Cambodia

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Day 75

We had an early 8am start as we were hoping to make it to our Cambodian destination of Ban Lung, in the north east, by mid-afternoon: how wrong we were! After navigating the perilous task of climbing over numerous boats and tiny wooden planks, whilst wearing our big backpacks, to get out at the docks we then drove to the Laos – Cambodia border. We thought we'd managed it pretty well when the Cambodian officials said Joe hadn't got the right stamp in his passport and had to go back to Laos and to the end of the queue there to get what was required before walking the 800m back to the Cambodian post and re-joining that queue. Turns out there was no hurry anyway as we then had to sit at the side of the road for 2 hours while the minibus waited for somebody else it was supposed to be collecting at the border. Finally we got on our way and stopped for a 30 minute lunch and to change buses at Stung Tren at 1pm. Well it was finally 4:30pm before our connecting bus showed up, by which point we were so fed up that we had begun remonstrating with the tour organiser and asking for our money back, but as the bus turned up before the argument was solved we decided to hop on so that we could still make it by the evening as it was supposed to be about another 3 or 4 hours drive.
All was going as smooth as things can be on a potholed, mud road, until we had to pull over at the side of the road as we needed to change a tyre, which in Cambodia with no AA breakdown service, is a 12 man job. We got going again after another hour had elapsed and finally pulled into Ban Lung at 9:15pm in the middle of torrential rain and thunder, so we had to wait on the bus another 15 minutes before the driver would agree to open the cargo hold doors.
We had already read about a lakeside guesthouse that sounded nice that we were going to head to, however given it was raining so hard we agreed to go look at another guesthouse on the otherside of town as they promised to take us too our original choice if we still wanted to go. This place was ok, but it was down a steep little mud hill and the people we spoke to said there was no hot water so we decided to go with our original choice. However, the car we had driven in and sprung a puncture coming down the hill, the owner offered to send us on the back of mopeds but the rain was still pouring down and the hill was all churned up so we decided to walk in the rain as it seemed less dangerous. When we reached the first restaurant we could find we went inside ans asked if they would mind calling our hotel to see if the could send us a lift or a taxi. The manager of this restaurant was so friendly and really went out of his way to help us, spending 30 mins making calls from his mobile to see if he could get through to anyone. In the end we paid two of his drivers $1 each to drive us on their mopeds as the rain had stopped by this point and all the roads were in good condition. It was worth it in the end as we found ourselves with a very clean, beautiful lakeside bungalow but as we arrived so late no restaurant was open so we had warm showers and went to bed with empty bellies, what a day!

Day 76

Today we hired our own bike and went straight to the beautiful Ban Yeak Lom; a beautiful, perfectly circular lake in the middle of the jungle that was created when a meteor hit Earth 70,000 years ago. It was absolutely stunning, the water was so clear and blue and the jungle was overhanging the lake at all the edges. We spent a few hours walking around the lake, swimming and diving off the jetty with some of the local children.

In the afternoon we went to visit a waterfall in the jungle. It was very high and would have made an excellent power shower, it was also really cool as you could walk along the ledge behind it and get underneath the waterfall.

Day 78

We were due to catch the 6:30am bus down to the capital city of Pnom Penh but were greeted in the morning with the news that the bus wasn't here as it had slidden into a ditch on the mud road last night as there had been so many flash flood showers again. We agreed to pay an extra $2 each to do the same journey by minibus and had a hazardous journey negotiating the same road that had caused so many problems. When we reached the site of the stranded bus half of us had to jump out of the minibus and help the locals to hold our bus upright in the mud as we tried to pass the public bus on the other side of the ditch. To all the onlookers it seemed like chaos but during the rainy season this sort of thing is quite commonplace so the driver succeded in getting us through.

We then had a long & bumpy bus journey back to the main road and then south down the highway to Pnom Penh. None of our friends that we've met on our travels could recommend a nice, safe, cheap guesthouse so we went for a low budget hotel instead and had a very early night to catch up on all our sleep after dinner in a little place called Mama's restaurant.

Day 79

We awoke 8:30 – 9:00 and had to get ready to go to the Thai embassy and some museums today.

We started by getting a tuktuk to the Thai embassy which was a little way out of town as we were crossing the Thai border by land they only gave fifteen day visas and as we were intending to stay for a month we needed longer ones from the embassy. When we got there, it was also confirmed that the visas would be free to encourage tourism in the country which was great, the only downside was that we had to wait three days to get them processed and as we were leaving Pnom Penh the following day we'd have to come back and pick them up at some point.

After the embassy we (passportless) went to S21 which was historically a school as any other in the city but during the reign of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge was turned into an execution camp. Here they killed intellectuals, business leaders, political opponents and generally anyone they didn't like. In total thousands of people were killed in this central slaughterhouse. Only a handful ever made it out alive, the vast majority (men, women and children) knew they were sent there to die.

S21 really did strike you as a sombre and horrible place. In the cells were pictures of how the liberation armys had found the former school showing graphic images of the tortured captives. The bars on the windows with the barbed wire and shackles to hold the prisoners next to each other were all too prevalent throughout the prison. Another chilling realization was the number of children that seemed to die as well, with some of the children smiling as they enter S21 and often brainwashed to torture people before being murdered themselves, so even the guards knew they were also going to die eventually anyway.

During the rule of the Khmer Rouge, all the population from the cities had been moved to the rural countryside to produce rice and food to either support the country or export to others. Which was why a death camp could work in such a large city because there was no one that could hear the people being killed or tortured in this grim place.

We spent a while in S21 reading the accounts and looking at the pictures of what happened there, which was truly brutal. Then we decided to head out and go to another unappealing yet education place called very attractively 'the killing fields'. So we hired a tuktuk to take us out of the city center to see the place for ourselves.

When arriving at the killing fields we were struck by firstly how close it actually was to the city center and also how calm and tranquil the place was. You enter through the paying gate and there is little direction apart from some vague arrows to guide the way. We found a tour with a guide so we tagged along for a little while before heading off on our own but at least we knew the right direction to go in.

'The killing fields' was the execution grounds for the prisoners of the Khmer Rouge and S21. People were brought here to be killed by usually crude methods such as spades and other farming instruments and thrown into large mass death-pits. There were thousands of people killed in the killing fields and you could walk around the field and look at the graves that were yet to be filled and also where they found large numbers of bodies. During the brutal regime an estimated 800,000 to 2,000,000 people died and many of the bodies have never been found.

During our time in the killing fields there were a few things that stuck in our minds. Firstly there was the killing tree, this was a tree located next to pit where they found men women and children. Because the killing was done during the dry season, there was still blood stains found on the tree and it had apparently been used to swing children by the feet against until they died of head wounds and then thrown in the pit with everyone else. Secondly, another pit full of bodies only had headless naked women in and their heads have never been found.

It was a very hard reminder of events that happened so recently yet were so brutal. It was a very interesting afternoon and one that we'll take for the rest of our lives and not just the remainder of out trip.

After S21 and the killing fields we headed back to the apartment and got changed go go out that night to liven the mood after a sombre day. We started the night in a great spot overlooking the main river that runs through Pnom Penh called the FCC club which was full of ex-pats and we had a cocktail in there before heading to a 'friends' restaurant. This restaurant aims to help amny of the local street kids by teaching them how to cook and serve great food (often with them advancing onto places like the hilton) so we felt good about spending a little more than we were used to, having a great meal. The food was great and service as excellent and we really enjoyed ourselves.

We then headed back to our hotel because we knew we were going to try and get to the beaches the following day to really re-wind after spending too long inland again from Bangkok, Laos and now Cambodia.

Day 80

We woke to get the early bus to a place called Sihanoukville on the southern coast of Cambodia. The bus took about four and a half hours and the time went really quickly. When we got there we checked into a place which was recommended by Lianne and Sophie called GST which was right next to the beach and was only £5 a night.

The beach was nice and had 'fun' sea, with waves you could jump over and loads of sea front bars and restaurants. Thee weather was good on the first day and we settled into beach life by chilling in the sun and meeting new people on the beach.

One thing to note about the beach is the amazing number of people trying to sell you anything and the number of disabled people begging. Its like a thick tide and you constantly need to be ready to whip out some quick Cambodian to tell then you don't want what they are selling or begging for. There are five main groups to the people selling on the beach:

1.The services women: These women are of all ages and will sell you massages, shaving legs/backs, manicures or pedicures and carry around little plastic picnic baskets with their secret tools in them.
2.The food women: Again women of all ages and will sell fruit, lobster and other food. All the food is fresh and very tasty and cheap.
3.The children: They are all fluent English speaking kids and will try and sell you friendship bracelets, headbands and anything that can be weaved from little threads. They are persistent, cocky, sometimes funny and quite often outwardly offensive if you dont buy anything (they know every swear word under the sun).
4.The men: They only sell sunglasses and are few and far between.
5.The disabled: Often men who look like they've stepped on land mines who crawl up and down the beach sitting next to your table and will stay there until your persistent that you're not going to give them anything (you really can't give to them all!!) or unitl you give them some money.

That night we went out and met some people in a bar and had a few drinks and relaxed. We headed to another bar before it was time to go back and get some sleep before another 'stressful' day at the beach.

Day 81

The next day was not very eventful because most of the time was spent on the beach. We met some people in the sea who were traveling as well and Joe got a little sun burnt after spending too much time in sea without any cream.

Tracy decided to get a $2 pedicure on the beach and got some friendship bracelets and we gave some disabled people some money.

That night we met the people from the beach in a great BBQ seaside restaurant which cost $3 each and we had beef and barracuda which was great. We went to another bar with body paints and Joe got covered and found it all over his clothes the following day.

Day 82

We awoke to find it raining so we went to the local town and had some breakfast noodles at a local Cambodian place before Joe getting his hair cut. We then decided to look for boogie-boards but we could only find some in a market and they were expensive so we didn't get any.

We decided to head back to the beach and relax at a beach side restaurant where we met a nice Canadian couple called Matt and Alison who had been teaching English in South Korea. We had some food with them and Joe had a swim in the sea before the day was gone through chatting and chilling out.

That night we met up with them and had a few drinks before heading back again to the hostel.

Day 83

After the disappointment of not having any boogie-boards the day before (there was a definite niche in the market) Joe spotted a small child playing on one. After he went in Joe followed and asked if he could borrow it for a dollar (the small child and his mum seemed delighted) and we had a boogie-board. They then told us that next door also had one so he asked there as well and for the same price we now had two! We spent most of the morning playing on them which was great fun with the waves and helped relax Joe who was a little too worked up about the lack of entrepreneurial flair for a boogie-board rental service.

That night we had an early night because we were going to have a long day traveling the next day.

Day 84

We awoke early to get the bus from the hostel to Pnom Penh which took again about four and a half hours and dropped us in the middle of the city.

We made a quick dash for the Thai embassy to pick up our passports, hoping to make a quick turnaround so that we could catch the 3pm bus to Siem Reap. Unfortunately when we arrived at the Thai embassy it was closed for lunch and not due to re-open until 3pm. As we stood on the street looking dejected the security guard beckoned us over and said that he could help us get our passports in 15 mins...for a price. So we negotiated our first real police bribe and dashed back to the bus station. We arrived back at the ticket counter at 1:20pm and asked urgently if we could still get tickets for a bus to Siem Reap today, the lady behind the counter looked at us and smiled 'of course' she said 'you can get the 1pm bus'. For once Asia's slow & easy attitude to transport has really benefited us!

We arrived at Siem Reap in the evening and quickly found a guesthouse thanks to a recommendation from some friends. We went out to dinner and had some really tasty traditional Kmher curries and went for a few drinks and a few rounds of pool. The number of children begging on the streets here is quite harrowing though and it's very difficult to know if they are genuinely in need or if they are being forced to beg for money by grown ups.


Day 85

After a bit of a lie-in we decided to make our own way to Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples by bike and fortunately it was only $2 a day to hire mountain bikes with rear suspension. The ride out there seemed to take forever, even though it was only about 7k, but the midday heat was really intense.

Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples were built about 1,000 years ago as symbols of the strength of the Kmher empire, which was the largest in all of south east Asia and at the time even London only had 50,000 residents. Each king of the period was keen to build a temple to worship the gods and then each succesive king came along feeling that they also needed to build a big & mighty temple.

The first temple we went to was Ta Prohm, a beautiful temple that is now being swallowed by the jungle and was in fact used as the setting for the Tomb Raider movie. It was quite spectacular and the way the tree roots have wrapped themselves around walls and doorways gives it a very haunting air. From there we moved on to Bouphon, which would probably have been one of the most grand temples if it was still standing, however after being exposed to natural elements for so long it collapsed and there is now a big building project underway.

After a spot of lunch we moved on to the Bayon temple, which is covered in replica heads of the king. It feels very big brother-esque, as though you are always being watched. From there we then went on to see the most famous temple of them all, Angkor Wat, the largest religious building in the world. It certainly is impressive, surrounded by a giant moat and large rolling gardens the temple creates a quite majestic skyline. There were swarms of tourist here so it was very hard to find a serene place for us to sit by ourselves and take it all in, Again there is amazing amounts of detail carved into the stone work and the ornate window slats fill the temple with thousands of fractured rays of light from the late afternoon sun. Unfortunately, as we were worried about cycling home in the dark we didn't wait for sunset, but set off on the long journey home to complete what must have been a 20km cycle trip for the day.

We arranged for a tuk tuk trip back to the temples for sunrise tomorrow so had a relatively early cheap & early night in preperation.

Day 86

We were collected by our tuk tuk driver, Wani, at 5am so that we could make it to Angkor Wat by sunrise. In the beautiful morning light, with the sky changing through a spectrum of beautiful colours behind it, the shillouette of Angkor Wat looked even more resplendent than the previous day. We spent an hour taking photos of the beautiful scene as it unfolded before us, surrounded by countless other tourists with the same idea...

From there we managed to dodge some of the tourist crowds as we had seen most of the major temples yesterday and instead went to look at the Elephant terrace, which is decorated with carvings of great elephants and their mahouts or trainers, this elevated terrace was used as a podeum form where the king would watch elephant parades on the fields in front of him. From there we went a further 16km to a far away temple which had been carved from pink sandstone so stood out from the other temples we've seen due to it's rosy hue. This temple is also, famously, the site of the most ornate carvings of the Angkor period and we couldn't help but be impressed with the intricate details still very visible today.

We returned to the main Angkor Thom site, which was the old walled city enclosing many of the temples, and saw all the remaining temples of interest to us. There was one we couldn't find a name for but it was decorated with giant elephant carvings on all the corners. Another was surrounded by 4 different pools to the north, south, east & west, each fed by a different carved spout. One had the face of a lion, another was an elephant, there was also a man and a horse. In the middle temple was one of the weirdest statues we've seen yet: a horses body carried along on 8 pairs of human legs.

For lunch Wani took us to his friends restaurant where we were able to get a discount on the food and it was really delicious. Tracy had the Amok curry, which is a Cambodian speciality, it was served inside a coconut and was really tasty, Joe was struggling to deal with a severe case of food envy.

The final temple we saw was one of our favourites in the end, Prah Keaw is huge, crumbling and mysterious and is also being slowly swallowed up by the tree roots of the jungle. We spent a long time exploring here, but as we left we were both feeling that we would not want to visit any more temples for a good few weeks...

We were sitting in the guesthouse restaurant writing our blog when in walked Dom & Tara, some friends that we had made while tubing in Laos. We had a good catch up and went out for some drinks in the evening. One bar was giving away free t-shirts if you spent £x at the bar and we managed to get one between the 4 of us. Obviously there was noo simple way of sharing it so we played each other for it at a doubles pool match, things got very tense as we were down to the black ball only for about 10 mins but then Tracy's daring & fabulously executed shot won us the game and the t-shirt!

Day 89

We took shamless advantage of some of the free wifi available in Siem Reap cafes to spend the day taking care of admin and uploading photos on to the internet. In the evening we went out with Tara and Dom again, sampling some of the local cocktails: Tracy went for a tomb raider, while Joe had an AK47.
We also found the worlds largest domesticated gecko back at the guesthouse. It was huge and apparently lives behind the stereo speakers, only coming out at night.

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