Category: Cambodia

The triple S, Shower, Shave and Stilt villages

Day 60 – Sunday 04 March 2012, Siem Reap – Tonle Sap lake and Kompong Phhluk

Today was a day off from temples and walking around in the heat, with a planned visit to the stilt village of Kompon Phhluk and the floating villages on Tonle Sap lake. Again we were paying for a tuk tuk to take us there, I am sure we could find other transport and probably cheaper, but it is still a reasonable price at $15 for both of us for about two half hours of tuk tuking. The accommodation and food maybe cheap but we are making up for it with tours !

The tuk tuk was again waiting for us at the arranged time of 8.00 am, we hadn’t managed to get breakfast so we grabbed a few things from a local bakery and set off on the hour or so journey to Tonle Sap lake.  I took a whole load of photos on the way there and back and have posted them separately.

After pounding down a rough dirt road and through a local village we arrived at the ticket office for the boats, we were pretty disappointed to hear it was $20 USD EACH for the boat ride, I was expecting maybe $20 for the boat, there was no haggling and this was the only way so we stumped up with the cash.  Life out here is pretty tough, with nothing we take for granted in the cities. Though being close to the lake means there is a lot of water for irrigating vegetable gardens and rice paddies and there is a lot of fish caught and eaten. I am hoping some of my money goes to the local people.

From the ticket office we had a further ten tough minutes in the tuk tuk to the river side where we got on our dungy old boat for the tour. The driver was not exactly forth coming with information about what we saw, and the boat was so loud it would have been a fruitless monologue if he had tried!

I loved the complex steering mechanism, everything is so basic and functional here, so very cool, I wish NZ was like this.

We passed a number of young men net fishing in the  very muddy river, not quite sure what they were catching but there was a lot of them doing it and it involved being in the river.

Fishing is life here, so net repair is crucial.

Past the fishermen we came round a corner in the river and caught our first glimpse of Kompong Phhluk  (yes it has two h;s and Kompong means village). Wow – amazing!

The village is all on stilts and not just a few feet off the ground either, these are all 7 or 8 metres high, designed to protect the village during the rainy season – if obviously rains a lot here. In fact most of the area surrounding here is a vast flood plain, arid during the dry season and flooded during the wet, with very little in between. We spent about fifteen minutes cruising up the river and through the village, the villagers totally ignored us, a couple of the kids waived, but largely they must be sick of the hundreds of tourists that come through every day.

The shrine up a tree!

House with granny flat ?

These floating pens hold pigs and chickens when the place is flooded, you can just see chickens on top of it.

After the village we motored up stream for a few minutes to the edge of Tonle Sap lake and the mandatory stop at a cafe where we had coffee and fruit. We were offered an additional canoe ride through a flooded forest for another $10 but declined as the faces of the people who were doing it read “boring”  ! Plus I get sick of being upsold things all the time, it was worth maybe $2… The boat boy had a wee wash while we had coffee.

I was really disappointed when we got to the lake as the floating villages were not there, they do move around the lake a bit, so I was not utterly surprised, but this was the main reason we came. I do believe they should tell you first !!  There was one floating house.After the lake we powered back up the river to the start where we got out and back into our tuk tuk for the return to Siem Reap.

I was disappointed with the day, it was the most expensive activity we have done and I feel ripped off. We had no information on what we were seeing and the floating village was not there. The village on stilts was amazing so I am glad I came but….

Once back in town and clean from all the dust we had lunch at the Purple Elephant Thai restaurant. This was the place run by Sam who I met last night. I had a vege dish (name eludes me now) that I have not tried before and a mango shake. The food was excellent ! and my meal cost $2 including drink. I really wonder how people make money, will go back there for lunch tomorrow as well.

Mike enjoying having his photo taken at lunch.

After lunch I finally dragged my sorry arse to a barber and got a haircut, I am 99% sure he spoke no English, but luckily short hair is short hair and he did a good job. He offered me a shave as well so I took the opportunity to get my first straight razor shave ever, and yes I did have thoughts of Sweeny Todd!! He also offered me the chance to visit the massage parlour upstairs, which I declined : )

We did not do much else for the rest of the day, so I got to blog yesterdays temple visits and then back to the five suns for dinner, though I did go for a burger rather than Cambodian food  as they looked very good.

Tomorrow we visit Bayon, I am so excited !!!

Gallery – Siem Reap – on the road to Tonle Sap

I have grown more comfortable with pointing the camera at people and it is certainly easier to take photos from a slowish moving and open tuk tuk than it is a bus or car.

So, some random images shot today on the road between Siem Reap and Tonle Sap lake  and back again. Not all are works of art ! But they do capture a bit more about life and getting around in this part of Cambodia. My favorite is the bad shot of the guy riding his bike with a smoke hanging from his face, though I am partial to the woman in pajamas on the back of the scooter at midday. And the truck load of beer looks good 🙂

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Banteay Kdei

Day 59 – Saturday, 03 March 2012, Part 3  of 3- Siem Reap – Banteay Kdei

More photos on Flickr…

Tuk tuk jam on the way out of Ta Prohm.

On the way back to the GH from Ta Prohm I asked to stop at another Wat site as we passed, Banteay Kdei (citadel of chambers). Banteay Kdei was a large monastery that was started in the late 1100’s though it was never fully finished and built quite hastily causing it to now be in a rather tumbled state.

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

The site was reasonably small, and quite low down compared to the multi-layered Angkor Wat and the larger Ta Prohm. We spent an interesting forty five minutes walking around and snapped a few photos of the carvings.

One of side gates

There were some great carvings here amongst the ruins.

I really liked these, almost all that was left.

This was my favourite shot from the site, I really like these faces and am looking forward to going to Bayon in a couple of days. This clearly shows how these are constructed, it is probably two meters high and five off the ground.After the very early morning spent walking in the heat, we had a late lunch at the same place we had breakfast and I took a whole load of photos of life passing by the cafe.I have posted a load of the bicycles already, but this was my favourite, the cafe is almost over the road from a local clinic.

This was followed by some serious time in air conditioning and a shower to wash away the layers of red dust.

For dinner we went to the five suns restaurant where we ate the previous two nights, the food there is great, I have had a Khmer curry, green mango salad and tonight I had another local meal amok, which again was just so tasty. I almost feel guilty eating these wonderful meals that cost about $3 NZ. We do leave a small tip each night ! I was just settling into a vodka and tonic (change from beer) when a guy in an arsenal shirt came in and asked the staff to put the TV on ESPN. Arsenal V Liverpool live was just about to start, so Mike went back to the GH and I joined the English guy in front of the TV for the next couple of hours. We were soon joined by Sam another young English guy who now lives in Seim Reap and runs a small Thai cafe up the road. Arsenal won 2-1 so it was a great game ! Though my ankles got massacred by small flying biting things. It was a long, but awesome day.

Wat Ta Prohm

Day 59 – Saturday, 03 March 2012, Part 2  of 3- Siem Reap – Ta Promh

After a late breakfast at the local cafe and a photo snapping session of people passing by, followed by a quick pick up of the last of my charged camera batteries we headed back out in our tuk-tuk to Ta Prohm Wat. Ta Prohm is one of my big picks of things to see in the area as it has been left reasonably alone since being ‘discovered’. It still has an element of jungle authenticity about it. It has also featured in Indiana Jones and Lara Croft movies…

Construction of Ta Prohm was started in 1186 and the temple was dedicated to the mother of King Jayavarnan VII. The site is smaller than Angkor Wat and has been significantly damaged by the elements, so passages are blocked with fallen rock and trees grow on, in and around the ruins.

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

Our first introduction to the site was a mob of tourist buses, tuk tuks and touts – it was not a great start to a day of quiet browsing.

The main entry point, the west gate, was under renovation so we had to enter the site through some temporary steps in the midst of a Chinese tour group – complete with loud hailer – I was not feeling good about this I can tell you!

Once inside the outer wall I again followed the strategy I used at Anglor Wat, walk the outer ring, then the middle ring before entering the centre courtyard. The site is visually stunning !

I would liked to have been there a bit earlier or later in the day to get the sun at a different angles, but it was still only ten am when we arrived so it was not too harsh, though the brightness of the sun made a few photos unusable.

Like Angkor Wat the outer courtyards of the temple were fairly empty of tourists and I managed to get a few good photos sans the hoard.

The inner ring was just packed ! I think the tour groups just charge through the middle of the sites, out the other side and back on to their air conned bus – good for them – suits me perfectly !

49 year old legs, 5 month old Keen Sandals, 800 year old carving in a sandstone block ! Like the other sites we were allowed reasonable access to most places inside and outside the walls.

The exit

What an awesome site !!!

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.