The craziness of Phnom Penh

Days 82 - 86 (20/06/08 - 24/06/08): Phnom Penh, Cambodia

I caught a bus from Battambang to return to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. Phnom Penh is crazy, hectic, disgusting, exotic, dirty, beautiful, lovable city. I returned to the same guesthouse I overnighted in a week or so ago, and proceed to immerse myself in the uniqueness that is Phnom Penh.

The first thing that strikes you about Phnom Penh is the amount of people. Unlike the rest of Cambodia, which seems to be relatively sparsely populated, Phnom Penh is packed with over 2 million people. Secondly, the city is not a particularly clean city at all. Wherever you look there is rubbish, on the sidewalk, in the gutters, on the road and in the lake. Plastic bags, plastic bottles, cigarettes, food scraps, and all items of household rubbish are scattered everywhere or piled in big clumps. Thirdly, the driving and road rules (or more precisely the complete and utter lack of road rules) are somewhat mind-blowing. While cars are rare, there are enough motorbikes, scooters, tuk-tuks and bicycles to ensure that any main road is filled to the brim with vehicles going wherever they feel they need to, regardless of road lanes, other vehicles or incoming traffic! While the internal combustion engine has found its way to Phnom Penh, the technology of brakes, indicator lights or crash helmets certainly have not!

Phnom Penh actually has quite a few famous sites and a lot of history, and so I spent my days exploring these different places. First up, and most (in)famously, were the Choeung Ek Genocide Centre (known as the 'killing fields', situated just outside Phnom Penh) and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. These two sites are the most well known Khmer Rouge sites, and are a definite eye opener to the unthinkable atrocities that occured in Cambodia a mere 30 years ago. While most of the buildings at the killing fields have been removed, there are still a large number of mass graves that are being excavated. A large memorial has been built that houses a few hundred skulls of the victims, which for most visitors is something they have never seen before and really drives home the brutality of what happened in this place.

The Genocide Musuem is the site of a former high school which was used as the notorious Security Prison 21 (S-21) by the Khmer Rouge regime from its rise to power in 1975 to its fall in 1979. The prison was mostly used as a place where the authorities tortured thousands upon thousands of everyday people to extract confessions. Afterwards these people where taken to one of the killing fields to be executed and buried. Walking around the former high school was a very chilling experience. Some of the rooms used as prison and torture cells still had the implements of torture in them, and several of the rooms had blood splatter stains on the walls and ceiling. The place is now a museum, and among other things has thousands of pictures of the victims, taken from the Khmer Rouge records. It is a very sobering and reflective experience looking at a wall of photos of young children that were all brutally interrogated and violently executed.

To make up for the rather depressing Khmer Rouge experience, I also visited some sites that show a much nicer part of Cambodian history. These included the Royal Palace, Silver Pagoda, and National Museum. While not as impressice as the Royal Palace in Bangkok, I still very much liked the Cambodian Royal Palace, with its ornate gardens, golden throne room and impressively large buildings, all decorated in the Khmer Style. The Silver Pagoda, while just a normal looking Pagoda from the outside, has a floor made entirely of silver. Although most of it now covered in rugs to protect it from the thousands of tourists and praying locals, parts of it are uncovered to expose the beautifully worked and intricately engraved silver floor panels. Unfortunately, like most of the religious sites, photography within buildings is prohibited. The National Museum contains a number of artifacts from Cambodian history, some dating back over a thousand years. Mostly they are stone statues and engravings, a lot taken from the Angkor Wat sites. It really made me realise how much more impressive those temples would have been when they where filled with the gold decorated statues of Buddha, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and the odd Ganesha (my personal favourite). Also very interesting was the gold, silver and brass jewellery, household items, military weapons and coins, some dating back six hundred years!

The other days in Phnom Penh were simply spent relaxing. I was staying along the lake, and my guesthouse had a wooden deck extending out into the lake. It was a wonderfully calm place, and each night gave a wonderful view of the setting sun over the lake and shanty buildings on the far side. I spent a couple of days just sitting in a simple wooden chair, reading books, overlooking the lake and enjoying a very peaceful existence. This 'peace time' was a definite necessity, as leaving the tranquility and seclusion of the guesthouse brought you into full contact with the streets of the backpacker ghetto of Phnom Penh. It was impossible to walk more than a few steps without being offered something to buy. These ranged from 'innocent' tuk-tuk and motorbike drivers wanting a fare, children selling books, or people selling sunglasses and hats, to the seedier folk selling everything from Class A drugs to 'massages' to 'lady companions' for the night. In a simple 2 minute walk from the guesthouse to a restuarant, I would constantly be shaking my head and saying no to the repeat offerings of everything. If you are really lucky, you might be able to go a few metres without having to say anything or saying no. I even spoke to some girls (from Mt Maunganui of all places!) who were offered to buy unwanted human babies from ladies in the main market. We came to the conclusion that everything and anything you want is for sale in Phnom Pnomh, its jsut a matter of agreeing on the price...

Boating across the Tonle Sap

Day 81 (19/06/08): Battambang, Cambodia


I woke up at the ridiculous time of 5 in the morning, to get ready to catch my boat to Battambang. I met Tony and the others for an early morning breakfast, they were headed off to Sihanoukville. The guesthouse owners were even kind enough to make the breakfast free! At 6am I boarded a minibus for the ride down to the pier on the river. We went through a small Cambodian village, and it was very interesting to see how a lot of the locals live. The overwhelming thing that keeps hitting me about Cambodia is the rubbish, there is a lot of it! Everywhere there are large piles of rubbish and refuse, plastic bags and bottles being the worst culprits. When the van stopped, we were confronted with the usual small army of Cambodian woman trying to sell us food and drinks, and they don't take no for answer easily.

The boat trip itself was quite interesting and enjoyable, although not particularly comfortable! The boat wound its way through the river, passing a few floating villages and boat people, before crossing the massive lake known as the Tonle Sap. This lake was big enough that I couldn't see the far side, and it reall felt like you were out at sea, with nothing but the water and the horizon in the distance, no sign of land at all. After crossing the lake, it took about another 5 hours winding our way through small rivers to get to Battambang. At one point, while going through a particularly small and narrow river, our boat got stuck on a large pile of driftwood branches. We managed to escape after some of the crew got out to push (the water is shallow) and the driver revved the engine enough to fill the entire area with diesel fumes! The scenery was pretty impressive, as we went through the jungle and passed numerous little fishing boats and locals who live in boats. All the local children were always filled with smiles and would wave enthusiastically at us as we passed.

Battambang is Cambodia's second largest city, although there isn't really much to do there. I spent the remainder of the afternoon walking around the dense concrete jungle, trying to get some life back into legs that had spent 7 hours on a cramped boat. The accomodation was cheap, and my little room even had a tv! So I spent the evening lying on bed watching crappy movies.

Status update - Vietnam!

I realise it has been a little while since I have updated this, but lying on a tropical beach is really hard work, leaving little time for blog updates! So I'll give a quick update to let everyone know that I am still alive! I'll write up the full account of my adventures later, but since the last post, I spent a few days in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, checking out all the Khymer Rouge history. A few days basking in the sun on the tropical beach of Sihanoukville on Cambodia's southern coast. From there I left Cambodia, and entered Vietnam, where to much happiness I met Karen as she flew in from New Zealand, and we will be spending the rest of the world wide adventure together!

Karen and I only spent a small amount of time in Saigon, before fleeing down to the southern coast and the offshore island of Phu Quoc. Unfortunately, it rained the whole time we were there(that is why its called the 'rainy season' after all), and so we left the island, and are now spending the next few days exploring the area of the Mekong Delta, before heading back to Saigon to explore the city and its sights properly.

Angkor What?

Days 76 - 80 (14/06/08 - 18/06/08): Siem Reap, Cambodia

I spent five days in Siem Reap, exploring the old history and culture of the Khymer people. On the first day, Andy and I decided to go out to the temple of Beng Melea. This temple is reasonably unknown to most people, as it is not in the main temple circuit that people do, as it is 70km out of town. I was quite keen to visit it, as I had met somebody in Singapore who told me it was definitely worth seeing, and so I made a note of it in my notebook. We asked a few tukt-tuk drivers (the normal way of seeing temples), however it would cost $45 for the 5 hour round journey (2.5hrs each way!). This seemed like a sub-optimal solution, and so on Andy's smart idea, we walked around town until we found the fanciest hotel we could, the Siem Reap Riviera. It was low season, and as such almost completely empty. We spoke to a uniformed bellboy, who made a few inquiries for us. Very shortly he had organised a car for us for the day for $45, that would take us to Beng Melea in just over an hour in air conditioned comfort! Brilliant!

The temple of Beng Melea was very impressive. It is pretty much a ruin, with large parts of it collapsed and big piles of rubble all over the place. The jungle has been overtaking the temple, and the whole complex is covered in trees and plant life. Over the last few decades there had been an effort to try and reclaim the temple from the jungle. However, it still had a very undiscovered feel to it, as we clambered over the rubble, through the old passageways and over the walls, led by guide who pointed out the interesting parts to us. It really was impressive, and you felt like you had just discovered this massive ruin in the middle of the jungle. (It helped that there were no other tourists around as well). Luckily, just as we finished walking around, the heavens opened up, and we got absolutely soaked to the bone on the 5 minute walk back to the car. It was actually very refreshing, the rain here is nice and warm and is better than the sweat you are normally soaked with. Our driver took us to the war museum on the way back, it wasn't much more than an empty field with a few old Russian tanks and artillery pieces in it, but still quite interesting to see.

I had met Tony in our guesthouse, a guy from Manchester who I first met in Huay Xai, and kept running into throughout Laos. So with him and a few other people from the guesthouse we went down to 'Bar Street' to one of the numerous bars there. What started as a few quiet drinks quickly escalated (due to the cheap price of booze in Cambodia), especially when it turned midnight and officially became my birthday. We eventually left the bar when it shut and they kicked us out, where we retired to our guesthouse to play pool and have a nightcap, or two.

Unfortunately all this means that I wasn't really in the mood to go to the main temple complex of Angkor Wat the next day. After waking up and eating, it was already late in the morning, and I didn't really feel like doing anything. Luckily, it then started raining, so I could use that to clear my conscience and spent a quiet day watching movies and reading my book. Everyone else was feeling the same way, and so we had a quiet night playing pool and watching movies.

Which means that the next day, I was rearing to go! I woke up at the ridiculous time of 5:30am, and 15 minutes later I was on a crappy rent-a-bike, cycling out to the temples. Most people choose to explore the temples by tuk-tuk, hiring the driver for the day. However I decided that doing it on a bike by myself would be good fun. I had a few issues with directions (I took a back road out to the complex, meaning I had missed the ticket booth, so had to cycle back into town, get a ticket, and then back out to the complex). But by 7am I was at my first temple! The Angkor Wat complex houses a large number of temples, spread out across a large area. The temples were built over quite a large time-frame, and so they are all quite different stylistically and architecturally. I visited too many temples to describe them all here, but for my own future reference more than anything else, the official list for the first day is: Bayon, Baphuon, Angkor Thom, Terrace of the Elephants, Terrace of the Leper King, Preah Palilay, Preah Kahn, Neak Pean, Ta Som, Eastern Mebon, Pre Rup, Bantai Kdei, Ta Prohm and Ta Keo.

Each one of them had their own style and architecture, and while some people can only look at a few temples before getting bored, I found them all absolutely amazing and interesting. The temple of Bayon has hundreds of large carved faces in the towers and walls. Preah Kahn is a vast old university, full of corridors and colonnades. Neak Pean is a very picturesque collection of pools and sculptures. Ta Prohm is overgrown with giant trees. East Mebon and Pre Rup are huge pyramid temples that reminded me of the ones in Ayutthaya. By this stage I had been cycling for almost ten hours. The park was still open for another couple of hours, and I was hoping to fit in the temple of Angkor Wat, the largest and namesake temple of the complex. However, within the space of a few minutes, the wind changed, and the sky turned black. The inevitable rainy season storm came down, and I knew it wasn't going to finish any time soon. So I packed everything away, jumped on my bike, and had a great 40min ride back to town in the thundering tropical rainstorm, getting strange looks from locals and tourists alike. It was a great experience!

I managed to meet up with Garth that night, who had just arrived in Siem Reap as well. We were back at 'our bar' in town, and Garth made up for missing my birthday by buying me lots of drinks. So once again there was another great night in a bar in Siem Reap, Cambodia. This of course meant that once again the next day I didn't really feel like doing anything. However, I had a three day ticket for the temples, and still hadn't seen Angkor Wat. So I got back on a bicycle, and rode out to the temple complex under the midday sun. Words cannot describe just how large and impressive Angkor Wat is, the temple is vast! It takes almost ten minutes just to walk from its entrance, over the moat, through the 'gate', across the giant courtyard, to the temple itself. Then the temple is huge as well, the giant stone towers reach up into the sky and I spent a lot of time walking around with my head craned skywards. While it is the largest and most impressive, I still preferred the individual aspects of the smaller temples, which to me had more impressive carvings, interesting details and features. But you still have to respect the a culture that built such an impressive building such a long time ago! I only spent an hour or so walking around Angkor Wat itself, the combination of exercise, a bad hangover and the unbearable heat soon beat me into submission, and so cycled back into town for another relaxed afternoon of DVD watching and hanging out with the other guesthouse people.

The guesthouse owners had just opened a large extension to their guesthouse across the road, and so they were having a big party to celebrate, which we were all invited to. There were about 10 backpackers, and a large group of Cambodians, many of whom we had gotten to know over the last few days. There was a bunch of free beer, and we were also served a free meal, which we all tucked into. By some random luck, a few other Kiwis had checked into the guesthouse, and so for the first time ever, the five of us kiwis outnumbered the usually dominant english! We all rubbed it in, especially as the All Blacks had just recently beaten the English! Once again we went back to our usual bar in town until they kicked us out, went back to our guesthouse, and sat on the top mezzanine level overlooking the city, and chatted the night away until the sun rose in the morning!

Which of course meant the next day was spent sleeping and watching DVDs, and packing up my stuff. I booked a boat ticket for early the next morning to the town of Battambang. I am not sure if there is much to do there, but I have heard the boat trip is very nice as it winds down the river, across the Tonle Sap, and through numerous floating villages. So in the end I spent five days in Siem Reap, alternating between partying and exploring ancient temples, and had a great time!

Two days in a bus

Days 74 - 75 (12/06/08 - 13/06/08): Four Thousand Isles to Siem Reap (Via Phnom Penh)

The plan for the day was to get to Siem Reap, home of the famous Angkor Wat temples. I had booked my bus ticket the previous night, and was told it would take two days, overnighting in a small town. And so it was a very early start to the morning to catch a boat back across to the mainland. After a bit of waiting, it was a short minivan ride to the Cambodian border. I had already got my Cambodian visa sorted in Vientiane, but like everybody else, I still had to pay a $1 'fee' to the Laos border guards, and then the same to the Cambodian guards. We all knew it was going into their pockets, but there isn't really anything you can do about it. And at the end of the day, its only one dollar. I was now in the 5th country of my trip, and a country that has a lot of interesting things. Cambodia will probably be the most undeveloped country of all the ones I will visit on my trip, and will be a unique experience.

After a bit of waiting, we transferred into another minivan and had a very bumpy journey to the Cambodian town of Stung Treng. Here we got some food, and after waiting some more (sensing a pattern?) we boarded a larger bus for the rest of the journey. Luckily the bus was reasonably empty, and I headed to the back and got the whole back seat to myself, which means I could lie down if I wanted to. Unfortunately, Cambodian roads are not exactly the autobahn, and it was a very bumpy journey. Some parts were even over unsealed roads, through giant holes and mud puddles. It got so bouncy a few times that I actually bounced right clear of my seat by a few inches, and then came crashing back down again.

There were about 7 or 8 backpackers on the bus, and we had been told we would overnight in a small town (whose name I can't remember, and different people had been told different towns), but not how long it would take to get there. Eventually at 8pm at night, after 12 hours in boats, minivans and buses we pulled into a large city, and upon disembarking, we found out it was the capital city, Phnom Penh! Oh well. We were told that in the morning we would get on another bus that would take us out to Siem Reap. I was pretty knackered at this stage, and so collapsed into bed after having a big dinner.

It was another early morning to catch a minivan to the waiting bus. Luckily this bus trip was slightly shorter, and nowhere near as bumpy, the road from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap being the major road in Cambodia. I ran into an Andy, an american I met in Don Det, and so at least we could chat a bit. This bus ride was fairly uneventful, except for the brief stop we made about halfway. There were the normal food vendors hawking the usual things, although there were also several ladies with large buckets filled with live tarantula spiders, all clambering over each in a big swarming mass of black bodies and hairy legs. Every once in a while one would manage to climb out, only to be put back in the bucket. The ladies also had plates of cooked spiders to buy as well. I found the whole thing quite amusing, but a few of the more arachnaphobe tourists had a hard time. Unfortunately my camera was still packed in the bus, so I couldn't get any photos.

The bus pulled into Siem Reap in the early afternoon, after a short bus ride of only 6 hours (in these parts of the world, 6 hours is a short ride!). The awaiting crowd of tuk-tuk drivers and guesthouse touts was the worst I have ever seen. People were having trouble stepping off the bus into the waiting crowd, all yelling at us to stay at their guesthouse or drive us somewhere. Luckily the guesthouse from Phnom Penh had a sister guesthouse here, and so there was a driver waiting with our names on a placard! Easy! After fighting the crowds to get my pack, Andy and I jumped on the tuk-tuk and escaped the scene of the carnage.

The whole town of Siem Reap only exists to accommodate the masses of tourists that visit the Angkor Wat temples. As such, it has numerous guesthouses, lots of restaurants and a happening night scene. The guesthouse was very nice, and had a nice little communal area on the ground floor with a tv and collection of DVDs. I spent what was left of the afternoon just wandering aimlessly around the town, taking in the sights and getting a feel for the place. In the evening I popped along to the night market, although once again it was just filled with all the normal tourist trinkets that I have no intention of buying. I did however, buy a small guidebook for the Angkor Wat temples that explains their history, construction, iconography etc, as well as a guided tour of each main temple. It is a nice book, filled with colour photos, so definitely worth keeping. I had another early night, as after two days I had spent most of my time in a bus, and driven across most of Cambodia!

Relaxing in the Isles

Day 71 - 73 (09/06/08 - 11/06/08): Don Det, Laos

I spent three wonderfully relaxing, beautiful and enjoyable days in Don Det. As I said before, Don Det is a little perfect slice of tranquility, a small island bounded by the mighty Mekong river on all sides, and home to nothing more than a few backpackers, rice paddies and water buffalo. The island is joined to the neighbouring island of Don Khon by a small bridge built by the French during the colonisation. On the first full day we were there, Charlie, Lou and I rented some bicycles to explore the islands. The bikes were the old fashioned type, very upright, bent handlebars, full mudguards, a little basket on the front, and to complete the look, a little bicycle bell. The weather was scorching hot, and very soon we were soaked in sweat, as is normal for this part of the world. We spent most of the day cycling around, over the rough farm tracks that criss-cross the island. The scenery was very picturesque, lots of little rice fields with children playing in them and water buffaloes wallowing in the mud. We crossed the bridge (after paying a small toll) to Don Khon and went to the large waterfall. The waterfall here was very impressive, although not really a waterfall, more of a large collection of big rapids the swirl around giant boulders and come crashing down through the gaps, driven by the mighty power of the Mekong River. They were very big, and definitely a sight to behold. By this stage by cheap rent-a-bike had developed some problems, with the chain falling off pretty constantly. Normally this is an easy fix, although sometimes the chain would jam itself tight between the cassete and the wheel hub, requiring a lot of tinkering and brute force to fix it.

We continued cycling down to a small 'beach', a little bit of sand next to a small inlet off the river. There were a few warning signs up saying that it was very dangerous to swim there if you went to close to the river itself. The current is phenomenally strong, and their was a small memorial to a backpacker who died there a few years ago. However, we were all hot and sweaty, and so went into the water anyway. We just stuck to the little inlet, and it was fine, no current at all. There were however some small fish that delighted in nibbling on parts of us. Back on our bikes and we explored the rest of the island, finding a small local village and more water buffalo. At one point we came across a very dodgy looking bridge. The structural work was made of old iron, and it looked stable enough, but it only had a few narrow planks running across the top of it to walk over, less than a foot wide. To top it all off, the bridge was high enough that a fall would not be very nice. We all got across in the end, trying different styles of getting the bikes across. We found our way back across the islands, with me stopping every few minutes to put the chain back on my bike. Luckily we had rigged up a little 'device' of ribbon and leaves to stop the chain jamming, and so fixing the chain was a simple thing that I could do in a few seconds (I got a lot of practice).

The next two days on Don Det I spent doing almost nothing. I would actually wake quite early, when the morning sun came into my bamboo hut. I would lie in bed and read my book, and then perhaps migrate outside to my hammock, where I would continue to relax and read my book, overlooking the Mekong river. Ultimately, a pretty good way to spend the day, and it beats being in an office by a long shot. At night we would meet up for dinner at one of the eateries. Afterwards we would spend most of the evening sitting on someone's deck around some candles, listening to (battery powered) music and having a few drinks. On one night we went across to the other side of the island (about a 2 minute walk) and watched the sun set across the Mekong river and the plains of southern Laos. Overall, a pretty good way to spend a few relaxing days in the middle of the Mekong river doing almost nothing except enjoying the peace of the place and the company of good friends.

Lao local Transport

Day 70 (08/06/08): Don Det, Laos

It was with a touch of sadness that I had to leave Tadlo, it was such a beautiful and relaxing place. I met Lou and Charlie for breakfast, and we caught a tuk-tuk back to the main road. We had to wait there for a little while before the local bus came past. Once again we went back to the 'Pakse Southern Bus Terminal' and were greeted by numerous people wanting to know where we were going. Eventually we figured out what to do, and found our way onto the back of a very crowded truck. Unfortunately we were the last on, and so were squeezed into the back. I had a sack of something at my feet, and so couldn't even put my feet down. A number of local Lao guys where hanging off the back, one of whom spoke good english and spent a lot of time fascinated with my blonde leg hair, which he constantly touched (much to Charlie's amusement). Three very sore hours later, we arrived at our destination stiff, sore and very dusty.

Siphandon, otherwise known as the Four Thousand Islands, is in the very south of Laos, near the Cambodian border. The Mekong river has been gathering water and momentum since starting in China, and by now it is a very large river. At Siphandon the river breaks into a large delta, spreading across the flat land, forming numerous small islands. Some of the islands are quite large and support habitation, others are just tiny small outcroppings poking up above the river. We had picked the small island of Don Det as our destination, which was a quick boat ride from the mainland. Don Det is a wonderfully laid back place, just a small collection of guesthouses, eateries and paddy fields. The island has no mains power, and just runs a few generators in the evening. Like Tadlo, it is a brilliant little quiet spot to relax and just chill out. After a much needed meal, we found a nice guesthouse. I got a little bamboo hut right on the river, complete with small deck and hammock, all for the princely sum of $2NZ a night. Fantastic.