Holiday in Cambodia

After ditching Koh Phangan, we decided to head to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We told a neighbouring backpacker this, and his response was “Why don’t you go somewhere closer, like Antarctica?”. That guy was smart. We got a taxi to the other side of the island (minivan with five people over capacity, fun), then hopped in a pretty sweet catamaran (prior to this we’d had super shitty ferries) to take us via Koh Tao island to the mainland. Four or five hours later, we arrived on land and could finally stop feeling seasick. We narrowly avoid missing the bus (Ariel has a fondness for going wandering at the exact moment our transport arrives), and stay on it for eight or nine hours to get to Bangkok. The movies on the bus made the ride pretty easy. Surprisingly, Meet Dave is a decent movie. Unsurprisingly, Barely Legal isn’t. 

A short cab ride with two Swedish backpackers later (they claimed to be from Bali to confuse the driver), we were in Khao San road, the seediest place in Bangkok, but home to the cheapest accommodation and therefore all the backpackers. We stayed in room above a bar in a dodgy alleyway for 250 baht between us (maybe six dollars each). I checked my Lonely Planet before nodding off at 3am to discover that the train to the Cambodian border leaves at five to six in the morning, so we slept for two hours then forced ourselves out. Six hours on a public train (470km for $2, now that’s value) with minimal sleep. Tuk tuk to the border, via two or three stop offs for local arseholes to try to con us into buying fake visas for the border crossing. Every shop in the area was a “border checkpoint” or “visa service”, more scams than you can poke a stick at. Eventually we made it to the border, only to discover it wasn’t much better. Form after form, corrupt police officials demanding bribes, this place had it all. One form required a passport photo (which they conveniently neglect to tell you), and when the tourists inevitably don’t have one they get charged five bucks to get one taken, only they never actually take your picture because they don’t care and it’s just blatant profiteering. The captain in charge tried to charge me ten dollars worth of baht extra because I wanted to pay in US Dollars (which the signs actually tell you to do). Half an hour of arguing using hand motions and writing stuff eventually wore the guy down and we made it through relatively unscammed.

We met an Aussie chick called Elaine, and realised that if the three of us shared a taxi it worked out cheaper than getting a crowded and slow bus to Siem Reap, so we did that. Worst road ever, pretty fun. Driver scored us a free tuk tuk to some accommodation, which turned out to be the best place we’ve stayed at so far. Stayed on with Elaine and became travel buddies for a couple of days.

Siem Reap is known for one thing only – Angkor Wat. This is a thousand year old temple in ruins, and the tourism it attracts is all that’s propping up the Cambodian economy. As well as Angkor Wat, there are a staggering number of smaller structures scattered around the area, ranging from 200m away to 50km. This includes Ta Prohm, a temple with tree roots bursting through the walls (it was in the Tomb Raider movie – all the bars have pictures of Angelina EVERYWHERE), the Bayon, which has the face of the king who built it looking at you from every direction (there are 216 giant faces in the place), and Angkor Thom, a cool temple on top of a big hill with amazing views. We met another Aussie chick and spent the day with her (we’re getting good at this). She was a linguist of sorts, so we went to some remote corner of Angkor Wat, found a bunch of monks and Cambodian teenagers, and hung out with them for a while (the head monk was sitting down fiddling with his iPhone. I couldn’t help laughing). The moment you try to speak their language, the locals all light up and start bending over backwards to help you out. I saw some other locals floating through the rather disgusting moat that surrounds Angkor Wat. When I asked one of the monks what they were doing, he kicks of his shoes, wades into the river and plucks out a cool flower thing out of the water and hands it to me. They use the stalks in soup, so after getting schooled on the proper pronunciation of the dish that it’s in, we went off and found a local who could cook it for us. It was an awesome curry-like soup with vermicelli noodles, and a massive bowl of various garnishes (including the flower and stalk) to cut up and stick in. Ariel went straight for the bowl of MSG because he claims it’s really tasty. We went back to the temples (saw a huge pig tied to the back of a motorbike on the way) and went to one up a huge hill. We decided against going down the main path, and instead opted to dodge incoming elephants as we walked down the elephant path (they sell tacky elephant rides to tourists).
Oh yeah, all this Angkor Wat stuff happened on Christmas day. Probably the weirdest Christmas I’ve ever had, something Ariel, being Jewish, didn’t really understand. We met up with Elaine again and hit the town. Pizza and beer, an excellent Christmas dinner by anyone’s standards (and paying fifty cents for a can of Asahi is fucking awesome). The owner of the restaurant was the happiest guy in the universe, and came out with massive CD wallet so we could pick some music for the place. Next we picked the only bar that was packed with people. Angkor What? is an excellent place (“Promoting irresponsible drinking over the festive season”), full of young travellers, and good drinks. Every surface is COVERED in signatures and messages from past patrons, and the music selection was pretty awesome (an extreme rarity in south east Asia). With a nod to the Thais, the pitchers of various drinks were served in big buckets. Five bucks for ridiculously strong rum and coke (we’re talking full beer glass of spirits). We got some buckets and got chatting to some more Aussies (they’re everywhere!), then danced around like maniacs. After an hour or so, Elaine drags me away from playing pool and getting travel advice from drunk Scottish dudes and takes me outside, where I find Ariel lying on the ground moaning, surrounded by concerned looking locals. He’s thrown up on himself. The other Aussie guys were cool and had paid for a tuk tuk to get us back to our guesthouse, so I walk an extremely intoxicated Ariel back to the room, where he collapses in front of the toilet in the bathroom and refuses to move. 

Today we’ve woken up at noon and have once again wasted half the day that we were meant to be spending at the horrendously overpriced temples. We’re gonna wind our way down Cambodia and spend new year’s eve on the coast.

Merry Christmas.