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Siem Reap, Cambodia

These full day bus trips are becoming the norm but with a good book and air con these don’t bother me. I got 50% through a memoir of an ‘educated’ 5year old Cambodian girl in 1975. It was a very interesting and sad story of a child’s life during this time. There’s limited tax in this country so books are $3. The bus ride is a great way to see countryside Cambodia. When we got hungry we stopped for a bite of tarantula. Similar to crickets, they are covered in oil so they aren’t too bad – as far as insects go anyway! Insects are a popular food amongst locals as they grew up eating them during the famine.

This time, the 8 hour bus ride took us to Siem Reap. The home of Angkor Wat – if you’re unsure what that is, think Tomb Raider. If you haven’t seen that, like me, think big stone structures.
Angkor Wat temple is the most famous. It sits in the Angkor Complex which includes a few hundred temples and a city. They were built around 1,000 years ago but many were only discovered in the thick jungle in 1850. Some of these temples have been restored from the war and element damage but many are just ruins. Angkor Thom, which is Khmer for “Great City” is a stone city which once supported one million people in the surrounding region. Many of the walls have intricate carvings carved into the 300 billion tones of stone and tell a story of life back then and how this city was created. Each of the billions of stones had a hole drilled in it, to transport the stone 60km from the quarry to the temple. The mode of transport was by 40,000 elephants, each with a sore back. In this city there are temples, libraries, galleries, a stadium and of course a 500mx300m swimming pool for the king.

Have you heard of the expression ‘templed out’….? if not, you’re about to feel that way after reading this. I think it’s only fair we share the pain together..
– The Bayon temple was built in 1100 by the 7th king and is inside the 9sqkm stone city of Angkor Thom. As he was Buddhist, the four faces on each pillar represent empathy, compassion, equality and sympathy. At a distance it looks like any other temple. When you look at it closer, 216 smiley faces look down at you. Each hand carved.
-The other one that’s worth a mention is the Banteey Srey temple built in 967. This is a ‘lady’s temple’ built by the 5th king for his hundreds of concubines (his friendly lady friends).
-Then there’s the Jungle temple, blah blah blah. It does have an Indian name and has been restored by the Indians. But that’s about all I’ve got. This featured a lot in Tomb Raider.
– No temple marathon would be complete without the The Hindu Angkor Wat temple, which represents heaven on earth. It was built between 1113-1150. I think I’d have had more appreciation if I had of watched Tomb Raider. Then I could have followed in Angelina Jolie’s foot steps. Instead, I can say it’s big, with a lot of stairs. 37 to be exact – representing the 37 levels of heaven. And of course there’s a moat 1.5×1.3 km around the temple. Angkor Wat was built by the 2nd king. He had 2,000 friendly lady friends and a wife, so that’s 2001 problems that poor man had. It’s lucky for him child support wasn’t around. It took 37 years, 40k elephants, 7k rafts, and 500k exhausted people to build. The king built it as a tomb for his body, and he died 2 years after it was finished. Personally, I’d have gone with a smaller design house and enjoyed it for longer. Mind you, the 8 swimming pools and 6 libraries would come in handy. In the 16th century it changed to a Buddhist temple but in the 90s all of the Buddhist statue heads were chopped off and sold. Talk about bad karma!

We all have those days – Wednesday the something of June was one of them:
-4am start that morning to see Angkor Wat at sunrise and visit the Jungle temple prior to the 5,000 tourists arriving. My patience was wearing thin that morning and it was only 8am. There are two things that urk me about group travel – the continuous waiting for inconsiderate people. The other is the people who are ‘too cool’ to respect the local culture and dress inappropriately in places such as temples. I had to go back to my room to find my smile, before heading back out for the day. On a positive, Dave got over his ‘Cambodian Belly’.
-5pm arrived home after a long day of those ‘T’ things. Travelling has finally got to me, nearly 50 days straight sightseeing – living in a hotel room, being on tour, living out of a suitcase, no Julia time – this has started to show in signs of frustration. I’m using another “Virtual Sunday” card tonight while Dave is down at the Pub Street watching Origin with Damo and Shazz. 2 minute noodles and Cambodian TV ought to fix me!
I think what is really the icing on the cake to my mood, is experiencing the extent of the issues in Cambodia. We have travelled to many third world countries, but you can really tell Cambodians are doing it tough. With an average income of $5 per day earned in the country and $10 in the city and even less in this place we visited this afternoon. The floating village of Tonle at Sap lake has 1,115 families living on chong khneas. These are basically wooden floating rooms/houses. Many are only a few metres wide, too small to stand up in and barley floating. They are where the poorest of the poor live. As they are on the water they don’t pay anything to the greedy government. This boat ride around the village would have been a nice break from the thousands of beggars at the temples, except here on the water they are so much more intense. Kids and mums on little boats literally hanging off your boat saying “$1,$1,$1,$1,$1,$1,$1,$1,$1”. Kids with snakes around their neck poke their heads into your boat, and a snake head into your face, and want a picture with them for “$1,$1,$1,$1,$1,$1,$1,$1,$1”. Of course you feel for them and want to give them money but Intrepid is very strong, and understandably so, about not supporting or encouraging child vendors or beggars. It doesn’t make it easy though. The final straw in my ****** day (yes, we all have them) was that our guide had the audacity to ask for $1 to tip the driver. This is a pet hate of mine as all modes of transport have already been paid for, yet tipping the drivers for doing their job is a not compulsory but a must? These drivers are already getting paid. Although it’s a low wage I’d much rather give that $1 to someone who actually needs it – like a homeless mother and baby or dad that’s had his legs blown off by the land-mines. 13 days and I hadn’t said anything but this time I couldn’t help but express my frustration. $1 doesn’t sound much but if I had a $1 for every time someone asked me for money I’d be a millionaire – or broke.
Prior to visiting this poor country, I was a firm believer in never using the word ‘lucky’. I believed if you wanted something – get off your ass and work for it. But I tell you what, I feel very lucky to live in Australia. Even though as I write this Rudd has taken over from Julia Gillard as PM, we are still lucky not to have a completely corrupt government that doesn’t give people a fair chance. An extreme comparison, I know, but the corrupt Cambodian government have been in power for nearly 30 years with no way of changing it – even with elections.
……Fortunately, my lovely Allison has just Skyped me and turned my day around. At 730pm, I have found my smile.

After every bad day, there’s a new day…
5 hour bus trip today to Battambang. On the way we stopped at a handmade silk factory and for morning tea we had juicy silk worm. When you start this ‘I’ll try everything game’ you can’t back down when it comes to yucky things – I was the only one out of our group that tried it, but only half of a worm. To save me putting the other half in my pocket, Dave ate the other half.
As mentioned in Vietnam, Intrepid fund one meal each trip. This time it was to a place called Pteu Teuk Dong (PDT). Prior the management becoming corrupt in 2008, it housed 150 people, street families and abused women and children. The centre lost its funding from all the donors due to
money mismanagement. All of Cambodia is poor, but as Battambang is so close to the border of Thailand, there are many parents who say they are going across the border and don’t come back for their kids. The lucky kids live in designated orphanages, others are just open areas for orphans. Then there are poor parents who sell their kids in the trafficking trade. So with all the abuse and sad stories in this area, it’s a shame this much needed training centre has been nearly, completely closed down. A Kiwi couple in their 50s have given 10 years of their life to restoring it back to a once thriving centre. The aim is to improve the quality of life and restore dignity to vulnerable people through a 12 month program. They feed them, educate the kids, teach them vocational skills in agriculture, sewing, weaving and life skills. After the 12 months, the family is given a plot of land and a small wooden house. I thought I’d seen poverty but at least the boat people yesterday have shelter in a safe environment. Intrepid supports this foundation and also matches $1 for $1 each donation given. But what I think Intrepid are missing is having an optional activity for our free afternoon and for us to give $10 to spend the afternoon helping this couple. (Intrepid organises additional activities for our free afternoons, for around $10). After speaking with this Kiwi lady, apart from monetary donations, they just need willing hands to make this severely run down place open its doors again. I’m going to write to Intrepid and suggest just that. On a side note, she mentioned to me that she worries when she goes to hand this place back to the locals, there will be no one to give it to as there is a whole generation of people her age missing from society in Cambodia. There is also an educational gap in the limited schooling for the younger generation.

Every country needs some random facts…
– The capital city Phenom Penh means ‘hill lady’ but all westerners pronounce Phnom incorrectly, we are saying ‘cake lady’
– The former capital city Seim Reap was formally owned by Thailand and called Seim. Cambodia then took it over and called it Seim Reap. Seim means ‘Thai’ and Reap means ‘defeat’. This loosely translates to ‘get out Thai people’
– Battambang, pronounced battambong, means disappearing stick. Bet you didn’t know that – or need to know that.
– Cambodia still has so much jungle that the Royal Palace built in 1802 was discovered only 2 months ago!
– Vietnam looks slightly wealthier than Cambodia, yet the wages in Cambodia are higher as is the cost of shopping, food and beer. They use US dollars as well as local currency.
– Due to war, there are no trains in Cambodia, hence the 30 hours of bus travel we have done this week. There is an Asian train network to be completed in 2015.
– School is “compulsory but not compulsory” here. School is ‘free’ here, except for ‘some reason’ kids have to pay if they want to attend class and pass.. This is the same for the free hospital. If you have no money you may as well stay at home and die. With an income of $5 a day and ‘free’ school fees at $30 per week per child and petrol at $1.20per litre, it makes for an impossible life.

Another border crossing, into another country. Border crossings are so different to arriving on a plane particularly in Cambodia. You’d expect to see with a horse and wooden cart taking our luggage over the border. Except the horses were humans and the border is nearly as obvious as a line in the sand. Within the first 5 minutes of being in Thailand, I twisted my ankle and left the camera in Cambodia and mentioned to my guide quietly that I’d seen two lady boys already. He said “shhh”. I thought that was weird, as the only two people in ear shot was our driver and his wife….or a lady man wife.

With every beginning, there must be an end. 16 hours after arriving into Bangkok it was time to farewell the friends we had made. Some just for a short time – We planned on watching the Super Bowl (on tv) with Nick in New Orleans in February and seeing Rita and Frank in Switzerland in September. Fortunately Damo, Shazz and Stephen live around Australia so with a camping trip planned for next year, that’s something to look forward to. It’s people that make the holiday and they have certainly made ours. I’m going to miss the “what ya wana do”, “I dunno, walk around find a beer”. Life is good.

As I reflect on the last 5 days, it’s very much full of mixed emotion. I had no expectations coming into Cambodia, no prior knowledge what so ever. Like many countries they have a story to tell. In some countries the story is spoken louder than others. I see this country has suffered so much, and is still suffering. What shocks me is knowing the reason for rarely seeing any people over the age of 40. What saddens me is seeing the poverty this country is in with no way of it changing. What brings me hope is knowing the strength the Buddist religion brings to these people.
A wise man once told me (Stephen and it was yesterday): Travelling can be amazingly fun, but much of our world is so so sad it is heartbreaking. Cambodia is an amazing place with amazing people and history. Your sorrow and pity won’t help the locals. Listening to their story and being part of their future will. Much like Vietnam, tourism is a big part of their future.

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