Wednesday August 3, 2011
David and I have had a tiresome past few days. After finishing our time in Chiang Mai we made our way to the train station to board our 9:00 pm Sprinter back to Bangkok. We arrived early and took a seat, passing the time recounting our first days together. After a while we begin to wonder where our train was, at which point someone arrived inquiring if we were heading to Bangkok. Turns out our train had been canceled due to flooding on the tracks. Ugh; we could either get on a bus leaving in 30 minutes or change our tickets to the following night and hope the water would recede. But of course the bus was going to cost more than the train; how strangely convenient for the booking agent. But we decided time was more important than money and begrudgingly purchased the overpriced tickets for the bus.
The bus proved somewhat tolerable except I started to get sick and was forced to use the meager facilities aboard. Additionally our “stewardess” was a giant transvestite. And I mean that in the “she/he would have played American football” kind of giant transvestite / ladyboy. She was friendly enough except none of us could understand her English which proved helpful when at 7:00 am our bus stopped in the middle of the road in Bangkok and she tried to explain where we were. Here again is a perfect example of the cohort that seems to exist within every transport system. As it turns out our drop of location was in the middle of nowhere, forcing everyone to get a cab to their destination. We were not close any Bangkok bus station, the airport, the train station or even the backpacker’s district. So David and I cleared our morning cobwebs (I had few given my near non-existent sleep on the bus) and flagged down a cab. Cab drivers are supposed to use their meters but these assholes are always keen to screw over a tourist. So it was with little surprise that when they approached they’d see our backpacks, ask where we were headed and quote us a ridiculous price. Each time I was forced to openly curse their existence as they drove away. A cab under normal circumstances at a metered rate would cost about 80 baht to where we were headed, but instead each one would suggest we pay 200 baht flat fee. After receiving similar treatment three or four times we elected to take public transportation.
During our trip back towards Bangkok I had searched our guidebook to get clues as to entering Cambodia but couldn’t find what I was looking for. Our goal was to head to Siem Reap but we were a little unsure how to go about it so we decided to head back towards the backpackers district and use a travel agent. We walked the mile to the Skytrain and took that to the ferry to take us north at which point I looked in the book to see about exiting Thailand to Siem Reap and bingo. There was a little paragraph suggesting that one should “avoid the backpacker travel agents for entering Siem Reap and instead buy a ticket direct from the bus station.” Perfect, except we just spent two hours going in the opposite direction. We turned around and retraced our steps to the bus station, bought tickets and waited.
The bus took us as far as the border at which point we each got on a motorbike for a mile ride to the border itself, as if would have been impossible to make the drop of point convenient for any traveler. The crossing into Cambodia might have been my strangest yet as there are so many scammers and touts allowed to operate it’s maniacal. The fact that a country allows anyone to issue a Visa (fake or real) at a higher price than the real office 50 feet away boggles my mind. The more I travel the better equipped I am to decipher such scams so this time we successfully avoided all touts and made our way into Cambodia. After getting our Visas and requisite stamps for a nominal fee we are forced to pay out the nose for a private taxi for the final 2 hour drive to Siem Reap. It’s difficult to effectively convey the atmosphere at the Cambodia border crossing town of Poipet but suffice to say it was really strange. The price for a ride to Siem Reap seemed much higher than other SE Asia fares, the guys we were dealing with were more peculiar than usual, and the other travelers seemed more spooked than necessary. By the time we got dropped off downtown, walked to a guesthouse and checked in we had just spent more than 24 hours traveling: night bus, walk to train to ferry back on ferry to train to bus, to bike to taxi to guesthouse. All the while my body is plugged from the last minute Lopradamide I was forced to take as my bowels went berserk only moments after buying our bus tickets. But hey, that’s just another day traveling.
Since then it has been awesome. We are in Siem Reap, the staging grounds for the largest religious site in the entire world; Angkor Wat. I have to say I have seen more temples than days spent on the road and could care less if I saw another wat, pagoda or stupa. But one must realize that Angkor Wat is the reason people come to Cambodia as much as Machu Picchu is to Peru or Vegas to Nevada. Considered to be the 8th wonder of the world the expansive grounds that encompass the Angkor Temples include over 200 temples built about 800 years ago, with Angkor Wat being the prime focus and biggest attraction. Today we rented a couple of dilapidated mountain bikes and headed off to bear witness.
We spent about six hours riding our bikes, parking and touring around these massive stone Buddhist and Hindu structures. For every person the feeling is different; some feeling strong religious connections, others impressed at the differing architectural elements and still others simple awed at the enormity of scale of the complex. We toured a portion of the complex, a somewhat awkwardly shaped campus that was not exactly designed to benefit the future tourists that would come to scamper over the ruins. After returning and checking the maps we realized we probably rode nearly 18 miles in a loop around part of the crumbling structures. And so it was with somewhat difficulty that we are rising from our late naps to go explore the Siem Reap nightlife. Tomorrow will be our second chapter exploring the Angkor area and so hopefully we won’t let the plying hand of the local libations force a late start!
Saturday August 6, 2011
David and I spent the next day touring more of the Angkor temples, once again on mountain bikes. It’s a bit of a rough determination but we think we did another 18 to 20 miles of riding that afternoon. Honestly the roads are all flat so it makes for a modest ride except for the blazing sun that was pouring down on us that day. Luckily there were plenty of vendors along the way that were offering cold drinks. In fact they are a bit bothersome as every single lady is screaming “Cold drink Mister?” and running after you. We chose at one stand to instead sample coconut juice. Really it has little flavor and is much like water but is contained inside the coconut. As we sipped the juice under the shade and we passively listened to the children ceaselessly plead with us to buy bracelets and flutes and god knows what. Strangely though I have found the requests of all the salesmen in Cambodia (kids, tuk-tuk drivers, etc.) much more tolerable than in Thailand. It is possible that I have come to accept their presence and can therefore let it slide off without paying much attention. Either that or the kids here are just more adorable (I bought a bracelet and postcards!).
Our time in Siem Reap was quite engaging as well as we explored the town center at night, sampling the local beer of choice Angkor Beer. I much prefer to find places that the locals choose so we ate our dinners at small shops and searched for bars that lacked any Westerners. Food has really been interesting here in Cambodia with there being a plethora of items I would not have thought to try. One night as we sat enjoying the sounds of Cambodian dialogue we got the urge for a snack and dined on dried snake. It had the texture of very dry jerky but it definitely didn’t taste like beef. We actually ate the whole thing and I would probably eat it again if the opportunity ever arose. Another night we stopped by a restaurant that had some sort of animal on a spit. We’re still not sure what it was as it resembled a cow / ox but the meat was all white, no typical red beef steaks anywhere on the animal. Again the food was delicious and had us begging for more. It was almost as good as the fried frog I had for lunch today!
After thoroughly enjoying our time in Siem Reap we decided to take a “short” bus ride to Phnom Phen, the country’s capital. Although this would mean our backtracking to Bangkok would take longer we decided that leaving a country after only 3 days just didn’t make sense. With over a million people Phnom Phen has a decent urban sprawl but we have selected to stay in a downtown area near the river. Last night was of great amusement as during our dinner we encountered a local Cambodian man of a similar age and sparked up conversation with him. His English, while not perfect, was sufficient for us to continue our night with him at a local bar. We ended up spending the entire night with him at a nearby watering hole as we sucked down Angkor’s and snacked throughout the night on (you guessed it) more grilled meats, quail eggs, local boiled peanuts and something that looked like cherry tomatoes but tasted ever so sweet.
Our late night forced today’s adventure to start just a little later but that was of little consequence. Besides boasting the largest city in Cambodia with good culture, Phnom Phen is also located close to the S-21 and the Killing Fields. These are both sobering reminders of the wretched murderous past of the Khmer Rouge and its pernicious leader, Pol Pot. For those unaware, Khmer Rouge implemented genocide within Cambodia in the late 1970’s, leading to the deaths of an estimated one and a half million citizens. The Killing Fields that we visited today were exactly that, one of the locations where regular citizens, intellectuals, foreigners and soldiers alike were selected and put to death, usually by a forced blunt object to the head. There really isn’t much to view at this site except for the giant tower that was erected and then filled with thousands of human skulls that were unearthed in the mass graves after the KR was finally brought down. For a visitor it is a bit of a numbing experience to walk around the field, viewing the skulls and consider just how recent such a tragic event happened.
But our day was not completely forlorn as we also decided to make a quick visit to a Cambodian firing range located 8 miles outside of Phnom Phen. Here a tourist can make a selection from rifles and other weapons you wouldn’t normally get to handle anywhere else. I’ll admit it is not a cheap activity and so we were limited in our selection but we had the opportunity if we were willing to fork over the dollars to: throw a grenade, fire a sub-machine gun or even blast off with a rocket launcher. David and I both selected the old Russian favorite, an AK-47. Ha! To be able to say we each got to fire a banana clip of 25 rounds at coconuts and paper targets will never get old. Honestly they are pretty easy to handle and provide less of a kickback than some hunting rifles but it was an absolute blast to squeeze the trigger letting off bursts of bullets and watching those coconuts explode. I even did decent on my paper target with a couple of head shots and a good cluster in the chest. Leave it to a couple of Montana boys to go to the shooting range!
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