Angkor's Away

Asia » Cambodia
February 23rd 2018

Published: February 24th 2018

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Buffet car

Day 13 and we're leaving Thailand for Cambodia, Bangkok for Siem Reap.

We maybe hadn't seen as much of Bangkok's sights as we planned due to a combination of the hotel being somewhat remote from the highlights - wats, street food and river - and totally losing the last day due to the problems with Paul's phone. But we are back online to our satisfaction courtesy of a new Samsung Tab A, 6", which is also phone enabled (unlike the 11" tablet we have used on our other travels).

This portion of our trip is another Explore tour, taking us through Cambodia to Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam, and it is all over land mostly by public transport.

So day 13, 04:30 wake up call for short trip to the train station for our 5.5 hour 3rd class trip to the border. We had used 2nd class Thai rail a few days ago. That has air conditioning. This trip was 3rd class - the air conditioning was the open window. Just behind us was the buffet car. No, we're kidding. Actually the two double rows of seats behind us were taken up by three people - a

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Rice field

lady, a man and a lady boy - who prepared food for selling throughout the train. Fresh fruit, peeled and packed up with spiced sugar, coconuts, and various other treats.

Whilst the landscape wasn't over-inspiring we did pass fields of a large range of crops - paddy rice, cantaloupe, sugar cane, tamarind. ....and some pretty birds particularly black-capped kingfisher and black drongo birds.

Crossing the border, with the help of a local travel agency, our transport from train to border felt a little like a cattle truck. The border was organised chaos. We are seeing a lot of that here. Interesting also because Thailand and Cambodia drive on different sides of the road, left and right respectively. Couldn't see how they managed the crossover though.

After a minibus to Siem Reap we arrived late afternoon. A group meal out at a poshish (for Thailand ) restaurant which went very well as the food was highly rated by everyone, and not very touristy expensive. Paul's local Amok chicken curry was particularly fine - flavours very similar to Pip's Thai green curry that she does from Simon's Thai cookery lesson cookbook.

Day 14 - Siem Reap was some

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Single track safety token

time ago a cluster of small villages overlaid with a French colonial town. In places there are still signs in French. It is now a heaving, bustling town full of hotels, hostels, restaurants, markets, scooters, tuk-tuks, and is the base for visitors to visit the nearby Angkor Archaeological Park. SR at the rate it is growing will soon overtake Battambang as Cambodia's 2nd largest city. The driving here makes that in Bangkok look positively civilised and sedate. The 2 and 3 wheel to 4 wheel ratio has swung more towards the former, and traffic discipline is all but nonexistent. Want to turn at a junction? Just pull out, because surely the traffic will stop. Or just turn early and ride against the traffic flow. Everyone does it, fun for all the family.

Angkor was the centre and capital of the Khmer Kingdom from 802 to 1295. Angkor Wat is the world's largest religious site, and is probably on the 'bucket list' of any modern day traveller. And there in lies its current problem - overcrowding.

When Simon visited during his gap year in 2005/6 he remarked on how peaceful it all was. Finding quiet spots away from the

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crowds was easy, and he was almost the only one there for sunrise. A bit of research told us that less than 500k people visited AW in 2003. In 2016 it was 2.5 million. So many, many more international tourists - back packers using cheap air travel, boomer generation spending their inherited wealth and pension funds (and yes we know we are part of that part of the problem there), and newly prosperous citizens of countries new to travel eg Chinese. As we moved away from AW in the mid afternoon we passed a coach park that must have had 200 or more coaches parked up. And the Park ticket office, newly built and around 5km from the park entrance, had 20 or more ticket booths.

Our group - there are 7 of us plus our guide - headed for Ta Prohm first. This is pretty much still in the state in which it was found. Very photogenic and atmospheric with tree roots growing everywhere through and over the stonework. Some restoration is taking place. It was used as a location in the Tomb Raider film and one tree in particular is a draw with crowds of people trying

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End of the line

for the best shot.

On to Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world, on a site measuring over 400 acres. AW has undergone considerable restoration over the years and is a source of great pride for their country, appearing on their flag and banknotes.

It was originally built as a Hindu temple but was later repurposed to Buddhism. It was built in the 11th C, when we were barely starting to build cathedrals. Having talked about how busy it was the crowds did tend to follow a route, so you can get away from some of the worst areas for Japanese tourist preening and posing. But getting a shot empty of people is nigh on impossible.

But the site is very impressive, in its size and scale, its construction, its carving and detail.

Lunch was at one of the local places just outside the wat's entrance and very delicious it was too especially Pip's sweet and sour pineapple and coconut soup with sticky rice.

Our final visit of the day was Angkor Thom, which is a 3km sided square compound with the state temple, Bayon, at its heart. It is particularly famed for

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Cattle truck to border

some very detailed mural carvings and for having many stupa with huge carved Buddha faces on their 4 sides. Some you can get really close to, one in particular. But, and here Paul got angry, at the best one there was a lengthy photo-opportunity queue. OK, that's the peril of a busy place but then Paul noticed that the queue was for a buy me photographer who was posing visitors one by one to take two posed shots of each. Paul was having none of this. He waited for a session to finish and then took himself to the posing spot, facing the Buddha face, his back to the photographer, to take the face photo he wanted. He got shouted at, but just turned, told them - in English of course - that he wanted a clear photo of the face, turned back, composed his photo, shot and left!

Evening was in the Night Market but this was very touristy. At its heart is Pub Street which says it all really.

But we shared a Fried Ice Cream Roll. In reality this is a made to order ice cream. Choose your fruit - mango, passion fruit and strawberry

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Border out of Thailand

for us. This and milk is poured onto a freezing plate and the guy mashes it fine with a pair of palette blades. It is then spread pancake style, freezes and is shaved off in 5 curls. And delicious it was too.

The next morning we were all off to Tonle Sap lake, about 25km away. So much to see on the way.
- 3 lane traffic on a two lane road
- home built open cab trucks, drivers in crash helmets
- rice drying by the roadside
- lots and lots of local roadside stalls
- hundreds of schoolchildren, in uniform, on bikes. No school run here!
- stalls selling bamboo baked sticky rice (more later)

Tonle Sap Lake is the largest freshwater lake in SE Asia. In dry season, Nov to summer, it is 5000sq km and averages 1 metre in depth. In the rainy season it goes to 16,000 sq km and 12 metres depth, absorbing the Mekong's potential flood waters. The annually flooded land is very fertile, capable of two crops per year - rice, peanuts, watermelon, green beans....

The lake's height extremes gives challenges to those living there, met by two main

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Into Cambodia

methods. Build your house on stilts, or make it float. The villages on stilts were accessed by the roughest, meanest dirt road you could imagine. But, when the lake rises even these roads disappear under water and village access is by boat. All their hard goods - cars, tractors etc - have to be stored on higher land near the main road.

We had a boat trip that started amongst the stilts and finished at the floating village. Not surprisingly there is also a lot of fishing. It turned out that the rafts of water hyacinth that we saw are corralled, nets put around and the fish live and breed amongst the roots chased out into the nets.

It is fascinating to see how people adapt to their conditions. A lot of farm equipment is home made, the crop sprayers especially. Down amongst the floating village there was a floating primary school with children just leaving. One little lad was commuting in what appeared to be a large tin basin!

Our trip out and back was about 45 mins and included an enthusiastic shoulder massage from the lad, probably age 8, helping his dad.

After a

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Angkor's Wat ticket office

brief photo stop to see the villagers smoking tiny fish we moved to Beng Mealea, one of the most mysterious temples in Siem Reap province. A sign at the entrance warning of land mines shows how recent war was in the area.

It is estimated that there may be 4-6 million mines and unexploded ordinance still in Cambodia, placed by US and Cambodian factions. Cambodia has 40,000 amputees.

Beng Mealea was built around the same time as AW, 12th century, originally as a Hindu temple later repurposed to Buddhism. At times as we wandered around in relative peace and quiet it felt a bit like the ultimate Indiana Jones experience with rainforest birds calling out to us. The site is unrestored and nature has reclaimed with trees and roots everywhere.

On our return the guide stopped us for lunch at a restaurant. It is what they always do, providing lunch opportunities, after all some people like a lunchtime meal. As he left us with the menu and he and the driver went off to their own area we all looked at the menu. It became apparent that none of the group wanted to eat here. Half the

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Ta Prohm

menu was western - burger and chips, spaghetti bol - and it was expensive compared to town food eg $6 for a plate of chips which in Cambodia is really taking the p***. So on behalf of the group Paul found our guide and driver, just as their food had arrived, and told him that no-one wanted to eat here.

So we set off back to the hotel. Passing the bamboo sticky rice stalls on the way the guide had the van pull over and bought us each a stalk of the rice. What they are are 2 foot or so of 2-3 inch dia bamboo. A mix of rice and some black beans and stuffed into the top 2/3rds of the tube, down to a joint. Coconut juice is poured in, it is sealed with a leaf and wadding plug and the stalks are cooked over an open fire. The stall holder removes the burnt outer layer of bamboo and then keeps it warm. To eat we peeled away the bamboo tube to access the rice inside. And it was DELISH!!!

Think that is well long enough for one blog. The next day we moved on to