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Published: April 25th 2011
I left the next morning for Battambang on the other side of Tonle Sap and met two German girls who let me tag along on a motorbike adventure of the countryside. You only go to Battambang to see the surrounding villages and temples and they are a little too far and the roads abit too bad to go by pushbike and still enjoy yourself. Annette has a lot of experience on bikes but her sister, Florentine and I had none so we spent the afternoon on a good sealed road getting used to the bikes and their semi-automaticness and rode to Wat Ek Phnom. From here we attempted to find another temple on the map but never got there. We did come across one more which was used as a prison by the Khmer Rouge. We went through a lot of small villages which was really fun and got to cross the river with the bikes on a 'ferry' although it wasn't more than a raft really. In the evening we left the bikes at the place we hired them since there's alot of competition between the bike hire place and our hotel and their associated tuk tuk drivers who sabotage
the bikes at night if left out on the street. lovely. Annette and Florentine are both vegetarian which was great and we went fish-sauce free meal hunting.
The following day we headed out early in the morning in search of the bamboo train but got caught in a collossal downdour and spent over an hour under a badly leaving porch waiting for it to stop. We eventually found the start of the train, loaded the bikes on and started the 7km trip to the next and only other station. This was really fun and sad to think it will stop running soon, especially when you see that locals still use it regularly. It's single rail so when you run into a train coming from the other direction the lighter packed train has to move off the track to let the other one pass. We thought another train couldn't possibly be more packed than 3 motorbikes but that was not true - we came across one overflowing with fire wood that would have taken for ever to unload so we had to lift the bikes off, move the train off the tracks, then reload everything once the other train has
passed (and by 'us' I mean the drivers of both trains while we watched). From the end stop we rode to Wat Banan on some really muddy roads from all the rain. I managed to stack it twice slipping in the mud but amazingly never fell to the ground - only the motorbike did, and it didn't get damaged, just very dirty. Although its not that far, it took for ever to get there since we had to drive so slowly. This old temple is on the top of a hill and 328 steps lead up to it. I admit it was alot of steps, but still I don't think it was even close to 300. There are nice views from the top of the flat, flat landscape of Cambodia. From here we drove on some much better roads to Phnom Sampeau to see the killing caves. There are a few other nice caves you can go into full of Buddhas around a nunnery but also the one where the Khmer Rouge threw live people into from the skylight maybe 20 meters above you. You can also go to the top of the hill for the views and pagoda but
it was getting a little too late and we didn't want to be riding home in the dark. The main road back into town has been paved within the last year so we ventured off it and took a smaller dirt road for part of the trip which is more fun, has less traffic, and also nicer views.
We all left early the next morning on the bus to Pnom Penh. It always seems to be either a Friday or a Saturday when I arrive somewhere to organise a visa which is really inconvenient. I'd arranged to have my Russian visa support documents posted (by courier, not the Cambodian post) to a hostel which doesn't have a great location but it was the only one I could contact by email so I have to stay there. Its a nice place, just a little far from the main sites and the embassies. Unfortunately they hadn't arrived yet. I wandered around the central market then along the river front which is one of the main tourist drags and looked at the great selection of second hand books in the shops. I was really worried about getting stuck in Phnom Penh over
Khmer New Year but at least I know there are a bunch of good books I can work my way through if it comes to that. Annette and Florentine were staying with their friend who works in Phnom Penh so I met up with them in the evening and we went on a sunset cruise with some beers then went to a 'Khmer and vegan' restaurant (so half the menu was vegan!) and to a few other places including a gay bar to watch Cambodian drag queens performing on the bar and Asias first ever nightclub (apparently) which was aweful and full of prostitutes.
I spent the next 3 days in Phnom Penh with Annette and Florentine and their friend Sybille (when she wasn't working). We went to every market there is, all of which are quite different. The Russian market full of factory seconds and fake brand name clothes, the night markets, the Orussey markets selling all kinds of aweful fashion the Khmers go crazy over (like pyjamas only they wear them as regular day clothes), and the central markets. Exploring the Sorya shopping mall and all its happy happy smiley lucky lucky was fun too and I
got a bad haircut for $3. We also went to the National Museum, Royal Palace, and Tuol Sleng. This is an old school that was turned into a prison by the Khmer Rouge and abandoned exactly as it was, complete with 14 decaying corpses. It's a horrible place that everyone who goes to Cambodia should be forced to see. The endless rooms full of the photos of every prisoner to enter the prison was the worst, along with photos of people after being tortured and dead (?). It was worse than any concentration camp/museum I went to in Europe. Other than the 14 bodies left behind, people wern't actually killed here - they were take to the killing fields just out of Phnom Penh but we did not visit this place.
We also went to a place where you get made up as a Khmer bride and have your photo taken for fun. I applied and picked up my Laos visa early in the week, then applied for my Russian visa. The óriginal documents' still hadn't arrived but they accepted the copy I printed from the email version. The Russian embassy in Phnom Penh is not technically meant to
grant visas to people who havn't been 'living' in Cambodia for at least 3 months but as long as you can prove that you've been out of your own country for more than 3 months and therefore couldn't have applied for it there, they are quite lenient. After successfully submitting this I wanted to get out of Phnom Penh, returning only to pick it up in 5 days but unfortunately it was also Khmer New Year which officially started the next day but had meant many things had already been closed all week. The buses were booked out to Kep and Mondulkiri so I went to Sihanoukville, a beach resort that is busy (especially over the new year) and has a big theft problem but I was desperate to go somewhere...anywhere!
I arrived late at night and found, unsuprisingly, that eveywhere was booked out apart from very expensive places...and Utopia, which is more of a nightclub than a backpackers but had $3 dorm beds available. It was like sleeping in a club with thudding bad music but the worst was the toilets/showers in the morning. I decided to stay on the mainland for a day then head out to
one of the islands so I bought a boat ticket, hired a bike, and rode along the coast to Otres beach, about 20 miuntes from the overcrowded and developed Serendipity beach. Otres beach also has some restaurants and bungalows but with large portions of it undeveloped and virtually deserted so I set up here. I was using my bag as a pillow and had been reading for an hour or so when my bag was snatched from behind me by a guy who ran to another guy waiting on a motorcycle so I had absolutely no chance. I'd also locked my bike up and the key was in the bag so I spent half an hour trying to find someone who could break the lock for me. Eventually one of the restuarant workers got it open with an axe. I rode back to town slowly, scanning the side of the road and riding a short way up some side roads hoping they would have just taken the valubles then dumped the rest. I didn't have too much in there so I'm grateful and know it could have been much worse - no passports, bank cards, etc.. just a bit of
money and my camera with all my photos on it (and not backed up apart from the few I put on this blog). I was almost more devastated by the loss of small but practically worthless things that were in that bag that I use everyday and are very hard if not impossible to replace in SE Asia like my headtorch, swiss army knife, and compass.
I went to the tourist police who were extremely unhelpful. I knew they would be, especially on New Year when they would much rather be sitting around talking or sleeping, but I couldn't even get a report out of them so I could claim my camera on insurance. The officer looked at me blankly and spoke in Khmer (even though he spoke perfectly good English) then sent me on a moto to a police admin office in town. This office was open but no one was being helpful so the moto driver took me back to the tourist police who now decide to give me a police report to fill out. On leaving, the moto driver says I havn't paid him. I wasn't really ever upset about what happened, just very very angry
so I took it out on the moto driver and then on the police man who sided with the moto driver. I didn't think I should have to pay for him to drive me somewhere I never wanted to go, somewhere I didn't need to do, somewhere the stupid policeman sent me for no apparent reason other than to get rid of me so after loosing about $500 worth of stuff, I had a heated argument over $1. It felt good though, even though I ended up having to pay the $1. Moto and tuk tuk drivers drive me crazy enough on days when I'm i a good mood. I spent the rest of the day frantically trying to replace things I'd lost. I bought a new phone (mainly because its my only way of knowing the time and a great alarm clock), sunscrean, insect repellant, a pen, toilet paper, a small shitty torch, a 60 cent kitchen knife. Basically I bought cheap nasty versions of the great things I'd lost. I also found a camera, identical to the one I lost and half the price it cost in Australia so I bought this too. It felt weird buyin all
this stuff so quickly but I knew I wouldn't be getting it back and I would have to replace it at some point. That was Khmer New Year, the big party night but I was not in a very festive mood!
Although my boat ticket was in the bag that got snatched, I was still able to take the boat the next morning without buying a new ticket. It took 3 hours to get to Koh Kong which is a large, undeveloped island. There are 3 separate bungallow accomodations on the beach on one side of the island, and 2 on the side I was on. I had my tent with me so they let me camp for free since I'd already spent money taking their boat there and was obviously going to eat at their restaurant since its the only one there. It would have been cool to walk along the beach and camp far away from all development but there are also some Khmers living on the island and I was a little on edge after being robbed on a deserted beach so I camped not further than 2 meters away from the bungalows and just a
few meters from the crashing waves. The beach is narrow but vey long - it took me 2 hours to walk to (almost) the other end and back again and has unbelievably white sand and clear water. In the afternoon the wind picked up though and washing a lot of rubbish onto the shore. I read and slept and swam and thats about it. I even lost the book I was excited about starting so I'd gone and bought another one the night before. The selection was pretty shit - ancient murder mystery, or ancient thriller murder mystery. hmmm, I picked the murder mystery that was connected to Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge thinking I would at least learn abit more about the history and what exactly the Khmer Rouge were trying to do other than slaughter their own people without reading a history text book. However, so far there has been very little on Cambodian history and a whole lot of very descriptive sex scenes. I'm sorry, is this a historical thriller or some lame romance novel. I gave up after 200 pages.
Unfortunately the island has been bought by a multinational who has big plans including an
international airport. They are also claiming that the Khmers living there are now 'squatting' and is working on kicking them off. On the boat back to the mainland you can see the first road being constructed from the beach to the planned location of the airport.
I didn't go for a walk in the jungle since I didn't have my shoes with me. I originally planned on staying 2 nights but the boat back to the mainland left in the afternoon only so I would miss my bus back to Phnom Penh so I left the next afternoon, back to Sihanoukville, uhhg, the last place I wanted to have to spend another night in. This time even trashy Utopia was booked out so I stayed in a private room for $10. Since I was in no mood for hanging out at the beach, which is disgusting anyway compared to that on the island, I hired a bike and decided to hunt for my backpack. This was maybe a bad idea since I didn’t find it; I just got very hot and dirty and all the anger I’d felt 2 days ago came back as if I’d only just been
robbed all over again. I rode along all the roads possible from town and the other beaches to Otres beach, some of which are very bad, dusty, sandy, rocky roads not great for bike riding. I rode slowly and walked at times, looking in the ditches and behind scrubbery on the side of the roads. I don’t know if I really expected to find anything but figured it was worth a try. I also asked at my old hostel and the tourist police if anything had been found which made me even more frustrated. Who the hell is this police man? Instead of just saying “no, sorry but nothing has been found” he started going on about the king visiting Sihanoukville and how you have to be careful on the beaches. arrrggg, how is the king relevant to my bag? I spent the rest of the day being more productive, buying things to replace what I’d lost.
The bus back to Phnom Penh left and arrived on time (amazing!) and I went back to my hostel. To continue my frustrations I went to trade in 2 books at a book shop only to be told they can’t be accepted
since a few pages were loose. Uhn, they were like that when I bought them (sort of). I picked up my Russian passport the next morning, attempted to pick up my Khmer dress-up photos but the receipt got stolen so that was an epic 45 minute waste of time, then hopped on a bus to Kratie on the Mekong. Kratie was really nice - a very small town, blissfully empty of crazy tuk-tuk drivers jumping up and down yelling "hello... lady you want tuk tuk, ok? lady ok, LADY TUK TUK!!!!!!' I met 2 Australian girls on the bus and spent the evening with them. I stayed in Kratie the next day and went for a bike ride along the 'mekong discovery trail' which turns out to just be a regular road with houses usually blocking the view of the river. Still it was a nice ride although the bike was shit and the road was very bumpy so I was pretty sore and ready to go home after a few hours. I didn't go out on a boat to see the dolphins but I did buy one of those bamboo poles full of sticky rice and red beans. The bus to Laos leaves in the afternoon since it comes from Phnom Penh so I wasted away the next morning in my fancy hotel room and pile of books.
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m.i.a.
non-member comment
ohhhhh vegetarian friends! i love fish sauce free meals! thats amazing that you found resturant with half the menu labelled vegan. and then you got to see cambodian drag queens i am soooo jealous - i bet it was hilariously tacky! all im saying isnt why havent you posted the photo of you as a khmer bride!!! hey have you met any hmong people yet? or you didnt get north enough? what happens on khmer new year? im sorry about your bag - i think im saddest to hear about the loss of your swiss army knief - it was so good to us for so many camping trips! and enough photos with monkeys mado!!! you are out of control!