We've come quite a distance in our travels, below is a public link to our photos so far:
Bangkok, Thailand.
Day 1
Photos [HERE]
Bangkok, Thailand.
Days 2-4
Photos [HERE]
Western Thailand.
Days 5-7
Photos [HERE]
Bangkok, Thailand to Battambang, Cambodia.
Days 8-10
Photos [HERE]
Battambang, Cambodia to Siem Reap, Cambodia
Days 11-12
Photos [HERE]
Angkor Temples, Siem Reap, Cambodia
Day 13
Photos [HERE]
Siem Reap, Cambodia to Phnom Pehn, Cambodia
Days 14-16
Photos [HERE]
Phnom Pehn, Cambodia to Shianoukville, Cambodia
Days 17-20
Photos [HERE]
Don't forget to add coments after our posts, it is nice to know people are reading.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Holidays on Holidays
We sidestepped the Tuk-Tuk cartel as we rolled off the bus at Shianoukville, and found ourselves with a cheap ride (although we had to keep our voice down so that the cartel didn’t know our driver had lowered the locally set high fare) to the hotel we had picked from the Lonely Planet, Coaster’s. We booked into a Bungalow which is basically a wooden hut up on sticks about 3m off the ground, with a couple of fans, mozzie nets, a bathroom and a balcony with an absolutely beautiful view of the ocean and the surrounding islands.
We have decided to take a break from travelling and just chill out for a few days by the beach. Which is pretty much all we have done, moving from beachside restaurants with sand under our toes to beachside bars with sand under our toes. We hired a scooter on our second day and braved the local police and their arbitrary tourist laws like riding with lights on during day and charging fines for not having a Cambodian licence, basically fund raising and fines are barter-able. We rode down to another quieter local beach for a relaxed lunch, then back to another beach later for a swim while we watched a beautiful sunset over the ocean. Then we headed down the another beach restaurant with sand under our toes and ate a delicious serve of Barbequed King prawns.
Let’s just sidestep for a second here: Now I know that I may look stereotypically the part with my long hair, beard and my occasional wearing of a Pink Floyd T-Shirt, but at least two or three times a day since we have been in Cambodia, someone on the street will subtly offer me Marijuana. Sometimes it is not so subtle with them pulling out a bag just to show me that their stuff is legit. We had both read stories about police offering tourists drugs just to then arrest them and give them a large fine or threaten with jail. But just like the street peddler they will say, “you change your mind you come see me”. It is also common for pizza restaurants to have a partitioned menu with normal pizza and “happy” pizza, which we assume has pot sprinkled on it as an ’erb.
So while relaxing on the beach eating our king prawns we noticed a lot of people sitting around smoking joints, one old Khmer guy was walking along the beach smoking a big joint while talking into his radio, no not a walkie talkie, just a radio… As you do. It is obviously a part of the local culture, and we even noticed a lady going through the tables selling pre-rolled joints while helping to maintain the barbeque. Although there is quite an alternative tourist culture is Shianoukville, with lots of fire-twirlers on the beach and Doof Doof that starts at about 12am and goes all night. Our first morning we woke at 6am and watched the sunrise before going back to bed, only to be woken 20mins later by some Argentineans next door, who were getting home to re-supply their coke-heads.
Our third day we took a boat out to the local islands where we snorkelled around the coral and relaxed on more beaches while being fed a beautiful barbeque of local fresh ocean fish. It was another wonderfully relaxing day in paradise although we both got sunburnt really badly. We look like Pommy Backpackers at the moment as we are so very pink, and so very sore. My troubles are made worse as my left ear is blocked after getting a water logged ear and then making it worse with a cotton bud. I may have fucked my ear drum or something, shit happens. We also realised how spoilt we were at the Great Barrier Reef, the fish and coral here were really nice, but they were no way as grand and colourful as what we saw at the Great Barrier Reef.
Today is our last day here (maybe). We’d like to stay longer as it is so lovely just chilling out on the beach, but it is probably time to get moving again and tomorrow will start a new chapter as we take a bus back to Phnom Pehn and then onto to Saigon/Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam by tomorrow night. We hired a scooter this morning but haven’t used it yet because we have both been so busy doing absolutely nothing at all. Maybe we will go for a cruise then retire for the afternoon in one of those beach side bars with the sand under our toes…
Sorry about posting three posts in one day but we've been quite busy doing absolutely nothing.
Photos for the last week can be found right HERE.
We have decided to take a break from travelling and just chill out for a few days by the beach. Which is pretty much all we have done, moving from beachside restaurants with sand under our toes to beachside bars with sand under our toes. We hired a scooter on our second day and braved the local police and their arbitrary tourist laws like riding with lights on during day and charging fines for not having a Cambodian licence, basically fund raising and fines are barter-able. We rode down to another quieter local beach for a relaxed lunch, then back to another beach later for a swim while we watched a beautiful sunset over the ocean. Then we headed down the another beach restaurant with sand under our toes and ate a delicious serve of Barbequed King prawns.
Let’s just sidestep for a second here: Now I know that I may look stereotypically the part with my long hair, beard and my occasional wearing of a Pink Floyd T-Shirt, but at least two or three times a day since we have been in Cambodia, someone on the street will subtly offer me Marijuana. Sometimes it is not so subtle with them pulling out a bag just to show me that their stuff is legit. We had both read stories about police offering tourists drugs just to then arrest them and give them a large fine or threaten with jail. But just like the street peddler they will say, “you change your mind you come see me”. It is also common for pizza restaurants to have a partitioned menu with normal pizza and “happy” pizza, which we assume has pot sprinkled on it as an ’erb.
So while relaxing on the beach eating our king prawns we noticed a lot of people sitting around smoking joints, one old Khmer guy was walking along the beach smoking a big joint while talking into his radio, no not a walkie talkie, just a radio… As you do. It is obviously a part of the local culture, and we even noticed a lady going through the tables selling pre-rolled joints while helping to maintain the barbeque. Although there is quite an alternative tourist culture is Shianoukville, with lots of fire-twirlers on the beach and Doof Doof that starts at about 12am and goes all night. Our first morning we woke at 6am and watched the sunrise before going back to bed, only to be woken 20mins later by some Argentineans next door, who were getting home to re-supply their coke-heads.
Our third day we took a boat out to the local islands where we snorkelled around the coral and relaxed on more beaches while being fed a beautiful barbeque of local fresh ocean fish. It was another wonderfully relaxing day in paradise although we both got sunburnt really badly. We look like Pommy Backpackers at the moment as we are so very pink, and so very sore. My troubles are made worse as my left ear is blocked after getting a water logged ear and then making it worse with a cotton bud. I may have fucked my ear drum or something, shit happens. We also realised how spoilt we were at the Great Barrier Reef, the fish and coral here were really nice, but they were no way as grand and colourful as what we saw at the Great Barrier Reef.
Today is our last day here (maybe). We’d like to stay longer as it is so lovely just chilling out on the beach, but it is probably time to get moving again and tomorrow will start a new chapter as we take a bus back to Phnom Pehn and then onto to Saigon/Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam by tomorrow night. We hired a scooter this morning but haven’t used it yet because we have both been so busy doing absolutely nothing at all. Maybe we will go for a cruise then retire for the afternoon in one of those beach side bars with the sand under our toes…
Sorry about posting three posts in one day but we've been quite busy doing absolutely nothing.
Photos for the last week can be found right HERE.
Prue vs. The Hostesses
With a lot of encouragement I managed to drag Prue into the bar across the street from our hotel, the same bar I had entered the night before. Instantly we were set upon by a pack of young Khmer girls who greeted us and ushered us to a table where they sat with us staring at us with polite smiles. Prue shifted uneasily in her seat as we ordered a beer for myself and a margarita for Prue. The girls tried making conversation with us and Prue tried to find out the score asking them if they were paid to talk to us, but we struggled to translate the questions, so after much deliberation between the Hostesses they replied with “Do you want a Tuk-Tuk?”. Prue’s margarita was neon blue in colour and like myself the night before she swiftly sipped her drink and we bailed from the bar to find a less awkward place to enjoy a drink and get some dinner.
After two nights in Phnom Pehn we’d seen enough, it’s not that the place wasn’t interesting, just that it wasn’t very nice. We boarded a coach the next morning and headed south towards Shianoukville. We paid and extra $2 ($7 total) for the Airconditioned bus with a toilet and free drinking water, we didn’t see any drinking water but we were treated to some first class Cambodian Karaoke on the TV screen, the first half hour of the trip we pissed ourselves at the cheesiness of the Khmer music videos and especially the song called “New Zealand” we had no idea what the song was about but it was fun singing the only English words of the song “New Zealand” as they popped up on the screen.
After Karaoke we were treated to a Cambodian comedy show, we had no idea what was going on but the laughter from the Khmer people on our bus and the indecipherable madness happening on the screen made it quite entertaining. The laughter was stopped as we drove past a collision on the way out town, where a scooter rider had a very bloody forehead, a wound that probably would have been avoided had he been wearing a a helmet. We stopped at a rest point about halfway through the trip and found disappointment that there were no kids with Tarantulas hounding us to buy fruit, but we did find some of the yummy fried bananas we had in Battambang.
The second half of our trip on the bus became somewhat of a surreal experience… As soon as the bus had fired up the engine and roared off down the highway (road from Phnom Phen to Shianoukville is a very good road surprisingly) on came the TV and we found our self watching a 90’s Jackie Chan film dubbed into Khmer with English subtitles. The opening scene displayed the word “Melbourne” and we both had an “oh shit, no way” moment as we realised the film we were watching was not only filmed entirely in Melbourne. But when they filmed the movie Jackie Chan had stayed at Darling Towers our former work/home. We ended up watching the whole movie, shouting out locations as we recognised them and had a truly strange experience thinking about the coincidence of it all while we rolled into the beachside town of Shianoukville…
After two nights in Phnom Pehn we’d seen enough, it’s not that the place wasn’t interesting, just that it wasn’t very nice. We boarded a coach the next morning and headed south towards Shianoukville. We paid and extra $2 ($7 total) for the Airconditioned bus with a toilet and free drinking water, we didn’t see any drinking water but we were treated to some first class Cambodian Karaoke on the TV screen, the first half hour of the trip we pissed ourselves at the cheesiness of the Khmer music videos and especially the song called “New Zealand” we had no idea what the song was about but it was fun singing the only English words of the song “New Zealand” as they popped up on the screen.
After Karaoke we were treated to a Cambodian comedy show, we had no idea what was going on but the laughter from the Khmer people on our bus and the indecipherable madness happening on the screen made it quite entertaining. The laughter was stopped as we drove past a collision on the way out town, where a scooter rider had a very bloody forehead, a wound that probably would have been avoided had he been wearing a a helmet. We stopped at a rest point about halfway through the trip and found disappointment that there were no kids with Tarantulas hounding us to buy fruit, but we did find some of the yummy fried bananas we had in Battambang.
The second half of our trip on the bus became somewhat of a surreal experience… As soon as the bus had fired up the engine and roared off down the highway (road from Phnom Phen to Shianoukville is a very good road surprisingly) on came the TV and we found our self watching a 90’s Jackie Chan film dubbed into Khmer with English subtitles. The opening scene displayed the word “Melbourne” and we both had an “oh shit, no way” moment as we realised the film we were watching was not only filmed entirely in Melbourne. But when they filmed the movie Jackie Chan had stayed at Darling Towers our former work/home. We ended up watching the whole movie, shouting out locations as we recognised them and had a truly strange experience thinking about the coincidence of it all while we rolled into the beachside town of Shianoukville…
Tragedy and Majesty
Tragedy and MajestyWe headed off late in the morning after a sleep in to have breakfast in Phnom Penh. After dodging the flocks of Tuk-Tuk drivers we found a nice little place to eat around the corner from the hotel. With a good breakfast in our bellies we headed back into the scrum to pick a driver. We ended up choosing a driver that spoke English in a great Aussie accent and it took us ages to figure out he was in fact from Phnom Penh. He’d been taken under the wing of some Aussie ex-pat and he spoke a bit like a local from central Australia or maybe north of Perth. He had Australia and Perth written on his Tuk-Tuk as well as the inside part of the roof being covered in stickers of people with him and of him with his family and many other interesting things.
We headed out to the Killing Fields to see the sad history of the people of Cambodia. I don’t really know what to say about the Killing Fields except that I believe it’s is a place that everyone who visits Cambodia needs to visit. It is hard to write about the experience, it’s not like Battambang where there was so much to say about that day that we could gloss over it. We knew that we’d have to take our time and pay our respects and on entering the site we both got chills. When you first walk in you see the large Stupa that was built to hold the bones of the dead that had been unearthed. Only about a third of the site has been excavated so far and they know that they have only taken out a small portion of the dead. We took our time at the site, reading all the information and looking through the small museum on the site. Drew and I were profoundly affected by what we saw and read. This is a testament to the character of the wonderful Khmer people who have overcome huge adversity to become the wonderful, welcoming and happy people we are meeting everywhere in Cambodia. These sites are both a stark reminder and a memorial and we are grateful we chose to do it.
We headed to the Royal Palace in our Tuk-Tuk (The only one like it in Phom Pehn) and said goodbye to our charismatic driver. The Royal Palace is another awe inspiring place and the wonderful buildings that we were allowed to see were amazing. I hate to draw comparisons, but I don’t think it was on the same scale as the pimped out Thai Palace. It is however, amazing in more subtle ways. The artworks inside on the walls are from many hundreds of years ago and the fact that any of it survived the Khmer Rouge is amazing in itself. So many places we’ve visited have been breathtaking despite people apologising that it was more amazing before it was destroyed by the Khmer Rouge. We love it anyway. The Royal Palace did have something that the Thai King didn’t have. The Royal Palace has a huge building that has a floor completely made of Silver Tiles. Most of the tiles were covered in carpet so you could walk through the Pagoda to see the wonderful museum quality objects that the King has made available to be viewed, but you can still see the silver tiles. Even though you’re not meant to step past the rope and onto silver floor Drew and I did possibly inch forward a little too much just to stand barefoot on the floor.
We headed back to the hotel and dropped some stuff off at our room and then headed out to see the night markets. We may have got to the markets a little early but we wandered around with all the locals looking at the food and clothes and many other items available for sale. It was slightly underwhelming when compared to some of the markets that we’d seen already so we headed off down some dark back streets checking out the local parts of the city…
We headed out to the Killing Fields to see the sad history of the people of Cambodia. I don’t really know what to say about the Killing Fields except that I believe it’s is a place that everyone who visits Cambodia needs to visit. It is hard to write about the experience, it’s not like Battambang where there was so much to say about that day that we could gloss over it. We knew that we’d have to take our time and pay our respects and on entering the site we both got chills. When you first walk in you see the large Stupa that was built to hold the bones of the dead that had been unearthed. Only about a third of the site has been excavated so far and they know that they have only taken out a small portion of the dead. We took our time at the site, reading all the information and looking through the small museum on the site. Drew and I were profoundly affected by what we saw and read. This is a testament to the character of the wonderful Khmer people who have overcome huge adversity to become the wonderful, welcoming and happy people we are meeting everywhere in Cambodia. These sites are both a stark reminder and a memorial and we are grateful we chose to do it.
We headed to the Royal Palace in our Tuk-Tuk (The only one like it in Phom Pehn) and said goodbye to our charismatic driver. The Royal Palace is another awe inspiring place and the wonderful buildings that we were allowed to see were amazing. I hate to draw comparisons, but I don’t think it was on the same scale as the pimped out Thai Palace. It is however, amazing in more subtle ways. The artworks inside on the walls are from many hundreds of years ago and the fact that any of it survived the Khmer Rouge is amazing in itself. So many places we’ve visited have been breathtaking despite people apologising that it was more amazing before it was destroyed by the Khmer Rouge. We love it anyway. The Royal Palace did have something that the Thai King didn’t have. The Royal Palace has a huge building that has a floor completely made of Silver Tiles. Most of the tiles were covered in carpet so you could walk through the Pagoda to see the wonderful museum quality objects that the King has made available to be viewed, but you can still see the silver tiles. Even though you’re not meant to step past the rope and onto silver floor Drew and I did possibly inch forward a little too much just to stand barefoot on the floor.
We headed back to the hotel and dropped some stuff off at our room and then headed out to see the night markets. We may have got to the markets a little early but we wandered around with all the locals looking at the food and clothes and many other items available for sale. It was slightly underwhelming when compared to some of the markets that we’d seen already so we headed off down some dark back streets checking out the local parts of the city…
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Mr Handsome and Mrs Beautiful
The Temples of Angkor are amazing, it truly is an exhilarating place. I guess some people don’t really get into it as we noticed many times that people were just walking along snapping off photos and (like the Sai Yok Noi waterfall) most of them never actually stopped to look at what they were taking pictures of. Prue and I on the other hand have spend the last three days clambering up steep staircases, ducking and weaving through dark hallways and jumping over giant square stones like Lara Croft and most of the time humming the theme to Indiana Jones.
We organised a Tuk-Tuk driver to take us for the day, and Mr Thea would happily drive us from place to place and then wait (sometimes for hours) in the back of his Tuk-Tuk until we came back ready to explore the next place. Arriving at a new temple always meant that there was a group of street peddlers waiting to pounce on you as soon as you got off the Tuk-Tuk (and usually before you got off) with calls of “hello sir you wanna a cold drink, only one dollar” or “maybe you think about it, you come see me when you get back”. Most of the peddlers are quite young and they speak in a sad voice and give you puppy dog eyes to play on your emotions, quite often they follow you all the way to the temple gates, but they were always polite and although it did get a bit bothersome at times it was also a bit of fun walking along saying “no thanks, no thank you” or “Te Oh Kun” which is the Khmer for the same thing.
The Khmer people as a whole (especially the younger generation) are very good at speaking English, much better than the Thai people we met. It is easy to have a basic conversation with most of the people you meet, the younger peddlers are always quite happy to ask you questions about where you are from, and like the Bangkok reply “Sydney -Kangaroo” here in Cambodia we get “Australia, capital Canberra” or “G’day Mate”.
Siem Reap is one of the first places that we have felt comfortable, possibly a combination of the lovely hotel we stayed in, the warm friendliness of the Khmer people, and the westernised/bastardised strip of town brought about by the tourist hordes. The markets we full of local clothing, crafts and souvenirs and it became a little depressing thinking about all of the magnificent things we could buy if it weren't for the fact we’d have to lug it around in our backpacks for the next few months. We originally booked to stay three nights in Siem Reap but after our first day we decided to extend one more night, Unfortunately our hotel was booked out but they were nice enough to take us around the corner to an equally priced but not quite as nice hotel for our last night before catching the bus to Phnom Pehn.
The bus to Phnom Phen was a bumpy ride, saying that the roads in Cambodia are shit is somewhat of an understatement. Reading a book was a bit of a challenge as you’d constantly we bobbing your head up and down just to keep your place on the page. We stopped for a refreshment break about 75kms from Phom Pehn and met the coolest peddlers so far of our trip. The place we stopped had a toilet and a restaurant and was full of stalls selling all kinds of nasties like giant crickets and tarantulas. But it was again the kids that mobbed us that were the most interesting. They all carried a bag of fruit to sell to you and even though we didn't want any fruit it was so hard to say no, as they played up the poor street urchin so well.
While I was standing around I had a great conversation with two of the girls, who asked me a thousand questions in almost perfect English (although with a slight American accent). And then one of them pulled a live tarantula out of her pocket… Yikes! Most of the kids carried around pet tarantulas, we assumed it was to attract the tourists, but it was nice to know that one of the girls named her tarantula “Happy”, thus probably sparing this spider from ending up like its brothers and sisters in the frying pan. At least for now.
Phnom Pehn is another big bustling city, although unlike Bangkok there are no large skyscrapers and we haven’t seen any modern central business district. To be honest, from what we've seen it is an entire city of slums, with the exception of a few nice bits, surrounded on each side by not so nice bits. We are staying in the riverfront precinct, which is something of a western hub. Full of bars, clubs and restaurants all with very western names to appeal to tourists and ex-pats, Our hotel is nice, after walking down the street from the bus station and looking at a lot of shoddy hotels, we finally found one that was nice for only $30 p/n, apparently it has only been open for ten days so everything is new and modern.
After visiting the National gallery (very amazing) we went to the FCC (Foreign Correspondents Club) for dinner. At the FCC we had our most expensive meal so far, around $30, was also the best (western) meal we have had so far, and it would have been quite easy to spend more money there. The FCC was the local hangout for journalists during the time of war, and the place was full of well to do looking westerners… And us.
After returning to our hotel last night Prue decided to jump on the internet downstairs (no free wireless at our hotel) so I walked across the road to have a drink at one of the bars. As soon as I walked in the door of the bar I realised instantly three things were our of place. Firstly; I was the only customer. Secondly; all of the people in the bar were young attractive women (with the exception of possibly two or three lady boys). Third; all of the women were smiling at me and saying hello...
I’d stumbled into a hostess bar, the situation became very weird and awkward as I quickly drank my beer while four or five girls sat around me staring at me and making polite conversation, while another ten or twenty watched from nearby tables, I felt like the last sausage on the barbeque. I guess it would have been fun had the place had a lot more customers, but as the girl explained to me it was seven thirty and the place would not get busy till ten or eleven o’clock. I wasn’t waiting around I went back to the hotel and we both had an early night, drifting off to sleep listening to hustle and bustle of Phnom Pehn, and waking in the morning to find it is still there…
Photos from the last few days can be seen HERE.
We organised a Tuk-Tuk driver to take us for the day, and Mr Thea would happily drive us from place to place and then wait (sometimes for hours) in the back of his Tuk-Tuk until we came back ready to explore the next place. Arriving at a new temple always meant that there was a group of street peddlers waiting to pounce on you as soon as you got off the Tuk-Tuk (and usually before you got off) with calls of “hello sir you wanna a cold drink, only one dollar” or “maybe you think about it, you come see me when you get back”. Most of the peddlers are quite young and they speak in a sad voice and give you puppy dog eyes to play on your emotions, quite often they follow you all the way to the temple gates, but they were always polite and although it did get a bit bothersome at times it was also a bit of fun walking along saying “no thanks, no thank you” or “Te Oh Kun” which is the Khmer for the same thing.
The Khmer people as a whole (especially the younger generation) are very good at speaking English, much better than the Thai people we met. It is easy to have a basic conversation with most of the people you meet, the younger peddlers are always quite happy to ask you questions about where you are from, and like the Bangkok reply “Sydney -Kangaroo” here in Cambodia we get “Australia, capital Canberra” or “G’day Mate”.
Siem Reap is one of the first places that we have felt comfortable, possibly a combination of the lovely hotel we stayed in, the warm friendliness of the Khmer people, and the westernised/bastardised strip of town brought about by the tourist hordes. The markets we full of local clothing, crafts and souvenirs and it became a little depressing thinking about all of the magnificent things we could buy if it weren't for the fact we’d have to lug it around in our backpacks for the next few months. We originally booked to stay three nights in Siem Reap but after our first day we decided to extend one more night, Unfortunately our hotel was booked out but they were nice enough to take us around the corner to an equally priced but not quite as nice hotel for our last night before catching the bus to Phnom Pehn.
The bus to Phnom Phen was a bumpy ride, saying that the roads in Cambodia are shit is somewhat of an understatement. Reading a book was a bit of a challenge as you’d constantly we bobbing your head up and down just to keep your place on the page. We stopped for a refreshment break about 75kms from Phom Pehn and met the coolest peddlers so far of our trip. The place we stopped had a toilet and a restaurant and was full of stalls selling all kinds of nasties like giant crickets and tarantulas. But it was again the kids that mobbed us that were the most interesting. They all carried a bag of fruit to sell to you and even though we didn't want any fruit it was so hard to say no, as they played up the poor street urchin so well.
While I was standing around I had a great conversation with two of the girls, who asked me a thousand questions in almost perfect English (although with a slight American accent). And then one of them pulled a live tarantula out of her pocket… Yikes! Most of the kids carried around pet tarantulas, we assumed it was to attract the tourists, but it was nice to know that one of the girls named her tarantula “Happy”, thus probably sparing this spider from ending up like its brothers and sisters in the frying pan. At least for now.
Phnom Pehn is another big bustling city, although unlike Bangkok there are no large skyscrapers and we haven’t seen any modern central business district. To be honest, from what we've seen it is an entire city of slums, with the exception of a few nice bits, surrounded on each side by not so nice bits. We are staying in the riverfront precinct, which is something of a western hub. Full of bars, clubs and restaurants all with very western names to appeal to tourists and ex-pats, Our hotel is nice, after walking down the street from the bus station and looking at a lot of shoddy hotels, we finally found one that was nice for only $30 p/n, apparently it has only been open for ten days so everything is new and modern.
After visiting the National gallery (very amazing) we went to the FCC (Foreign Correspondents Club) for dinner. At the FCC we had our most expensive meal so far, around $30, was also the best (western) meal we have had so far, and it would have been quite easy to spend more money there. The FCC was the local hangout for journalists during the time of war, and the place was full of well to do looking westerners… And us.
After returning to our hotel last night Prue decided to jump on the internet downstairs (no free wireless at our hotel) so I walked across the road to have a drink at one of the bars. As soon as I walked in the door of the bar I realised instantly three things were our of place. Firstly; I was the only customer. Secondly; all of the people in the bar were young attractive women (with the exception of possibly two or three lady boys). Third; all of the women were smiling at me and saying hello...
I’d stumbled into a hostess bar, the situation became very weird and awkward as I quickly drank my beer while four or five girls sat around me staring at me and making polite conversation, while another ten or twenty watched from nearby tables, I felt like the last sausage on the barbeque. I guess it would have been fun had the place had a lot more customers, but as the girl explained to me it was seven thirty and the place would not get busy till ten or eleven o’clock. I wasn’t waiting around I went back to the hotel and we both had an early night, drifting off to sleep listening to hustle and bustle of Phnom Pehn, and waking in the morning to find it is still there…
Photos from the last few days can be seen HERE.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
In Awe of Angkor
Today we woke to find it was pouring rain and the day looked to continue in the same fashion. Yay! Our first day of Monsoon rain... Unfortunately the rain had to happen on the day we finally get to see Angkor Wat and its surrounding Angkorian Temples. Oh well, we jumped in our Tuk-Tuk with the rain shields up and headed to the Temples via a quick stop to buy two umbrellas.
This is pretty much where today's blog finishes, I'm not going to try to use words to describe what we saw today. We literally spent the entire day with our jaws gaping open saying things like "Oh my god LOOK at that!"or "Holy Fucking Shit!" all with childlike grins on our faces and utter bewilderment at everything. There are no adequate words for today and the pictures definitely wont do justice. We will be returning to the temples tomorrow (hopefully in the sunshine although the rain did keep away the mass of crowds and gave everything a very serene beauty) and we will definitely try to return to the temples of Angkor in years to come.
Enjoy the photos from today HERE
This is pretty much where today's blog finishes, I'm not going to try to use words to describe what we saw today. We literally spent the entire day with our jaws gaping open saying things like "Oh my god LOOK at that!"or "Holy Fucking Shit!" all with childlike grins on our faces and utter bewilderment at everything. There are no adequate words for today and the pictures definitely wont do justice. We will be returning to the temples tomorrow (hopefully in the sunshine although the rain did keep away the mass of crowds and gave everything a very serene beauty) and we will definitely try to return to the temples of Angkor in years to come.
Enjoy the photos from today HERE
Monday, November 2, 2009
Cambodian Snow
After our crazy experience getting into Cambodia and the sorry state of the town as we drove in we weren’t hoping for much today. We had organised a motorbike tour of the sites surrounding the city. This turned out to be a scooter tour as actual motorbike were thin on the ground. We came down after eating a great breakfast of hot fresh baked rolls and in Drew’s case an omelette, and met our guide who was sceptical that I could actually ride along with all the other guys sitting out the front who ran the motorbike rentals. We climbed on our little machines and headed off into the unknown.
Riding through town was a double challenge. Firstly there’s the problem of riding on the wrong side of the road which is a challenge in itself. Drew suggested I tie something to my right hand so I wouldn’t forget. But opting for guessing that I would get it after a while I rode after the departing guide. The second challenge is the riding in the traffic. It’s like a cosmically huge version of chicken. Basically you have to know where everyone around you is, but never make eye contact. If you make eye contact then you give way.
We headed out of town and road down some small back roads to a local temple that was a mixture of new temple building and an old walls that went all the way around and were carved to display the churning of the sea of milk. It was very cool, but on returning to our bike we’d discovered that Drew had gotten a puncture in his back tire and we needed to go and get it fixed. Our guide wheeled Drew’s bike into a tiny little grouping of shacks on the side of the road around the back of the temple. We discovered that the little shack that we’d pulled up to was in fact the local mechanic and a kid of about 16 was brought over and started to work on the back tire. We sat down in the shade and watched his attempts to manually get the tire off with hand tools, we were very impressed.
Once he got the tire off with our guides help, we discovered that the long nail that went in the tire didn’t just puncture it, but also ripped a huge gash in one side and put a few dozen holes in the other side too. In the end it was decided that it was unfixable as the gash was about 5 inches long. The mechanic’s sister roared off on my motorbike to get a new inner tube. Our guide walked us across the road and we watched an old couple work on frying food up. The guide selected a fritta that had shrimp fried into it and a fried banana for us to try. We were surprised by how fantastic it was and when the guide said he was getting some fried sweet potato for later we readily agreed. The girl came back with my bike and after the inner tube was replaced and the whole back end of Drew’s bike was screwed back on we headed off with a wave of thanks.
We headed up to Phnom Sampeau first and (after parking our bike and wiping the red dirt off from the roads) headed for the summit. We walked up the curving road to get to the top and stopped half way to see the killing caves of Phnom Sampaeu that were used by the Khmer Rouge to dispose of people that had disobeyed them or were no longer useful. The guide sat us down and explained how the old building (a small square school house) was used as a prison and more than 10,000 people were kept there over the course of the war. The people were disposed of by being thrown down into the caves and died at the bottom. Our guide explained that with the other shallow cave the people tended not to die straight away and there was no escape from a slow and sad death. He also explain many other torturous things that happened there and I don’t want to explain it here. I’ll just say that it’s very sad. We went down into the caves and there are memorials to the people who died, including clothes and bones. The majority of the bones were cremated and only a small number were kept to be used as a reminder to the future generations. Our guides father was killed during this time and he is an only child and his mother never remarried.
With massive lumps in our throats we headed up to the old temple at the top of the hill. The temple is still in use and the monks were chanting and preparing for the full moon day the next day. It had amazing views and there were local children being taught in one of the open rooms as we walked passed. After the massive hike up the hill we were so tired and decided that after looking around we’d go straight down the staircase that we could have walked up and had lunch. By halfway down we realised why the guide said to walk up the road and down the stairs. They were uneven and slippery and it would have been much more tiring climbing them than walking down them. We had lunch at the little place where we left the bikes and mine was a fantastic soup that had two minute noodles in a home made broth that was fantastic and morning grass (this ones for you Mac) as my vegies. It was actually fantastic and we then headed off to our next place to visit.
We were riding along when we started to see more and more piles of chillies on the side of the road. Our guide pulled over and explained that it was chilli harvesting season. The chillies were laid out about half an inch deep on huge blue and green tarps creating a sea of colour as we rode along. The smell of chillies were in the air and it was a magical experience. We made our way to Phnom Banan and then climbed the 358 steps almost straight up to Prasat Banan, an 11th century temple complex. It is an amazing temple group that look a lot like Angkor Wat does, but in much a smaller scale. Some of the temples have only just been rebuilt after they were destroyed during the Khmer Rouge rein of terror. It is an amazingly atmospheric place and it was like a different world when you reached the top after climbing all the stairs.
We then rode through many small towns, waving back at little kids on the side of the road and were challenged when we had to ride the scooters across a suspension bridge, great fun all round. We reached the Bamboo train (nori or norry) and decided to go for a quick round trip. The train is just two train wheels and a bamboo frame on top. The rule is that if they run into a train coming the other way the train with the least amount of stuff is dismantled and moved off the track to let the other train through. We got to do this which was a bit of an adventure. The train goes really fast and sometimes the home made track has big gaps leading to very sore bums when it hit’s the gaps.
After we got back from the train we road on through the country side and came back into Battambang from the other side. We said goodbye to our driver and again headed out to see more of the town. I found my first seeing hands massage and decided that dinner could wait and had an hour massage by a blind man who couldn’t understand very much of what I was saying, it was actually heavenly and only $6. Drew and I then headed off to find a restaurant that we’d been recommended called Gecko Café. It’s run by an American man and it only employs young people who are the soul supports of large families and orphans. It was a great place and we had a odd moment where we were listening to Nora Jones being played and were just thinking about how odd the experience was of listening to songs you’d heard before in a completely different surrounding (while eating Mexican food). It was also as we were sitting there that we noticed that hadn’t seen many people over the age of about 25 and we were reminded of the horrible price Cambodia has had to pay for the peace it has today. We walked home with a renewed love for the country and we we’re very glad that were able to see more of Battambang as we might not have appreciated it if we hadn’t.
Riding through town was a double challenge. Firstly there’s the problem of riding on the wrong side of the road which is a challenge in itself. Drew suggested I tie something to my right hand so I wouldn’t forget. But opting for guessing that I would get it after a while I rode after the departing guide. The second challenge is the riding in the traffic. It’s like a cosmically huge version of chicken. Basically you have to know where everyone around you is, but never make eye contact. If you make eye contact then you give way.
We headed out of town and road down some small back roads to a local temple that was a mixture of new temple building and an old walls that went all the way around and were carved to display the churning of the sea of milk. It was very cool, but on returning to our bike we’d discovered that Drew had gotten a puncture in his back tire and we needed to go and get it fixed. Our guide wheeled Drew’s bike into a tiny little grouping of shacks on the side of the road around the back of the temple. We discovered that the little shack that we’d pulled up to was in fact the local mechanic and a kid of about 16 was brought over and started to work on the back tire. We sat down in the shade and watched his attempts to manually get the tire off with hand tools, we were very impressed.
Once he got the tire off with our guides help, we discovered that the long nail that went in the tire didn’t just puncture it, but also ripped a huge gash in one side and put a few dozen holes in the other side too. In the end it was decided that it was unfixable as the gash was about 5 inches long. The mechanic’s sister roared off on my motorbike to get a new inner tube. Our guide walked us across the road and we watched an old couple work on frying food up. The guide selected a fritta that had shrimp fried into it and a fried banana for us to try. We were surprised by how fantastic it was and when the guide said he was getting some fried sweet potato for later we readily agreed. The girl came back with my bike and after the inner tube was replaced and the whole back end of Drew’s bike was screwed back on we headed off with a wave of thanks.
We headed up to Phnom Sampeau first and (after parking our bike and wiping the red dirt off from the roads) headed for the summit. We walked up the curving road to get to the top and stopped half way to see the killing caves of Phnom Sampaeu that were used by the Khmer Rouge to dispose of people that had disobeyed them or were no longer useful. The guide sat us down and explained how the old building (a small square school house) was used as a prison and more than 10,000 people were kept there over the course of the war. The people were disposed of by being thrown down into the caves and died at the bottom. Our guide explained that with the other shallow cave the people tended not to die straight away and there was no escape from a slow and sad death. He also explain many other torturous things that happened there and I don’t want to explain it here. I’ll just say that it’s very sad. We went down into the caves and there are memorials to the people who died, including clothes and bones. The majority of the bones were cremated and only a small number were kept to be used as a reminder to the future generations. Our guides father was killed during this time and he is an only child and his mother never remarried.
With massive lumps in our throats we headed up to the old temple at the top of the hill. The temple is still in use and the monks were chanting and preparing for the full moon day the next day. It had amazing views and there were local children being taught in one of the open rooms as we walked passed. After the massive hike up the hill we were so tired and decided that after looking around we’d go straight down the staircase that we could have walked up and had lunch. By halfway down we realised why the guide said to walk up the road and down the stairs. They were uneven and slippery and it would have been much more tiring climbing them than walking down them. We had lunch at the little place where we left the bikes and mine was a fantastic soup that had two minute noodles in a home made broth that was fantastic and morning grass (this ones for you Mac) as my vegies. It was actually fantastic and we then headed off to our next place to visit.
We were riding along when we started to see more and more piles of chillies on the side of the road. Our guide pulled over and explained that it was chilli harvesting season. The chillies were laid out about half an inch deep on huge blue and green tarps creating a sea of colour as we rode along. The smell of chillies were in the air and it was a magical experience. We made our way to Phnom Banan and then climbed the 358 steps almost straight up to Prasat Banan, an 11th century temple complex. It is an amazing temple group that look a lot like Angkor Wat does, but in much a smaller scale. Some of the temples have only just been rebuilt after they were destroyed during the Khmer Rouge rein of terror. It is an amazingly atmospheric place and it was like a different world when you reached the top after climbing all the stairs.
We then rode through many small towns, waving back at little kids on the side of the road and were challenged when we had to ride the scooters across a suspension bridge, great fun all round. We reached the Bamboo train (nori or norry) and decided to go for a quick round trip. The train is just two train wheels and a bamboo frame on top. The rule is that if they run into a train coming the other way the train with the least amount of stuff is dismantled and moved off the track to let the other train through. We got to do this which was a bit of an adventure. The train goes really fast and sometimes the home made track has big gaps leading to very sore bums when it hit’s the gaps.
After we got back from the train we road on through the country side and came back into Battambang from the other side. We said goodbye to our driver and again headed out to see more of the town. I found my first seeing hands massage and decided that dinner could wait and had an hour massage by a blind man who couldn’t understand very much of what I was saying, it was actually heavenly and only $6. Drew and I then headed off to find a restaurant that we’d been recommended called Gecko Café. It’s run by an American man and it only employs young people who are the soul supports of large families and orphans. It was a great place and we had a odd moment where we were listening to Nora Jones being played and were just thinking about how odd the experience was of listening to songs you’d heard before in a completely different surrounding (while eating Mexican food). It was also as we were sitting there that we noticed that hadn’t seen many people over the age of about 25 and we were reminded of the horrible price Cambodia has had to pay for the peace it has today. We walked home with a renewed love for the country and we we’re very glad that were able to see more of Battambang as we might not have appreciated it if we hadn’t.
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