Advertisement
Published: February 2nd 2009
Edit Blog Post
After a pretty relaxed day at work on the Saturday, a result of large numbers of students being absent because of the Tet holiday (lunar new year), I drank a number of beers and so spent the next day on the bus to Cambodia feeling a little hungover. I went with Nick, Amir, and Caitlin. Despite the chaos at the border, the journey was pretty uneventful, however as you got further into the country the scenery began to change into the long lines of paddy fields and palm trees that you see in the movies. It was beautiful.
Arriving in Phnom Penh a lot of places were closed because of it being a Sunday and so although it was relatively quiet, it was nice seeing the city at play rather than at work. People use the dollar in tandem with the Cambodian Riel so it seemed that surprisingly it was more expensive than being in Vietnam. We were also in the backpacker part of town which is literally a ghetto, a string of dusty alleys all leading down towards the lake. Actually, it was ok down this part of town. Our guesthouse had that lazy lounge around and drink all
phnom penh riverside
just after this photo was taken i nipped inside an arcade for a quick blast on space harrier... day feel to it, and as most people there are too stoned to make much noise it was all very serene. We found a nice restaurant and met up with another bunch of teachers from work who doing pretty much the same trip as us. Whilst I was all set to try some local Cambodia fare, the mention of a choice of three different roast dinners on the menu meant that all the Brits ditched their high brow ideas of ‘experiencing Cambod, man’ and tucked into a delicious Sunday rooassst.
After lunch we hired a tuk-tuk to drive us round the city for a while. It was really nice. They have nicely laid out boulevards, wide open parks and green spaces, and aside from the trash evident in the backpacker bit, the city was much cleaner than Saigon (although it does have a fair few million less people). Whilst its obvious that there is a fair amount of poverty in Cambodia, it really wouldn’t take much to turn Phnom Penh back into the beautiful city it apparently once was. As it was a Sunday there were people out and about everywhere. We wandered round a pagoda thing and then
boat ride
on the way to Siem Reap were tuk-tukked to the riverside, which actually felt more like a Victorian seafront, only instead of fish and chips and donkey rides, it was fried bits and pieces and people releasing birds from cages for good luck…We also went to a lovely park where Caitlin was bitten by a monkey. I think she was pretty shit up by it, what with rabies and everything but she did nothing and hoped for the best and to my knowledge hasn’t begun foaming at the mouth. I think if it had happened to me though I’d have been straight down the hospital.
Next day, we caught a boat up the Mekong to Siem Reap, the town closest to the temple complex of Angkor Wat. The boat ride was pretty sweet, and as im a sucker for using boats where possible I had a lovely time. The weather was hot, but cloudy mostly so we didn’t get fried too much. When I say we, I mean ‘me and other 100 people sitting on the roof’ who didn’t arrive in time to even qualify for steerage. Still, as there were no lifejackets and we had to cross a big fuck off lake, it was
view of Angkor Wat
taken from my sunset vantage point...the sunset was behind me though... perhaps wise to sit on the roof.
Siem Reap is a cool little city in western Cambodia. The main tourist streets are full of fancy bars and as Caitlin pointed out give it a kind of ‘New Orleans’ feel what with the French influences and relatively well heeled party atmosphere. We ate a couple of times at a nice place called the Dead Fish restaurant, where the tables are all set on different levels of scaffold and the waiters use pulley to bring drinks to the tables. It was a really cool place, marred only (and quite significantly so) by the tiny concrete ‘pond’ in the corner that housed a dozen or so, fed up and miserable crocodiles. Still, that’s SE Asia for you sometimes I guess…
Earlier that evening we drove out to Angkor Wat (I use the term to describe the whole area of temples and such like, Angkor Wat is actually the name for the biggest of them all). The sunset was awesome, drawing shadows over the temples (and the large number of people gathered there) and I found a nice nook to sit and enjoy it all. Despite this, my sunset photos all turned
out shit…I need to find out how to use my camera properly…
The following morning we headed off for a day to explore the temples. The place gets very busy and they have an elaborate ticketing system that includes having your photo taken. Still, at 20 dollars for a day ticket I was looking forward to it. A lot of people told me that to make the most of it, you need about three days to explore, and I believe them…the place is huge. However we were on a limited timetable and budget and besides, I don’t think any of us were up for three days of constant templing.
We wandered and were tuk-tukked from temple to temple. All them unique, all of them quite interesting and some were just jaw dropping. Some were quite large and the steps fazed the height fearer in me, but fuck it I still went up, whilst others were places that had been half forgotten and were slowly being claimed by the surrounding trees and jungle. At the main one, Angkor Wat itself, there were thousands of people and whilst it would have been nicer had they not all been there, the
two old ladies
Nick and Amir in their 'practical' old ladies headscarves...they look like suicide bombers on holiday.. fact that you can clamber all over the place means that whilst it’s probably not good for the temple, you can find nice little spots that you can enjoy at your leisure alone. I won’t bang on about the place too much though, because in all fairness as great as it was, I learnt little about its history, possibly a result of no-one bothering to bring a guide book on this trip. In a way, the lack of guidebook made for a far more relaxing time…why trouble yourself doing too much, when you don’t even know what there is to do?
The next day we all lazed around Siem Reap, and then on Thursday we jumped on a bus to Saigon. I slept most of the 13 hour journey, awaking for food and border and jolting awake as we entered the outskirts of Saigon. Which is always nice for a second until you realise the fucking bus is still going to take the best part of an hour to drag it’s clumsy arse through the sea of bikes into district 1.
I got back on Thursday night and as I still had four days off work I went
temple
one of the 'mysterious cities of gold' that they were always looking for in that cartoon show.. to Vung Tau for the weekend with Thu. It was lot nice than when I went before, largely because it was busier and more festive, and I met up with a Canadian friend called Dave sho has just moved there.
Now that Tet is over, I need to start thinking about what to do in June when my contract ends. Im also curious as to when Paddy will return as last reports are that he is strnded in Nha Trang with no money and the hotel wont let him leave...Take it easy folks.
Oh, and no, I didn’t bump into Jess in Cambodia.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.089s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 9; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0571s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb