Cambodia - Siem Riep and Angkhor Wat

After acquiring our 30 day entry stamp, we head for the shuttle buses which are free to the "International Tourist Terminal"... hmm.

The 4 of us (we are still with the Portuguese brothers) are practically adopted by one of the local fellows who works for the transport company.  We decline his offer of a minivan trip to the terminal, but somehow end up with our own private shuttle bus instead.  It's a bit strange but we do seem to end up in the same place as the other (full) shuttle so we're not too worried.  Our new Cambodian friend shadows us as we exchange some money and discuss our travel options to Siem Reap, and tries to encourage us to buy a ticket for the minibus which is "leaving right now".  This seems uncomfortably pushy, and also we're curious as to whether we could get a better price outside the terminal (where the prices are fixed - US$ 48 for a taxi, or US$ 9 each for the bus).  Sure enough, the minute we walk towards the exit of the terminal we are approached by taxi drivers offering US$ 35, 32, 30...  Finally we negotiate a price of 100,000 riels (approx US$ 26) and hop in.  This thinking in dollars is going to take some getting used to!

A Cambodian ´petrol station´

Our taxi travels about 1 km and then pulls over.  He says we're at the gas station but it doesn't look like one we've ever seen before. It appears to be a closed shop with a few large gas canisters, guarded by a metal grille. It takes several mobile phone calls by our driver to get an attendant to appear.  The car remains running the whole time, and our driver even lights up a cigarette near the gas tanks and the "No Smoke" sign.  Zoolander comes to mind....

Finally we are on the road and zipping along past green farmlands, small villages of houses on stilts (the living area seems to be under the house - neat), people on scooters & heavily laden bicycles - including one with 2 dead pigs in the rear basket.  Many people are working the fields or herding the cows.  There are elaborately decorated archways with dirt roads under them leading into the invisible distance, and there are also many political party signs and small offices, especially for the Cambodian People's Party.  It's overcast and periodically stormy, and the light is beautiful - Lisa is dying to get out and take some photos but it's just not viable.  We're all keen to get to Siem Reap and off our numb bottoms!

As we approach the city, the taxi connects with a pair of tuk-tuks.  We meet Pow, who says that his tuk-tuks are included in the price of the taxi, and will take us to our accommodation or help us find one.  He's very chatty and has a notebook full of positive references, so we decide to take this offer (it's not like we have much choice, since we don't know where we are!) and switch from taxi to tuk-tuk.  Of course, our taxi driver tries to up the price to 120,000, but we hold firm to the agreed price and we're soon on our way to the tourist center of town near the Night Market and Pub Street (oh dear).  Pow joins us in our tuk-tuk (which has a separate driver) and chats to us about English slang and how much he likes tourists, while we bounce over the potholed streets.

We stop at a hostel which has huge rooms, an ensuite with a bathtub (Lisa gets really excited - it's been months since she's had a bath) and oddly, 3 smallish beds.  It's $10 for the room which sounds great, but also makes us wonder what else is out there.  The Portuguese brothers strike out on their own to find some food and a place to sleep, and we go with Pow to our first choice (which Chris read about online), the Golden Temple Guest House.  It looks grand but unfortunately it's also full.  We return to Pow's tuk-tuk (which he is now driving himself) and have a chat, where we try to explain to him that we don't want to make a quick decision about where to stay.  Suddenly his demeanour changes for the worse and he gets very stroppy about "not working for free".  This is especially weird since he said several times that the tuk-tuk to town was free, and that he wasn't affiliated with any particular accommodation.  We're not sure if that was all a lie, or if he's just upset that he won't be able to show up outside our accommodation the next day to offer his tour guide services.  It's too bad, as we would have been happy to use his tuk-tuk over the next few days if we needed one, but now there is no chance.  We give him a bit of money for his time and make our escape to the restaurant of the Golden Temple.

Over a delicious plate of Khmer amok (vegetables & meat in a coconut-y sauce) and an Angkor beer, we look up a few accommodation options.  We find two places for $7-8 which are just north of the market area (better for cycling to Angkor Wat which is north of the city, and probably more peaceful for sleeping!) so we walk to the first one.  It's another big room, this time with 2 double beds and a bathtub, so we decide to take it.  Lisa immediately falls asleep while Chris arranges our bicycle hire and checks out an alternative guesthouse for the next night. Unfortunately, the other place is not quite as nice, this view being cemented by Chris stepping in cat poo courtesy of the guesthouse´s resident moggy!  Lisa does eventually wake up (at 1:30am!?) and makes use of the vaunted bathtub  =).

Our first task the next day (after devouring the free breakfast!) is to go to the post office. We take our “new” bikes for a spin and find it alongside the small river which divides the town. We get some prices for shipping our unneeded sleeping bags to Canada (way too much!) and decide just to send the beads Lisa bought in Thailand plus a few souvenirs...now we just need to package up the stuff & actually ship it.  We weren't sure which items would be going so we just brought a list of guesstimated weights. 

On our way out we meet an elderly man who was asleep on a bench by the river – he suddenly pops up & addresses us in French. We have a little chat with him en francais which seems to please him immensely. It's only really recently that Lisa realised that Cambodia is an ex-French colony...so, many of the older people speak French as their first language. This really ups our chances of being understood!

We decide that we have enough time to cycle to Angkor Wat, which is a couple of miles north of town. It's a pretty pleasant ride for the first part, along the river and through the forest, but then we join the main road which is really busy with tuk-tuks, motorcycles, cars, trucks, bicycles, pedestrians.... It's a bit intimidating but the road has a good shoulder in most places so we manage OK. Like much of the temple ruins we´ll see later, the main road is very long and very straight. 

We come to a ticket office where we buy a 2-day ticket. Happily they don't need to be consecutive days, since we aren't sure what our plans are for tomorrow...but we already know that one afternoon will not be enough for Angkor Wat! We continue on the road, now passing through a forest again, and eventually reach what looks like a large moat. The scale of this puts most European castles to shame. It's huge! It takes us a good 5 minutes to bike one quarter of the perimeter to get to the main entrance.  We weave amongst the tourist tuk-tuks to a large parking area. We can just see the towers of Angkor Wat over the trees to our right.

We realise that we're pretty hungry, but the options here are limited – a really expensive, air conditioned sandwich shop; a ridiculously expensive French restaurant; or one of a series of nondescript noodle places. We opt for the latter and have an edible but non-memorable meal. Now we're fuelled up and ready to explore! On our way through the parking lot, various people try to get us to buy their wares (which all seem to cost $1, oddly)....the funniest is a woman who tries to sell us water. When we show her our full bottle and say “maybe later” she insists we should buy it now – because we won't be near her stall when we need water “later”!  But it's not too pushy overall so it's easy to say no & carry on.

So that we don´t risk missing out on it, what with our famous laissez faire attitude to closing times, we decide to visit the main Angkor Wat complex first. Although the whole area is known as Angkor Wat this properly refers to the most complete temple complex, with the other ruins spread out over a very wide area, hence the bikes.


The entrance is a long stone bridge with a couple of weathered Nagas acting as balustrades; we recognised these hydra-like serpents from temple architecture in Thailand.  There is a multitude of outer and inner courtyards and the buildings themselves often consist of long corridors on all four sides. The walls are covered in a profusion of carvings, telling stories from Hindu, later overtaken by Buddhist, mythology and lore. One of the most famous carvings is the 'Churning of the Ocean of Milk', which looks like a huge tug of war between gods and demons, using an enormous serpent as a rope! There are stories told on the other walls and a profusion of dancing women and yogis in the lotus position. As well as the 'story panels' most of the surfaces here are decorated in some way, making the many towers look almost neo-gothic.

We tromp through seemingly endless corridors, circling ever inwards and we are rewarded by sudden vistas over incised and vine-wrapped rooftops or turning a corner to discover a hidden shrine or statue. We finally find our way to the Bakan, the central and highest shrine, only to find it is closed for cleaning (hmm). We vow to return tomorrow.

It's getting late as we leave the temple but there is a lot more exploring to do. We pedal quickly over the river, through the huge stone Gate of Victory, and past a long line of more demons and gods taking part in a tug of war on either side of the road. We soon come to an intersection where the road to our right will take us to some ruined temples & other points of interest... but a policeman & a guard are positioned at this junction and tell us the road is already closed for the evening. We decide to insist and promise to cycle really quickly...amazingly, this is successful and we're allowed to pass.

This part of the cycle journey is the best – hardly any traffic and beautiful forest all around us. Every once in a while we whizz past a ruin or a tower, and as sunset is turning the sky coral & pink we pause to admire a particularly large, beautiful red ruined temple (we think it's the one where Tomb Raider was filmed), which is in the process of being restored.

There's one problem though – after the sunset dims, so does the light of course, and we have no idea where the end of this road is. It's taking much longer than we expected and we're worried about cycling back to town in the dark, especially since our pedal-powered lights are not very reliable. Chris straps on his headtorch and Lisa tries to hold a small flashlight alongside her handlebars, but it's still pretty hard to see at times. We are fortunate to notice a GIANT pothole just in time! Eventually we make it back to the main circuit (phew!) and stop to have some water and rearrange our lighting. A passing car stops to ask us if we are OK. Did we mention how NICE Cambodian people are?

The main roads through town are quieter at night so we manage to cycle almost all the way home without too many scary moments. We decide to lock up the bikes and hit the Night Market - Lisa needs a new watch, since the strap on her Breo broke recently, and we want to check out the “new” food market area. Unfortunately the latter turns out to be rather like a food court at a mall – ie. mostly fried, fast food – so after bartering for a fake Gucci watch (we know it's fake because we paid $5!), we head to Pub Street in search of food.

There is a great bakery there where we pick up a day-old loaf for a bargain price, but their regular fare is too expensive. Rather randomly, we end up in a Mexican restaurant where we have some soft and translucent spring rolls with fresh greens inside (delicious!) and some Mexican mains (nondescript). A mojito washes it all down nicely =) Then we stumble back home, exhausted; crush a few bugs that will keep Chris awake with worry; and collapse into bed.

The next day is soggy so we have a leisurely breakfast and get some planning done for the next leg of the trip.  We're considering taking the famous boat trip from Siem Riep to Battambang but we are told by some helpful online sources that it is not yet wet enough and the rivers will be of questionable depth. We end up watching ´Journey 2: the Mysterious Island´; not a great use of our time, but comforting. We belatedly try to get on a dinner cruise down to the floating village but it´s too late in the day. Well, we guess today was all about taking it easy after all. Tomorrow will be a different matter!

We get up before the birds (around 4am), mount our bikes and head for the temples in the dark. The aim is to see the sun rise over Angkor Wat, while at the same time not have the moment spoiled by hordes of other tourists. The ride up mirrors our recent night-time ride but at least the light was waxing this time.

We arrive at the main entrance and spot a very welcome sight, a coffee truck. Lisa is particularly impressed by his entrepreneurial spirit, and Chris by his really good coffee!  Refuelled and with a renewed sense of purpose we head across the moat. Needless to say, it's a little busy within. We manage to find a spot on what was once a library (it must be some kind of homing instinct on Chris's part) and are approached by ´Lady Gaga´, who in addition to her singing also runs a stall selling breakfast. Who knew?

Sunrise (ish)

Alone at the Bayon!

The sunrise is nice, if a little underwhelming (rainy season equals clouds). Memorable pictures are taken and then, in a clever wheeze to avoid the crowds, we scarper from the main temple in order to visit the Bayon, which had been closed the other evening. This works well as there's only one other couple there and we get to roam around unimpeded. Almost as famous as the main temple, the Bayon features square towers topped with large, enigmatically smiling stone faces on each side. Of course it also has many other carvings and story panels, one featuring an unfortunate man becoming a crocodile's lunch. The Bayon is less imposing but more atmospheric than the main complex, maybe because it is still in a somewhat disreputable state of reconstruction.

We take a quick spin to visit an atmospheric overgrown temple that we whizzed pass at twilight during day 1.  Then we overtake a train of elephants on our way back to Angkor Wat, hopeful that we will get a chance to enter the Bakan this time. They have finished whatever they were doing (full moon ceremonies, apparently) and we are told to conceal shoulders and legs as we ascend the steps with a line of other visitors. Being the highest part of the temple we get some great views over the rest of the buildings and surrounding jungle. The interior is like the larger temple in miniature; a little maze filled with sudden shrines and ancient vistas.  It's very hushed inside which makes a nice change from the usual tour group  chatter.

We speed back to our hotel in time to return the bikes, where Chris gets a chance to sample some fried bugs (they taste like soy sauce), then catch the bus to Phnom Penh.  More beautiful scenery speeding past on the other side of a bus window, argh!  And it's hard to believe that the rivers are too low for boat travel - the ditches are all flooded and a lot of the flat countryside distinctly resembles a swamp...