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Well hello again everyone and welcome to the latest epistle. Hope I'm not boring you too much yet!
Yesterday (Sunday 10th) we decided it was time to leave the bustle of Bangkok and head East into Cambodia. Before our departure we had to stock up on the latest malaria tablets, side effects of which include ulceration of the oesophegus and swelling of the head!! I am still with Maria and Alan and we left the hotel at 0630 to book our tickets on the bus to Aranya Prathet, the Thai border town. This proved fairly straightforward and we were soon on the 0800 bus, which took 5 fairly easy hours to get to the border. Once at the border we had to carry our backpacks and travel on foot across the border, which was chaotic. On the other side we had to queue to obtain Cambodian visas and once we had these we fought our way through the persistent touts to a local bus station to book the next leg of our journey, the bus to Siem Reap.
This ticket cost 250 Baht per person (approx 3.50 pound) and we were told it would take 3 and a half hours - I really should be used to the lying when it comes to journey times, but I remain eternally optimistic, silly me!!
The bus held about 14 people plus luggage and had intermittent air conditioning. The roads were far worse than India (hard to believe) but luckily the driver did not have a death wish and we never actually got over 30 mph, thus resulting in 150km journey taking over 7 hours. Still, better late than never as my mum always says. It was also great to have company as the bus made it's bone crunching way to our destination. The landscape en route was a patchwork of rice paddies, sugar palms (the national tree) and little huts built on stilts over water. In fact the landscape reminded me very much of Saskatchewan, very flat with a big sky, the difference being that rice is grown instead of wheat.
We booked in to a lovely little place called the Red Piano, which has TV and air-conditioning, at about 2200 and headed out for food and beer, which were both much needed.
Today we slept in and are hoping for an early start tomorrow to see the sunrise at the temples. This means leaving the hotel at 0445 - wish me luck! The Temples of Angkor are supposed to be awe inspiring, with Angkor Wat being the largest religious building in the world.....and hands up those of you who have heard of it, come on be honest.
Now for the culture bit.....Theravada Buddhism is the dominant religion and guides the lives of many Khmers. Before 1975, the Khmer Rouge launched an assault on all beliefs but their own, murdering most of Cambodia's monks before they were overthrown in 1979. Wats (temples) were destroyed or turned into pigsties, but in the past 10 years there has been a dramatic resurgence in religious worship, especially Buddhism. There is also a significant minority of Cham and Malay people who practise Islam. More later....
Anyway, tomorrow we are off to the temples and I'll write and let you know if we make sunrise....until then.
Sherry xx
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