July 15th, 2007
When I was a kid growing up in Australia I would often visit my grand parent’s house after my grandfather would return home from his globe trotting adventures all over the world to watch slides of his trip and receive all sorts of presents and trinkets from his travels. As much as I did love getting the weird and wonderful gifts from my grandfather that no other kids would have from places I had never heard of, I was always fascinated by the slides showing pictures of my grandfather in exotic locations. I knew then that my dream was to travel the world and fortunately for me I am now living that dream. My adventure in Cambodia was another chapter in my life’s adventure.
Being from Australia which is a relatively new country I have always been fascinated by history since there isn’t much in Australia more than about 200 years old. Although in Australia we do have some ancient aboriginal artwork in caves dating back thousands of years there is no ancient architecture at all. One of the most alluring features for me in regards taking an adventure in Cambodia was to see Angkor Wat with my own two eyes. Angkor Wat is the ancient city of temples near Siem Reap in Cambodia which was virtually swallowed by the jungle hundreds of years ago.
I flew from Bangkok arriving in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia on my first day. After arriving I made my way from the Phnom Penh International airport, not very big by international standards but a clean and efficient airport, to a small hotel by the river. The river is pretty dirty but from the river you can walk to just about anywhere in Phnom Penh or catch a boat to other parts of Cambodia.
Phnom Penh is not like the Wild West cowboy town it once was quite a few years back although it is certainly not like your classic “civilized” city in the western world either. Like much of Cambodia, Phnom Penh is very much an “anything goes” kind of town and if you have the money there is not much you couldn’t do or get your hands on. If you are looking for a decadent holiday destination set amongst patches of beauty with an assorted mix of friendly locals and foreign adventure seekers with both moral and immoral intentions, put Phnom Penh at the top of your list of places to visit. Phnom Penh is not a good or bad place, it simply is was it is and definitely worth visiting at least once in your life, it’s kind of like one giant amusing madhouse that seems really interesting at first but after a couple of days it feels like it is time to move on. It is not a place I would like to get stuck for any length of time.
After exploring the streets of Phnom Penh, some temples, a fine Khmer museum and the King’s Palace I booked a ticket for a boat ride that would take me from Phnom Penh, along an almost 300 kilometer stretch of river through the Cambodian jungle to the town of Siem Reap which lies next to the ancient temple city of Angkor Wat. I woke up early on the morning of my boat trip and made the short walk from my hotel to the boat jetty. To my surprise the boat actually looked quite sleek and at that point I felt quite confident the boat would probably make the five hour journey to Siam Reap. I had heard from friends who had traveled through Cambodia before that all forms of transport are very unreliable and don’t be surprised if you don’t make it to your destination till much later than expected, if at all. I was not in a hurry so I was prepared for just about anything having traveled through other parts of Asia before.
The boat was a ripper, it never even looked like slowing down or sinking. A similar boat actually did sink on the same trip from Phnom Penh to Siam Reap a few years back and it was while the boat was in the middle of the vast inner sea within Cambodia and I believe everyone drowned. I thought the entire trip was along a river and was quite amazed when we entered this huge inland sea. It is so big in fact that at one point we could not see any land in all directions. It was just another interesting memory of my Cambodian adventure. I remember it had been quite sunny for most on the trip along the river but as we got into the middle of the inland sea, storm clouds appeared almost instantly and we got hit by an intense rainstorm. Just as we sighted land again and the port at Siam Reap the clouds dissipated and all of a sudden it was sunny again.
I had paid a whopping $2 extra when I bought my boat ticket to have someone pick me up from the pier at Siam Reap and take me to my hotel. Waiting for me was a smiling Cambodian tuk tuk driver holding a sign with my name on it. It was an interesting ride from the pier to the hotel as we traveled through the rice fields and into Siam Reap town. Once at the hotel I organized my tuk tuk driver to meet me back at the hotel on the following morning at 5am to take me to Angkor Wat before the sun came up.
After checking into the hotel I went for a walk around Siam Reap, had a bite to eat and casually walked around some of the huge markets which sell just about anything you could imagine. It is amazing every time you walk through a market anywhere in Asia you always manage to see something you have never seen before. In these Cambodian markets I saw some strange looking fruit that looked like they were from another planet. I can’t even remember the names of these fruits but they tasted ok.
Right on time my tuk tuk driver arrived and we headed to Angkor Wat for the most exciting part of my adventure in Cambodia. It was dark and actually a bit cool but I felt excited because I just knew it was going to be so much better than looking at photos of these ancient temples. I was not to be disappointed.
By the time we arrived at Angkor Wat which was about 40 minutes from my hotel it was still dark but many tourists were arriving to catch their first glimpse of the temple as the sun came up in the background. If you are heading to Angkor Wat I would recommend arriving at the temples before sunrise as the experience is one I will certainly never forget. As we arrived, the tuk tuk driver parked in a car park and we walked towards what I thought was the main temple but since it was so dark and there were no lights it was hard to see anything. As it turned out what I thought was the front on the temple was just a huge wall surrounding the temple. Once we walked up to and then under the wall, I realized the temple was set much further back towards the jungle but it was still difficult to see as it was just so dark.
As the first rays of sunlight broke through in the background what I saw absolutely knocked me over. The main temple at Angkor Wat is absolutely enormous. I looked around at the crowds of people standing near me and people were simply speechless just staring at this immense colossal structure sitting there in the jungle virtually untouched for almost 1,000 years. Photos of Angkor just do not do it justice, the size of this thing is just too much for words and is one of those things you need to see to believe.
As I walked up closer to the temple it just filled up the sky in front of me and I disappeared into the gigantic structure. After about 2 hours of wandering in and around the temple my tuk tuk driver suggested we get moving since there is much, much more to see and if we move now we will get ahead of the crowds.
We moved on to Angkor Thom which was not quite as big as Angkor Wat but another entirely different temple and equally impressive. I knew there was more than one temple but I never knew just how many temple complexes there were scattered through the Angkor archeological park. It was simply immense and just as we finished exploring one temple we would move onto the next and then on and on to more and more temples all different in size and shape from the previous ones. This was the type of adventure in Cambodia I was hoping for and it was even better than I imagined it would be. It was like an Indiana Jones movie come to life, it really was, that best explains how I felt the whole time I was there.
Back before 1860 the temples at Angkor were just a myth since no Europeans had ever seen them but locals told stories about these huge temples built by Gods or giants. When Angkor Wat was first seen by explorer Henri Mahout in 1860 the temples were partly covered by the jungle although now a lot of the jungle has been cleared from some of the temples to allow for easier access. While I was there I tried to imagine what it must have felt like to first discover this massive jungle city. Fortunately it is much the same as it was since that day it was discovered by Europeans and this is what makes it so special. There are no apartment blocks, shops or fast food restaurants built near by. It is just the temples and the jungle, nothing else, although these days the temples are filled with tourists as this is the biggest tourist attraction in all of Cambodia and perhaps one of the most impressive tourist attractions in the world. I loved every moment I was there.
Later that night my tuk tuk driver picked me up and we went for dinner and a live Cambodian cultural show where dancers dressed in traditional Khmer costumes danced and played traditional music in a fantastically choreographed show that I thoroughly enjoyed. The show included an all you can eat buffet dinner and your tuk tuk driver can eat for free. I don’t know who was hungrier him or me after walking around all those temples all day but I was certainly well satisfied by the time I finished dinner and he looked pretty happy as well.
The following day on my adventure in Cambodia I went to the landmine museum out in the country side along an old dirt road. The Siam Reap landmine museum is quite a sad place to be as it is also the home to many landmine victims who live there but all the people who lived and worked there looked to be a very happy bunch of people. In general I found the Cambodian people to be very hospitable and friendly where ever I went. Sadly Cambodians have lived through a horror most of us could not even dare to imagine under the dictatorship of ex Khmer ruler, the genocidal manic Pol Pot. Life in Cambodia is still no paradise but it is improving.
After a few days in Siam Reap I took the boat back to Phnom Penh for one more day and then flew back home to Bangkok. Although Cambodia is quite dirty in a lot of areas, there are many land mine victims all over the country which is heartbreaking to see and a slightly oppressive feeling amongst the people, it was certainly worth the trip. My adventure in Cambodia was an excellent experience to see and learn about another culture and one I will never forget.
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