Angkor

It took pretty much the entire day to travel from Sihanoukville to Siem Reap. I had to change buses in Phnom Penh but arriving there in time to do this was thrown into doubt by the first bus breaking down. It was an odd one as well. Things seemed to be going fine until all of a sudden some people down the back of the bus started roaring at the driver to stop. So we pulled over and lots of people got off to stretch their legs and look at the guys trying to solve the problem. I paid it all no heed as I had been through breakdowns before and usually just let the guys get on with fixing the bus as I could do nothing bar get in the way. After around 20 mins though I was getting curious as nothing seemed to be happening. So off I get to find everyone crowded around the back of the bus. Here I find the driver and his cronies working on the back wheel. They attach a wrench to the bolts on the wheel then stick a pipe over it and two guys jump on this to turn the nuts on the wheel. So from this I assume the bloody wheel was coming off! Pretty soon we were back underway again though and I made my second bus in Phnom Penh if barely. I then got as far as Siem Reap with no further incident.

Once I arrived the first thing to do was find accommodation. I hadn’t looked into it before arriving so I relied on the ingenuity of the tuk-tuk driver to find me some decent place to stay. Normally I wouldn’t do this and I was relatively wary of it in the process but the honesty of Cambodians had encouraged me to be a bit more trusting. He brought me to one place which was nothing special and I tried to get a deal if I stayed for a decent period of time. Once I had gotten an idea of what kind of accommodation was available and at what price I asked the driver to take me to another place so I could compare quality and price. I had picked one out of my guidebook and he took me there. I took a look around and it proved to be fairly similar to the first one but at a higher price than I was willing to pay. So I determined to return to the first hostel but as I was leaving this one I heard a familiar voice and realized that John was here. John is a guy I met in Chiang Rai and then again in Vientiane in Laos. We were both a bit taken aback to meet again but it was a happy reunion. I arranged to meet up with him later on for dinner once I was settled in my other hostel. So once ive showered and changed I catch up with John and he brings me to his local haunts. We go for dinner in the place where his Cambodian girlfriend works. This kind of throws me but he goes on to explain that he has been living here in the town for the past 3 weeks, fallen for this girl and now doesn’t want to leave. We catch up over the rest of the evening and I retire early since I had a pretty long day.

I rise a bit late the next day and arrange a tuk-tuk to take me around the temples. Angkor is a large collection of temples spread over a large area of which Angkor Wat is but one. It is impossible to see them all in one day due to the distances involved which is why I bought a 3 day pass to see them. My first day was to be spent on the ‘small circuit’ which contains a fair few temples and most of the important ones. I was to see the Angkor Wat itself (the one in all the pictures) first. On arriving there the first thing I notice is that it is being renovated and the green netting over the scaffolding stops me from capturing “that” picture. I spent the next hour walking around this temple, which is in pretty good condition for something so old. I was especially amazed by the bas-relief carvings that run all the way around the temple in corridors showing wars between humans and gods among other things. I had a good time walking around looking at all the various things but was a bit sad I couldn’t get a good picture of the main complex to take home. Oh well. Next up is Bayon which is well known as the temple with all the faces. It is a complex with lots of towers and on teach tower there are 4 faces of Buddha facing North, South East and West. Obviously not all of these are in great condition but there are enough to satisfy a tourist with a camera (aka me). It is an image that appears in a lot of pictures when you look up Angkor. After I finished here I wandered on to some other temples nearby which are of less importance and are less well known. Mostly they are ruins anyway so there is little to make them stand out. It was around this time I really started to feel the heat as well, it takes a toll when you are wandering around in it for long enough. You also notice it when you are climbing temples! After these I went to a place called Ta Prohm. You may remember it from such movies as Tomb Raider. It is the temple with the trees, which means that it was left to go to ruin for ages and the trees have overgrown in it. It was amazing to see these giant trees and their crazy roots growing all over the ruins of this temple. A veritable war between man and nature that nature is winning. This was one of the last temples on the list. There were a few other small ones that had little to capture my attention bar one thing. At each temple there are a heap of sellers offering you trinkets and drinks and this was no different at one of these temples. What was different was the fact that the little girls trying to sell me their stuff were asking me where I was from and upon hearing I was Irish they came out with “Conas ata tu?”. I nearly fell over when this was put to me. This was a 6/7 year old Cambodian girl in Siem Reap asking me how I was in my own language. We went on to have a brief conversation, learning each others names and such and she showed off that she could count to 10 in irish. There are kids in Ireland who cant do that so to hear it from this little girl was little short of stupendous. Later on I recounted my adventures to John over food and beers again. If you come to Cambodia you should try Amok by the way. A lovely curry.

The next day was odd. I had seen all the important temples the previous day so the ones I got taken to this day weren’t blowing me away. Also it is billed as the ‘big loop’ but it is only big if you haven’t done the small loop the previous day! There are less temples but a little bit further apart. So needing a way to fill the day I went to one that is a good hour’s drive from the bulk of the other temples called Bantey Srei. Here is a temple in amazing condition. It appears mostly as it might have done in its heyday which was hugely impressive. It was great to go to one where there was so much intact after a morning of seeing ruins and decay. Now by the time I have gotten here, seen the temple and travelled back to the main bulk it has eaten up a good part of the day. I was going to finish with a visit to one temple which is at the top of a big hill overlooking the Angkor Wat. This makes it the perfect place for sunrise or sunset. On this day the view was truly spectacular as well. The sunset wasn’t too visible due to the clouds but it was the thunderstorm over the town of Siem Reap that held my attention. Storms in Ireland are mere showers compared to storms in SE Asia and this one put on a great show. The lightning lit up the sky all around us, the thunder rumbled loudly and the sky over the town was dark with the amount of rain falling on it. Watching the spectacle of this storm unleashing its fury (from a distance!) on the town was great. Unfortunately it wasn’t the only storm in the area as there was one approaching from another direction. So I had the sun setting on one side and two monsoons approaching from different directions. It was a fabulous site until the storms crept closer and we got a spattering of rain. It was time to move then as the steps on these temples get dangerous when wet. So I descended from the hill top happy with my day and stunned by the scene I had just witnessed. The only bummer was that my camera had died at the top of the hill but it wouldn’t have been able to capture the moment anyway.

So that is the story of my trip to Angkor. I stayed another two nights to wind down before going back to Thailand and because I had a couple days to spare. I booked my bus to Bangkok and prepared myself to re-enter the country I lived in for 5 months. Cambodia was nice with Angkor obviously the stand out attraction. I do think that the Cambodian people are the nicest group out of the people of SE Asia. But my SE Asia travels are drawing to a close. In two weeks time I will have finished with it all and I will be in Australia with New Zealand to come as well