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Published: December 15th 2008
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Friday 12th: We arrived in Phnom Penh on Friday afternoon and caught a tuk tuk to the hotel. We asked to be taken to the hotels by the lake but our driver had other ideas. No matter what we told him to do or where we told him to go he knew exactly where we should be staying and it didn't tally with our ideas. They are in cahoots with certain hotels and get commission for the delivery of tourists. We didn't end up too badly off though we paid more than we would have liked. Driving in Cambodia is completely crazy. The longer we stay, the more it seems normal to dive three abreast in one lane and to drive along in the wrong lane, and to drive on the pavement when there are road works... etc.I do feel a little sorryfor the cyclists and motorcyclists who have tuk tuks constantly ploughing into them at any given hold-up.
Saturday 13th: We caught the bus to Siem Reap in the morning which took 6 hours. We were kept entertained by strange Cambodian DVDs of slapstick nazis and karaoke, alopng with the endless views of rice paddies being tended by women
in conical hats, houses on stilts and water buffalo grazing next to the road. We got another tuk tuk to opur hotel, a lovely family run place along a dusty track with cable tv but no hot water! Cold showers are particularly refreshing after spending the day going from temple to temple in a dusty polluted city. We spent out first night in Siem Reap browsing yet more market stalls and eating traditional Khmer BBQ - cooking the food on the table in front of us. We ended the night with a 'fish massage' from Dr Fish. We had our feet washed with warm towels then we put them into a tank full of little fish which nibbled off all the dead skin. Sounds revolting but felt lovely!
Sunday 14th: Our tuk tuk driver picked us up at 7 o'clock to take us on our first day at Ankor Wat. We were exploring the temples that were a little further afield and headed off to Kbal Spean, not technically a temple but a series of carvings in the rocks in the bed of a river. We trekked about a mile uphill to see the carvings of buddahs, animals and
people and dipped our feet in the waterfall. We then went three more temples in various states of decay with fantastic carvings, and decorated doorways that looked like grand picture frames which echo one inside the other inside the other endlessly throughout the temples. We spent the evening on Tonle Sap lake on a boat. We chugged through the floating village and floating markets where the vietnamese Cambodians live. The Cambodian government won't let them own their own land so they've taken the water as their home and float around Siem Reap according to the seasons. They've even got a floating school and a floating basketball court (caged in of course!).
Monday 15th: Our tuk tuk driver picked us up again this morning to take us to more temples in the Ankor Wat complex. We visited Bentay Sereay, the lost temples in the forest. It's a Lara Croft dream with huge blocks of broken temple lying around the inside walls. We climbed through the rubble, Indiana Jones style, to get to the tops of the walls and explore the area but Toby got a bit enthusiastic and managed to slip on a dusty rock and fell landing awkwardly and bending back his thumb. He looks like he's got one Incredible Hulk hand - except purple - but it'll be ok with a bit of rest. After a couple more temples we were done for the day and headed back for another cold shower to rid us of the dust!
Tuesday 16th: Today we went back to Angkor to see Angkor Wat, Bayon and Ta Prohm. We hopped on a couple of bicycles and braved the 8kms on the hectic roads. It was a very pleasant cycle until we got closer to Ankor Wat when the road was very bumpy. Bumpy road=sore bum. Angkor Wat was enormous with lovely bas reliefs around its four outer walls. Even though it was very big and impressive, I didn't like it as much as some of the other temples we'd already seen. We got back on our bikes to cycle to Angkor Thom which houses Bayon. We took a small detour along Angkor Thom's moat and we found ourselves on an upper path with the lower path down a slope towards the water. Forgetting my bike had very poor brakes, i headed down the slope at quite some speed, hit a very large rock and fell off my bike! With a very slight grazed knee, I got back in the saddle and shamefacedly cycled on to Bayon. On the way we saw a convoy of elephants! Bayon is a large temple with huge stone faces erected on top of towers, faceing in all 4 directions - quite spectacular. Next we cycled on to Ta Prohm, which is another Tomb Raider experience, with trees growing out of the temple walls and huge collapsed pieces of stone lying about the temple walls. We cycled in through a side entrance, through a grand archway with another of the large stone faces, and had to struggle along the sandy path on our bikes through the jungle. It was easy to see how the temples were left un-rediscovered for so many years when we were less than 300 meteres away but couldn't actually see the temple at all. We had to follow the sound of beating drums along the snaking path to find the temple itself. We then cycled back to Siem Reap and headed out for a few drinks. We chose to drink in the Angkor What? bar where the bar maid who came to serve us turned out to be a friend from university who I hadn't seen in 3 years! Suffice to say we got very drunk on buckets of cocktail!
Wednesday 17th: We left Siem Reap for Phnom Penh in the morning, still feeling a little worse for wear (ie still drunk) from the night before. The journey took 7 hours and we were ready for a nice early night. Alas, the best laid plans.... We started chatting to a couple of musicians in the bar of our hotel who enticed us into a night out on the town. We headed to Sharkey's bar, where they would be playing a couple of days time for a few drinks, then on to 401 street - the red light district of Phnom Penh. I've never seen a denser population of prostitutes! There were 3 for every man in the bar (and 3 for me too!). Our 'early night' turned into a 3 o'clock stumble home!
Thursday 18th December: We got up early and headed out to the Killing Fields by tuk tuk. This is where the Khmer Rouge sent people to be killed and they buried thousands of people in mass graves. The first thing you see when you walk into the Killing Fields is a massive pagoda type structure which houses shelves and shelves of skulls belonging to the people who were dug up in the killing fields. The Fields now are just a series of signs telling you what used to be there - chemical store, weapons store etc. and the excavated pits that were the mass graves. There was also the tree where they used to beat the young children to death which was pretty gruesome. It all seems a little unreal until you look at the floor and see the clothes of the victims poking out of the sand. Whenever it rains, more of the sand is washed away exposing more and more clothes of the victims of the Khmer Rouge. We then headed back to the city where we went to Tuol Slueng - Poison Hill - also know as S21 (Security Office 21) where victims of the Khmer Rouge were detained until they were sent to the killing fields. They were tourtued and held for weeks on end and many didn't make it to the Killing Fields before being beaten or starved to death. There were rows upon rows of photos of people who were detained here and it all seems a little unreal to think that every single one of them was killed in the three years of the Khmer Rouge rule.
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anonymous
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Angkor What? Bar..... I love that bar! :-) Miss you saz... sounds like you and toby jug are having an amazing time xx