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Angkor Wat Temples Of Cambodia - Cambodia
by Neal FitzHenry | Date >
2005-08-04 | Country : Cambodia | City : Siem Reap
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What a little gem Cambodia turned out to be. Amazingly friendly,
desperate history, fascinating sights and cheap. Most people speak
english too, many very well, which makes for easier travelling
especially when only here for a short time.
We arrived at the airport and thankfully my precious items were still
where I left them in my rucksack. A short queue for visa applications,
then immigration, customs and outside to be met by Mai from Sunday
Guesthouse where we were to be staying while in Phnom Penh. Instantly
pleasant we relaxed and took in our first sights of this country on the
drive in. Already it had a nice feel but it was obviously a very poor
place and the driving was something else, there didn't appear to be any
rules at all. Nobody was even staying on their side of the road with
the masses of mopeds milling every which way and the crossroads had to
be seen to be believed! We settled into the comfortable guesthouse and
resisted taking a room with air conditioning despite 35 degree
temperatures to help us with managing the heat during the day.
We only had one day in Phnom Penh and actually that's all you need. I
went out with Mai to see some of the sights and by his recommendation
we headed for the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. Now I'm not going to be
able to do the story justice so if you don't know the tragedies that
befell the Cambodian people then I would recommend a search on the web
or at the very least rent the film out ('The Killing Fields'), but I
don't think it does it justice. In short in 1975 the Cambodian Civil
War ended when the Khmer Rouge took the capital Phnom Penh but instead
of peace they started a radical and brutal restructuring. No mater what
condition or age, the people where herded from the towns and cities
into the country and made to work the land for 12-15 hours a day. Any
form of disobedience would often bring immediate execution and the
people were made to renounce their independance, their family, their
possessions. Ontop of this there was a purging of anybody associated in
any way with the previous government and anybody who spoke out against
the new regime. Government workers, civil servants, military personel,
doctors, lawyers, teachers, anybody with an education, all were found
and executed many suffering horific torture beforehand.
The most notorious prison and torture site was a converted school in
Phnom Penh which became known as Prison 21 or S-21. Between 1975 and
1978 more than 17,000 people held at S-21 were taken to the
extermination camp at Choeung Ek, those who died during torture were
buried in mass graves in the prison grounds. So I looked around Choeung
Ek and a very sobering place it is too. They have exhumed 86 of the
mass graves containing the remains of nearly 9,000 people (including
women and children), and arranged the bones in a Memorial Stupa behind
glass screens. To save ammunition most had been bludgeoned to death
with all manner of gross implements. I didn't really know what to say
in the face of such horrors, nor did I know how to handle the begging
children who gathered to try and get money from the tourists. Cambodia
is certainly very poor and there is no such thing as welfare so the
tendancy is to want to help, on the other hand encouraging begging can
be detrimental we are told and keeps them out of school. As it happens
I had no local currency or small change yet so I couldn't offer
anything anyway.
From Choeung Ek we went to S-21 and Mai left me for an hour to walk
around by myself. If the killing fields were bad this place was worse.
At the end of the hour I had absorbed as much of the horror and tragedy
that befell here as I could stomach and was in a very somber mood.
Coming out I was accosted by the one legged beggar for the second time.
He persisted, following me and asking for money to buy rice. What am I
supposed to do? Is he genuine or scamming? I gave him a dollar and
immediately a taxi driver who saw it held out his upturned hat in a
mocking begging gesture - what does he know about it? You can only
resist peoples pleas for so long, it's the shittiest part of travelling
for sure. In truth I only gave him the money to get rid of him.
Not in the mood for anymore sightseeing Mai took me back to the
guesthouse and we shut ourselves in our room for the afternoon sitting
in front of the fan for what cooling it gave us. In the evening we went
for a wonder around the streets to look for somewhere to eat but didn't
find anything and didn't find it a particularly appealing place so we
returned to the guesthouse and ate there instead. I tried to learn a
few words of Khmer, 'hello', 'goodbye', 'thankyou', that kind of thing
but I found it impossible to pronunciate even with help from Mai.
Instead we packed our bags for the trip to Siem Reap tomorrow.
It was an early start and a last minute panic to get some food for the
long ferry ride up Tonle Sap river, a journey that should have been
five hours but took two more because of a delay changing to a lower
draught boat and then even that boat had problems with the water levels
being so low (it's towards the end of the dry season). But we saw some
interesting sights along the bank, mostly rural Cambodian life and kids
playing and waving plus it's smooth travel in the boat and creates it's
own cooling breeze. We arrived at a pontoon for transfer to even
smaller boats and a short ride through Chong Kneas floating village
then a wobbly scramble over moored boats, one of which nearly capsized
with too many people on one side, to the jetty. Here again we were
picked up by the guesthouse and a dusty and bumpy forty-five minutes
later were cleaning up in our pleasant room at Jasmine Lodge.
Later we had a bimble around the town close to us and immediately liked
the place being not so crazily busy as Phnom Penh and the people so
nice and friendly, even the tuk tuk drivers weren't pushy which was a
joy. Our main reason for coming, along with everybody else, was to see
the Temples of Angkor which are spread out over a large area too big to
walk so we made arrangements for a tuk tuk to meet us before sunrise
and headed for bed, tired from the days travelling.
At 5.15am there was a gentle knock on the door from our driver, Vanna,
a gentler soul we couldn't have hoped to meet. By 5.30 we were driving
out the ten kilometers to the first, arguably the best (not by us) and
certainly the favourite temple to watch the sunrise from. After
enjoying the spectacle with a couple of thousand other people Vanna
took us on the first of our tours to various of the closer temples. The
temples are constructed of either sandstone or brick and were built
between 800 and 1200 years ago by various Khmer Kings from what is
known as the Angkorian period. All are fascinating and beautiful but
some, generally the larger ones of which there are many, are truly
impressive and rank right up there with the Inca works of South
America. No wonder they are considered one of the ancient wonders of
the world, we definately wouldn't argue with that.
After a long morning of exploring Prasat Kravan, Sras Srang, Banteay
Kdei, Ta Prohm, Ta Keo, Thommanon, Bayon, Phimeanakas and Preah
Palilay, these last three being within the huge and ancient walled city
of Angkor Thom, we were drained. It was early afternoon and although
quiet now with all the tours back in town for lunch it was just too hot
to keep going. I had a major huff when I discovered I had lost my
glasses and spent half an hour retracing my steps to no avail. We were
just about to give up on them when Anna spotted them right near where
we were standing, a one in a thousand chance and I wondered if the
offerings I had made to numerious Buddha statues for good luck (and
good money for their keepers) that day had actually had an effect.
Either way it was with relief, from finding them and from being able to
escape the heat, that we searched out Vanna and he whisked us back to
the guesthouse and a cold shower.
The following day I wasn't quite right in the stomach again (boy will I
be glad when we're not off colour every other week) so we made it a
rest day and didn't do much more than download a camera full of photos
and draw some money out - Cambodia is the only country we've been to
where there are no ATMs, yet. We saw Vanna floating around the
guesthouse and started chatting, before we knew it he was telling us
something of his life story from his family being killed, the
indiscriminate US bombing, life under the Khmer Rouge, his escape west
to Battambang, catching and surviving maleria, forging a letter to
escape the army, running to the Thai border (where he learn't english),
being able to move back to Siem Reap and his brother and now life
trying to make enough money for his wife and four children. We were
awestruck.
Later Vanna picked us up again and took us in to watch the sunset but
we were a little late which he unnecessarily felt guilty for and made
it up to us by telling us much about the temple. We asked him to drop
us into town at the old market but by now it was closing up so we made
do with a bite and a beer. After walking part way back we found another
tuk tuk, an old gentleman who didn't speak english (he would have
spoken french if ours was up to much) but still managed to haggle a
little. He pootled off at an exciting 5mph in the wrong direction! We
gave him the benefit of the doubt for a few minutes before letting him
know upon which he started chuckling and pulled over to a younger group
of drivers (and waitresses) where he said something that was probably
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