Our last morning in Laos we rose early to a beautiful Mekong morning and after yet another fried egg breakfast we boarded an unstable Lao canoe for our trip across to Namkasong village for our mission to the border. We arrived at a small bus station in the village where over 40 backpackers were looking at three minivans and shaking their heads... No way we are never going to fit in there! "Short trip, Short trip - one more in this one - bags on that one. Short Trip, Short Trip!" the drivers kept saying! Eventually I scored a roomy front seat and our van took off as I waved to Lou and Christina who were still part of the last four people staring incredulously at the overstuffed vans.
Although seperately the 3 of us did reach the Lao border where we were greeted with a small tin shack and two Lao officials who insisted on an administration fee of $2 for working overtime on a Sunday - naturally! Our first group milled around the shack for a little bit once we were stamped out noticing that our bus had dissapeared back in the other direction and a little confused about where to go until we were pointed down the road. Of course! We had to walk across the border - road works were in progress at the time so we headed off down the dirt track feeling a little bit like illegal mexican immigrants in the hot morning sun. The Cambodian officials had a similar shack and a similar overtime fee but we had organised our visa prior to reaching the border so we had no hassles. Immigration officials in Asia are generally quite intimidating but the previously scary uniformed Cambodian officials seemed less so when during their morning tea break they wandered around holding hands... a common practice between same sexes in their culture. Cambodia seemed hotter than Lao already as we waited in a small exorbitently priced border restaurant for the buses to turn up to carry our group to a variety of different destinations all over the country. We managed to amuse ourselves by running backwards and forwards under the barrier giggling "I'm in Lao... Now I'm in Cambodia... hehe I'm in Lao..." You get the picture.
The Lonely Planet and Rough Guide to Cambodia had all described the road journey to Phnom Penh as awful due to the horrendous road conditions so we had decided to break it up into two sections and spend a night in Kratie. Our minibuses didn't arrive until midday but it was only a short trip and a dodgy car ferry ride to Stung Treng before we jumped on our final bus for the day. Turns out the road has been upgraded since Lonely Planet covered the journey so we covered the distance to Kratie in next to no time and arrived by 5pm to find a peaceful town settled on the banks of the Mekong with a palm fringed esplanade.
Accommodation touts met us at the bus stop and after quibbling over prices we ended up following one a few hundred metres up the road to a huge colonial riverfront building where we scored a huge room with private bathroom for $5 - between 3 of us. We had a long cold shower (by choice this time) and wandered off down to the river to see the final stages of the sunset. A nice cheap dinner in a guesthouse restaurant up the road and we had an early night catching up on journals and enjoying the novelty of cable television.
Our tout of the night before organised bus tickets to Phnom Penh for us early the next morning. He arrived back triumphant from the ticket office proclaiming "I got you front seat miss because I see you have long feet!" I presume he meant long legs but I wasn't complaining as our trip to Phnom Penh was brilliant due to a nice big airconditioned bus and the extra front seat leg room. We stopped twice for food on the way and at the last stop we filled up on rice and Cambodian stirfries for $1 - you have to love the rural provinces. It was here that we were treated to our first glimpse of the Cambodian speciality - deep fried spiders. Apparently you are meant to eat them a little like crabs by pulling the legs off and sucking the meat out but I was definitely not game to try them! Instead I had to put up with watching the bus driver crunching down on them for the last hour of the trip.
We arrived in Phnom Penh at the bus station next to the Central Market and were immediately accosted by dozens of accommodation touts and tuk tuk drivers. They were pushy and overwhelming so we grabbed our bags and set off in any direction which would take us away from the area. After a few blocks we found a guesthouse called Angkor Thom in which we found a room for the night with private bathroom for $10 a night. We cleaned ourselves up and then headed out to find an internet cafe to get up to date. By the time we emerged a few hours later it was dark. We were determined to get the true Phnom Penh experience so we wandered the streets intending to get street stall food. Unfortunately the night market was not where it was supposed to be on the guide and after wandering for a few hours in the crazy traffic that is Phnom Penh we gave up and headed back to our room via the supermarket where we purchased the makings of a platter, fresh baguettes and a $4 bottle of wine (justifiably awful.) We settled in for the night to watch a movie on cable tv - ahh true travellers.
The next day was our first sight seeing day. We walked towards the riverfront from our guesthous intending to tick the Royal Palace off in the morning but NO - apparently you have to be fully covered so you dont offend the King. Annoying thing is we had discussed this that morning and decided that as Phnom Penh is really hot and we were visiting a Palace and not a Wat - shorts would be alright. So that threw a spanner in the works and we discussed what to do before deciding to cross off one of tomorrows planned attractions - the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum which was known during the Khmer Rouge regime as the notorious prison S21.
In Vientiane we had been very academic and purchased three books to enhance our knowledge of the areas we were travelling through. These books were Girl in the Picture - Vietnam, Stay Alive, My Son - Cambodia and The Sex Trade in Asia - self explanatory! Thanks to the recent travel days I had managed to finish Stay Alive, My Son and was enlightened towards the horrifying attrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge during their strict regime which lasted only four years from 1975-1979. During this four years over 2 million Cambodians died through torture and execution or malnutrition, sickness and hard labour. S21 was previously a school and was converted into the prison in 1975 when the inhabitants of Phnom Penh were evicted from their city and sent out to the country to work. The museum was surreal, the conditions in which they kept prisoners horrific and the black and white photo displays of the victims haunting. Whole families were wiped out, children were tortured and murdered - quite often in front of their parents and for no particular reason. There is no answer to the question Why? The Khmer Rouge executed people purely for being intelligent and did ridiculous acts such as burn foreign currency - having no knowledge of the value of $ notes in the outside world.
After this harrowing experience we walked slowly back to the riverfront via the Independence Monument and the Victory monument - both monuments to the release of the country from external powers - France and Vietnam. After lunch we were ready to hit the National Museum for which we had allowed several hours. After twenty minutes of walking around it was clear we didnt need this amount of time as the museum was rubbish. Lou and I found some nice wicker chairs in the shade of the central courtyard however and chose to have a nice quiet nap. At least the museum was useful for something. We were also entertained by a group of Cambodian men entrusted with the task of precariously moving what was obviously a bloody heavy and expensive central statue. Fortunately they were successful although we gasped a few times as the crane lifted off the ground! That night we dined on the riverfront at a restaurant which supported Cambodian orphanages and allowed us to eat pizza guilt free before escaping the noise and clamour in our quiet little room for the night.
Our last day in Phnom Penh was a tuk tuk day! We downed a budget brekkie of bread and jam and headed out to the street to find a tuk tuk driver. 5 seconds and three choices later we had Chem - a very cool tuk tuk dude in a turquoise blue floppy hat and funky sunglasses. Our first trip was out to the Killing Fields, a macabre must see attraction a 30 minute drive south of the city. Here the Khmer Rouge shot and more often bludgeoned to death (a bullet saving tactic) over 20,000 innocent men, women and children. Nearly half of the mass graves were exhumed in 1980 when the Vietnamese ended the Khmer rule and shallow holes marked the spots where thousands of bodies were buried. The site was small but moving showing heartless exhibits like the tree where a loudspeaker was hung to play music so that the nearby residents couldnt hear the screams of the dying. Another tree was used to throw babies against until they died, often while the mother looked on before being forced to step into her own mass grave still alive but now clutching her babies body and being beaten over the head from behind. In the centre of the site is a large monument holding over 8,000 skulls and we payed homage to the atrocities by sharing a moments silence upon arrival. Over our few days in Phnom Penh we discussed the compelling stories of the Cambodian people who experienced such tragic human rights abuse and debated whether it was politically correct to turn a fellow human's story into a tourism attraction. I struggled with this but eventually formed an opinion that the extensive promotion of this macabre side of tourism in Cambodia is an important method of ensuring that no country should ever have to endure such tragedy again. Nobody can walk away from these attractions justifying what the Khmer Rouge did.
We tuk tukked back into town experiencing only a minor hiccup when our tuk tuk made a snapping noise and broke down on the side of the road. Christina and I helped push the tuk tuk to a nearby service station where we sat in the shade and enjoyed a drink while our driver and the mechanic did a quick repair job and sent us on our way - service with a smile! Next stop the old French colonial quarter of Phnom Penh for a quick look and a visit to the imposing post office to send off some more post cards. Our budget drive in Phnom Penh including using the leftover cheese and tomato from our platter of a few nights before and compiling a picnic with some fresh crusty baguettes. We picniced on the grounds of Wat Phnom a popular local weekend hangout and watched the monkeys play in the trees and the resident elephant Sambo take other tourists on rides around the Wat. We still had a bit of time to fill in before the Royal Palace opened for the afternoon so we got our driver to take us to Psar Toul Tom Pong a traditional textile market. In the heat of the day the shaded alleyways over the market were a welcome respite and we were remarkably restrained with our purchasing walking away with only a wallet, some postcards and a headscarf between us despite all the lovely hand tailored clothes! We emerged from the market to find our tuk tuk driver clearly exhausted from his stressful morning having a nap in the back of the tuk tuk - gotcha (see photo!!) We moved on to the Royal Palace our final attraction for the day and an expensive one at that $6.50! Lou assumed the role of navigator, Christina tour guide and I was photographer. A lot of the huge fenced grounds were out of bounds but the buildings and manicured gardens were justifiably stunning. By this time it was typically really hot so Lou and I amused ourselves (and other observing tourists) by running giggling under the sprinklers. With all the main buildings ticked off we regrouped and jumped back in our tuk tuk to head home.
It was only 5pm and still quite hot so after dropping our stuff in our room we headed to a nearby shopping centre to escape the heat. We soon discovered that by catching all 6 elevators to the top floor we had a beautiful view out over the city - a fitting end to an attraction packed day. It was an early street side chinese based dinner and then back to our room to relax and prepare ourselves for our very early bus to Siam Reap the next day.
We arrived in Siam Reap just after midday and were immediately accosted by more tuk tuk drivers at the bus station. This time we were a bit friendlier and ended up scoring a free ride to our hostel and a $12 driver for the temples the following day - good bargaining girls! Our hostel is very expensive for Cambodia - $10 each rather than $10 between us but my god its worth it! The place is like a luxury hotel with a contemporary interior and several levels of reading, games and tv rooms with hammocks strategically placed on balconies. PLUS there is a gorgeous big pool, free breakfast and internet and... wait for it... a giant Jenga! So we spent the afternoon playing in the pool on a variety of flotation devices - none of which we managed to stay on - with our two roommates Andy (Pom) and Peter (Sydney boy.) At about 6 we had some beers delivered in an eski to our balcony before taking advantage of the giant Jenga. After which we headed into town go to the recommended 'Dead Fish Tower' for dinner. The place certainly oozed ambience. We were seated around a table on the floor in a big cavernous barn. On the bottom floor there was even a small crocodile pit! We had a traditional Khmer set meal and some more beer to wash down the chilli. By now we were boozed up and ready to hit 'Pub Alley' for some more drinks and dancing at the Temple Bar. It was a great night and we trundled home about 3am.
"Why oh why did we organise a tuk tuk driver for 8:30am in the morning" we lamented as the alarms went off at 7:30. Unfortunately tuk tuk drivers are punctual so we loaded up on our free brekkie and headed out the door with the boys following in another tuk tuk. We stopped for a 3 day pass on the way ($40) and jumped out at our first stop Angkor Wat! It looks just like all the postcards, except with thousands of tourists roaming all over it. It is a stunning architectural wonder though with a huge 3 tiered pyramid surrounded by 5 tall towers distinctively pushing into the blue sky. You walk across the causeway into the temple and it stretches out in front of you. There are so many things to explore with every piece of wall with an aspara dancer statue or intricately carved pictures. The temple itself is 1 square kilometre and we spent two hours exploring it. Unfortunately you can no longer climb to the top of the tower due to several tourist fatalities - bugger there goes the good sunset view! From here our tuk tuk driver 'Leeda' (poor guy incurred shouts of 'follow the leader, leader, leader, follow the leader' all day) to the centre of the walled Royal city Angkor Thom to see the second most famous temple Bayon. On the way we jumped out at the South Victory Gate to the city to pose for a Dawsons Creek style photo. Due to the overextensive hangovers we were all experiencing comedy photos were sustaining our energy! Bayon was another huge temple with many towers but it had unique large faces carved into the tower walls. After exploring Bayon it was time for lunch which was naturally exorbitently expensive and very greasy - just what we needed! Our next stop was Baphuon where with tummies full and our eyes beginning to shut from the lack of sleep the night before we decided to take a nap on some 900 year old exceptionally detailed and precious stones. Just another way of absorbing the Angkor atmosphere we rationalised without realising that for the next half hour we became part of the attraction for hundred of Japanese tourists who clicked away with interest. We awoke after our nana nap and ticked off Terrace of the Elephants and Terrace of the Leper King on the way out of the city. At this point one of our group dropped out and headed back to the hostel for some much needed rest so the four of us piled into the remaining tuk tuk and soldiered on. Ta Keo was our first example of a temple mountain - Lou lacked the energy to climb to the top so she stayed at the bottom to take photos and Christina made it about a 1/4 of the way before realising her fear of heights was going to rule this one out. I had just started to realise how dodgy this climbing business was when I was using hands and feet to scale the ever smaller, steeper and more precarious steps and about 1/2 way up I decided to back out. "Andy I can't go any further" I yelled up before daring to look down at which point I gripped the wall even tighter and screamed "Holy Shit! I can't get down there either!" Andy kept going to scope out the situation and coaxed me up to the top of the last flight of steps. Thank god we did as once we got up there there was a beautiful view and a guard informed us that the east side made for an easier descent - although I was still going down backwards like on a ladder. I must admit that the sense of achievement and the view made this my favourite temple for the day. Our last temple was Ta Prohm - Lara Croft temple which was stunning with lots of crumbling areas and trees growing all over it. Lou and I managed to find ourselves seperated from our group and climbing over a danger area with no idea how to get out. Eventually we spotted a guard and after initially hiding from him we decided to follow him to get out. We walked back out the front to meet our tuk tuk driver and were bemused to find neither Andy, Christina or the driver waiting for us. One hour later and we were really worried after having run every possible scenario through our heads but we stuck to the plan and stayed where we were. Eventually they reappeared having waited around the back of the temple complex for 1/2 an hour - we didnt even know there was a back exit! We headed for the sunset at Bakheng mountaing along with thousands of other tourists for a rather unremarkable sunset. Fortunately our day had been filled with so many other highlights that it didnt matter and we returned to our hostel happy but exhausted.
The next morning we had a much desired mini sleep in and headed out for the temples at 10. As we had a 3 day pass we had the luxury of now exploring the outer temples. Our first stop for the day was Pre Rup another large temple mountain with distinctive guarding lions. More comedy photos although our little group had gone down to 4 with the departure of Andy. We moved on to Ta Som a smaller but really cool temple with loads of overgrown trees. You could tell we had started to get off the tourist circuit as the number of other visitors had dwindled considerably. Our first example of an island temple was next. Neak Pean would have been picturesque in the wet season when all the surrounding pools were full of water but in the current dry season it lacked in atmosphere. Our last temple of the morning was Preah Khan. It was another huge complex with lots of trees and shady places in which to absorb the atmosphere and hide from the now baking sun. On the way out we enjoyed the shade and a cool drink at one of the numerous cafes.
We then persuaded our driver with a little extra money to take us out to the other side of town to see another temple group called the Roulous group. We arrived tousled thoroughly wind blown at the temples after an hour tuk tuk ride. The group consisted of three temples the most majestic being Bakong which was absolutely gorgeous in the fading afternoon light. This group was unique as the temples had modern Wats in the background which highlighted the differences in architecture and religion between the old and the new Buddhism. Bakong was definitely our favourite temple of the day and a fitting end to another day of temple exploring. On our way home we arranged with our driver to collect us at 5am in the morning for sunrise at Angkor Wat - one of the must see attractions.
So with groans and moans we jumped out of bed the next morning at 4:15 in order to meet our tuk tuk at 5am. For once we were five minutes early and we were waiting in reception eagerly for Leeda to arrive. WELL LEEDA STOOD US UP! What a little bugger - we think its because we paid him so much the day before that he needn't bother meeting us for our third day. SO we waited and waited and waited tossing up whether we should just jump on a motorbike but at that time of the morning there were little to no other transport options around. Sooo our beautiful planned sunrise at Angkor Wat went out the window and we watched the sunrise over a dusty Siam Reap road. In the end we gave up and went back to bed for a few hours before starting the day again. We had a lazy day in the hostel using the internet to get up to date, swimming and playing board games. Later on in the afternoon we made the most of our 3 day pass by getting a driver to take us back to the Lara Croft temple where we perched on some rocks to do some sketching - well the other three sketched and I wrote in my journal. We then headed to Angkor Wat for sunset which admittedly was beautiful. At the end of Angkor experience we got our driver to drop us at the night market where we wandered around for the traditional cheap beer t-shirt before heading to some streetside stalls for a cheap but cheerful traditional meal.
Unfortunately we were unable to get on the bus to Vietnam the next day - thats right we left it too late... again! SO we had an excuse to spend our last day in Cambodia lounging around in the hostel using the pool and the internet to blog - hence the quick update! We have stocked up on snacks for our epic 13 hour bus ride to Saigon, Vietnam tomorrow and are looking forward to new food, new culture and new friends!
