Month: March 2012

Angkor Wat !!!

Day 59 – Saturday, 03 March 2012, Part 1 of 3 – Siem Reap – Angkor Wat

This will be a three part post as a big morning with lots of photos taken sites at three sites around siem reap. I will put the bulk on  to Flickr as it is easier to mass upload there.

It was a cool day !(well it was a damn hot day really, I merely can dream of cool days)   I have wanted to see the temples of Angkor for many years and this was one of the two key reasons for coming to South East Asia, the other was seeing the orang-utans which I did in Borneo.

Angkor Wat (Temple that is a city) is huge ! it is the largest religious structure in the world, it surrounded by a moat that is 190m wide and is 1.5km long and 1.3km wide. The structure was started in the 1100’s and has never been abandoned to the jungle which has resulted in a its remarkable condition. I wont go into the detail of how and why it was built here as that is a huge story in itself – worth reading.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Wat

We elected to do Angkor Wat as a sunrise visit, which meant getting up at 4.15 and being collected by our tuk tuk driver at 4.30, the ride out to the site was for me full of anticipation !  When we arrived there were not too many people about and I bought a coffee off of one of the touts and then threw it away as it was disgusting… grrrr.  There is no signposting anywhere and stupidly we had failed to read up on the site so wandered blindly (I had a torch) around in the dark for about twenty minutes, crossing paths with a number of other tourists also blindly wandering around. I had made an assumption on where east was based on a light glow on the horizon, which did not match the direction of the book when we finally read it. Mike then realised the glow was the wash from the town and not the slwoly rising sun, Doh! So we went and joined the ever growing hoards on the bank of a large pond.

The sunrise was highly unspectacular and was verging on being a waste of a lie in, but once the sun was high enough to see by we started our tour of the site while it was cool and before the mass of tourists arrived. 

My plan was to do the outside of the site first, followed by the inner ring and then finally the centre where the towers were, with this in mind we walked the almost km to the far eastern wall to catch some of the early morning light.

I had read in the guide book, that the bulk of the early morning visitors disappear back to their hotels for breakfast after the sunrise, and this proved to be the case. For the first hour it almost appeared as if we had Angkor Wat to ourselves and I managed to get a lot of photos with no people in them. We pretty much followed my plan outside first with a visit to the eastern gate.

Followed by  a walk around the outer wall rim which is one large bas relief almost 1.2km long. The detail carved into the stone is astounding and most of it is in phenomenally good condition.

From there we ventured into the site itself and checked out more of the carvings and statues.

The crowd was starting to pick up at 7.30, when we were almost first into the queue to climb the central tower which is fifty five metres high and has incredibly steep stairs. The view from the top was pretty good.

As was the Buddha.

For seem reason my camera was chewing through batteries and I used two batteries before we left Angkor Wat and I only took a hundred or so photos, I can understand the twenty second exposures sucking battery life but not normal shooting. I had to use my phone for a the last few shots.

After Angkor we went back to the GH so I could get my third battery for the visit to Ta Promh. I also took the view finder off as this uses some power – fortunately, apart from dropping my camera, I had no issues at Ta Promh.

As we left Angkor we were faced with the hoards making their way in, a good time to leave.  It was a pretty awesome place, I will  definitely go back there one day, rainy season next time.

I posted more photos on Flickr as it is ony slightly less frustrating than posting photos here.

The Roluos Group of temples.

Day 58, Friday 02 March 2012, Siem Reap – The Roluos Group of temples.

I had a reasonable sleep last night and up earlyish for a free Nescafe down in the lobby area along with a quick net surf, not used to not having wifi in the room ! Though a waste of time as no interesting emails and nothing happened in my Facebook world either, LOL : ) We wandered up the road for breakfast and had attention lavished up on us by a tuk tuk driver in the cafe, ultimately to no avail. Breakfast was entirely average, though of course very cheap, but we wont go back there again – need to avoid the disappointed tuk tuk driver !

On the bus yesterday i came up with a plan for the things I wanted to see, based on the book I had, though of course I will consult locally now we are in town.  I wanted to ease into the sights and do a short day and some minor temples first, so last night we arranged with guesthouse (GH) for a tuk tuk to take us out to the Roluos group of temples for a three hour tour. I can guarantee we can get a better deal on the street but it is still cheap and we know we are at least getting a driver that has some cred with the GH.

The Roluos group is comprised of three sites about thirteen KM from Siem Reap and away from the main sites. Neither of the guide books we have explain what the Roluos bit  means, but the three sites in the order we visited them are Bakong, Preah Ko and Lolei.

We left at 9.00 am and the day was already warm ! On the way to the temples we stopped to buy a three day temple pass, at $40 USD as these are checked at all sites, hopefully some of the funds are invested in the maintenance of the temples and it was good to see each site did have some work going on, but not obtrusively so.We stopped for petrol on the way out.

The road from the highway to the temples was incredibly dusty and my grey shirt is now filthy and even a shower wash made no difference – and damnit I only had two days use out of the shirt, I could easily have got another day without having to wash it.The construction of the first temple we visited, Bakong, was started by Indravarman  in 881, and the temple is extremely cool ! We were allowed to walk all around the site and there were not too many other tourists getting in the way of me and my camera. Though i did spend the first twenty minutes taking photos on manual focus setting and getting some bad shots – delete, delete.

I climbed up one of the side ruins and was trying to pull myself up on top (other people had been there!) when the pillar I was using to haul myself up on started to fall over – OH SHIT ! I caught it and managed to straighten it up again and no-one noticed – I made a rapid retreat ! You cannot see from the photo, but there is a small bar holding the short pillar to the right of the frame, I knocked it out when I tried to pull myself up, I did manage to get it back in – lesson learned.

The remainder of the walk around the site was less dramatic, but nonetheless entirely enjoyable, I love being able to get in close to the detail. Impressive !

At all the temple sites we are approached by young girls selling price inflated cans of coke and other drinks (still cheaper than NZ) and men selling guide books and guide services, it takes a bit of the enjoyment away as, for me I like to enjoy these in peace. I did buy a coke at the last temple though. I am sure Angkor Wat is a lot worse ! As we were leaving the temple, the kids that were at school were riding home.

Moo.

The second temple we visited was Preah Ko, supposedly built in 880 again by Indrvarman 1. This was a smaller site, though equally interesting and with even less people, I managed to get a few shots with no one in them… the day was brutally hot and there was very little shade around this site so we did not stay too long.

The last temple in the group is Loliei started in 893 by Yasovarman 1 and is the smallest site by a long way. It does have a small new temple on site and an orphanage.

I am not sure on the whole orphanage thing and saw a number of posters in Thailand saying “orphanages are not tourism” which I do agree with, but it is a tough one as tourists do give money. However, where the money goes is a whole different subject and I suspect there is plenty of scamming going on, as well as far more unpleasant things.  I didn’t give.

There was a small village by the temple.Our tuk tuk for the day.

I need a shave again !

There are a couple more photos on Flickr.

After the temples we went back to town for a late pizza lunch in the main tourist drag, “Pub Street.Hired a couple of bikes for a ride around to see some more of Siem Reap, it was damn hot !!! Preah Promh Rath Monastery dates back around five hundred years and is longest continuously operating Wat in Siem Reap. It contains a replica of the Preah Ang Chang-han Hoy Buddha, who was revered by the Khmer people in the 13th and 14th century.

Up at 4.15 tomorrow, off for a sunrise over Angkor Wat, and the sun better rise if I am getting up that early.

A day of travelling – Bangkok to Siem Reap

Day 57, Thursday 01 March 2012, Bangkok – Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Well it was an interesting day, and I wasn’t expecting that –  it was also a looooong day and I wasn’t expecting that either. However, it is South East Asia so I guess really I should have expected both.

I went to bed last night feeling a wee bit average but was Ok by morning, up at 6.45 and had coffee and cereal in the hostel before packing up and heading out on the next leg of the journey, another new adventure and another new country – and a day closer to seeing some of the awesome sights around Siem Reap, I just need to get there first. We walked up to the train station about 7.30, hoping for, but not expecting to have a fairly empty train ride. As we got to the platform a train arrived but it was so packed there was no way we could have made it through the door with our packs and day bags, so waited for the next train, which arrived very soon after and was not so bad –  though we went into different doors to fit in ! we took the train to the end of the line at Mo Chit.

At Mo Chit we spent five minutes trying to find a taxi driver who understood where we wanted to go, we weren’t sure if they had no comprehension of “north bus station” or if the fare was too small so they faked a lack of comprehension! Eventually we did find one and the ride to the station cost exactly what the hostel suggested it would, even if he is meter was ‘broken’.

We had a forty five minute wait at the bus station for our ride to Aranya Pathet, which is the border point with Poi Pet in Cambodia.  I had my first ever Dunken Donuts – I only had it for the coffee, honest !

The four hour bus ride took five and half hours and the bus seemed to be smaller than the ones in Malaysia so I was a bit more cramped, we stopped at a charmless gas station for a break. I always thought “Metal Mulisha” was a New Zealand thing, obviously not.

Just out of Aranya was passed a police checkpoint, the guy sitting in front of me did not have ID and was ordered off the bus, by the time the cop had got to the front of the bus (which had picked up ten or so standing passengers) the guy in front of me had been missed and was all smiles as the bus left again with him still on. Then we got to the army checkpoint, where he was not so lucky…

At the border town the bus was swamped with tuk tuk drivers offering to take us to the border, not knowing how far we selected one at random and he appeared to be charging the same price as the others at 80baht.

We piled on board and off we went. Sadly our tuk tuk driver, and the others carrying western tourists, took us the fake Cambodian visa office, I had read about the scam a while back so was semi-expecting it. It is basically an office a hundred metres from the border where you need to get your Cambodian visa, it is a total scam. If it was a visa office the guys would be uniform and it would be at the border, not a hundred metres away. I walked off with Mike behind me and we headed down to the border where we got our visa’s in Cambodia rather than in Thailand. We could have walked from the bus, it was only a few hundred metres, but ignorance is preyed upon as it is everywhere.

The border…

 

The boarder crossing for us tourists was a bit more normal, with passport stamps and customs checks.

Once in Cambodia we caught a free bus with about 20 other backpackers t to the main bus/van/taxi terminal. It was our intent to get a taxi the two hours to Siem Reap rather than the four hour bus trip, but there were so many touts and confused tourists it was pretty chaotic.  I think most of us wanted to get into groups of four to make the taxi only a couple of dollars more than the bus, of course the taxi drivers want to split the herd into smaller groups, which is what they did so well most of us ended up on the bus, so they lost in the end. The bus ride was slooooooow, at least it was airconned.

It is towards the end of dry season here and it is very obvious, it is very dusty and dry and the fields are fairly barren.  It is obviously not a wealthy area and there is an intresting mix of vehicles on the road.

We stopped for an hour for dinner, and to let the engine cool down, at least that is what I hope they were doing : )

It was dark after dinner and the remaining hour to town was pretty quiet, most people, like us just wanted to end their day of travelling. Once into town we were mobbed of the bus by tuk tuk drivers and just got one who knew where our guesthouse (Siep Reap Holiday Garden villa). It was a ten minute ride in, and I must say I enjoyed the tuk tuk experience – at least there is air.

Siem Reap is a lot different to what I imagined, on the edge of town there are a lot of big (huge in some cases) hotels, the roads are good and it is pretty clean. The centre of town is a bit more like your average SE Asian town centre, crowded with cafes and bikes and people in all directions. Our guesthouse it a ten minute walk from the main tourist area of Pub Street, which suits us fine.

So the journey took almost thirteen hours and went – walk, Sky train, taxi, bus, tuk tuk, walk, bus, bus, tuk tuk .

We went out to one of local eating houses for dinner, I had a very nice Khmer curry and rice and a beer for about  $5 NZ. The curry tasted quite similar to the Balinese curry that I make, though slightly different ingredients.

At night, our part of Siem Reap seems OK, we have a karaoke bar at the end of the street, but apart from that it all seems quite quiet here. The guesthouse appears to be almost empty. We have a big room with two king size beds, air con, TV with 100 channels (I just watched England lose to Holland in a football friendly) and a decent hot shower. All for $10 a night.

The Music bit

Ah, The Mint chicks, sadly defunct, but I must admit I wasn’t excited about the last album and their new direction. But in their heyday in the mid 2000’s they were awesome. The album “F**k the golden youth” is a great great album and live the Mint Chicks were fantastic, one of the most entertaining live bands Auckland has produced. This track “take it, I don’t want it” is from that album and captures some of the live manicness.

Wat Arun and a Myanmar visa

Day 56, Wednesday 29 Feb 2012, Bangkok

Leap year this year, huh – Wahoo, 0ne more day of travelling!

Today we go back to the Myanmar consulate to (hopefully) get our visas. We have booked flights to Yangon from Bangkok on the 12th March, with me returning to Bangkok on the 27th and Mike flying to Kuala Lumpur to head to Europe.  In the meantime we will do a quick tour of Cambodia and head off by bus to Siem Reap tomorrow morning.  The consulate opens at 3.30 so a slow start to the day.

I spent some time on the internet this morning, updated the blog “The Plan” page with the new details and caught up with a mass upload of photos to Flickr, as I was way behind, all this interneting is time consuming, and I still owe a few people some emails – so sorry!

We left the hostel around mid-day and stopped at a hawker stall on the street for an absolutely delicious banana and chocolate crepe, for the massive sum of about 40 cents. Auckland really needs to have this sort of street food – of course it would be against some food or health regulation ! We took a couple of trains back out to the Chao Phraya river and caught the ferry again up to the Wat Pho stop like the other day. This time we jumped on another ferry that just went back and forth across the river to Wat Arun.  Not sure if I would eat this guys catch to be honest.

Skippering a ferry across the river is not that exciting obviously, when we set sail and were aimed in the general direction of the far bank, he continued his knotting and steered with his knees.

Obviously nothing sexist about the dress code! Personall,y I think shorty shorts should be encouraged, with conditions attached of course.

Wat Arun translates to temple of the dawn, and it would be fabulous to be there at sunset, though I think I would really struggle to get there at the moment, cannot get enough sleep and feel really groggy in the mornings. The Prangs (the large towers) were built in the early 1820’s and are decorated with shells and bits of porcelain. We spent an hour or so wandering around the site. There is info  on it here.

http://www.watarun.org/index_en.html

In the cloisters, under the encircled buddha figures are hundreds of photos, I am assuming of people whose ashes may be in the cloisters, I could not find any information about it, the site itself has very little information available in English sadly.

Climbed the very steep staircases, it was great to be to get close to the detail.

For some great views over Bangkok.

I took a lot of photos of stone heads again; they had quite a few different ones to Wat Pho and the Grand Palace. I have posted these in a prior post as there were a few : ) but I do think they are cool.

We then caught the ferry back to the other side, had a quick lunch and caught the ferry back to the  train and the train back to the Myanmar Consulate where we got our visas – Yes !!! mission accomplished, a day later than planned, but at least we have visas and can now fly to Yangoon in 12 days knowing we wont get kicked out at the border.

After the consulate it was a train back to the hostel and some lying down, very tired tonight, we had an early dinner. We were planning on going back to the place we ate at last night as it was so good, however it was closed. I really wanted rice as I had a noodle dish for lunch, but none of the rice options appealed so we went to the cafe we had dinner at a couple of days ago. Sadly it was not great, very greasy pad thai. I left feeling bloated and blah – hope it is not something coming on, as tomorrow morning we leave for Angkor !!  Early night.

The music bit…

As promised – The Subliminals.  I first got into The Subliminals through Michael and Chantal, two of my bestest friends.  Jared, the bass player was a friend of theirs and after hearing their EP and seeing them live I was hooked.  The music speaks for itself, just fabbo!, lots of droney post rock, with the odd vocal track thrown in.

This clip is from the recent Flying Nun 30th anniversary gig and I am still kicking myself for not going to this show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiCEU0vlrNw&feature=autoplay&list=AVGxdCwVVULXeE02xMfqJG3Z-xzf_DvPIa&lf=list_related&playnext=1