selected photos shown below.

All the best,

Craig (and Ross).

PS:. Our friend Alan (Mr. limerick wizard), insisted on a devised limerick in each blog. So, we offer this:

There was a young man from Siem Reap,

Whose virginity he just couldn’t keep,

He loved men dressed as girls,

in skirts, heels and pearls,

and wigs that were nasty and cheap.

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Comments

[RENanDREW]

Siem Reap
How lucky were you to witness (and capture) that absolutely gorgeous sunrise over Angkor Wat! I've visited twice and bummed out with the sunrise both times. I'm envious of your civilised / brilliant plan to only temple-hop in the mornings and rest in the afternoons... on the last trip, we covered quite a few temples in two days and were so hot and tired that we couldn't appreciate the temples as much as we should have. I'm not sure how I've missed your blogs before, but have really enjoyed reading these Cambodian posts. Cheers, Ren :)