East is East [Part 3: 02/8-08/8 - Cambodia and back to Bangkok]
[continued from part two here]
So, bleary-eyed and half asleep, the next morning we got on the bus to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia and our next destination
The journey - about 6/7 hours - was rather smooth and uneventful and the main thing we noticed is how different the landscape is in Cambodia from Vietnam and Laos: virtually as soon as you cross the border any sign of mountains or even just hills seem to vanish, to be replaced by endless stretches of completely flat fields and rice paddies. The other thing that seemed apparent (which would be confirmed in Phnom Penh and the rest of the country), is that Cambodia looks and feels A LOT poorer than the other two (also certainly not rich) countries. The roads, the houses and villages we saw, even the fields seem a lot more run down and less maintained, and in general the whole feel of the place is that of what you expect a third-world country to be based on the images and ideas we have of the third-world in the West.
We got to Phnom Penh in mid-afternoon and the moment we got off the bus all the above impressions we had gathered during the journey became even stronger; anyway we managed to escape the attempts of all the various hawkers, motorcycle, taxi and tuk tuk drivers etc. to take us somewhere and found our way to the guesthouse we had - as customary - booked the day before via the Internet from Saigon: a fairly drab place but clean and cheap enough, so it did the job. During the rest of the day we had a walk on the riverfront, which (again, typical of third-world places) is lined with bars and restaurants for the westerners and looks light years away from the rest of the city, even tough the latter is sometimes literally a couple of streets away. We then went for dinner at a restaurant we had read about in our guidebook, where we had some truly delicious cambodian food (I had the national dish - Amok fish: a fish and coconut milk dish cooked and served in a banana leaf) and an unexpected candle-lit dinner, at least for a while... there was a power cut and it was a good half hour before the electricity came back.
The next day was devoted to doing the touristy bits and the sightseeing, which in Phnom Penh is almost entirely taken up by sights known for the country's tragic 3 and a half year-rule by the Khmer Rouge. We went to the killing fields in Choeung Ek, just outside the city, the largest execution centre in the country, where mass graves containing thousands of people have been unearthed, and more are still waiting to be excavated. Needless to say it was a fairly emotional place, with the memorial at the centre - a glass pyramid containing hundreds of skulls of the people buried there - and the the contrasting elements of the eerie, almost idyllic calm of the countryside (there are chickens roaming free, butterfiles fly around under the big trees) and the horror of the signs explaining the stages of the death factory.
After that our tuk tuk driver (which we had arranged through the hotel) took us back into town and to the Toul Sleng genocide museum, a former school the Khmer Rouge turned into the infamous S-21 prison and interrogation centre - another very interesting and very distressing experience, with lots of graphic details of what happened in the place and the identification photos of the people who were imprisoned there (pretty much all of whom died in the place or at the killing fields), taken at their arrival at the centre, all lined up on the walls and staring back at the visitors.
The day was finished somewhat more light-heartedly with a visit to the Royal Palace, a fairly nice complex of buildings and temples, amongh which the renowned Silver Pagoda; certainly worth the visit (and helpful in lifting spirits after the gloom of the preceding part of the day) though I must admit I wasn't exactly blown away by it.
The following morning it was time to leave Phnom Penh and make the journey north to Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor. We had decided to go by boat, up the Tonle river (a tributary of the Mekong) and then the Tonle Sap lake, upon which Siem Reap is and I'm glad we did as - a couple of heavy showers aside (from Saigon onwards it had FINALLY started to rain a couple of times almost every day, and in typical tropical fashion when it rains it rains pretty hard) - we were able to just sit on the roof of the boat and watch the fishing boats and villages on the riverside and then, in the last part of the journey, near Siem Reap, the floating villages on the lake - villages built literally in the water near the banks of the lake. Here too, although not as bad as in Phnom Penh, we couldn't help noticing how everywhere seemed to be poorer than in Vietnam and Laos.
Having finally arrived at the harbour (under an almighty shower!) we got picked up by the guy from the hotel we had booked and taken into town and to the hotel - this time, it being the end of the holiday (and therefore us being tired) and considering we would have to spend 3 nights there, we had decided to go for a slightly more expensive place (still dirt cheap by European standards, again I think we paid $20 per night for the room!) and it proved to be a good choice as the hotel was very nice.
Having freshened up (and waited for the rain to stop) we arranged the next day's excursion to the temples and then went off to explore the town: a thoroughly touristy place, the place must have been little more than a village before the foreign tourists started coming to visit the temples, the town centre is literally nothing but bars (one of the main streets is even calld Pub Street or Bar Street - depending on what type of English the maps and signs use), restaurants and souvenir shops, and on top of that wherever you choose to stop for a drink or food you are almost instantly set upon (like in Phnom Penh) by children trying to sell you stuff. We found a bar that had a pool table and had a couple of drinks and games there, then went to a restaurant where, for the first time in this trip, the portions were huge and we got completely stuffed (with this I'm not saying that elsewhere portions were small - they were THE RIGHT AMOUNT; you still left the place feeling that you had eaten as much as you needed, but not uncomfortably stuffed like you do too many times when you eat out here in the West) and then went to bed ready for the main purpose or our coming here: exploring the temples the next day.
We got up fairly early and got picked up by our driver, as previously arranged, and shortly after 8 we were on our way. The temples are some 7/8 miles from the town and cover a fairly large area - you can hire a car, a bycicle or a motorcycle and do it on your own of course, or if not there are two main recognised routes: the small circuit and the big circuit, and any tuk tuk or taxi-driver will take you on either, stopping off at all the various temples and waiting for you while you go in and do your own thing. The small circuit is already about 11 miles long and takes in all the main temples, so we chose to do that for the first day, reserving the option to maybe do the big circuit the second, we'd decide in the evening.
So, the day was spent going in an out of temples, climbing up some and walking through rubble and enormous trees in others, and generally marvelling at the beauty of the buildings, the carvings and the setting: we went to the Angkor Thom complex first, with the Bayon, Baphuon and the Terrace of Elephants, then Ta keo, which is very steep and you can climb all the way to the top (which we did) and get good views of the surrounding from there, then Ta Prohm, where nature has reclaimed the temples from man and you feel you're on the set of an Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider film, then on to Banteay Kdei and then finally to Angkor Wat, the symbol of Cambodia and most famous of them all, plus a couple of smaller ones in between. Like I said it was a truly fantastic experience, the only minor annoyance was the usual high amount of sellers (mostly children) assaulting you the moment you got off the tuk tuk and trying to sell you the most diverse things. Again, I know they would certainly like to do something else, if they had the chance, but after a while it really does get a bit too much.
In the evening we went to an interesting (though certainly not authentic) restaurant called Cambodian BBQ, where you'd basically grill your own meat directly at the table - we went for a sampling menu for 2 which, together with the common beef and chicken and slightly less common ostrich, included snake and crocodile meat - the former I must admit was quite disappointing, but the croc instead was really nice.
The following day was another early start - instead of going back to the main temples complex and do the big circuit (or go back to some of the temples already visited) we had decided to go and see a couple of the temples further afield: the first was Kbal Spean, some 40 miles away and right in the middle of the jungle. You have to actually walk a mile in the jungle to reach it and it's not really a temple, rather a series of quite elaborate carvings and sculptures that have been carved in the live rock of a river bed, with some very precarious-looking boulders also in the place. Then, on the way back we visited Banteay Srei, a relatively small temple but full of the most amazing and intricate carvings, really worth seeing.
The other good thing about the itinerary we chose was that we got back in town relatively early, so we could have a much needed relaxing afternoon and make sure we packed everything away well for the big journey home: the next day we would take the bus to bangkok from where we'd fly home.
So, what did we think of Cambodia? Well, like I said it definitely seemed by far the poorest of the countries we visited, the one with the fewest infrastructures and where the local population seems to be left to fend for themselves with no help whatsoever from the state or anyone else; also, while we had hawkers and people trying to sell you virtually everything everywhere, Cambodia is the only country where we saw beggars (and lots of them too). I don't want to start going on about politics as I normally do, but I cannot help pointing out that it's also the one country (out of the three) that's supposedly 'capitalist' - now, I know very well that both Vietnam and Laos are only socialist in name while they apply the most ruthless market economy (just like China), and for sure they are very poor countries too, but I suppose if nothing else the one good thing of a strong centralised and socialised state is that there will be a basic (and it is very basic, and getting less and less every day) level of care for virtually everyone, which in 'capitalist' countries is lacking entirely, thus resulting in most people being left to try and survive with no means of support or help at all.
All that said, Cambodia too is a beautiful country, and one with a very unlucky history (especially in the last century) having been unwillingly dragged into the Vietnam war and bombed flat by the Yanks for over 6 years, only to then go from the frying pan into the fire of almost 4 years of genocidal, fanatical and completely insane rule by the Khmer Rouge...who were then eventually (and fortunately) beaten by the Vietnamese, cue occupation by the latter for the following 10 years alongside pretty much 20 years of civil war and unrest (during and after the occupation); it's only in the last few years that at least there is peace and it has been able to open up to the outside a bit. I really hope things will improve (relatively) fast, cos if there's a country that deserves a bit a good fortune that is certainly Cambodia.
And so the following morning the mammoth journey began: a bus took us to the Cambodian-Thai border, where it took forever to clear customs, then we transferred onto a minibus that took us to Bangkok, which we reached in the evening. We checked into our hotel and had a last Thai meal and a couple of drinks in the tourist ghetto, erm I mean district, and then the next day we were off to the airport and on to our 10-hour flight to Moscow followed by a 2-hour layover and 4-hour flight to the UK, just like on the way out.
We finally got home around 9 pm UK time (3 am SE Time and according to our body clock), completely exhausted but extremely happy for what had been an amazing journey during which we were fortunate enough to see and experience so many fantastic things. Oh, and VERY relieved at finding that the temperature at home was a suitable 20 C with overcast sky, instead of the hellish 35+ degrees 100% humidity that those lunatics have in SE Asia!
And on this subject, for the benefit of anyone who might have missed that, like I said elsewhere may I remind everyone that since the moment I stepped out of the plane I have made sure I didn't spend A MINUTE longer than strictly necessary in the fucking sun, nor I intend to for the foreseeable future - so if you plan to invite me to any sort of hippy/outdoor activity between now and November, don't be offended if I politely turn the offer down ;-)
Photos: on Facebook, or in the unlikely event there is still somebody who's not on there, here:
Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and boat trip
The temples of Angkor.