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Published: February 10th 2006
jimleighankor
Us at Dawn at Angkor...got up at 4am for this shot...hope you appreciate itGETTING HERE
Well, Jim and I are in Cambodia at the moment. A lot of people regaled us with their horror stories about travel from the Thai border to Siem Reap, such as 17hour bus journeys from hell, scams where the 'VIP Aircon bus' is neither VIP nor Aircon, rickety buses that 'break down' then take you to some dodgy place late at night and intimidate you into staying etc. I started thinking perhaps this was a necessary 'right of passage', then I thought "Am I CRAZY?"
Jim diligently researched transport options on the net and we opted for what seemed the best way to go: a cab all the way from the border to Siem Reap - some 160 odd km. Crossing the actual border was pretty easy once we'd shook off the touts wanting to 'help' us with our visa's and found where the actual border was (nobody would tell us for a while - guess that's a bad business move in their occupation)
So we sail through immigration, join up with 2 american girls we found at the border and grabbed a cab. It cost us $US10 each compared to around $US8 on the bus.
LeighKiss
This is me kissing one of the stone faces at Bayon In my book its 2 extra bucks well spent even for the most budget conscious traveller!It only took 3 hours and was a relatively breeze of a trip - compared to the alternatives - on some of the worst roads in Asia (and probably the world)where you could lose your bike in the potholes and I bashed my head on the roof a few times, just about got concussion but we were very pleased with our trip later in the day when the passengers of the Khao San hell buses finally arrived. Tried not to gloat. It was a little tempting but I resisted...
THE TEMPLES
We spent 2 days visiting the temple ruins which are amazing. Ta Promn temple made famous by the movie 'Tomb Raider'starring Angelina Jolie was cool and we saw the sunrise over the most famous temple of (of course) Angkor Wat which is the largest religious structure in the world - very impressive but you are sharing it with lots of other people. I enjoyed wandering around the temple ruins exploring, taking photos. We had a 3 day pass but Jim got grumpy and 'templed out' so we aren't using the 3rd
Leightemple
Me at a temple day. We got to see most of the temples anyhow and it sounds really bad but after a while they all start looking a lot the same.
HIGHLIGHT: Nope, not Angkor Wat. Bayon temple was my pick. Large and well preserved with 216 giant heads watching over you eerily with an icy smile. Late afternoon was a perfect time to go with the golden glow providing great lighting, the effects of the shadows moving across the faces is awesome. They say the faces - which are remarkably identical - bear more than a passing resembleance to the king commissioning the temple at the time. Can anyone say ego-maniacal narcissist?
LOWLIGHT: Stupid Tourist Mistakes, like thinking the guy in the 'Police' shirt is actually a policeman - how dumb are we, huh? He asks you if he can tell you something about the temple and before you know it you're on a 'tour' and its too late to change that now!! After 20minutes you get to the end and the guy want $US10 or double whatever you offer and there's an uncomfortable moment because you know if you want one you can get a guide for less than that
jimtaprohm
Jim at Ta phrom, the temple from Tomb Raider for all bloody day. Up side is you do learn some stuff about the temple that you would know otherwise...
BIGGEST DOWN SIDES: The noisy, trampling, massive package tour bus hordes. For the most part we did well to avoid them but every now and then there's simply no escape. The other is stall upon stall at every major temple selling all manner of stuff and being accosted constantly and persistently. "You wanna souvenir?", "You wanna T-shirt?", "You wanna cold drink?". Now the cold drink can be a god send after trekking about ruins in the blistering hot sun but the wooden cross bows and bamboo flutes usefulness is not so immediately apparent! Just as the postcard pack is handy but you can't buy from each child - as you'd like to - or you would literally have about 30packs of 10 at the end of the day! Don't stop unless you want to buy something, you just get mobbed if you show the slightest interest. Be ready for countless children and massive guilt trips!
THE KIDS
This is probably the saddest but at times the funniest thing here. You fall in love with the children
Monkstock
Just a few of the 3000 monks gathering at Angkor Thom for their yearly festival but they break your heart at the same time with their pleas of "Please lady! You buy my postcard. Buy my postcard, please. So I can go to school...". When you don't buy on the way in, before trailing behind they'll often say "OK, when you come back you buy. You remember me, I wait for you. You buy please or you make me cry..." As you can see the kids aren't above emotional blackmail. But who can blame them?
I kept thinking how good they'd be at street based fundraising back in the west! Would have love a couple on my team...However, you are approached so often that you get what can only be discribed as 'begging fatigue'. Mostly the kids are good natured about it all and their sorrowful face and imploring eyes switch to laughing and twinkling in the space of a heartbeat.
They have lots of lines which are funny. "Where you from?" I say Australia. "Oh, G'day Mate! You have many kangaroo. And emu, koala. Capital Canberra. Population..." When Jim says Canada "Oh, capital Ottowa. Very cold. Population..." I must say its pretty impressive. When I was 7yrs I probably didn't know the
Faces
One of the 216 faces at Bayon capital of my own country let alone the capital of every major country or state in the US. Hell, until I met Jim I thought the capital of Canada was Toronto!
If you come here you need to be mindful that they are very young. The youngest we've seen selling or begging was probably 4yrs old. I think of my friends children that are around the same age and my heart aches for these children who's only crime is being born in a poor country. They're just doing what they have been told to do by their families to survive. Don't just shoo them off, be gentle with them - sometimes you might have to be a little firm - have a bit of a fun with them and you'll be rewarded with their laughter. They might haggle with you like a grown up but remember they're just little kids!
THE POVERTY
OK, this is a bummer to put in at the end of a blog but it has to be done. If you want to feel at all warm and fuzzy stop here.
The extreme poverty and hardship is very confronting. It's gut wrenching, to
LittleSalesgirl
"You buy from me or you make me cry" say the least, when you see an emaciated man with no legs and one arm sitting in the dirt of a roadside in a sort of loincloth begging with his one good arm. This is a Cambodian war veteran, blown apart by landmines. In our countries in the west they are hero's, usually taken care of to some extend. In Australia there are special government agencies and pensions and free hospital. Here there is nothing, not even the most basic social welfare. We gave him some money and his expression never changed, i don't think he even saw us. No sooner do we turn around and there's a man with no arms who's seen we are giving. We buy him a drink, then there's a landmine victim band busking because they don't wait to beg, then there's a man in a cart - another landmine victim with no legs- who's selling books to tourist to feed and house his family of 5. This man spent several years begging before getting a hand up from an NGO to sell books. He now owns his own cart and works for himself, he has big plans to start a co-operative to help other landmine victims stop begging but he barely has enough for his families basic necessities. So we bought 2 books about Pol Pot's genocidal regime in which over 1.5million of the 8 million cambodians were massacred and first the other gives first hand accounts of the imfamous Killing Fields from people who were children then. So yeah, just a bit of light bedtime reading.
On the light hearted side there are so many landmine victim bands that - and this will sound awful - Jim felt compelled to shop around before donating. He wanted to give to the best band with the worse injuries since we can't give to them all. The best sounding bands were often the ones with the least obvious injuries and the most horrifically injured usually played pretty badly. We gave to one from both extremes and called it even!
Next Pnom Penh!
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makarar
non-member comment
thanks a lot
Thanks a lot for your nice texte and photos, it's great, you are kissing Cambodia, my homeland, and thank you very much that you are showing to the world about our flag and geography !