Deeper into Cambodia

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Cambodia did get alot better after that. Siem Reap is like a little oasis at the end of the long, dusty road. Such a concentration of behemothic hotels. I believe that there are alot of Korean tour groups coming here. Nothing much to see in Siem Reap. One good bar is Dead Fish tower which has a very unusual layout. We headed to the impressive temple complex of Angkor Wat which reigns from the grand Khmer era. We cycled there, good road and you need transport for getting around the various temples which are quite spread out.

A.W is hugely impressive, surrounded by a big moat and approached by a stone causeway. Buddhas, gopuras, long corridors upon which are depicted lengthy hindu carvings. Climbing to the top of the temple is possible "at your own risk" and the views are amazing. Wild grounds all around thru which we meandered to get to Angkor Thom, taking in lunch by the water, on the way.....fish amok (very tasty coconut curry) which we got as take-away from one of the local restauants in Siem Reap. The great thing about Angkor is the wild unkempt beauty, the lack of warnings and off-limits...it's just there to be immersed in. The main feature of A.W is Bayon - the temple comprises numerous towers, each tower adorned on the four sides with a carved face. Preah Kham is a jungle-ravaged complex with trees growing up thru the temples and funnily enough is being restored by the Indians. Every country seems to have a foothold in the restoration projects....just like they all jumped on the 'Help Cambodai' campaign.....and are making pretty good returns on the investment.

We gave the sunset spot a miss, mainly because of the haze but as we cycled past gathered that the sunset moment would also be overshadowed by the tour bus congregation.

Phnom Penh was delightful. We stayed at the lakeside-it's the best option for arranging backpacker travel. The travel agency at Mali's g.h is particularly efficient and reasonable. The food at No11 g.h is very tasty. On the 1st day we hired bikes and took a jaunt around the city - great wide boulevards, elegant colonial buildings, clean and well-maintained. The traffic is mad - no-one follows rules. Motos, and there are a plethora of them, ride on either side of the road, everyone cuts across the traffic to go to where they have to go. But it's all done very calmly, there's no road rage, no incessant beeping. I quickly adapted....my kind of driving!...>>on a bike anyway<
Visited the Killing Fields - there is one central monument containing 8,000 skulls. Nothing else to see really, it's really the significance of the place. All around are lush paddy fields. On the same theme we went to the S21 Genocide Museum, formerly a schoo,l but a prison, interrogation and torture centre during the Khmer Rouge reign. Saw the tiny 2x0.6m cells of concrete and wood...tiny and so haphazardly thrown up -basically loads of brick walls erected to subdivide one room. There were also mass cells and torture rooms. Saw some torture photos, some tools and shackles. Lots of photos of the victims and accounts from relatives. Harrowing stuff and all quite recent history: 1975-79. Cambodia has a very young population and there is a definite baby boom now.

Checked out the Central Market which is an unusual honeycomb shape and inside they were selling honeycombs, all sorts of exotic fruits, and exotic insects, lightly tossed in oil.....anyone for a big hairy spider???

Next down to Sihanoukville on the gulf of Thailand for chillaxing. The beaches are fabulous - stretches of fine white sand, perfect for swimming with no undertows. We stayed at Ocheurteal Beach but spent most of our time at the less developed Otres Beach. You also don't have the hassle of hawkers, because only a handful make it down that far...and then try to charge for the inconveniece. Shouldn't I be paying less because of the unexpected interruption??

Ocheurteal is full of shacks wth restaurants on the beach....nice for night-time when you can dine on the strand by candlelight, maybe a flame thrower in front to entertain but during the day there's hardly beach for the huts. Also it would appear their presence is fairly transient. As they don't own the land the government can lay claim to it anytime and turf them off whenever. This is exactly what happened on Independence Beach, further north. Probably some resort will be built there; in the meantime are a lot of have-been restaurant shacks lying idle. Some russian dude has come in and invested in the area also, a present of a hummer swinging the deal with Hun Sen and getting him an island in return.

The wind tends to whip up in the afternoon so we took the opportunity to go sailing on a little catamaran. Surfing the waves with speed we were until the wind slackened. Eoghan wanted to circumnavigate one of the islands but I didn't want to get shipwrecked. I jumped ship and left him to his own devices. He didn't get around the island, thankfully, because towards the end, the wind completely died and next thing I saw was him being resued. I laughed from the shore when I saw him being pushed in by a kayak. Took a trip to Ba Ru Island for a few days. Beautiful spot with cute little bamboo huts on the beach. Chilling to the max and the khmer curry there is delicious. The water is lovely tho we did encounter some sea lice (jelly fish larvae) pinching....not harmful, but is uncomfortable. I thought I was getting some sort of nerve pain...it's quite like pins and needles but more intense.

It's always hard to leave beach-life for hot, wearisome city travel especially when you can lie back, 2 women waxing your legs (with thread), then be massaged for an hour before your food turns up from one of the hawkers-fresh fruit, bbq squid/shrimp. You might have to buy the odd unwanted bracelet from the kids but they are a good laugh. The amputees aren't as much fun - day and night the same guys turn up, thrusting what remains of their severed limbs at you.

Back to Phnom Penh and didn't get up to a whole lot - visited the russian market and purchased a krama (cambodian scarf) for heading to the countryside. Went to the Elephant Bar in Raffles and were delighted that we flukily made it for Happy Hour! Nice bar...full of well-heeled westerners. Afterwards we went to Sisowath Quay which is a kicking strip of restaurants and bars. The locals hang out there too, just in different places, obviously....places that have reasonable prices. There are alot of kids around there selling their books on Cambodia.....huge baskets balanced on the hip....much bigger than any schoolbag I ever had.

We went to Happy Herb Pizza where it is not oregano sprinkled ontop of the pizza. Eoghan undertook to eating a large "strong" pizza. We both took time remounting our bikes after, studiously making an effort not to stumble or fumble. There was a big gang of moto drivers right there watching us closely so we didn't want to lose face. We also had to tell one of the kids that he couldn't finish our leftover pizza....but what can you say?! Eoghan quickly misled us.....bad sign....think we were on the way to Sihanoukville again. We finally did make it to the Heart of Darkness pub and were searched thoroughly on the way in. Apparently there are stiill alot of guns in PP. We had one drink and both stared unremittingly at the same people at the same time. The place is nothing special...area to the left where East meets West and there was some groping afoot. On the rhs was the pool table and some rather slick local pool shark-esses. So we sat at the bar. Time to leave when there is no subtlety in the stares and we are getting acknowledged by the stared-at party. E struggled to get us home, at the end being incapable of reading the street names on the map.....out of character. I am never capable of map reading in the 1st place but was able to confirm Street 125 for him. Then we were home and we crashed out. Next day was a wipeout though we did manage to get our Lao visas...that was after the bastards kept us waiting hrs while they had a 'meeting'. Their meetings obviously involve newspaper perusal!

We moved on again to Kratie.....cute town on the Mekong. Stayed at Heng Heng hotel which is clean and cheap. Off we headed with 2 moto guys to spot some Irrawaddy dolphins. They reckon there are only about 100 of these riverine dolphins and they hang out in the Kampi pool at this time of year when the river is low. Went out on a boat for about an hr and caught many glimpses of grey backs or a fin. They are quite shy and don't play around the boats like other dolphins. Think Seaworld is more satisfying but the river is beautiful and calm and the ride out was fanatstic, past all these rustic wooden houses on stilts. One long conglomeration of houses all the way out but not overcrowded, noisy or unpleasant, just relaxed rural bliss and many kids running around. Back in town we watched the sun go down over the Mekong and munched on fish parcels wrapped in banana leaf.

The next day we spent on a bus going to Banlung, Ratanakiri in the NW of the country. Our bus unfortunately broke down and we spent 2 hrs at the side of the road while it was being fixed; only after travelling another hour they realised we needed a new bus so 8 hrs later we arrived at Banlung. The last stretch between it and Stung Treng is unpaved road and there are lots of flaky bridges we had to gingerly pass...not easy in the dark. But the road was illuminated by all the forest fires on the roadside. The people are burning down the trees to clear the land for living and cultivation.

Banlung is one of the dustiest places I have ever been. There is a restaurant there called Les Terres Rouges....very aptly named. The food there is fantastic...best fish amok I had in Cambodia!

We hired a scooter and took in the sights of Banlung, a pleasant crater lake and a couple of waterfalls, nothing spectacular but very quiet and hardly any tourists. Would recommed a mouth guard for travelling around! We went on a three day jungle trip which involved a long moto ride to the National park, basic camp set up in the trees and 2 nights in a hammock. Unfortunately the people also seem to be burning down the jungle...which is strange because it is National Park. We went on a long day hike with the ranger. Nothing amazing sighted....a few hornbills and some mini waterfalls, some strange cotton wispy insects and saw how they extract palm oil from the trees.

The next day was more exhilarating as we were following the singing gibbons which sound like sirens: so thrashing thru the jungle trying to catch up with them and then cautiously advancing till we were beneath. They rarely come down to the ground so we had to strain our eyes to see them playing up in the tree tops. It was good fun though. The ranger spends one week in the jungle, then one in the village with his young family. Funny when you are woken at 5.30 and get up to see the father and 4 kids, aged 1yr 3mths to 6 yrs huddled around the fire to keep warm. The mother is a from a Lao minority group and only speaks Lao, no khmer, which the kids also speak. They don't have many diversions in the jungle it would seem so running around with a long clothes rag seemed to be the favoured game at the time we were there. We had a high sticky rice diet while we lived in the jungle!

Our guide, Sored, was amusing telling us about the minority people who are the main perpetrators of the jungle burning. They can then claim the land as theirs for living and farming. But they are subsequently selling on the land to get money to buy modern conveniences such as motos and tvs. He made them out to be fierce stupid, being duped by modern wares so say selling a pig for a cheap phone. In years to come it would appear that they won't have any land so I s'pose then they will have to move into the cities to survive??!!

Ratanakiri is a very interesting place and especially insightful into how the country people live...very simply. Most live in one-room wooden houses on stilts and farm or keep a few animals. We stopped at one small minority village. All the kids were gathered in the community hall playing and shouting. The women were out the front weaving which they do for 8 hrs a day. They do this in the dry seaon and work the paddy fields during the rainy season. The men were probbaly fishing or trying to give moto rides in the town. The journey from PP is 12 hrs so it is a long haul. Our bus also broke down on the way back so we were very happy to get back to urbanisation.

In PP we visited Lighthouse Orphanage. There are many in PP. The current buildings are small, dilapidated and insufficent for 50 kids. However due to foreign support they are building new dorms for the kids and a new kitchen and sick room. All the workers there are voluntary. It is a huge responsibility and they receive zero aid from the government. The authorities do send an inspector around to examine the orphanage periodically though, which is the only input they have!! The kids appear happy, they are affectionate, coquettish and loveable. We played football with a bunch of them and they were VERY good.

Our exit from Cambodai after 3 enjoyable weeks was infinitely better than the arrival. We cruised down the Mekong to Chau Doc in Vietnam. Easy, pleasant and picturesque! Would totally recommend

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