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Published: March 7th 2009
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The border crossing into Cambodia wasn't the most fluent process and caused an unwanted hassle. Straight away we were bombarded with scams of Cambodians trying to make some quick cash at our expense. We ended up having to get a taxi from the border to Siem Reap as the bus waiting for us drove at approximately 10mph. Our bus guide also advised us to change Thailand money to Cambodian money and not the commonly used US dollar. This again caused us to lose out by about $50. Our Taxi driver then stopped outside of Siem Reap and transfered us into a Tuk Tuk who he paid and said would drive us through the busy town centre to our hostel for free. On our arrival the Tuk Tuk driver tried to demand money, so we retreated to the hostel and waited till he left 1hr later! After a frustrating start, the well admired Cambodia we had heard so much about, was sadly an already damaged relationship in need of serious repair!
The following morning at 5am we headed out with our own personal Tuk Tuk driver in search of the 'Temples of Angkor' and immediately began to understand peoples love affair
with Cambodia. The ruins of Angkor are located among forests and farmland, with the spectacular beauty and history making them a World Heritage Site. Many of the temples at Angkor have been restored, and together they comprise the most significant site of Khmer architecture. The complex at Angkor was initially built for king Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. The temples number over one thousand, ranging in scale from nondescript piles of brick rubble scattered through rice fields to the magnificent Angkor Wat; the worlds largest single religious monument. The temples are now used by Hindus and Budists and are frequented with large amounts of tourists. As we had arrived at 5am for sunrise by11am the intense sun was heating up and we had visited all the main sights, for this reason we headed back to the main town. We stayed in Siem Reap for 2 nights, with the higlights of our stay being strongly orientated around food based matters. One night we treated ourselves to Crocodile, Kangaroo and Ostrich, however the traditional food was equally as good, with the fish 'Amok' being our favourite.
Our second and final stop in
Cambodia was Phnom Penh, the capital, where we stayed in a small convienient districy by the lakeside for 4 nights. During our stay here the sun was blistering so we spent a large amount of time chilling out during the day and frequenting the bars at night. The bar also proved to be perfect refuge from the sun and also gave us a perfect excuse to practise our pool skills. The Cambodians seem to be the best pool playing nation we have met on our whole world trip and they loved to challege us to try and prove it. During our stay back in Siem Reap Nick and Paul were playing doubles with 2 'girls', Nick and his partner managed to take an impressive 4-0 lead over Paul and his partner. At this point we began to suspect something, the 'girl' then tried to touch Nicks hair to give it a re-style! At this point the penny dropped as Nick spotted the Adams-Apple! "She, he's a... Ladyboy, lets go!". Although the ladyboys were good at pool so too were the real women, as we discovered in Phnom Penh when Nick got into yet another tricky situation. A 'real' women had
bein playing Paul and Mike for a bit of fun and was doing pretty well. She then decided to challege Nick, however introduced consequences he did not want to comprehend if he lost! At six balls down Nick was starting to worry, however fought back for an emphatic victory, to the ladies great disappointment. During the nights we settled in and made a pub our local. Every night the Cambodians came to try and hustle us for money and the contest was pretty close. As a result by our last night we ended up drinking 'black panther' out of a washing-up bowl on the streets with a group of locals singing and playing the guitar.
As we met more Cambodians and learnt more about their tragic and very recent history under Pol Pot, we soon began too gain a great love and respect for the poor but extremely welcoming Cambodians. Cambodia offers a great mix between its extravagant and rich ancient history under the Khmer Empire; and its modern culture on the pool table!
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