Travel Zulu

Siem Reap is a nice little town to spend a few days, but after a while it gets a bit annoying with the tuk tuk drivers hassling you to take a tour with them. I know they are just trying to make money, but there seems to be a huge over supply of drivers claiming to be tour guides. Even when I am relaxing having a beer at my hotel they will sit down with me and try to get me to hire their services for the day.

Once I am back in Phnom Penh, I need to get my Vietnam visa organized and I will be off to Vietnam. One of the first places I want to visit in Vietnam is Phu Quoc. I am hanging out for the beach.

Boeng Kak is the backpacker ghetto for Phnom Penh. Most of the guest houses are wooden and built on stilts over the lake. The guest houses have wooden decking overlooking the lake where you can idle away the time in a hammock and watch the sun set.

It is a cheap area to stay and has all the travel and tour information you need. Like many ideal backpacker spots, there could be a time when the whole area is bulldozed and a new luxury hotel is put up.

I slept in this morning then started reading a book I just bought. I got halfway through the book and checked the time and it was 2 pm! The heat kind of zaps all of your energy. I have been doing some work for the past few hours in a cafe with free WIFI with air-conditioning.

Cambodia has four seasons:

November-February: cool/dry
March-May: hot/dry
June-August: hot/wet
September-October: cool/wet

Last night huge storm clouds went over the city and it looked like it was going to pour with rain. The lightning was pretty amazing and the temperature dropped. A few hours later the storm passed, the humidity went back up - without a drop of rain.

I got up early this morning (at least earlier than usual) and rode a bike out to Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is truly the national symbol and pride of the Cambodian people. The image is used on so many products, including my favorite: Angkor Beer. It was hot as usual and the very flat 6 km ride left me drenched.

They offer 1, 3 and 7 day passes. At $20 for a one day pass, it is probably one of the most expensive things you will have to pay for in Cambodia. I was thinking about getting the 3 day pass before I got to Siem Reap, but finally opted for the 1 dayer.

I think 1 day is enough. I was done by around lunchtime. I visited most of the main temples, at least all of the 3 and 4 star temples from my guidebook. I suppose some people love hearing about the history and what all of the different depictions mean, but I just can’t get into that much. I think I get more of a kick out of talking to different people on the way and cycling around. I am sure also the gardens would look much better in the wet season.

I have met a few Cambodians that have family in Australia. I was reading in a magazine that they have even built a Buddhist temple somewhere in New South Wales for the large Cambodian community.

I arrived in Siam Riep today after a pretty hot 5-6 hour bus road. The place is famous for Angkor Wot, Cambodia’s most famous tourist attraction. The whole place has a different vibe from Phnom Phen. It has an international airport, so I think a lot of people must come here exclusively to see the temples.

Fortunately food and hotel prices are still fairly cheap, but a little more expensive than what I have experienced so far in Cambodia.

I went to Tuol Sleng museum this morning. Tuol Sleng was once a school which Pol Pot converted into the infamous Security Prison (S-21). A mixture of both the heat and seeing the prison made me feel nauseous. Not to mention that the whole Khmer Rouge and Killing Fields are fairly recent history.

Now I am in some kind of expat members club that I found that has free wi-fi and a beautiful swimming pool. It is currently the Khmer New Year and most of the markets and shops are closed. I think most people head to the coast where I just came from to escape the heat.

Tomorrow I am planning to head out to Choueung Ek, better known as the Killing Fields.

I caught a “shared” taxi today to go to Kampot. We ended up with 8 people in a regular Toyota Corona sedan. There were four people in the back, including two other foreigners and four in the front.

The front seats were regular individual seats, so there were two guys in the passenger seat and two guys sitting together in the driver’s seat. The car had electronic windows, but no switches so you had to hold two wires together to get the window to go down.

I can’t remember if this dish is Hok Hak or Hak Hok, or maybe something completely different. I suppose most people are familiar with Thai food, but don’t know much about Khmer food. Well, this is one dish I had the other night in Koh Kong. It was a pretty tasty beef dish with a peppery, chilli sauce. The beef was served on tomato and onions.

I got a mini bus today from Koh Kong to Sihanouk Ville. I kind of wanted to take the ferry, but the guest house I was staying at organizes bus trips, so I ended up buying a ticket from them. You apparently can’t see much from the ferry anyway, so perhaps it was a good decision.

The road is still under construction, so at each river we had to cross on a pontoon. It was an amazing site - buses, people, live chickens. I am staying the in the Victory Hill area of Sihanouk Ville which overlooks the sea.

The room was $6 a night which I got them down to $5. It is pretty nice place, compared with some of the dumps I have been staying in. They have a domitory at the hotel for just $2 a night. A beer in a bar is just 50 cents.

I reluctantly left Koh Chang two days ago. Last night I stayed in the provincial Thai town of Trat. I was back in a way to civilization and removed from the slow island life. I find Koh Chang even with its current development, a place where I could easily idle away my time for a long time - beautiful beaches, cheap accomodation, delicious seafood and good facilities for working on the internet.

I found a cheap room in Trat for 100 baht for the night. I had a great pizza for dinner, watched a movie on my laptop, read and went to sleep. It wasn’t long though, before I woke up. Even though the guesthouse was on a narrow laneway, motor bikes seemed to go up and down it all night. The room was on the second floor which had wooden floor boards. Everytime someone walked across the floorboards, it sounded like someone was in my room.

After spending cool nights down at the beach for the past two weeks, I felt so hot even with a fan on all night. It’s strange, but when it became light, I suddenly felt so sleepy. I had breakfast watching CNN and realized it was Good Friday. Not that it means too much to me, but I thought I should try and call home over Easter the weekend.

I found the bus station and got a bus to Ban Hat Lek on the border of Thailand and Cambodia. I realized it was the first time I had ever crossed a land border between two countries. Guys were hanging around ready to take people into town. A young guy took me on the back of his motorbike for the 15 kilometer ride into the town of Koh Kong, after passing through immigration and getting my visa.

I had heard stories of Cambodian immigration asking for ‘extra money’ for the visa. The visa cost 1200 baht. I had read that it costs 1100 baht, so I don’t know if that was the extra money they sometimes charged people or if prices had gone up.

The motorbike guy took me to a guesthouse, I knew he was going to make money off the deal, but he had been helpful enough, it was hot and I just wanted to eat something.

At the guesthouse, I ordered my first Cambodian meal: the first item on the menu - vegetables and noodle soup. Something like Japanese or Vietnamese noodles, I imagined, but it was more like instant noodles with a bit of potato and carrot. At least the Angkor beer tasted good.

Even though everyone accepts Thai baht, I wanted to get some Cambodian Riel. I changed US$20 and got 81,000 Riel in 5,000 riel notes. You feel pretty rich with a wallet full of notes. No wonder they prefer baht here I thought. I had a walk around Koh Kong, but was soon exhausted from the dry heat and an afternoon sleep seemed in order.

Koh Kong is the ‘tourist hub-in-waiting’ according to the Koh Kong advertiser, a free English pamphlet on the town, where ‘visitors can travel safely all around the entire province with more chances of winning the lottery, than standing on a landmine’.