I awoke early to get my trip from Bangkok to Siem Reap underway. My earlier experience of road transport in Southeast Asia prepared me for a full day of travel to make the approximate 300 kilometre journey. I decided to try to navigate Bangkok on the cheap which meant metered taxi, skytrain, and a little walking to get to the northern bus depot. I was doing fine till I reached the end of the skytrain line which appeared like it was next to the bus depot on the map... but in fact, it was not so.
As I wandered aimlessly amongst street vendors and locals I noticed another tall person towering over the crowd of Thai heads. It was a European fellow on the same mission as myself, so I suggested we split a cab the rest of the way. Sorted, right? Wrong! The cabbie spoke NO English and was bad at pantomime, yet we got in and he started driving not really knowing where we were going. No problem, he pulled out his cell phone and called an English speaking friend to translate for us... lucky he was already heading in the right direction.
Within 15 minutes of arriving at the bus depot I was on a bus headed for Poipet, the border crossing I had chosen to enter Cambodia by. About 6 hours later we were ushered off the bus on the Thai side to make the crossing on foot. I dodged all the touts and scam artists trying to tell me I needed their help to cross the border and headed straight for the government buildings. I spotted a confused looking Norwegian/Taiwanese couple and chatted them up on the walk to customs.
At this point I had no idea how I was going to make it from the border to Siem Reap some 100 odd kilometres away. So I asked the couple what they were doing. They had pre-booked a private cab from the Cambodian side of the border to their hotel in Siem Reap and welcomed an extra paying passenger... problem solved! Hello Cambodia! A couple hours later we pulled into their hotel and I bid them farewell. It was 7:30pm, I had been traveling for over 10 hours, and it was dark. I pulled out my guidebook and headlamp and looked up the cheapest hostel I could find. I was in luck, the cheapy was a mere 2 blocks from where I was standing, so off I went. About ten minutes later I was checked-in to my $3 a night dorm room and enjoying my first delicious Cambodian dinner.
Cambodia is a country that has seen some of the most atrocious actions against human beings in the world. Some compare what the Khmer people have gone through in recent history to what the Jewish people went through in Nazi controlled Europe during WWII. Cambodia's bloody history is as recent as July 2010 when Khmer Rouge member, Kang Kek Lew, was the first to be found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. All others have avoided prosecution by either hiding, defecting, or becoming part of the current ruling regime in the country. Saloth Sar (aka Pol Pot), the leader of the Khmer Rouge was never caught or tried for his crimes and from 1979-1997 was still in control of a small part of Cambodia near the Thai border. He died in 1998. Estimates on the number of people killed during the Khmer Rouge rule (1975-1979) range from 1-3 million.
The Khmer Rouge era was in part a by-product of the ideologically induced wars over the spread of communism which happened in the region between 1953-1997 including the Vietnam war (referred to as the American war by Vietnamese). Before that, Cambodia was part of French Indochina which it became a part of in order to protect itself from the Siamese-Vietnamese war which threatened to subsume the people, culture, and country. Before that Cambodia had been controlled for centuries by either the Siamese or the Vietnamese (Siam became modern day Thailand). To find a time in history when Cambodia had any regional power, one has to look back to the Khmer Empire during the Angkorian era (9th-15th centuries). This is, of course, when the world famous temples of Siem Reap (particularly Angkor Wat) were constructed in what archaeologists believe to be one of the world's largest pre-industrial cities with an urban sprawl of nearly 1,000 square kilometres and capable of sustaining up to 1 million people. Incidentally, the degree of animosity between the Siamese and Khmer people becomes obvious when one understands that the name of the city Siem Reap translates to "the flat defeat of Siam".
The temples of Angkor are, of course, the main reason I decided to visit this particular Cambodian city, and I was eager to get the temple tours underway. After a sweaty sleep in the dorm and a sweltering breakfast I waved down a moto-taxi (basically a moped you hop on the back of) and headed for Angkor Wat. The temples of the area (numbering over 70) were built throughout the reign of the Khmer Empire. At its inception, the Khmers practiced Hinduism and constructed their temples accordingly depicting Hindu mythologies and following construction practices of cosmological significance and measurements. Temples built in the latter half of the Khmer Empire's reign reflect the Khmer people's shift to Mahayana and then to Theravada Buddhism. Old Hindu temples were modified to also reflect this shift.
After I got my 3-day pass to the temples, my moto driver dropped me at the entrance to Angkor Wat... and it is impressive. The modern name of Angkor Wat means "city temple", but no one truly knows what the place was called by its builders. The temple grounds are surrounded by a 190 metre wide moat accessible from the west by a sandstone causeway and from the east by an earthen bank. The outer wall encloses a space of 203 acres which houses the temple and in the past also contained a royal palace and a city. Structures other than the temple were built out of perishable materials that have long since disappeared and been replaced by forest. The temple itself was built of sandstone during the first half of the 12th century by Suryavarman II and was dedicated to the Hindu deity Vishnu. In line with its Hindu dedication, the temple layout is of mythological significance. The temple is a representation of Mount Meru, home of the Hindu gods or devas. The central quincunx of towers symbolizes the five peaks of the mountain, and the walls and moat the surrounding mountain ranges and ocean.
I wandered around the temple grounds for a couple of hours before the crowds began to wear on my nerves. It was also really hot and humid with temperatures hovering around 35 degrees. I figured I'd get one more temple in on this day and I thought that I could save a little money by walking there. One monkey with a banana, two buckets of sweat, and barely a kilometer and a half of walking and I was ready to flag down a moto or tuk-tuk to get me the rest of the way to my destination. Those of you familiar with the movie Tomb Raider have seen parts of this temple, although in the movie some shots were done at another of the Angkorian temples. This place is Ta Prohm. Amidst sweltering heat, creeping jungle, hoards of roving tourists, and many workers restoring the temple I got my first peak at the massive trees and root systems encompassing portions of the ruins. Cambodia is a country with little regulation and lots of corruption, so people are free to do pretty much anything they want. I satisfied my penchant for exploring by crawling through parts of the ruins likely only seen by workers or archaeologists... very cool and sometimes very eerie.
Ta Prohm was originally named Rajavihara meaning "royal temple" and was constructed in the late 12th century by the Khmer King Jayavarman VII. Its purpose was to be a Mahayana Buddhist monastery and university; over the years several additions were made to the temple area. The temple's stele records that the site was home to more than 12,500 people (including 18 high priests and 615 dancers), with an additional 80,000 souls in the surrounding villages working to provide services and supplies. The stele also notes that the temple amassed considerable riches, including gold, pearls and silks. I wandered as long as the heat would permit and then decided to cool off back at my hostel and try again earlier the next day before the temperatures got too high. Back at the hostel I met some other travelers intent on a little revelry and a fellow named Tobias who was keen on seeing sunrise at Angkor Wat the next day... its always more fun to explore with a travel buddy.
Around 4:30am Tobias woke me up and we negotiated a tuk-tuk for the day in order to do the "grand circuit" of temples. By 5:30am we were amongst the throngs of seemingly thousands of people eager to get a good photo of Angkor Wat at sunrise. To be quite honest, the whole thing was quite anti-climactic... Tobias thought so too. So while people gawked at the outside of the temple in the growing dawn light, we made a run for the inside before anyone else decided to go in. It was definitely better empty than when jammed full of people. We hung out in there for a bit and decided that if Angkor Wat was cool without people in it, Ta Prohm was bound to be pretty sweet as well. So we had our tuk-tuk beeline it to the temple grounds.. totally worth it!
As tourists started trickling in to Ta Prohm we elected to begin our grand circuit tour of 26 kilometres. Along the way we would see Pre Rup, East Mebon, Ta Som, Neak Pean, Preah Khan, then Angkor Thom which includes Bayon, Baphuon, Phimeanakas, Terrace of the Elephants, and the Terrace of the Leper King. There were far FAR more ruins to see, but, after two days of templing, I was completely templed out, so was Tobias.
We got back to the hostel in the early afternoon before the truly roasting heat hit and we relaxed next to fans with ice cold drinks to keep us cool. I had booked another two nights at the hostel in hopes of completing a few other tours around Siem Reap. First on my list was something I had heard about through the backpacker grapevine... apparently for the right price anyone can fire an RPG, AK-47, or any other of a number of military firearms and weapons. Alas, the right price was too lofty for my meager budget. No problem, there was still the floating village tour listed at $15 on the hostel wall. Apparently that wall had been painted 2 years earlier and the rates had since more than doubled... boooo!! Oh well, as a consolation I decided to relax for a day wandering around Siem Reap and playing cards with other travelers and then make my way to Phnom Penh via boat rather than bus, maybe then I could catch of glimpse of some river life and villages.
I got up early to catch the mini-bus from Siem Reap to the shores of Tonlé Sap. It gave me an opportunity to see how suburban Cambodia lives and aside from the apparently happy looking people one thing stood out amongst others... TRASH. The whole country seems to be blanketed in a layer of garbage which sometimes seem to reproduce to form proper rubbish piles. I can only assume that this is in part because of a lack of centralized garbage collection or dumps. Even though the country is experiencing rapid economic growth from strong textiles, agriculture, construction, garments, and tourism sectors leading to foreign investments and international trade, much of the profits aren't spread evenly due to massive government corruption. In 2005 oil and natural gas were discovered beneath Cambodian territorial waters, hopefully some of that money will find its way to the largely impoverished countryside.
Once at the lake a hundred or so tourists were ushered aboard a large boat and prepared for the transit across Tonlé Sap Lake into the Tonlé Sap River leading into Phnom Penh, the country's capital city. Tonlé Sap Lake, its name means "Large Fresh Water River", is the largest freshwater lake in South East Asia and is an ecological hot spot that was designated as a UNESCO biosphere in 1997. The Tonlé Sap is unusual for two reasons: its flow changes direction twice a year, and the portion that forms the lake expands and shrinks dramatically with the seasons. From November to May, Cambodia's dry season, the Tonlé Sap drains into the Mekong River at Phnom Penh. However, when the year's heavy rains begin in June, the Tonlé Sap backs up to form an enormous lake. For most of the year the lake is fairly small, around one meter deep and with an area of 2,700 square km. During the monsoon season, however, the Tonlé Sap river, which connects the lake with the Mekong river, reverses its flow. Water is pushed up from the Mekong into the lake, increasing its area to 16,000 square km and its depth to up to nine meters, flooding nearby fields and forests.
The 4-5 hour boat ride was interesting at the beginning as we passed small collections of floating communities before entering the lake proper. The lake passage itself was quite uneventful as it is a large enough lake that you can't see land for much of the trip across. As we entered the Tonlé Sap River the scenery improved again with small local fishing boats going about their daily business and stretches of flood plains to either side. Further down the river we passed through riverside communities of varying sizes with locals waving to us along the way. As beautiful as the countryside was, I was continuously in awe of the very apparent poverty affecting the majority of Khmers.
We eventually entered the river area north of Phnom Penh where more river dwellings tranformed into light industrial and eventually into city proper. Three rivers converge in Phnom Penh: Tonlé Sap, Mekong, and Bassac which was the source of the city's former name Krong Chaktomuk meaning "City of Four Faces" referring to the "X" formed by the crossing of the rivers. The city itself has a rich history dating back as far as the 1300's, but I had been landlocked for over a week at this point and craving some beach. I had read that the Killing Fields exhibit had been contracted out to a Japanese company paying the Cambodian government a nominal annual fee, so I decided to not check out the genocide museum. To my chagrin I later found out that a similar deal had been made for Angkor Wat. I wandered around the city until dark and then called it an early night after booking a bus for the morning headed for Sihanoukville on the Cambodian coast... look beach, here I come!
As I wandered aimlessly amongst street vendors and locals I noticed another tall person towering over the crowd of Thai heads. It was a European fellow on the same mission as myself, so I suggested we split a cab the rest of the way. Sorted, right? Wrong! The cabbie spoke NO English and was bad at pantomime, yet we got in and he started driving not really knowing where we were going. No problem, he pulled out his cell phone and called an English speaking friend to translate for us... lucky he was already heading in the right direction.
Within 15 minutes of arriving at the bus depot I was on a bus headed for Poipet, the border crossing I had chosen to enter Cambodia by. About 6 hours later we were ushered off the bus on the Thai side to make the crossing on foot. I dodged all the touts and scam artists trying to tell me I needed their help to cross the border and headed straight for the government buildings. I spotted a confused looking Norwegian/Taiwanese couple and chatted them up on the walk to customs.
At this point I had no idea how I was going to make it from the border to Siem Reap some 100 odd kilometres away. So I asked the couple what they were doing. They had pre-booked a private cab from the Cambodian side of the border to their hotel in Siem Reap and welcomed an extra paying passenger... problem solved! Hello Cambodia! A couple hours later we pulled into their hotel and I bid them farewell. It was 7:30pm, I had been traveling for over 10 hours, and it was dark. I pulled out my guidebook and headlamp and looked up the cheapest hostel I could find. I was in luck, the cheapy was a mere 2 blocks from where I was standing, so off I went. About ten minutes later I was checked-in to my $3 a night dorm room and enjoying my first delicious Cambodian dinner.
Cambodia is a country that has seen some of the most atrocious actions against human beings in the world. Some compare what the Khmer people have gone through in recent history to what the Jewish people went through in Nazi controlled Europe during WWII. Cambodia's bloody history is as recent as July 2010 when Khmer Rouge member, Kang Kek Lew, was the first to be found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. All others have avoided prosecution by either hiding, defecting, or becoming part of the current ruling regime in the country. Saloth Sar (aka Pol Pot), the leader of the Khmer Rouge was never caught or tried for his crimes and from 1979-1997 was still in control of a small part of Cambodia near the Thai border. He died in 1998. Estimates on the number of people killed during the Khmer Rouge rule (1975-1979) range from 1-3 million.
The Khmer Rouge era was in part a by-product of the ideologically induced wars over the spread of communism which happened in the region between 1953-1997 including the Vietnam war (referred to as the American war by Vietnamese). Before that, Cambodia was part of French Indochina which it became a part of in order to protect itself from the Siamese-Vietnamese war which threatened to subsume the people, culture, and country. Before that Cambodia had been controlled for centuries by either the Siamese or the Vietnamese (Siam became modern day Thailand). To find a time in history when Cambodia had any regional power, one has to look back to the Khmer Empire during the Angkorian era (9th-15th centuries). This is, of course, when the world famous temples of Siem Reap (particularly Angkor Wat) were constructed in what archaeologists believe to be one of the world's largest pre-industrial cities with an urban sprawl of nearly 1,000 square kilometres and capable of sustaining up to 1 million people. Incidentally, the degree of animosity between the Siamese and Khmer people becomes obvious when one understands that the name of the city Siem Reap translates to "the flat defeat of Siam".
The temples of Angkor are, of course, the main reason I decided to visit this particular Cambodian city, and I was eager to get the temple tours underway. After a sweaty sleep in the dorm and a sweltering breakfast I waved down a moto-taxi (basically a moped you hop on the back of) and headed for Angkor Wat. The temples of the area (numbering over 70) were built throughout the reign of the Khmer Empire. At its inception, the Khmers practiced Hinduism and constructed their temples accordingly depicting Hindu mythologies and following construction practices of cosmological significance and measurements. Temples built in the latter half of the Khmer Empire's reign reflect the Khmer people's shift to Mahayana and then to Theravada Buddhism. Old Hindu temples were modified to also reflect this shift.
After I got my 3-day pass to the temples, my moto driver dropped me at the entrance to Angkor Wat... and it is impressive. The modern name of Angkor Wat means "city temple", but no one truly knows what the place was called by its builders. The temple grounds are surrounded by a 190 metre wide moat accessible from the west by a sandstone causeway and from the east by an earthen bank. The outer wall encloses a space of 203 acres which houses the temple and in the past also contained a royal palace and a city. Structures other than the temple were built out of perishable materials that have long since disappeared and been replaced by forest. The temple itself was built of sandstone during the first half of the 12th century by Suryavarman II and was dedicated to the Hindu deity Vishnu. In line with its Hindu dedication, the temple layout is of mythological significance. The temple is a representation of Mount Meru, home of the Hindu gods or devas. The central quincunx of towers symbolizes the five peaks of the mountain, and the walls and moat the surrounding mountain ranges and ocean.
I wandered around the temple grounds for a couple of hours before the crowds began to wear on my nerves. It was also really hot and humid with temperatures hovering around 35 degrees. I figured I'd get one more temple in on this day and I thought that I could save a little money by walking there. One monkey with a banana, two buckets of sweat, and barely a kilometer and a half of walking and I was ready to flag down a moto or tuk-tuk to get me the rest of the way to my destination. Those of you familiar with the movie Tomb Raider have seen parts of this temple, although in the movie some shots were done at another of the Angkorian temples. This place is Ta Prohm. Amidst sweltering heat, creeping jungle, hoards of roving tourists, and many workers restoring the temple I got my first peak at the massive trees and root systems encompassing portions of the ruins. Cambodia is a country with little regulation and lots of corruption, so people are free to do pretty much anything they want. I satisfied my penchant for exploring by crawling through parts of the ruins likely only seen by workers or archaeologists... very cool and sometimes very eerie.
Ta Prohm was originally named Rajavihara meaning "royal temple" and was constructed in the late 12th century by the Khmer King Jayavarman VII. Its purpose was to be a Mahayana Buddhist monastery and university; over the years several additions were made to the temple area. The temple's stele records that the site was home to more than 12,500 people (including 18 high priests and 615 dancers), with an additional 80,000 souls in the surrounding villages working to provide services and supplies. The stele also notes that the temple amassed considerable riches, including gold, pearls and silks. I wandered as long as the heat would permit and then decided to cool off back at my hostel and try again earlier the next day before the temperatures got too high. Back at the hostel I met some other travelers intent on a little revelry and a fellow named Tobias who was keen on seeing sunrise at Angkor Wat the next day... its always more fun to explore with a travel buddy.
Around 4:30am Tobias woke me up and we negotiated a tuk-tuk for the day in order to do the "grand circuit" of temples. By 5:30am we were amongst the throngs of seemingly thousands of people eager to get a good photo of Angkor Wat at sunrise. To be quite honest, the whole thing was quite anti-climactic... Tobias thought so too. So while people gawked at the outside of the temple in the growing dawn light, we made a run for the inside before anyone else decided to go in. It was definitely better empty than when jammed full of people. We hung out in there for a bit and decided that if Angkor Wat was cool without people in it, Ta Prohm was bound to be pretty sweet as well. So we had our tuk-tuk beeline it to the temple grounds.. totally worth it!
As tourists started trickling in to Ta Prohm we elected to begin our grand circuit tour of 26 kilometres. Along the way we would see Pre Rup, East Mebon, Ta Som, Neak Pean, Preah Khan, then Angkor Thom which includes Bayon, Baphuon, Phimeanakas, Terrace of the Elephants, and the Terrace of the Leper King. There were far FAR more ruins to see, but, after two days of templing, I was completely templed out, so was Tobias.
We got back to the hostel in the early afternoon before the truly roasting heat hit and we relaxed next to fans with ice cold drinks to keep us cool. I had booked another two nights at the hostel in hopes of completing a few other tours around Siem Reap. First on my list was something I had heard about through the backpacker grapevine... apparently for the right price anyone can fire an RPG, AK-47, or any other of a number of military firearms and weapons. Alas, the right price was too lofty for my meager budget. No problem, there was still the floating village tour listed at $15 on the hostel wall. Apparently that wall had been painted 2 years earlier and the rates had since more than doubled... boooo!! Oh well, as a consolation I decided to relax for a day wandering around Siem Reap and playing cards with other travelers and then make my way to Phnom Penh via boat rather than bus, maybe then I could catch of glimpse of some river life and villages.
I got up early to catch the mini-bus from Siem Reap to the shores of Tonlé Sap. It gave me an opportunity to see how suburban Cambodia lives and aside from the apparently happy looking people one thing stood out amongst others... TRASH. The whole country seems to be blanketed in a layer of garbage which sometimes seem to reproduce to form proper rubbish piles. I can only assume that this is in part because of a lack of centralized garbage collection or dumps. Even though the country is experiencing rapid economic growth from strong textiles, agriculture, construction, garments, and tourism sectors leading to foreign investments and international trade, much of the profits aren't spread evenly due to massive government corruption. In 2005 oil and natural gas were discovered beneath Cambodian territorial waters, hopefully some of that money will find its way to the largely impoverished countryside.
Once at the lake a hundred or so tourists were ushered aboard a large boat and prepared for the transit across Tonlé Sap Lake into the Tonlé Sap River leading into Phnom Penh, the country's capital city. Tonlé Sap Lake, its name means "Large Fresh Water River", is the largest freshwater lake in South East Asia and is an ecological hot spot that was designated as a UNESCO biosphere in 1997. The Tonlé Sap is unusual for two reasons: its flow changes direction twice a year, and the portion that forms the lake expands and shrinks dramatically with the seasons. From November to May, Cambodia's dry season, the Tonlé Sap drains into the Mekong River at Phnom Penh. However, when the year's heavy rains begin in June, the Tonlé Sap backs up to form an enormous lake. For most of the year the lake is fairly small, around one meter deep and with an area of 2,700 square km. During the monsoon season, however, the Tonlé Sap river, which connects the lake with the Mekong river, reverses its flow. Water is pushed up from the Mekong into the lake, increasing its area to 16,000 square km and its depth to up to nine meters, flooding nearby fields and forests.
The 4-5 hour boat ride was interesting at the beginning as we passed small collections of floating communities before entering the lake proper. The lake passage itself was quite uneventful as it is a large enough lake that you can't see land for much of the trip across. As we entered the Tonlé Sap River the scenery improved again with small local fishing boats going about their daily business and stretches of flood plains to either side. Further down the river we passed through riverside communities of varying sizes with locals waving to us along the way. As beautiful as the countryside was, I was continuously in awe of the very apparent poverty affecting the majority of Khmers.
We eventually entered the river area north of Phnom Penh where more river dwellings tranformed into light industrial and eventually into city proper. Three rivers converge in Phnom Penh: Tonlé Sap, Mekong, and Bassac which was the source of the city's former name Krong Chaktomuk meaning "City of Four Faces" referring to the "X" formed by the crossing of the rivers. The city itself has a rich history dating back as far as the 1300's, but I had been landlocked for over a week at this point and craving some beach. I had read that the Killing Fields exhibit had been contracted out to a Japanese company paying the Cambodian government a nominal annual fee, so I decided to not check out the genocide museum. To my chagrin I later found out that a similar deal had been made for Angkor Wat. I wandered around the city until dark and then called it an early night after booking a bus for the morning headed for Sihanoukville on the Cambodian coast... look beach, here I come!
hi Jon!I love the pics,it looks so nice there.... please post more animal pics! thanks. Active Rooster
ReplyDelete@ Active Rooster - Oh boy, don't you worry... I have loads more animal pictures I'll be posting on the "Animals I've Seen" page of my blog. For the time being though, I'm really busy soaking up the sights and culture here in India. But never fear, it'll get done... eventually ;)
Deletehey jon,
ReplyDeleteya, im with active rooster on this one.
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