Cambodge (the French word for it) is wonderful. Dirty, rough around the edges, colourful and witty. We decided to travel like the locals and caught a rickety old bus from Saigon to Siem Riep (home of Angkor Wat) Possibly the toughest 14 hours of my life in a hot, noisy, bouncy bus with almost no aircon and terrible local music (whining in anyone else's language) No regrets for catching that bus - the best way to throw us into Cambodia boots and all.
As soon as you cross the boarder from Vietnam the roads are bad and the scooters are replaced by bicycles. The countryside is dotted with simple huts made from wood and palms and people are living mainly off subsistence. The strange thing is that I looked though the camera lens for hours trying to find moments or images to 'capture Cambodia' but you can't - you really have to absorb it where you are and just remember it (this is not an excuse for not many holiday pics!!) Eyeopening poverty, the signs of a war not long gone, but full of charm.
Siem Riep is definitely our favourite place in Cambodia. It developed around the tourism industry attracting people to Angkor Wat and is full of funky art galleries, bars, restaurants and people. We should have stayed here a few days longer, but we did love every minute of the 4 days we were there (that could be because your dollar goes a lot further here and we stayed in a REALLY nice guesthouse with amazing local Cambodian cooking)
Our day at Angkor Wat started with a 5am wake-up and we were on the road at 5.30am. Through the guesthouse we arranged a tuk-tuk driver for the day and this is the only way to see the temples (they are spread over hundreds of kms) We did as most tourists do and stood at the gates to Angkor for the sunrise - not romantic at all as there are about 200 people there all waiting to take the same pictures as you!! Our Tuk-tuk driver knew a lot about the temples and the history, so he was a very useful guide too and over lunch we learnt a lot about him and 'real life' for him and his family. One problem we noticed with it was that people are allowed to climb all over the temples and this is clearly damaging them. In years to come some of them will be lost forever, but Cambodia does not have the conservation money or infrastructure to spend on their preservation.
Us at our romantic sunrise - this was at 5.30am and before Simon had much needed haircut.
Our secluded spot.
The money shot!
Pra Thom is where they filmed Tomb Raider (which I have not seen) but Simon made me do all these silly Angelina Jolie running and jumping moves - I think I looked more like a monkey than a film star! The amazing thing is the temple is overrun with forest and has been allowed to stay that way so we took hundreds of funky pics of this temple.
My Lara Croft impression
Dribbly tree
Further outside the main temple area is a lovely old temple made of red sandstone (Bantay Sureay) and harks back to a more Hindu influence with deep intricate carvings. This would be a silly place for BOTH of us to run out of camera battery wouldn't it! We did climb Pra Rup to watch the sunset, but it was not a very impressive one (good thing as we could not take pics)
Sandstone loveliness
Sandstone lovely
Landmines are still a very big problem for Cambodia and we did meet people who had lost limbs from landmines. They estimate that they have only recovered 3 million of the 6 million landmines laied in Cambodia - an expensive exercise as the NGO's charge $1000 to remove a mine. There is a man (ex child soldier) who is an expert at removing mines (mainly because he lay hundreds of them) and he does it for free - we visited his small museum in Siem Reap - truly shocking stuff those mines are.....and countries are still making them!
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