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Hello!!
Many of you will be pleased to hear that Gail has decided that she cannot be bothered to write this blog. This has therefore given me (Nikki - hello again) free reign to write what ever that hell I want as Gail is the censorship queen. And for all you English department folks out there, yes, this will be full of spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and I will be using commas inappropriately.
This is only going to be a fairly short blog anyway as there ain't much to write. I just wanted to finish of the Cambodia section before we get too swept away with the crazy world of Vietnam and forget everything! All of the pictures on here are from our 3 day visit to the famous Angkor Wat temples. We didn't really take pictures of anything else as our cameras were broken for a substantial amount of time and... well, there isn't that much to take pictures of in Cambodia. The camera's had viruses’ on them incase you were wondering - no more plugging them into infected, dirty internet cafe machines.
We left off on the last blog at Siem Reap. This is the gateway
Ta Prohm
The most famous tree from the templescity to the temples. We ended up spending 3 days there lazing around before we even contemplated a visit to the temples (mainly because Gail was seriously damaged from the day trekking in Kampot and she actually struggled to walk for 3 days). These 3 days were not wasted as we spent the evenings mainly drinking $2 Mekong whiskey buckets.
When we finally made it to the temples we bought a three day pass. The temples cover about 40 square miles so there is some serious sightseeing to be done here. The first day we decided to brave the 'small' circuit of temples on push bikes... Up at 4.30am (ah!) and at the temples for 5.30am, we made it in time to see the sun rise at Angkor Wat (this is the most famous temple- its the one on the Cambodian flag, also the beer is called Angkor Beer). As soon as the sun started to rise, we started to sweat. We later found out that the temperature that day reached a staggering 40 degrees which thankfully explained our apathy when trying to admire the temples... For those history buffs out there, we followed Angkor Wat with the Angkor
Thom temples and then went onto the famous one with the tree growing all over it (I can't recall the name now). The Bayon in Angkor Thom was by far the coolest temple there; it’s the one with all of the faces carved into the rocks. When you realize this was all done over 1000 years ago it’s very impressive.
We cycled home in the midday sun (idiots) and surprisingly I secretly decided that I would not be riding the bike the next day but that I would convince Gail (read: winge at Gail) to get a rickshaw the next day. The 'large circuit' was 26km so I think you would have done the same.
The second day was filled with more temple viewing but far more enjoyable in the rickshaw (although the financial cost did make me feel a tiny bit of guilt).
The third and final day was spent with a rickshaw man who called himself Mr. Happy. He was exactly that until he asked us for a dollar for parking. When we came out of the temple we found him parked on the street... he then found himself on the receiving end of a teacher
style scolding from Gail about 'lying to customers'. Turns out he'd used the dollar for his lunch. As further punishment we decided to take a really long time at the temples and did a fair bit of just sitting around which annoyed him greatly as he wanted to go home. We also visited the Cambodian Landmine Museum on the third day. This is a small but incredible place dedicated to educating foriegners about the amount of landmines still in Cambodia and the lasting damage they have on individuals and the land. It also tells the story of the man behind the museum who was a child soldier with the Khmer Rouge. He later fought with the Vietnamese army when they invaded. Once the fighting was over, he began to single handedly de-mine the country as he had buried so many mines as a soldier. He now continues this work with the UN.
For the 3 days we were at Angkor Wat it was the Cambodian New Year celebrations. This is a huge deal in Cambodia (also Thailand and Vietnam I think) and is celebrated with water fights galore. Also all children under the age of 16 celebrate their birthdays
Carvings
Banteay Srei on these days not on their actual birthdays. We were warned that it could get a lil' crazy in the towns and especially at the temples. Disappointingly, we saw no craziness at all and I'm convinced that the Cambodians celebrated somewhere we didn't know about or they try and hide this from the tourists. As we said in the last blog, it has felt really hard to immerse ourselves in the Cambodian culture and this was no exception.
With the temples seen, we actually struggled to find a place/town/activity that was interesting and cheap to fill our last 5 days. A few km down the road from Siem Reap is the famous Tonle Sap (a HUGE lake) but because it is just before the monsoon there was no water in it so a visit there was fairly pointless (and expensive). We couldn't afford to travel to the east side of the country as there is no road that connects the west to the east - all bus journeys have to go threw Phnom Penh which is in the south. In the end we decided to head back to the beaches in the south for 3 days of sitting and
Banteay Srei
The best kept examples of carvings spending no money... which was great for me as I topped up the golden brown tan.
The trouble we seemed to run into in Cambodia is that because there are no public buses or trains, all journeys have to be done with a private bus company. There is also the added complication of 5 million unexploded landmines, which means no straying off the beaten track by yourself. On top of this, most states/cities won't let tourist hire their own mopeds so you either have to go on expensive tour group outings for the day or hire rickshaws/drivers and mopeds. Just bleat on about money a little more, we went way over budget for Cambodia as we found the country surprisingly expensive. A lot of the transactions are still done in US Dollars which is handy for the Cambodians as they seem to round the amounts up to a dollar instead of the actual amount in Riel. One good thing to come out of this is that we are now amazing at converting English Pounds into Cambodian Riel/Vietnamese Dong and then into Dollars.
We left Cambodia on the 21st May and crossed over the border to Vietnam (after a
grueling 14 hour bus journey). I think I can also speak for Gail when I say that Cambodia just wasn't the country for us. I suspect part of the negative feeling has come because we had such an amazing time in India, plus we were there for 3 months, and we may have done a lot of comparing the two countries... Also we are away for the year and I guess it's bound to have peaks and troughs. Personally speaking, the realization of my own financial situation also cast a shadow over the 3 weeks. Now we're in Vietnam, those worries have mysteriously disappeared, along with my money but, shit happens!
I'll leave you with two final Cambodian observations -
1. All buses in Cambodia are disco/karaoke buses. Cambodian music is played at a fairly loud volume for the full journey. This nearly drove us to tears, esp. when we'd been on the bus for 8 hours.
2. A lot of the women wear pyjama sets as normal everyday wear. Like the ones you get from Primark. Strange.
I’ve just read my own blog back and I think it’s going to be a roaring success. Thanks for
taking the time to read it. We’ll be charging a $5 dollar fee from now on to read these so just make you cheques out to Ms Nicola Gott…
xxx
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john
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good blog nikki- u ever thought of becoming an english teacher????????