Less luxury, more adventure: Cambodia

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Putting the luxurious beaches of Phi Phi behind us, we soared into Phnom Penh hoping for adventure in a country we knew very little about: Cambodia. Kev, Richard and Matt had a week with me and from then on I was going to be ?? alone.

We started off by checking into the Faulty Towers of Combodian hotels - it was overpriced and well past its used by date. While that's not a fair description of Cambodia, we certainly had our fair share of overcharging and Richard had a homing beacon on food past it's used by date!

Phnom Penh has all the trappings you come to expect of a poor asian city, men shouting at you to hop into some strange contraption they call a taxi, women in shops pointing at some shirt and promising to do a good deal for you. However Cambodia is a far cry from Thailand who is well versed with handling tourists. There seemed to be less Cambodians vying for our dollar, and those who did weren't quite as well versed in how to extract it from us.

We decided to bring the hustle and bustle of Phnom Penh to the nice foke living outside of it. We rented some quad bikes and with local guides started zooming around dusty little roads to zoos, lakes and the sad and infamous killing fields. Stepping on the bones of countless murdered Cambodians as they jut from the ground under your feet is a soul shuddering experience. Nearly 200,000 people were executed by the Khmer Rouge 30 short years ago. Bending down and picking up someones tooth and knowing that anyone you see aged over 30 lived through these times reshapes the way you think of most of the people you meet and talk to. It was a certain relief to let the images of death fade away as we continued on our bikes and the kids; alerted by the sound; ran from their homes to wave at us as we passed. The guides vary the path for each tour so the kids only occasionally see tourists and are genuinely excited, wave incessantly and are only hoping for a returned wave. The Zoo had a sign thanking "Rove and Belinda from Australia" who donated money to enlarge the tigers home. I'm always proud to be an Aussie.

We had heard rumors that you can shoot a cow with a rocket launcher in Cambodia, so went to the shooting range to find out. You can, it costs 500 US dollars. Crazy but true. We stuck with the traditional rifle and paper targets, and repeatedly turned down offers to upgrade the paper targets to walking chickens or lounging crocodiles!!

Thanks to a dodgy chinese restaurant on the way to Siem Reap, we altered our site seeing to the lesser known sites of air conditioned hotel room and hotel pool for the first few days. We did make it to the famous Angkor Wat and a few other temples where the children used every sales technique known to man, including threats to try and get coin from you.

Saddened by the departure of the boys, I headed south to the beach town of Sihanoukville to try and swim away my depression. A local boy sensed my melancholy and decided to play a game of chase with me. I had put my camera into a friends bag on the beach, and as we were both swimming a young man materialised from nowhere, grabbed the bag and took off up the headland. After my swim / run to the top of the headland I realised that he was likely to duck into the rocks and ditch the bag so I ran to the far side of the headland and found some help to block him in. The locals were brilliant, within minutes dozens of people were searching the rocks and helping to cordon off the area. I think most of them worked in the guest houses around and were trying to avoid the area developing a bad reputation. Someone found the 18 year old boy and dragged him to a local police hut and called me over to identify him. I had glimpsed him for a second before ducking my head into the water in chase so I tentatively gave a "I think so" before someone clubbed him hard, splitting his head open and knocking him to the ground. This is when I got scared. I jumped between them and him and politely suggested they don't hit him again. Scared I had fingered the wrong bloke. A few minutes later he managed to sit up and pull my camera and other valuables from his pocket. The police sent the man who clubbed him on his way and covered up the blood with dirt - all was ok now. We got everything back, spent hours with the police proving that pesky paperwork is in fact universal. The police laid out all the possesions and money and took some photos of the boy touching them, and then a few photos proudly handing back all the possesions to me. I wish I could buy the local papers!

Having had my fun at the beaches and islands of southern cambodia, I decide I need more relaxing so head to the famous "4000 islands" of Laos in the Mekong.

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Photos

Happy kids
Was a refreshing change to see kids who just wanted to wave or say hi and none wanted anything but your wave in return

Fish massage
I struggled with this fish tickle to death thing

Construction Cow
I think he was a foreman

Sitting around
Sitting around doing nothing

Aussie soldiers
For around $US1 a bullet you can shoot a range of guns at paper targets. Famously you can shoot a cow with an RPG for $500

Skulls in Cheoung Ek
Over 200,000 people were murdered by the Kmer Rouge, most here. Walking the grounds the bones stick out of the ground underfoot.

I think this was a Avanti Slice Timetrial
I think he was taking the bike back to the bike shop to get his fit up done again as I think it might need some minor adjustments

Contender
I challenged him to an arm wrestle, humiliating loss for me

In the zoo he had a a big enclosure
But had come in to the cool concrete

Comments

[Beth Brook]

Food
Watch out for that dodgy food, it can really take the edge off a day. Have fun, glad you had the fish pedicure - I've heard about it but never seen someone having one. Mum

[Andrew C]

Go Dave
Go Dave! Looks like an awesome trip so far, but hey, no mention of females this whole time. Wazzup!?