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Published: February 4th 2011
Em, Cecilia and I crossed the border into Cambodia on a long 14hr trip from Don Det, managing to avoid most of the border scams (which included a fake quarantine medical check!). We left Don Det in the morning and arrived in Siem Reap close to 1am.
Siem Reap is a city nearby Angkor Wat (AW) or, more correctly, the Angkor Archeological site - while most people refer to the area as AW, it is just 1 temple of many.
The 1st day we went out to the Angkor area about mid-day in a tuk tuk. Our 1st stop was straight to AW, after navigating the hordes of Cambodian kids aggressively trying to sell you anything under the sun! I was excited, however it was a bit of an anti-climax - when entering from the west (main) gate it isnt as big or grand as I thought it would be.
However, this first impression wore off as we explored the building and the different sections. It is in fact massive - befitting of the worlds biggest religous structure. I guess I thought it was more of a rectangular shape with a long row of towers, when it is
Inside AW
A view from insideactually a square shape with only 4 towers, hence the first impression.
We explored AW for a while, not even noticing the scorching mid-day heat. It was really quiet at this time of day though. The one down side to the experience, which would turn out to be a common theme with the Angkor temples, was some scaffolding on the front of the building.
We then took a walk, getting lost and stumbling upon a random temple, before grabbing a tuk tuk to Angkor Thom. This isnt actually a temple, like AW, but is the remains of an ancient city. In fact around 700 years ago, when the population of London was only 50,000, this city held over 1 million people.
The centre piece of the city is a temple called the Bayon. It is a crazy maze of ancient pillars with several (54) massive towers each with 4 smiling faces (of one of the Buddhist elders) carved in them. Like many of the temples at Angkor, I think that if this was anywhere else in the world it would be a huge tourist attraction; the fact the area hosts so many of these is pretty unreal.
We next went to another temple that had a moat, with a long narrow bridge at the front, called Baphoun. It was shaped like a pyramid more than a temple, sitting at the end of this walkway. Unfortunately you couldnt go inside this one, which is a shame as it looked interesting.
After this we went to the Ancient Royal Palace, before looking at a wall known as the Terrace of the Elephants due to the carving of the elephants in it.
The tuk tuk driver then suggested Phnom Bakeng for the sunset view. It was absolutely mobbed though! Hundreds of people climbing up this spiral path, which seemed like it would never end, to the top of the hill where the temple (which was more like 3 storeys of flat blocks) was overlooking Angkor.
It was probably the most anti climatic 15min hill walk Ive ever done! The view over the Angkor area was extremely limited (you could barely see AW), the sunset was average (maybe Laos spoiled us) and it was mobbed.
Anyway it was an action packed first day, a sign of things to come. Back near the guest house we had
some Cambodian grub. Their national dish is called Amok and is like a non-spicy curry with Amok powder being more savoury than curry powder. Given I cant handle spicy food much, I loved it! Furthermore, their (mild) Khmer currys are also really good.
I also tried out the main Cambodian beer called Angkor - it is pretty average, just another lagery, cheap, light beer. I have noticed the companies here love to precede their brand with Angkor (eg. Angkor cigarettes) - this is because the temples are a national treasure and the heart of the country, even appearing on the bank notes (although all transactions are done in US dollars, with riel mainly used for change - pretty strange).
The next day we rose at 5.30am and cycled out to AW on our rented bikes. Sunrise at Angkor is noted as a must see thing. There was no anticlimax this time, within 10min it was easy to see why, it was breathtaking. I dont even remember feeling tired as we looked on in awe with a surprisingly large amount of people.
Having done the main attractions the day before, the plan today was to cycle around some
Sunrise at AW
View from the pond lesser known temples. We visited: Prasat Kravan (4 large free standing towers, with a massive one in the middle), Banteay Kaet (long narrow temple with 6 large spires and long centre corridor), Ta Prohm (wild temple overgrown by roots and trees as it was allowed to be kept as nature intended; so big you could get lost in there. It is where they filmed tomb raider), Ta Keo (pyramid like, massive in height, easily the biggest we saw, with huge steps to climb up and 3 towers at the peak) and Preah Khan (over a moat, small in height but with masses of rooms, an enormous centre corridor and lots of well kept carvings, even bigger in area than Ta Prohm). We also cycled back through Angkor Thom again.
It was an amazing and very hot day, the only downside was when I lost the key to our joint bike chain and some local Cambodians helped us break the padlock, bringing over a tool kit to do the job. All the people were so helpful, happy and friendly.
The surprising thing was that after all these temples I wasnt 'templed out' at all, as I had heard is
Ta Prohm
Some of the wild forest taking over the temple common at Angkor. The reason is that each temple was totally unique, not like the others at all.
We got back to the guesthouse a full 13hrs after we left - a long, hot day on the bikes, so, after an amazing cold shower, I had some Amok and hit the sack.
The final day templing we took a tuk tuk to the Rouleos area, which is east of town nowhere near the main Angkor temples in the north. We saw 3 temples there: Preah Ko (6 large free standing towers), Bakong (another really tall pyramid like temple with a huge centre tower at the top) and Lolei (4 free standing towers, only 2 still standing the others being ruins).
It was over 30 degrees without a cloud in the sky. So we decided to take a break, as we were on the verge of being both templed and temperatured out. That afternoon we just chilled in town - Siem Reap is a large and bustling, busy city - before we caught a bus to Phnom Penh (PP).
If Angkor is the place to see some old history, then PP is the place to catch up
on modern history and times.
I have done a lot of reading about recent Cambodian history and it is pretty bleak: after being bombed and mined by the Americans during the Vietnam war (with American unexploded landmines still an issue today) they were taken over by a dictatorship called Khmer Rouge who wiped out around 2million (1/4) of the country in a brutal Nazi-like regime in the late 70s.
The fact that Cambodian people are still so fun and happy, having rebuilt much of PP and their entire country since, is testament to the attitude of the people.
One of the most famous prisons/torture chambers of the Khmer Rouge is known as Tuol Sleng or S21 and we visited the place, now a museum, in PP.
It was an eerie, interesting place where you could explore the overcrowded cells where priosoners stayed, see the torture instruments and read more about the recent history and attempts to bring the Khmer Rouge to justice.
There was also the mug shots of every prisoner that was tortured and killed there - seeing the 20,000 photos taking up several large rooms really lets it sink in how many were
tortured and died there.
Earlier in the day before the S21, while the girls visited the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, I watched some of the Oz Open tennis. Outside the bar there was a lot of singing and chanting, so I asked the bar man if there was a wedding going on. No, in fact this was a Cambodian funeral - 2 days of music and chanting in the streets, with the body nearby. I thought this was quite interesting; the barman thought it very annoying!
After an unsuccessful errand to try and repair my camera (not helped by the random Cambodian door numbering system, where no.s 1, 273 and 54 can be found together) I met the girls at the Royal Palace and Gardens. They were nice, but like a mini version of the Grand Palace in Bangkok.
In the evening we just chilled over dinner and I also found another Cambodian beer called Black Panther to try which was pretty good - a dark, guinness like stout - and pretty strong at 8%!
That was that for Phnom Penh as we left the next day. We have only had a short visit
to Cambodia, focused mainly on the Angkor temples. But I have absolutely loved it. The people here are so friendly, I love the food, the attitude and the place.
There is some aggressive selling to tourists but it is all done in fun and good spirit. Haggling is more fun here than other countries because of this - they are also much more willing to strike a deal and make a sale. In fact I was expecting Laos to be exactly like this.
So whilst our visit has been short I have had an awesome time and would love to come back.
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