Cambodia... Wat's it all about then?

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Holler....

A bus ride later we were in Phnom Penh )now to be called PP as that name takes ages to write!!). Now what you imagine PP to be is not how it turned out at all.. I thought of it as a dust ytracked town which was pretty darn dangerous once the sweltering sun donned his tiger PJ's and headed off to the knapper... Not at all, it was a great place in fact. Probably the best palce so far in fact!!

PP is a pretty modern city all in even if it doesn't have the high rise that you see in other SE Asia capital cities. WE first went to the guesthouses beside the lake where the cheapest deals could be found... Cheap and cheerful alright but most rooms are built over the lake and as such you get a multitude of fascinating cxreatures invading the rooms at all times. We decided against it and opted instead for a room in the Angkor International hotel on the riverside... A wee bit more expensive but A/C and a tv made it worthwhile... I was aware at all times in PP that the Chapions League final was appraoching fast and I wasn't sure that the bars would show it and as such I needed the tv in room back up just in case!! Priorities eh!!

Anyhow the same lad who took us to our hotel kindly offered to take us around to various sights the nextr day and 5 minutes of tense UN-like negotiations later we had a deal... Great... So the next day we set off for the Killing Fields museum in the countryside outside the main city. Quite a random place as you get there down unpaved roads at the end and there are houses all around and schools and everyone just getting on with their daily lives. I'm not going to go into the whole history of it but look it up on the net if you;re not sure. Not a great read to be honest as it is pretty shocking. The museum itself is prettty basic which at first seems strange but in the end it was right in my opinion. The place didn't need any great displays or visitors centres. What was there really showed what the full horror had been. The centrepiece was a tower containing the skulls of many of the people who had been taken from the mass graves all around the site when it was discovered what had occurred.. There are about half of the mass graves still undisturbed and clothing etc.. can be seen coming from the ground throughout the site. Pretty grim... but truly worthwhile.

After this we were taken to the old S-21 prison in PP itself. An old school which was taken over by the Khymer Rouge during their reign of terror and converted to a prison. Again pretty grim as you go in and out of the classrooms which had been converted to cells and look at the torture equipment still where it was left decades ago... Again the fact that it wasn't at all tarted up as per European/US standards added to the somberness for me...

With a somber morning passed we decided to revive spirits and head to the Russian Market for some retail therapy ala Sex and the city. Of course Elaine demanded to be SJP so I had to settle for the old one who will take anything she acna get her hands on.. Actually come to think of it... Right well the market was good if completely baffling to get around as it is undercover... Selling jeans, cameras, watches, craft stuff, etc... I got a Diesel watch and 2 pairs of shorts all for 20 smackers... Not too bad for all the real designer stuff.. It is real of course... Isn't it!! We intended to stay for an hour and ended up in their for 2 hours or so.. The tuk tuk man didn't look best pleased when we emerged from the darkness... Ah sure he got his 10 dollars for the day so he was happy then!!

At night PP is very random indeed. You would expect a city back in the 1950's or so but although the old centre is quite rustic the riverfront area could quite literally be transplated into any UK city and not look out of place. Lovely, modern bars and restaurant and cheapish drinks were the order of the day!! hard life indeed... The next day we didn't do an awful lot, markets again and a walk down the river to have a look for critters for sale.. Finally found were deep fried spiders, cockroaches, crickets and various other things to be found under rocks throughout your garden. Wanted to have some but they wree freaking huge these things... They looked more like turtles than cockroaches... That night was the Champions League final and I was obviously keen to see it so scoured the bars for other aspiring supporters... FInally we settled into a bar called Bojangles(don't ask!!) for dinner and got chatting to some other Northern Irish folks and a few ENglish lads at the bar. We would knock into these lads everywhere from now on... Liverpool fans too whcih was great for watching the match with... The bar stayed open for us and the drink flowed like wine until the final penalty was saved by Mr Van Der Sar... Great night had by me anyway, not sure about anyone else!! Final bill for drinking all night at the bar for me and Elaine was $20. Obviously Elaine consumed the bulk of that!!

Next day we were meant to head to Siem Reap but Elaine was too sick to go so we chilled out and stayed another night( I cannot verify the exact trueness of this statement or if the names of the people concerned are indeed a true likeness by the way!!)... Next day it was off to Siem Reap eventually.. 10 dollars each later and 5 or so hours we were there and stayed in the the Royal Villas Angkor near the town centre. Run by an Austrian lad they were spot on indeed... Siem Reap is a world apart from PP. A proper westernised place with a town centre like the costa del sol. Lots of neon and disco bars. We did partake in some light libations but nothing too serious as it was off to the star attraction nearby the next day.. The temples of Angkor Wat...

Next morning our firendly tuk tuk man who we had hired for the day to ferry us about the temple site, which is completely massive, turned up and we were off to the main temple first - Angkor Wat itself. Looking at it from across the causeway it is hard not to be impressed by it's size but it's only when you get inside you actually realise how big this thing is... We strolled about it and one lap took us a good 2 hours without really stopping... Well actually we stopped to take photos of some monkeys and then they came too close so I ran off!! Hard as nails me!! Anyhow it's hard to write about the temples here as they are so impressive yet they are all pretty similar apart from Angkor Wat. We visited a number of them and explored them with great gusto until we climbed up on top of one to get a good view only for the heavens to open up and for us to be stranded there for about 90 minutes with lightning lashing the forest all around and us clinging onto the temple for dear life... I was not as scared as with the monkeys... The trips to the tops of these temples is pretty hairy in places with the steps worn away and basically a vertical climb with foot and hand holes to the top whcih can be about 20 metres or so up so if you fall then you become part of the temple it would appear!! We didn't fall but I think it was only because of my prior watching of climbing videos on National Geogrpahic...

Right so temples were done and back we went to Siem Reap for some food and a few drinks to steady our nerves after all the monkeys and climbing... It was at this stage where the raod ahead gets pretty hard as you have to either fly to Pakse in Southern Laos and then onto Vientiane, costing $170 or go back to PP and then a long trip up to the S. Laos border or get a bus to Bangkok, stay a night and then another bus up to Vientiane... Looking at the amount of time left it was decided that the Bangkok bus was the best option as Southern Laos was too time consuming and would have to wait until the next time... The only worrying aspect was the fact that the road to the Thai border was nicknamed the Boulevard of broken backsides due to it's poor quality... My arse was not having the best of luck was it really!!!

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Comments

[Hutch]

Everything looks smashin' from the photos, but I don't have time to be reading all that. Can you provide a summary in five words or less? Thanx.