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Cambodia 11th -16th January
Actually in Bumrungrad hospital Bangkok...Bob just gone in for second op ...both nervous....already spent over an hour on this then hung!...bl*** computers!...Anyway maybe a Thai massage would be a better idea for me!....so this is the 'Cambodian blog..take 2...hope you enjoy it.
We travelled to the border in a private mini-bus ..very comfortable and really interesting scenery..mostly very flat with a few hills as we approached the border. Very agricultural land....with agricultural-type, surprise surprise, activity going on...planting rice....slopping about with big rubber boots in the rice fields ( Cobra protection!). The border was very interesting...there were guys pulling carts with huge loads on them..turned out that we loaded our stuff on to one of these carts and he took off, leaving us to walk down one road along another to the first passport and immigration control...so we said bye to our luggage, not knowing if we would see it again.
The first check point was actually two different procedures of form filling to leave Thailand. At this point there were load of these bustling carts..stuff being unloaded from the 'Cambodian carts' on to the 'Thai carts' and pulled by the guys running out front. Then we hit no mans land and had to walk another 300yds along the dusty road in the baking heat, still having had no sight of our luggage or our tour guide, as being Cambodian, Hung, went through a different 'gate'. We then hit another form filling, checking of passports 'hut'..to get into Cambodia...but sophisticated 'hut' as our photos were taken. Then we met up with hung ..and our luggage, god knows what route through it had taken..and then on to a different , only slightly less comfortable private mini-bus for the rest of our journey to our first destination in Cambodia...Siem Reap.
Siem Reap is a pretty funky kind of place, grown up only in the last 10 years to cater for tourists..10 years ago they had 400 tourists a year and now only two million, compared with Vietnams 14 million. I had to laugh when our local guide, on our Ankor temple visit the next day said,..we didn't know how to serve tourists, what they liked, how to sterilise water and how to feed them properly, how to treat people, so we are learning. When I contrasted the current Cambodian hospitality with that of the Scotland" it put us to shame, we've been doing it for years but will probably never 'learn of to serve tourists'!... " no sorry I know we have bacon eggs and beans on the menu, but we don't serve beans on toast" or "sorry its one minute past 2...we close for lunch at 2.00!"...I'm sure we've all experienced it.
Cambodian people seem very nice, friendly, gentle, not pushy...although it was quite difficult on this trip to get 'a feel' for the people and the area...its been a fast trip just visiting the key sights.
The hotels on our trip are all really good, all clean with all mod cons, and most with wyfi...but really intermittent and usually poor connection...but have managed to keep well in touch with parents.
The 'Dr, Fish' picture was taken in the middle of the resturants in Siem Reap...didn't give it a go.....we're nibbled enough in the ocean.. but it looked wild.
The main attractiion at Siem Reap is Ankor and Ankor Watt (Temple). The area is a huge walled city, with walled cities within the walled city built over a number of hundreds of years ago, with each ruler building an even bigger and more impressive temple than the last guy...thus the area is full of temples....the other structures of the cities have not suvived. We'd been pretty 'templed-out' having been in Bangkok, as our Rice Barge trip and wandering around had taken us to every possible conceivable buddha within its own temple...however Ankor Watt and the other temples around here are something else...extremely spectacular , and so well preserved. The reason they have survived over other buildings is the way they have been built...very well, very big, very detailed, with often brick construction internally, sandstone externally, but also perhaps covered in some kind of plaster and then gold and jewel encrusted. There is no evidence of gold, jewels or plaster, but the rest of the detail is incredible.The intricate carvings, and tile and mossaic work were incredible. Some temples had perhaps 50 50ft high collumns and each would be intricately carved, every inch of it from top t bottom, with flowers, animals, gods or depicting dailing life. The 'jungle temple' aka 'Angilina Jollie 'Tomb Raider' temple was also very impressive where the ruins had been engorged by the encroachiing jungle, reclaiming its territory. An impressive entwining of nature and man made structure.
Bob unfortunately choose to eat steak here..something 'not spicy', however also poor choice as he had a bit of the runs thereafter.
We also visited a floating village here, 3 of us in a tuk tuk and boat to ourselves with a guide. ( plus2 crew on the boat) total cost about £4 each. All the houses in this area are built on stilts...this tell us how serious the monsoon is...people then get about and do business by boat. On the floating village they live on rafts with 'shelters/wooden shacks' built on top...some pretty sophisticated with generators, TV ariels, we even saw a 'planer-thicknesser' ( wood tool!) which enthralled Bob...boatbuilding on stilts/floating. The village had a church and school and some very enterprising children, who paddled about in round 'basin' affairs with big snakes draped round their neck...'dollar dollar for photo'. When we were motoring, not slowly, one wee girl, about 4 yrs old suddenly appeard beside me with a basket of cold drinks!...I had no idea where she had come from, until we spotted another engined canoe just behind with her mother. So I bought a drink and she went to the back of the boat ..Mum came up and but her bow alongside and the wee thing just hopped on to the other boat and trotted back to Mum with the dollar. Cambodian currency is 'real', thousands to the dollar...so they tend to just use dollars here..although sometimes you'll get a few thousand real in change. So the 'wan dollaar', 'wan dollaar' cry was very common...ten post card 'wan dollaar', bracelets 'wan,two, tree, far ' for 'wan dollar', drinks 'wan dollaar' and so on. Yes also cheap to live here, but slightly more expensive that Thailand or Vietnam.
Next stop Pnom Penn, here was the area of The Killing Fields. The Genocide suffered here has been to the forefront of my thoughts during this whole visit and anticipation of the visit to Cambodia...the population statistics tell the gruesome story.......pre Pol Pot 7 Million, post 4 Million!. 85% of the poulation today are under 31 years old with 50% under 18. We'd been struggling with whether to visit the Killing Fields...a tour including the torture areas with graphic photos and environment. Beforehand we had decided we wouldn't.. we knew the horrers and felt respect for the people's suffering....we did'nt visit Auszvitch when travelling in Poland...with the same thoughts... however each day I thought about it and was coming round to the conclusion that we should as a mark of respect and aknowledgement of their suffering....however as it turns out Bob was feeling very low that day so this was not the thing to be doing. Our trip companions were very shocked, many not able to continue on the visit, and quite amazingly many of them, mostly those under 25/6 had not even heard of Pol Pot or The Killing Fields. One young guy reflected on the visit to Ankor Watt one day, admiring and being astounded by mans creative ability in designing and building such wondrous and beautiful structures, and today to see the horrors and inhumanity that man is also capable of. Is it in us all?
The highlights of our visit to Pnom Penn, a fairly prospering modern city feel, were a meal with a local family who ran some English classes for local children, particularly singing with the kids and drinking tarantula marinated rice wine ( photo with tarantulas in the jar of wine!); a marvellous massage for me from 'Seeing Hands' a charitable business run throughout Cambodia by and creating employment for, blind people. ($6 for one hour; and a fantasic coffee in a lovely little French coffee shop, where the son and the tuk tuk driver headed off to seek out croissants and bring them back for us to enjoy with our coffee.
We then enjoyed the countryside and observing life going on, on our coach journey South to Shoukansville, a beach resort. We didn't really like this place, a bit of a sleezy feel and we did see a number of Western guys, usually older, with young beautiful Cambodian girls. It was also busy and just not our thing, but again we had some super 'highlights' such as running along together hand in hand in white powdery squeeky sand on a boat trip to an island, enjoying a meal right on the seashore and watching a lovely sunset, and having a pedicure on the beach whilst drinking a cool beer. ( orange nail varnish this time to match my Indian outfit!).
Again we had an interesting ride through the countryside observing life..captivating, awestruck at so many things...ploughing fields with basic wooden ploughs and water buffalo, wooden wheeled carts, alongside some sophisticated pretty big 'John Deer' type machinery just down the road, and the loads that people carry on their push bikes and motor bikes..just not believable ....this has really struck us in all the countries we've visited to far...we've seen a guy with an open enormous circular saw blade around his waist, a live fully grown pig on the back of a motorbike, cages of chickens, packets of nappies piled 10ft high, long bamboo ladders, families of four on a motorbike, a baby in a canvas hammmock which was tied at the front! of the handlebars of the motorbike her mother was riding, and lots of very small children on the bikes with parents..little tots hanging on at the back or standing on the plate between parents legs......no of course they are not wearing helmets....well drivers are ( the law) but not passengers!.....so many unbelievable and amazing sights.
We took some really small single track roads and it felt like we were on some clandestine mission to cross the border from Cambodia to Vietnam undetected..couldn't believe that this tiny bumpy, and untarred in places, road was leading us to the legitimate border. But just before we arrived we turned on to a busier tarred road, so we must have been on a 'short cut'. Which did present the opportunity for Kim, a Canadian on our trip to actually ride on the back of a Waterbuffalo...she was mad on Water Buffalo, and we'd stopped to get a photo and the owner encouraged her to hop on.
Another interesting border..the coach dumped us and our gear and we walked to a very small hut for stage 1of the 'getting through the border' process.... then all passports were collected and went off somewhere whilst we were all temperature checked ..very sophisticated electrical thermal device in a not very sophisticated area. We got our visas, then walked with our packs on our backs, again in 'no mans' type land to the Vietnam side and went through a similar imigration process as before on this side. Then walked with our luggage to get on to our Vietnam coach waiting for us. This GAP trip is again very 'easy' with all transport and accomodation organised, and we're actually enjoying having all this done for us...I think it could be quite difficult with the incredible heat to constantly contend with, which if you actually have to do anything in, is very stressful...but we don't so wer're not.... tra la la....
This unfortunately was another ' stuff the cork up further' day for Bob on a coach!....only 5 hours this time! He had felt better the previous night, from a previous upset tummy ..however he studidly ate meat ..again! had a very severe dose of the skits the morning we left for our long bus journey...great! so... full of anti-biotic, time to treat these parasites seriously.. and immodium, he made it...but went straight to bed when we arrived in Chau Prou, Vietnam around 4.00. I headed out with some of the group, first on a short boat trip down the Mekong river, seeing a bit of life along the river. Pretty big town this with skyscrapers but also some really run down houses and slum-looking areas. The boat guide said pointing to a shanty-type set of wooden homes by the river that they were being 'cleared' ..sounded like they were 'smartening up the riverside', building new appartments and relocating the current residents elsewhere...didn't have enough commom language to get the details...but Pilton/Westerhailes certainly came to mind!
I then went on a wee motorbike trip up 'Sam ' Mountain.. a very small hill actually)..to see the sunset..over the Cambodian/Thai border ( a disputed and Thai controlled area, which Hung ( Cambodian GAP guide remember) was quite bitter about, also mentioning...similar take-overs from Vietnam, Saigon ( Ho Chi Min City) originally being Cambodian. The motorbiking was as a passenger on the back of a motorbike..this is quite a common occurance here and in Thailand....motorbikes with drivers used as taxis. The all drivers were very good really with minimal chasing of each other up the hill for amusement. We had a beer on the top and watched the sun go down over the Vietnam /Cambodian border canals and paddy fields.
Next entry Vietnam ...but not written yet..and no diary! ( must start again!)
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