A holiday in Cambodia, where the slums got so much soul

SO there I was in a dark alley in Cambodia...

OK, I'm getting ahead of myself... more on that later.

On 1-1-11, I went to Cambodia. Grace, J, and I boarded a Vietnam Air flight for the 45 minute flight to Siem Reap. We did very little prep fr this trip, very little for us anyways. grace had arranged the tickets and hotel. otherwise all i knew about Siem Reap was that the temples and ruins of Angkor Wat were near by. Otherwise, I knew nothing of Siem Reap.

So we landed at Siem Reap, with a nice new looking airport. We walked across the tarmac to the international arrivals area, and that's when I saw how this place works. TO enter The Royal Kingdom of Cambodia, you must have a visa. This can be obtained ahead of time or just whe you arrive. So, you get there, fill out a small form, and turn it in with a passport photo, your passport, and $20 (in US$, that's the primary currency in Cambodia though they have their own, the riel. The ATMs in Siem Reap all dispense US $) or $21 if you didn't bring a photo. Then it takes 8 people all sitting in a row to process your visa. On guys looks over the form, another compares it to your passport, another stamps the form, another puts the visa sticker on page in your passport, another fills in the info on the visa, another stamps the visa, another checks the work of the previous officers, and yet another calls out your name to come get the passport.

Gotta love a jobs program at work.

Ironically, you fill out a customs form asking if you have anything to declare, but I suppose they just assume you won't declare it if you do since you drop the form in on a table and leave the airport.

Part of the price of the hotel included a pick up form the airport. We found our person and he led us to a waiting Tuk-tuk. Unlike the ones in Bangkok which are more a specific vehicle build to be a taxi, these are just trailers hooked to a motorbike and can be easily separated when not needed by the owner. Off to our palace, the Thonbury hotel. Big "atta girl" to Grace for finding this place. it was clean, nice, air conditions with hot water (eventually) and all for $14 a night. And convenient fr walking to town.

We met up with JD and JC, Air Mekong pilots who had coe a day earlier, and set off for lunch in town. We had a delicious dinner of Khmer food at a small cafe. One thing about using US dollars is that you kind of don't get the great deals you can when using the local currency, but it does simplify things, and Cambodia is generally cheap. I think lunch for the 5 f us ran about $24 including apps, a bottle of wine, and liter bottles of beer.

That evening we headed out to the temples, and after clearing up the ticket buying issues (the sunset is free, but you have to buy a ticket to get there, but it doesn't count as one of your days on a 3 day pass... makes complete sense). So we got our passes (one day is $20, 3 days for $40.. we went with the three day) and headed towards the temples. Even though it was crowded, there's something awe inspiring about seeing Angkor Wat for the first time as you round a corner. It's a huge "wow" and then you realize you're looking at something you've seen pictures of but seemed a world away. It's like seeing the Tour Eiffel for the first time.

Then came the climb up to the sunset view. I didn't know there was hike up a mountain involved, but oh well. The biggest downer was the crowds there. i suppose that's to be expected, but I never thought there would be so many people there. But we climbed the stairs to the top of a temple and watched the sun go down. It was an amazing sunset, and you forgot about the crowd.

One of the things about other parts of the world, no one's really caring if you get hurt climbing on things. You can't suit them, so oh well. SO as we walked down the unlit path back down the hill in darkness, I wondered how many people have just walked of the edge?

That night we continued my Irish pub tour for the world at Molly Malone's. Yes, there's a Molly Malone's local to Louisville, but finding one in Siam Reap was just funny. They were out of the regular Guinness draught (a theme for the weekend since the New Year Eve party went through a lot of the readily available alcohol) but they had the Guinness Foreign Stout, which is way better. If your a beer drinker, and Guinness lover, find the Foreign Stout.

We then went for pizza, which apparently comes in a "Happy" and non "Happy" flavor. We thought "happy" was topped with magic mushrooms (which I was willing to try), but the place we settled on didn't have that kind of happy pizza. Though, the would make your pizza "happy" by adding a little marijuana to it. As we are mostly aviation professionals (and potentially subject to drug testing), we just had our unhappy pizza. It was good pizza at any rate.

We then walked over to the night market and discovered a vendor selling banana pancakes. You have got to try one if you ever find it. He has the dough balled up, spreads it out paper thin, and slices form banana and lays it on the griddle there. Add some butter and chocolate (if you want) and roll it up and it's delicious. We looked at a few trinkets but decided to head back to the hotel for rest before day of tomb raiding tomorrow. Some decided to avoid the main road and strike out on a different path home...

SO there I was walking in a dark alley in Cambodia... not so sure where it was leading me, if the dogs that wear barking on either side were well fenced in, or some one with a lingering resentment from the Khmer Rouge was going to take this opportunity to strike revenge on wayward Americans. but we made it back tot he hotel safe and sound... full on banana pancakes.

In other parts of the world, the hotels tend to have the added bonus of requiring a card, usually your room key or attached to it, to turn the power on the the room. Thus you can leave for the day and keep the a/c running. What invariably happens in the warmer climates is the room gets hot and stuffy and you come in at the end of the day, crank up the a/c and lay down for sleep. About 3 hours later, you wake up in the fetal position shivering on the verge of hypothermia and stumble to the a/c unit to turn it off. And you ply back under every blanket you can find (which is usually none, just a sheet.. it is the tropics after all) and sometimes use a towel to to substitute for the non existent blanket. Now, it being still a warm climate, and you've shut down the a/c in your half asleep state, you wake up in 3 more hours in a pool of sweat.

Luckily, it's time to wake up by this point.

Sunday, we headed to Angkor Thom, a large complex of ruins next to Angkor Wat. I mistakenly thought Angkor Wat was the general name for the temple complex in the area, but it's actually just one massive temple (originally built as a Hindu Temple). There are possible a hundred other temples and other structures in the area known as Angkor (which means "city"). Angkor Thom is one of the larger complexes that include temples (most impressive being Bayon in the picture) and a "palace" or two. You could wander around in these places for days I think. Going through Bayon, you could hear bats up above you squeaking, and you can just randomly be down inside and I think never be found again. Unlike most western historical structures, here you can climb and crawl and pretty much go anywhere you want on the structures. There's no hand rails usually and the "steps" tend to be 3 or 4 inches wide and 16 inches tall... which isn't at all comfortable for for climbing, or for anyone with a healthy fear of heights.

That night we went back out for dinner, and it was delicious. As JC said, "it's a scientific fact that the food gets better the closer you get to Thailand".. and it's true. Khmer food is very much like Thai with a little of the Vietnamese style influenced. We then ended up at the Temple Pub, where we discovered you can buy pitchers of cocktails on the cheap ($10 for jack and coke was the most pricey). After downing pitcher myself, watching some Apsara dancing, and meeting some Ukrainians, we decided to call it an earlyish night since we had to leave at 5 AM for sunrise at Angkor Wat.

Since none of us were well versed in the history of the area, we hired a guide for the day ($26) and tuk-tuks to drive us around($14). We watched the sunrise over Angkor Wat, which seemed to take forever... probably because we were all le tired. It's a big thing to see, and afterward most the tourists leave and go back to town for breakfast. After sunrise our guide laid out an itinerary for the day... it was frightening. He kept circling temples on a map, and then by the after noon we'd be back at Angkor Wat... Afternoon??? It's about 0630 at this point... and we started off for the first temples.

I wish I had taken some time to do some reading before coming, it would have saved me some confusion. Our guide was very thorough in explaining Hindu and Buddhist beliefs, and why temples were built like this.. (Hindu temples have the tall spires to symbolize the Himalayas and moats to symbolize the ocean, Buddhist temples have water around them but for use in the ceremonies). Different temples were built for different gods by different kings. It's all kind of interesting if a little confusing.

Most the temples have been cleared of the jungle overgrowth that came from about 500 years of neglect, the exception being Ta Prohm. This is the one you see Angelina Jolie crawling around in the Tomb Raider movie. It's amazing to how the trees have grown on top of the buildings, with roots extending around the structures. By this time the tourists were back from breakfast (unlike our group of intrepid tomb raiding adventurists who pushed right through hunger and exhaustion). It's amusing to watch tourists from other parts of the world. Asians love to throw up peace signs in every picture, or the Russian couple who felt they had to do 20 poses for every picture opportunity.

Next we climbed the temple of Ta Keo. Which was a good idea on the bottom, but at the top it was less certain. Again, the ridiculously steep steps made it a bit treacherous getting down the 40 meters or so. I kept expecting to see bodies of tourists lying around the base where they were a little careless taking that next step. We then informed our guide we were about templed out and needed sustenance. We headed back to Angkor Wat for lunch.

One of the more annoying, though occasionally amusing, parts of the temple visits were the constant hawkers trying to sell you anything. Ever bargained the price of a coke??? And the small kids run at you with stacks of postcards or scarfs or guidebooks or whatever. The sad part is these kids should be in school, but the money they make goes to their parents and not toward their educations. And they are sharp. They have an answer for everything you can come up with... for instance, a 6ish year old little girl trying to sell me postcards "You buy postcards!, 10 for $1, you see" and counts out each one. "No thanx", "Where you from?" "America", "Oh America, president Obama, capital Washington DC, population 300 million..." Seriously?? I don't think most kids I know here have those facts memorized... "I have no one to send postcards too"...little girl "You send to girlfriend". me "No girlfriend", girl "Oh, you buy postcards you get girlfriend". I laughed, couldn't help it. I did end up buying postcards later from a different kid. Who's 10 for a $1 instantly turned into $1.50. What?? you just said $1. No, now $1.50. OK, no postcards.. "ok ok, $1". And then your descended upon by everyone selling anything. You can try telling them you speak French, and they instantly switch to French.

So, after lunch we went back into Angkor Wat, which is now a functioning Buddhist temple. IN all the temples, most the statues of gods have been vandalized, first by Buddhists against Hindu's, then vice versa, and then by black market thieves, and by the Khmer Rouge who outlawed religion. It's quite sad. But the wall carvings are pretty well intact and intricate. It's amazing how people built these places.

Back to Siem Reap that night for more fun on the town. our last night in Siem Reap was memorable. I was offered everything from a girlfriend to heroine on the street (and i really just wanted another banana pancake). The last day, I spent mostly sleeping in and at the market picking up some souvies. Some of the others went out to see another temple, but I was kind of temple'd out. That afternoon we headed to the airport for the flight back to Vietnam. The biggest surprise was the $25 "Passenger usage fee" you had to pay to leave. Oh well, it was well worth it for the adventure in Cambodia. Back to Vietnam.