LBing in Cambodia

5 May 06

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Up & early in Phuket to begin our trek to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Somewhere during the day I succumb to some sort of bug. Yuck! Nothing like exacerbating the stresses of travel by picking up some grisly parasite along the way. So, we hop on our short flight to Bangkok and then wallow away most of the rest of our day awaiting our connecting puddle jumper flight to Siem Reap. I personally spend most of it sprawled out across airport seats trying not to offend the locals by attempting to not point my sandaled feet at anybody while fighting whatever parasite was flourishing in my stomach. Yuck! {{{What I later learn after fighting this bug for 9+ days is that one should always travel with a ton of garlic (fresh, crushed in a jar or perhaps garlic supplements) as the only way I eventually killed this bug was by ingesting as much raw, crushed garlic & slices of baguette with fresh honey--yes, it sounds gross but it worked-- to make the garlic bearable as I possibly could--within 2 days of this self-prescribed homeopathic remedy I'd recovered--nothing else, including the max-dose OTC hydrochloride tablets, came close to helping}}}

We eventually catch our flight on Bangkok Airways (Thai Air's boutique airline that was really great!). Our flight was smooth despite being able to watch a large thunderstorm with lighting looming off in the distance. It afforded us great views of the Thai & Cambodian countryside along the 55 minute flight to Siem Reap. Lots of greenery along the way with the occasional mocha brown pond of water that dotted the land. We could make out some winding rivers and eventually Cambodia's giant Tonle Sap--the large lake that fills up much of the Cambodian map. We soon land and exit directly onto the tarmac--something we do a lot of in Asia. It's blazing hot--near 36*C (my high school in Germany used to send us home when temps reached 25*C--Hitzefrei--as they said it was too hot to be able to learn effectively because the schools lacked A/C)--this is 11*C hotter--HOT!!!

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We meander through customs and get rerouted once or twice because we have E-Visas (we filed for them via the internet) and they can't find us in the 'system'. Apparently eVisas are a very new concept in the country. What we later learn is that the folks who arrived without a visa came through immigration & the 'apply for visas in country line' almost as quickly as we did even though we had our visas in hand. Something to note for future visits. We notice only one other American on our flight--only because his backpack looks rather familiar to us. ;) Our guess is that he's just getting home from the big desert, has some extensive vacation time to burn and decided to burn it all in SE Asia. He says he's staying in Cambodia for 3 weeks, then off to Vietnam for another 2 weeks, then the Philippines, Taiwan & Hong Kong--cool vacation! We inquire as to his lodging arrangements for Siem Reap and he says he's staying in a guest house in town--which we later learn is the way to experience Cambodia on the cheap as they run from about $4-$25/day compared to our $40/day 4 star hotel. Another thing to note for future trips as the guest houses are usually closer to the center of town & likely include bike or motor-bike rentals in the price, too.

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At the airport we hail a taxi and it costs $5 to head into any part of Siem Reap--we learn it's a really small town. Good luck for us as our taxi driver speaks English, is well versed on the history of the area and is charmed by the children. We end up hiring him for each day of the rest of our time in Cambodia at a rate of $20 regardless of how far we travel. They drive on the 'right' side of the street here so after 8 days in Thailand it takes a bit of getting used to again. The traffic drives really slowly around here which probably precludes a lot of accidents from occuring. There's a mix of cars, pedi-cabs, tuk-tuks, motorbikes, cyclists & pedestrians on the road--similar to China but the speed is WAY slower.

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At first glance Siem Reap seems to be a town caught in a time warp. It has that old world feel about it still despite the numerous regal hotels that have sprouted up around the area in the very recent past. The old world feeling I have in Siem Reap is what I expected to feel in Thailand but didn't. Somehow it has that Hemingway-era Cuba feel about it but without the Carribean Sea. We arrive at our hotel--Princess Angkor Hotel and are greeted with lemon-lime cocktails and get settled in the nice room. One thing we've noticed about all of our travels around Asia is that the rooms have been inordinately clean, with fresh crisp linens, clean carpets and luxurious materials. I've never had that 'heebie-jeebie' feeling in an Asian hotel that I frequently experience in our US 'roach-motels'. If only the $70/night via Travelocity Grand Palace in New Orleans would learn a lesson or two from these hotels scattered around Asia--the health department wouldn't be after them!

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Later in the evening we hop in a tuk-tuk to find a nice restaurant in town--our tuk-tuk driver drops us off at his recommendation, "Borei Sovann." Excellent choice--we order chicken satay with garlic fried rice, Cambodian fried rice and steamed rice, Tiger beer, Coke & Sprite. The entire meal costs $13.00--not bad with enough food to feed 4 plus a lot of leftovers.

Then our tuk-tuk driver gives us a great tour of Siem Reap's nightlife on the way back to the hotel. He points out the Royal Residence, various organizational headquarters--police, fire, safety, a stadium with a carnival-like atmosphere that includes amusement rides, balloon-dart stalls with soda bottles as prizes, merry-go-rounds, etc. The kids' eyes light up!

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6 May 06

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We awake to the sound of large bells leading a procession of deftly dressed women heading to temple.

This is our view of the procession out the hotel window. We're about 3km from the town center and we wonder if that's how far this procession will go? We enjoy a nice breakfast at the hotel and then head off to find an ATM that dispenses US $$$. Interesting. Here in Cambodia the currency is Riel--but almost all transactions occur in US dollars. They don't use coins in Cambodia so their Riel is used as 'change' for transactions. 4,000 Riel to $1. My first thought is, "Wow, this government has figured out how to get another country to produce its currency for it--ingenious" although it ticks me off a bit as a taxpayer but I'm sure post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia can use any outside assistance it can possibly get. So if that's one way we're helping them recover from He&* then so be it.

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Then we head off to the massive (400 square kilometer) Angkor Wat temple complex where we purchase 3-day passes for $40 per person ($20 for a 1 day pass, $60 for a 6 day pass--children under 10 are free). If you intend on doing this, bring a passport photo with you as you'll need it for the pass & it'll free up a lot of your time for exploring--thankfully we had a couple photos on hand.

This is the massive moat around Angkor Wat.

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We first explored the Angkor Thom complex's 13th Century Bayon Temple.

Bayon Temple

We're greeted in front of the temple by a man selling lotus flower fruit from his motor-bike. We sample the fruit and it's delicious--sweet. There are also dozens of children hawking guidebooks- Lonely Planet Guide to Cambodia, Thailand, Viet Nam, etc. So don't bring any with you--just grab one for less than $5 on the grounds and help pay some kid's tuition for that day.

We marvel at the Apsara dancers that are intricately carved into many of the surfaces on the temple walls. Each dancer holds a unique pose and there are over 10,000 unique poses they've identified to date--especially striking are their finger positions. These dancers literally train from the age of 6 to contort their fingers so as to be able to hold these poses. They can literally point their fingers backwards to the back of their hands when their hands are opened out. It's amazing!

This face is what makes Bayon so unique. It's carved into each angle of the temple spire and it has a benevolent appearance as opposed to the stern faces on many of the other temples.

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We meander through numerous temple complexes throughout the day. Each one totally different than the previous. It's incredible. Many of the temples were painstakingly disassembled for repair in the early 1970s with detailed assembly maps to aid in rebuilding them. But thanks to the Khmer Rouge onslaught that ended about 8 years ago--these meticulous records were destroyed and now several of these disassembled temples lay around the grounds in pieces essentially serving as some of the largest 3D jigsaw puzzles in the world.

One of the disassembled temples.

We eventually cross through the Royal Enclosure and explore its various buildings. The first temple we see is Phimeanakas (Celestial Palace). It's a pyramidal representation of Mt. Meru. If you ever decide to go letterboxing in Siem Reap, noting this temple will serve you extremely well.

We climbed to the top of Phimeanakas. The sides of the pyramid are incredibly steep. Notice trkr & rnrB holding on for dear life as they negotiate the steps. The temple is about 15m tall! From there we head north to two large rectangular sandstone pools. Then west to some more ruins.

We figure this may be our only opportunity to hide our Angkor Wat letterbox without interfering with sacred temple grounds so we spend some time looking for the perfect hiding spot that won't interfere with the adjacent temple grounds--that is also unlikely to go discovered by non-letterboxers. After testing many different locations, we ultimately decide to stick with this tree to which rnrB points. It's well off the beaten path and we hope & pray noxer-folks don't go poking & prodding about it.

This neat tree is one of many we saw along our trek. It looked as if somebody had taken a plane to its bark--but the weird thing is that is its bark! No clue what type of tree it is, though. Oh, we see several more of those gigantic spiders with webs around here. Same as we saw in Thailand, too--which makes sense as we're only about 4ookm due East of where we were in Phuket.

From the letterbox, we continue exploring more temples--including Preah Palilay, Tep Pranam, the Terrace of the Leper King and the giant Terrace of the Elephants.

These trees had already grown rather large over the existing temple ruins when folks discovered the temples a few decades ago. Now they almost appear as the 'glue' that keeps the temple structures together--so the authorities don't want to disturb them. It's an incredible sight to see!

rnrB points out one of the many elephants on the Terrace of the Elephants. It's a large structure that's about the length of 3 football fields. Along the way it has these 8' tall elephants in various poses carved into its bas relief and then every so often it has steps that head up to the upper level. Flanking these sets of staircases are 6 more giant elephants that you see 'head on' with their trunks stretching down to the ground. Our driver picks us up and takes us over to a fan-cooled outdoor restaurant very near the entrance to Angkor Wat. We enjoy a nice meal of fried spicy rice with pork, banana shake, banana pancake, large water and Coke. It's about $7. We enjoy the restuarant with Australian and Swiss tourists and the occasional local tour guide. After lunch our plan is to tour Angkor Wat (pronounced 'anchor wott') when the tourists are mostly back in town enjoying air conditioned lunches at the 'big' restaurants. We hope to have Angkor Wat to ourselves...