Running Amok in Cambodia

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After reading a few horror stories about the land border crossing betweeen Vietnam and Cambodia, we were pretty pleased that our trip from Saigon to Phnom Penh was actually relatively uneventful. Well, apart from getting on the bus to find our seats missing (literally - there was a space where they should have been)! At the Vietnamese border, our bus driver took our passports off us, left us standing outside wondering what to do next and then reappeared twenty minutes later with them all stamped and ready to go through... not sure it was the best form of security but it was simpler than queuing! The Cambodian border was a little more reassuring, as we were finger printed into the country one at a time.

Our guesthouse was near the old market, in the riverside area of Phnom Penh and was quite a long way from where the bus had dropped us off, so we threw on our packs and walked across the city. It was not as busy as Saigon, as there were more cars and fewer mopeds, and we even had a couple of cars stop for us at zebra crossings! The streets, like most other Asian cities we have visited, were pretty grimy but at least walking around allowed us to take in the vibe.

We weren't particularly wowed by Phnom Penh but spent a couple of days wandering the capital and ticking off the main sights anyway... we struggled to find the attractive part of the city though! We've tried to set out below what our perfect 24 hours in Phnom Penh would look like, as we know a few of you are headed for this part of the world later in the year:

Start your day with a walk along the riverside by the boutique guesthouses and restaurants. Stop at the Blue Pumpkin Bakery for breakfast at their upstairs café. Balconies are the best way to enjoy the streets without having to be part of the action, so make the most of these. Next, saunter along the pavement (yes, there is a pavement here - what a nice change from Vietnam) past Wat Onalom to the Royal Palace. Head in here to enjoy the pretty surroundings and peace away from the hassle of the city outside.

If a tuktuk driver shouts to you "Hey Australia" (because you're wearing an Australian cap) "the Palace is closed this morning, so I take you for a city tour?" politely say no thanks and carry on, as the palace is actually open - he must be confused... Although do try and get there before 10am, to leave yourself some time to look around before it closes for lunch at 11am! Walk around the palace gardens and then through to see the Silver Pagoda. The floor has many silver tiles (hence the name), which apparently weigh a kilo each, and there is a huge collection of Buddha images, including an Emerald Buddha, which reminded us of the Bangkok Grand Palace. In fact, the whole palace is very reminiscent of Bangkok, as it is designed in a quite similar style. The Silver Pagoda also gave us a cool break from walking around the grounds in our 'demure' clothes - jeans and long sleeves... A change of clothes is certainly advisable for the rest of the day!

If, like us, you're trying your best not to go OTT on the Asian food, lunchtime calls for a western meal. Stop at 'The Laughing Fat Man' for the best wood-fired pizza in town and listen to Tina-Turner albums on repeat (wish you were here Jim)!

In the afternoon, it's time to learn a bit about Cambodia's more recent past. The Killing Fields (Choeung Ek Genocidal Center) is a tuktuk ride out of town and explains the very sad history of Cambodia during the time of the Khmer Rouge. It is a must-do while in Phnom Penh and the audio-guide makes it really interesting, despite the harrowing nature of it all. The Memorial Stupa is filled with the skulls and bones of 9,000 of the suspected 13,000 people who died here between 1975 and 1978. This was quite intense, so we paid our respects and moved on.

For the tuktuk ride back to the city, have your driver pull over and grab some face-masks, as the roads are very dusty. Also, brace yourself, as outside central Phnom Penh the roads are full of pot holes...Hold on tight!

Before heading back to your guesthouse for a much needed shower, stop at the Toul Sleng Museum (also known as prison S21) to see the primary school which was converted into a detention and interrogation centre by the Khmer Rouge. This is again a sombre place, but it is important to learn about the gruesome history that affected this country so very recently.

Start a much more relaxing evening with cocktails on the balcony of the Foreign Correspondents Club. Happy hour will mean you can drink twice as much while watching the world go by down by the river! This is as picturesque as Phnom Penh gets, as the city has so few street lights and this is one of the only lit areas at night. For dinner, find the restaurant called "Friends", which supports local street children. Try a Cambodian Curry, Crispy Noodle Salad and the Cambodian version of a Chicken and Cashew-nut stir-fry. Yum!

We did visit a few other sights in the city over the course of our two day stay, so it would only be fair if we gave them a mention, although we're not sure we would recommend them exactly...We walked to Wat Phnom, after which the city is named, but decided not to pay the "Tourist Only Fee" to basically visit a roundabout. Something really has to be worth seeing for us to be prepared to pay a foreigner only charge and this didn't look very exciting! Unfortunately the National Museum was a massive disappointment too, as the price is similar to Choeung Ek but there are very few explanations about any of the artefacts displayed. We also had an unfortunate encounter with a group of locals who felt the need to photo and touch lots of the exhibits, despite us pointing out the signs forbidding both. They appeared to think it was funny(?!) that we thought they should stick to the rules. We were just confused!

Cambodia runs mainly on US dollars, but instead of getting change in USD coins, you get Cambodian Riel notes. We kept saving it up and using it to buy bottles of water, which cost about 50 cents. Make sure you don't hold onto it for too long though, otherwise you will find your wallet bursting with Riel notes that never seem to add up to a whole dollar!

As it was now at least a week since we'd been to the beach (this travelling lark is hard work you know) and the last couple of cities we've been to have been a bit crazy, we decided we needed some chill out time and would head to the beaches in the southwest of Cambodia. [Update on the crazy-ness of Saigon - Hazel's eye is getting better now, the swelling and black eye are gone and the stitches have fallen out. No more Cambodian children asking her what she did to her face!]

The coast is a bit of a trek south from Phnom Penh, and unfortunately in the opposite direction from Siem Reap, but it turned out to be totally worth the effort getting there! The bus from Phnom Penh got us to Sihanoukville and a tuktuk ride completed the job, but we always feel that we arrive more by luck than judgement. Fingers crossed our luck doesn't run out! It was great to get away from the city for a while and out into rural Cambodia. From the bus we could see the houses built on stilts and cows taking shelter from the rain underneath.

We stayed in a beach hut down on Otres Beach, which was basic but a great experience nonetheless. Being in the middle of nowehere meant we had to endure a few powercuts and, when it rained every afternoon, the company of the lizards and frogs that took shelter in our bathroom. We welcomed them eating the bugs though, as additional protection from the mosquitos that we had to chase out of the net over our bed 😊 We spent our days on the beach and soon discovered that the shack opposite our bungalow made the best Cambodian food in Otres Beach. We ate there every night and worked our way through their Khmer menu of 'Lok Lak' stir fry, 'Amok' curry and coconut curry. With beer cheaper than water it would have been rude not to also make our way through the microbrews they had on offer.

We noticed a few cows roaming the "high street" and also a large number of dogs, which appeared to be people's pets. As well as the older dogs relaxing under the beach loungers, there were also a few puppies playing in the beach bars. Hazel wanted to take one of them home, but Mark made the (slightly Victor Meldrew-esque) point that puppies grow up into big, smelly dogs. Mark believes his negativity towards dogs is justified because a few moments before one of the puppies playfully jumped on his lounger, shook himself off and covered Mark in water and sand... Just desserts, you might say!!

Our next bus journey was to Siem Reap, and is worth a mention because the total journey time was about 14 hours, with an additional hour break in Phnom Penh and an hour spent waiting in the Sihanoukville bus station to set off! As the light started to fade on the second leg, we noticed fluorescent tubes shining in the surrounding fields. When we stopped at a rest area it became clear what they were for: Mark attempted going to the bathroom, but was bombarded by bugs and had to retreat to fetch a grass-hopper out of his t-shirt! By the side of the road a lady was selling cockroaches, grass-hoppers and deep fried tarantulas, which are apparently a local delicacy. The locals use the fluorescent lights to attract and kill them.

Siem Reap is the nearest town to the Angkor Heritage Park, and the world famous Angkor Wat. This is Cambodia's main tourist attraction, and is so important to the Khmer people that it features on the country's flag. However, for centuries (and as recently as World War II) Thailand has tried to take Angkor from Cambodia - Siem Reap is Khmer for Siam Defeated, in commemoration of one of the battles where the Khmers were the victors.

Even though the town is full to the brim with tourists, we really enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of Siem Reap and wandered around stopping at the boutique shops and galleries. We found a lovely little cafe next to the river, where we stopped to watch the world go by. We found it such a contrast to Phnom Pehn, as there was very little rubbish in the streets and the place felt much cleaner (to Mark's glee). A visit to Siem Reap is not complete without a trip to both the night market and the old market, to see the snails and locusts being sold by the handful and to have your ankles drenched with fish water flung from the bucket of a Cambodian lady! The night markets are more touristy and we shopped here for Cambodian scarves and souvenirs. The main tourist drag is known as Pub Street, but you don't have to stray far from its neon lights and noise ("Hey lady - you want massage?") to find local restaurants serving tasty Khmer dishes. One night Mark ordered a Khmer BBQ frog... which, weirdly enough, does actually taste a bit like chicken!

After a day spent recovering from that mammoth bus journey, it was time to see the ancient temples in the Angkor Heritage Park... we'd come all that way just to see them, and we weren't disappointed! After visiting a few temples on our travels already, we thought we might be a little underwhelmed but the sheer scale and then detail of the temples is incredible. We hired a local guide, Van, who was absolutely fantastic (thank you, Tripadvisor!) and were able to learn more about Cambodian life as well as the history of the temples. He was also interested to learn about life in the UK and was horrified to hear that we don't grow any coconuts! We crawled out of bed at 4am, arriving for sunrise at Angkor Wat and Van fetched us coffee to drink beside the lake while the sun came up.

The crowds were not too bad to start with, but definitely increased throughout the day at the more popular temples. The complex is big enough, though, that there are many tranquil spots where you could sit for hours and contemplate the unbelievable amount of skill and effort that must have gone into these works of art. Alternatively, as in our case, you can sit down in the shade and take a break to recover from clambering up the steep wooden steps which lead to the top of the temples. At some of the temples, like Prasat Ta Keo, they still allow you to climb the original stone steps (even though they are getting on for 1,000 years old), which are nearly vertical, using your arms to pull yourself up. This is great fun but definitely not for those with vertigo, as the climb down is a bit more tricky!

We managed to pack in six temples in 8 hours, which sounds a like a lot but was actually about right - some of these were the big names, like Angkor Wat and Prasat Bayon, and some were much smaller ones where it would only take 20 minutes to climb up and have a look around. Angkor Wat, the largest religious building in the world, is the classic "must see" temple, not only to take in its huge size but also because it is so important to the Cambodian people. Its stone carvings are in amazingly good condition and, with the help of your guide, you can spot some lovely scenes of everyday Khmer life, some of which are still relevant today.

There were families of monkeys (see Mark's "spot the monkey" photo) in the surrounding jungle and playing in the grounds of some of the temples and, while we were at the top of Angkor Wat, we saw some of them grab a food bag from a Japanese tourist and proceed to eat her sandwiches and bananas!

Our favourite area of the complex had to be Angkor Thom, the royal capital city of the Khmer empire in the late 12th century. Angkor Thom is a walled city that used to house hundreds of thousands of people and so contained many individual temples, as well as palaces and audience halls for the royal family. All of the wooden houses and palaces are long since gone but the temples, city gates and the terraces that used to support grand royal pavilions are still in fantastic shape for their age. Prasat Bayon was pretty busy when we arrived, but our guide was brilliant at getting people out of the way so we could take photos. We won't bore you with too much detail but the carvings are well preserved and depict aspects of the history of the Khmer Empire, as well as local life. Bayon is famous for the 216 gigantic faces that have been carved onto the temple's towers - opinions are split over whether these faces are supposed to represent King Jayavarman VII, who built the temple, or whether they belong to Avalokitesvara, the Buddhist bodhisattva of compassion. Apparently the Khmer kings considered themselves god-kings, so maybe its both! Either way, the number of faces has to be seen to be believed. Over time, the religion of the Khmer kings has changed back and forth between Hindu and Buddhist, and so the statues from some temples were replaced and the old ones thrown into the jungle but at some temples the carvings were just altered, so you can see a smiling seated Buddha that someone has tried to adjust to look like a Brahma with a beard!

After Angkor Thom, we moved on to Ta Phrom, the temple famous for being in the Tomb Raider movie (no, we haven't seen it either). Ta Phrom is set further into the jungle and is overgrown with Cambodian 'Spung' trees. Some of these trees have roots growing over the ruins and others, you feel, are actually holding the temple together. Unfortunately, you can't run through the entrance which Angelina Jolie did because there is only broken stone inside...also because the waterfall, where she comes out, is at least 15km away! It's a beautiful temple though, and all the more interesting because you can watch the team trying to piece it back together...it's like one giant jigsaw puzzle.

From here we leave Cambodia behind and head back to Bangkok. We have had a such a great time that it seems a shame to leave... Let's just hope the hotel in Bangkok doesn't have any bugs or frogs in the shower but, if it does, then we will be having a Khmer BBQ!

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