Cambodia. Phnom Penh - Siem Reap. 6/11/09 - 13/11/09

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After reading through a few blog entries written by other folf describing the hassle they had crossing the Cambodian border by land through Poipet we tought it would probobly be best to spend a little bit extra and fly into Phnom Penh. Doing it this way we wold reduce the risk of being scammed, robbed or ripped off by some dodgy taxi driver or phony immigration officer. It was probably worth it as we breezed through airport immigration and paid our $20 visa fee before catching a taxi for what will probably be the most interesting ride of all time. Craig, James and I chucked our bags into the boot and took our seat in the Toyota Camry (which must have been about the same age as our wrinkly faced driver) and gazed out the window in near silence for the next half and hour, only opening our mouths to let out some monosylabic expression of disbelief. The roads are basically a free for all. Probably about 80-90% of the vehicles on the roads only ghave 2 wheels, and about the same proportion are carrying at lest 2 people. We watched a family of 5 overtaker us on a motorbike, the father driving, the 2 kids sitting behind him, and the mother cradling a baby at the back. Other bikes were carrying crates of fruit, planks of wood, baskets of puppies and we even saw one pull up to a furniture shop with a double matress on the back, propped up against the drivers head! Everything is done at a, dare i say it, safe-ish speed. We probably didnt get over 20mph the whole way to the hostel. Everyone weaves in and out between the cars, trucks with loads stacked to the heavens, and slower moving buses. At first you think your going to see a crash every 5 seconds but as the journey goes on you realise these people are pretty good drivers. Every one of them is probably far more aware and calculating than any British driver on any of our roads. Unaggresive horns are constantly being used to warn people they are about to be overtaken and everything seems to flow surprisingly well. The streets are also lined with allsorts. The streets of stalls and shabby looking shops are never ending. People old and young sit around on the dusty pavements, or on their parked bikes, eating food or just watching the traffic go by with apparently nothing else to do.
The place is quite dirty and there is a lot of litter lying about the place. Poverty seems to be quite widespred. People with big bags dig through the occasional pile of rubbish, obviously looking for materials of some worth, while unsupervised barefoot children splash about in dirty puddles. Its not nice to see this side of what is otherwise an incredible place.

We were catching a bus to Siem Reap the folowing morning so that night we decided to go out for some food. The place we were recommendedby the hostel was closed so the tuk-tuk driver dropped us off when we say a nice looking place selling local grub. This was to be the start of the tastiest week of my life to date. The bubbly waitress (whom we all instantly fell in love with) recommended some traditional dishes and we tucked in. I ordered a curry made with coconut milk, lemongrass, veg and the most amazing formula of mild spices in the world. It was bliss and for the days that followed the food consistantly delivered. A dish called "amok" is the quintessential Cambodian dish and although it varied in taste, appearance and consistancy throughout the week it was delicious everywhere we ate. Curries are always on the menu, and sometimes are served in the coconut which helped make the sauce. Everything is made to looka s good as it tastes which is no easy task. In gutted we didnt get a chance to go on a cooking class for a few hours.
We were up bright and early to catch the bus for our 7 hour journey up to Siem Reap. The journey was air conditioned which made for a more pleasant ride, but this was instantly cancelled out when they stuck the telly on at the front of the bus and showed terrible Cambodian sitcoms all the way. We stopped off for half and hour to allow passangers to do the toilet and get some grub. This was probably my favourite bit of the trip so far. As we stepped off the bus into the blistering heat we were flocked with kids trying to sell us bags of fruit for a dollar each. We could hardly move and they were all shouting "You buy from me!" "Yes, yes, yes" we replied. "Il remember you" one girl said to me...she wasnt lying. After finding the toilet we reemmerged to the same barrage of kids. I finally gave inand bought a bag of pineapples from one of them. Next think i hear is an angry 8 year old, nearly in tears saying "You said you would buy from me." In fairness to her i had and i ended up buying a bag of mangoes off her too. Another really young girl then held up a bunch of mini bananas and put on her best puppy-eyes look. As much as it pained me i had to refuse. The kids were great fun. All they wanted was your money but they went about it in a really friendly, unthreatening way (not that a 3ft tall female with pig-tails and baby teeth could ever be threatening...but u know what i mean). One girl handed James a $5 note and asked for $1,000,000 in return. It was all done with smiles on their faces and they al shook our hands and made us promise we would buy more fruit off them on the way back in a few days time. Unfortunately we didnt stop at te same place on the way back and i was genuinely gutted we didnt. Amongst all the chaos and the sea of fruit bags (which i failed to mention were delicious) we could wander round the other things being sold. Little old ladies sat along a wall under umbrellas selling fruit, veg, cooked locusts and there was even a tray stacked high with cooked tarantulas! I managed to get a picture from a fully extended arm, just incase one was still alive. To get back on the bus we had to get past one of the girls who decided to petrify the tourists by standing beside the door with a live tarantula sitting on her chest. She would pick it up every so often and pretrend to throw it at people. Classic. Once we got back on board James the arachnaphobe asks Luke the arachnaphobe "Luke, do u reckon ur more scared of spiders than me?". "No, i think ur more scared of spiders but I'm probably more scared of everything else." Also a classic, i was in tears.
The amount i sweated during that 1/2 hour stop was sickening. Even just standing outside, which is what we did for the most of it, the sweat was dripping off my face and the front and back of my tshirt had changed colour. The heat was quite ridiculous all week and was definitely the biggest drawback of the country. If you were doing anything outside an air-conditioned room your face wold be wet. Even sitting outside at midnight your shorts would be sticking to your boxers and your boxers would be sticking to your "switty erse". It was pretty uncomefortable, but we did get used to it. Just thankful we didnt visit in the hot season!

On our first night in Siem Reap and after another delicious chicken curry, we headed to the main touristy strip aptly named "Pub Street". We found a bar and remained there for a good few hours. While punters danced on tables and chairs we stood at the bar and watched the footie on a 12" screen. I spent quite a while talking to a very nice girl from Florida who gave us some tips and advice about visiting the temples at Angkor Wat. Thank you muchly Samantha. Your exquisitely detailed and perfectly anotated hand drawn map was far better than any tourist guide.

The following day we sorted some stuff out. The guys went browsing shops while i stayed at the hostel (which have allbeen very nice so far) and caught up on some blogging ang washing. In the evening we headed back to pub street foir a meal at a place called "Cambodian Soup". I know i sound like a broken record but it was incredible. The serving dishes were made from banana leaves, the beer was ice cold, the amok was spot on and we got it all for a few quid each. We had a bit of time to kill before the United Chelsea game kicked off. Me and James used this time wisely and sat otside a restaurant and had a fish foot massage. You baically sit with your lower legs dangling in a big tank filled with cleaner fish who nibble off all the dead ski on your feet. Veeeery strange feeling. Dont know where i would place it on the horrible-amazing scale. I spent the first 10 minutes twitching a lot before i could bare to uncurl my toes and let the fish get to the tender skin between the toes. Fortunately for the fish Craig kept his crusty extremities away from them . It would only have ended badly. Either they would have had a feeding frenzy and all died of indigestion before finishing his big toes, or they would have lept from the tank favouring a slow distressing death on a manky pavement.
We went back to Cambodian Soup to watch the game. How is it that wherever on the planet you watch a football game theres always some smug, half-cut, pain in the ass loudmouth supporting the opposition. And how is it that the opposition always win when these folk are there. "Orite everybody! Is there any scummy United fans in here tonight?!" Yes mate, yes there are and every single one of them wants you to shut your mouth and leave.
The next morning was an early start as we went for a day reip around the numerous temples at Angkor. We each paid $10 dollars for our tuk-tuks who stuck with us all day, taking us between the various sites.
The temples were class! Unlike the modern temples these are ancient ruins and maintain their individuality. The design and size of them will blow your mind. It will never cease to amaze me how people ever managed to build sites like these. Their over 1000 years old and still standing strong. Ta Prohm was probably my personal favourite where the tree roots spilled over the tops of the roofs and down the walls to the ground. Tomb Raider was filmed here, but unfortunately Angelina Jolie wasnt knocking about. Shame.
After strolling through the main temples (al of which were amazing) we headed to the biggest, Angkor Wat, for sunset. It was very romantic. The 5 of us held hands al the way round and James and Luke snuck off for a snog behing a palm tree before we headed back. A long sweaty day but most certainly worth it.
THe following morning we returned to Phnom Penh on the long bus. The time went by very quickly as there is always something to look at. That evening we booked our and watched The Killing Fields in preperation for the following days tour.

We started the day with a trip to the S21 genocide museum. As soon as we set foot off our tuk tuk a man with a severely disfigured face asked us for money. It was really horrible to see but it gave us a taste of the horrors that were awaiting us inside. We paid our entry and opted for a tour guide who took us round the old school site where Pol Pots men held people captive and tortured them for information. What used to be classrooms of a school were converted into single man cells containing only a bed with no matress which the prisoners were chained to and tortured for up to 9 hours a day. Also in each room was a large framed photo of the dead prisoner which was found in that cell. It weas very graphic. I think that it was the recentness of it that was most shocking. Everyone over the age of 30 had lived through Pol Pots reign in which half the Cambodian population was killed. The question on some of our lips during the tour was asking the guide what her life was like during the time. No one dared to ask, no one needed to. When we came to a large mapafter walking through rooms filled with pictures of those who died on the site through starvation, beatings, hanging or drowning she told us her gut wrenching story. She had managed to flee the city with her newborn daughter to the south east of the country. Here, after 6 months of hiding, her daughter died of starvation and upon returning to Phnom Penh she discovered her husband was one of the thousands of men who had been bamboo caned to death near the Thai border. It made me feel sick to the stomach and i could fel my eyes welling up. We all just stood in silence as she continued with the tour. She appears to have dealt with it very well and muxt be used to telling her story to visitors every day. She then walked us through rooms filled with tiny 1 man (or mother/child) cells where prisoners were left naked on the bare floor. All clothing was removed to prevent them choking themselved to eath and all the windows were boarded up to prevent them throwing themselves out. The final room was filled with human skulls. Each one had a plaque below it describing how old the person was and the head wond which killed them. Some of them had bullet holes through the top of the scull while others had large cracks and holes from being beaten with blunt objects. Iv been to Auschwitz before and walked through the gas chambers and rooms filled with human hair and clothes but this place seemed a lot more macabre. There were a couple of tims on the way round a wave of nausea came over me and i had to take a couple of deep breaths to get some oxygen to my head. I had my camera but i didnt take any pictures. I didnt want to. We mad our way back past the begging survivors to out tuk tuk to visit the killing fields where many of the 3.5 million bodies were buried. We visited the memorial tower which was filled with human skulls then took a short walk around burial sites. There wasnt really much to see besides a few huts with plaques describing those buried. The area was quite nice which masked the sinister nature of the place but it was chilling to think that the grass and trees we were walking between may still be feeding on the bodies below.

To finish the afternoon on a lighter note we were taken to the "Russian Market". Fair enough it was a market but i dont know where t5hey got the "russian" bit from. We were there for over an hour and we didnt see a single bottle of vodka. Lames however did make the astute observation regarding the abundance of elephant and buddah models on sale. Oh look, buddahs and elephants made from wood. There are some buddahs and elephants made from glass. Whats that over there? Why its buddahs and elephants made from pottery. You would have thought that the sheer number of elephants knocking about that one enterprising buddah wold have started an elephant trecking business. But no, they seemed far more content sitting cross legged on the shelf. They dont know what their missing.

In the evening we headed down to he riverfront for some grub. As always Craig ordered his favourite dish. He simply holds up 2 fingers and points to the previous person who has just ordered. Its a genius way of doing it as everywhere seems to make it. Im waiting for the day the waitress comes to him first. God knows what he'll do.
The plan for later on was to catch a floating bar called Pontoon but as we spent too long at another bar sipping long island iced teas. We played a pretty damn funny game of "genres" in which someone picks a catogory and we go round the table until somebody repeats something thats been said or cant think of any more. My favourite was probably the "types of cheese" round in which after 4 of us put forward "cheddar, edam brie and stilton" Craig confidently adds "milton" which almost slipped under the radar as we tried to think of more for ourselves.
With Pontoon probably half way to Siem Reap we headed to our second recommended evening hotspot, a place called Heart of Darkness. It was surreal. None of us had ever recieved so much attention from the fairer sex in our lives. I was getting my hair tweaked from every direction while everyone else was getting poked on the side and smiled at. We were petrified and instead of enjoying the attention we got a bottle of beer each and stood in an impenetrable circle beside the bar. This didnt last long and after another drink we decided to let our hair down (literaly in my case before someone pulled my headband off) and enjoy ourselves, and that we did before returning to the hostel.

Having done the "must-do" touristy things the day after the night before was spent in and around the hostel. These days are needed to catch up on various things. Washing, finding and booking transport and accomodation to/for our next port of call, blogging, getting in touch with friends and family. This particular day i set myself the task of putting my photos on cds and sending them home. What a mission! The lady at reception directed me to a nearby internet cafe. They didnt burn cds and pointed me in the direction of somewhere that did. This happened a further 3 times and after an hour of getting lost i got a tuk tuk back. I then spoke to a guy who worked at the hostel who sent me to a photo shop. Finally some DVDs!
Upon my return the 5 of us watched Notting Hill (which awesomely had singalong subtitles) and went to bed. Our bus to Saigon was the following morning.

In general Camboia was awesome, definitely my favourite place so far. Everyone was very friendly, especially, hostel and restaurant staff, the tuk tuk drivers and the kids. Weather was very hot. Everything is really cheap and you can feast in a nice restaurant for $5. Was probably the healthiest week ever food wise. Ate tonnes of fruit and all meals are made from fresh ingredients and very little is fried. Very flat healthy looking landscape and i now have the urge to read up on the Cambodian economy. That is all for now, my fingers are sore.

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