Finally Cambodia. All the time I was mostly looking forward to come here. And I'm not disappointed (yet, hehe).
Coming from Thailand after a 30 hour ride on the bus we arrived at the border and like in all border towns had a lot of touts trying to cheat us on everything. First impression of Cambodia was just stress, screaming taxi-drivers and sour faces.
But only 50 kilometers away, in the little town of Sisophon things changed dramaticly. Most tourists go right from the border to Siam Reap and Angkor Wat, so almost everybody in Sisophon is just happy to see a tourist :)
Since nobody spoke very well english we started our stay in Cambodia with learning simple phrases in khmer. Great success! Now everybody was smiling even more!
I liked being there, even though there was not much to do. We wandered around, visited the local art-scool, got a dancing- and music-performance from the students had a massage. Simply relaxing after the long journey.
After 2 nights we went to Seam Reap. We stayed at a real nice guest-house, Especially the free coffee all day long suited my deserves :) Not to mention free bicycle-rent and baguettes in the morning. I think part of that we stayed in Siam Reap for 5 nights was because of the guest-house.
First evening we went to the Angkor-Wat-sight by bicycle to buy a ticket for the next day, guaranteeing that we could see the sunset "for free" the same evening. So we did that. Just like EVER OTHER TOURIST around there. Hehe, it got relly crowded. But hey, the ruins are THAT impressive, it just takes your breath first time you see it!
Next day we spent all day bicycling around some of the Angkor-Wat-temples, talking a lot to the local kids who wanted to sell stuff, but got easily distracted by our songs or english-lessons. That was fun.
Next day we became the “good foreigner" and went to visit both the rehab-center for the disabled, the childrens-hospital and an orphanage, where we watched a dancing performance. The whole day was great. Even though I don't like that much "visiting" people I don't know it felt alright, because all the kids were just so happy to see visitors, to speak some english and just play around.
Next another relaxing-day with a lot of shakes and juices, fruit-plates and massage.
Last day we went to visit the floating village. It was a real rip-off. They made us pay a fortune to drive us around in a boat on a lake to show the floating houses. Pretty impressive though, to see how people can have a whole community on the water, with shops, schools, a boat driving around selling clothes, a gas-station and like everything. Poor people though. Real poor.
In general Cambodia is a very poor country. Very often we can see business-ideas that kind of work, but are still in their children-shoes. A lot of NGOs around to help especially the very poor in the villages. Health care is a big problem and with a nation were one third of the population is children health care for kids is much needed, as well as education.
Still, like many other places in Asia, most people seem happy. At least satisfied with what they have..
From Siam Reap we went to Battambang. We wanted to come here because it's suppose to be a beautiful boat-ride. Unfortunately the water-level is so low right now, that it wasn’t possible.
Anyhow, we went here by bus, nice enough. Driving the bus in Cambodia is as adventures as every other place in Asia. Kind of organized (with bag-patches and girls serving muffins and water on the bus, also Nescafe but no hot water!) it still takes twice the time as expected. Local dramatic music-videos on the TV in front of the bus. The bus to Battambang, half an hour after leaving, went looking for a friend of one of the passengers. When we didn’t find the friend we waited for half an hour in the middle of the road for her to appear on a motorbike :) Nobody complaining, of course!
Battambang is much less western than Siam Reap. No fancy restaurants or bars. More Cambodian, I’d say.
We only stayed for one and a half day, exploring town, wandering around the market, small-talking to people.
We wanted to ride the bamboo-train, a real cool thing to do, but nowadays it’s not allowed anymore to go on the bamboo-train with the locals. Today you have to pay a 10 dollars to get on your very own train and drive 7 kilometers back and forth. Tragic! We didn’t do that, just shot some pictures of the train.
We later met a guy who was working for a german NGO, to bring information to the local villagers and their small businesses. He was very eager to show us around and explain all the different small businesses people have. He was such a nice guy, guiding us just for fun.
You have to have a look at the pictures! We visited a snake-catcher (I tasted snake!!), a rice-mill, the place were they make fish-paste and fish-sauce for the whole Cambodia and more.
That’s it for today. I LOVE Cambodia!
It changed a lot since I was here last, but has still the same spirit. A lot of sorrow in the people, but looking forward and so happy about seeing us :) (I like THAT!!)
