$2 to the Laos government to leave their country, $1 to the non-official looking health screening and $2 to the Cambodia government followed by a hot walk with all of my bags to cross the border to be told the bus is already full. This was my introduction to Cambodia, questionably affectionately termed Scambodia, to steal Roy's term. And it kept getting better as 2 hours late from a 14 hr bus ride including 5 or 6 minibuses, I finally found my hostel an hour later in the pitch black and then had a creepy, crawly thing land on my leg in the hostel and wouldn't you know it, I screamed bloody murder but the thing was huge and green, I have pictures and Jai was my witness! How nice to meet up again, she was the best thing about Phnom Penh. Ahhhh, the city that smells like a zoo. Really I'm trying to think of good words about it but I just can not. This is the dirtiest city I've ever been to, it's hot, touts are everywhere, tuk tuks pull up right next to you practically running you over and the drivers get mad when you're not interested in using their services. And this was just my first day. Then again, Cambodia really does pack a tourist punch with the horrific genocidal history as exemplified by the S21 torture museum and the killing fields and then you have one of the magnificent wonders of the world showcasing the glory days of Khmer history: Angkor Wat. My Scambodian experience also included a slow boat from Siem Reap to Battambang with a tour of villages making fish paste (yummy smell ewwwww) complete with a ride on a bamboo train then I partied in the beach town of Sihanoukville. So I thought I'd love Cambodia, thought it'd be the highlight of my southeast Asian tour blah blah blah but this was not the case mostly as you are constantly bothered with touts all vying for your business selling the exact same product and the beggars on the beach, some missing limbs which you feel horrible about, all this resulting in my never really relaxing. Even so, I did thoroughly enjoy Siem Reap and Battambang. So here are the sordid details:
PHNOM PENH
Me mates place hostel: where the sheets are dirty and ants explode all over your banana chips. Pictures to follow.
The first day we walked around in the heat looking for the torture prison. Supposedly the city is set up in a grid system like American cities but not true. Walked around looking for block 182 and it didn't exist, walked between 178 and 184 like morons in the heat.
Eventually we found the S 21 Prison Tong Sleng, an expectedly depressing place with only 8 survivors. This was where political prisoners were held and tortured and pictures and torture equipment were on display. We walked through the cells where prisoners were held prior to being tortured. Mug shots were taken of every single person who died, prominently displayed along with some truly horrific pictures of people who had been tortured to death on the beds. A massively somber place to visit but felt to not acknowledge the genocide Cambodia went through is to not fully appreciate the country you are visiting.
Needing to let go of the heaviness, what better way than a trip to the local pharmacy. Jai wouldn't let me go on my own and I'm so glad she didn't as trying to translate the list of things needed was too comical to experience on one's own. Imagine needing a pregnancy test, contact solution and first aid care for a burn at a street side pharmacy where English is barely spoken. Comical to say the very least. Pregnancy test needed no explanation. Very few Cambodians use contacts so they brought me eye drops at first, then had to do a massive charades act involving going to sleep at night to get what I needed but the funniest ever was burn care. Because the city was so very dirty, I needed to cover my open wound but couldn't find anything to keep the antibiotic cream from sticking to the gauze. Jai and I both went through a couple of explanations and finally all I needed to say was BURN! I was praying I did not have to go to a hospital as it did not look like it was healing well so a quick email picture to the best nurse in the world (luv ya Leah girl!) consoled me that it was healing fine, yippppeeeee. Although experiencing a Cambodian hospital would surely entail some other hilarious story, I'm sure.
Time to experience some nightlife, well at least a good Mexican restaurant. I was absolutely craving guacamole, I'm such a Texas girl, no luck and it was really bad Mexican food, what I get for trying Western food. This is when I started getting annoyed at the touts, in the restaurants they even come up to you, there is absolutely no escape, the children will touch you and they won't take no for an answer. And "hey lady, want tuk tuk?" This was repeated ad nauseum.
The next day, ironically, is where I first saw PP could be nice, the tuk tuk ride to the countryside was really quite beautiful. But the destination not so much: The killing fields a.k.a. Cheung Eok Genocide Center. In reality, I thought they were done quite well, I was expecting to leave rather depressed and instead felt hopeful that the perpetrators would be held accountable for their horrific acts. So far only Duch admitted remorse for atrocities and crimes committed against humanity. He's been in prison since 1999 awaiting trial, other officials are still denying the killing occurred, can you imagine? Very curious history, the Cambodian government didn't ask for help from the UN until 1997, the Vietnamese liberated Cambodia almost 20 years earlier in 1979. But what the government is doing correct now is encouraging people to visit so future generations learn and don't repeat this horrific pattern. But I don't understand why the government is not forcing officials from the Khmer Rouge to trial. Another curious tidbit is not all grave sites have been excavated so the total number of people who died from Pol Pot and his regime is unknown. All in all, glad to experience all this with someone, it would have been miserable to not have anyone to talk to about the experience afterwards. The actual grounds were full of graves with headless people, one just for women and children, and another for those who died naked. :( Immediately upon entering the fields, you see the stupa filled with skulls in tiers, at the bottom there's clothing and each tier contains different ages of skulls. This stupa was built to commemorate the 10 year anniversary of liberation day.
We had to find some lightness and it came at the expense of my fellow country men. A very badly dressed older man was very loudly commenting on a bird chirping in the tree. Oh, did I mention he was in suspenders and a very tacky Jesus saves shirt and had a beer belly protruding out of said suspenders/pants. Ok, not very nice of me but desperately seeking humor at this point. Jai just had to ask him where he was from, assuming he was American, I was so happy he was not. And I won't bash any other country by divulging where he was from. So it was off to the races, had to get back quickly for the bus to Siem Reap but not without first racing another tuk tuk full of German boys. All in all, 2 nights, 36 hours was plenty of time in PP.
SIEM REAP
Cara Croft (thanks for the new nickname Gwen) is happy to report Siem Reap is a whole different story! But really, how can you go wrong with the amazing ruins of Angkor Wat? Well, to get there was another smelly adventure, really sometimes I wish I didn't have such a keen sense of smell. It was the bus there, it truly smelled like a zoo, this country doesn't smell well at all and it gets worse in Sihanoukville the sewage system was just rank...but I digress. Truly, the buses are an interesting journey with the constant honking to let others know we're approaching but is it even possible to miss such huge buses? And the shadiest bus stations you've ever seen....never in the US would you even think of taking a bus ride from these places but alas when in Cambodia. I should mention the buses themselves are not horrible, it's the crazy driving and honking and toilets on the bus ewwww.
Hostel was pretty cool, we stayed in a 6 bed mixed dorm glad Jai was with me though, we both disliked a pompous American who always locked the bathroom door when showering for what seemed like hours, really that's about triple the amount of time any girl needs but I will restrict my judgment any further. Met lots of cool peeps though: Barry from the UK whom I would later travel with for a bit, Jean, a tour guide from Ireland, and Tom from England to name a few. Except you boys were kinda smelly (here I go again) and the shower sometimes refused to come out, mostly just cold dribble and there were brown outs or power outages, all the pleasures of Cambodian hostel living.
So here's how our little daily routine went: our tuk tuk driver picked us up from the bus station and apparently he was assigned to us for the whole trip. There must be jealousy among drivers, if we decided we didn't want him for the day, then what? Theour was ours and we loved him! He looked like Batman with his jacket blowing in the wind! And he loved Jai! He wanted her to try a local, oh no, he didn't, yes he actually said that! He was absolutely fascinated with her tongue ring and yes, I have to say it, her boobs. He couldn't take his eyes off her, we caught him looking as he was driving, uh oh! He got such a kick out of us! Once as we were driving we were discussing something about sex and absolutely forgot he could understand us, well he pulled a really fast turn, was laughing and said he missed his turn, RIGHT!! I digress yet again. Basically, the tuk tuk is a nice way to see the ruins, you can enjoy the breeze as you are shuttled from ruin to ruin and greeted with every sort of hawker imaginable once you stop. Lady, want water? Bracelet? Flute? Book? Lady, you promise when get back buy from me I remember you. At least it's not outright begging, they are just clamoring for your money and using bracelets instead. Sound jaded? Oh yeah, it took away from the majesty of the place, you just experienced some of the great wonders of the world only to be rushed back to the reality of the Cambodian way of doing business, in your face and unrelenting. Decided right then and there I must look at this in a different way. Jai was even more annoyed by them, they drove her absolutely mental, so when getting ready to approach the touts after breakfast, I said here, Jai, take my camera, I really want postcards and water from these kids, let's consider this a cultural experiment. So I went out with guns blazing (a.k.a. dollar bills in my hands) and wouldn't you know, I was virtually attacked, the kids swarmed around me. There was meanness and competition between the kids, this was apparent when trying to distribute the money evenly, there were ugly words and I was told I was rude when I didn't buy from each of them. Wow, Jai and I told the kids not to be rude, they didn't think they were. Sad. Unfortunately, they make more money than their parents and must give all the money they make to their family. On another occasion, a kid wanted coins from our country even as he couldn't exchange them, Cambodia only uses US dollars but just the notes and gives change in riel but no coins. This kid could name off each country's coin, this is definitely a future investment banker in the making if he can get out of the poverty cycle. He was the one kid I gave money to.
So I guess I should go into details on the ruins themselves. Of course, Angkor Wat was our first stop and it was impressive although in scaffolding and we were not appropriately dressed as it was considered a wat even though monks don't live there, huh? Even when visiting ruins one must cover shoulders and legs, wild. It was so hot so I just showed my disrespect, sorry Buddha. The next ruin, Bayon was full of faces. Two faced people existed even back then, who knew. :) Next stop was the most popular one at sunset as was obvious with the hordes of people all rushing to the top, made me want to just casually stroll. Definitely didn't dress appropriately for this either as I completely flashed Jai (for this I continue to apologize) as I went up first climbing the steep steps. Once she glanced up she couldn't stop laughing and others tried to climb up right after me and she kept laughing and when others not understanding English tried to climb after me she wouldn't let them and I just continued to carry on my way slowly climbing up with my dress between my legs covering as much as I possibly could while tears rolled down my face I was laughing so hard! Don't wear a dress to this ruin, just a kind suggestion! And I apologize for not wearing proper panties and for whoever else I gross out by saying this, oy.
It got even better! So we were just sitting on the ruin steps minding our own business enjoying the view when I was almost pushed over! A Japanese tourist lost his footing when trying to take a picture and couldn't stop laughing, meanwhile almost pushing me off the ruins, I grabbed Jai and she would've followed after me had she not caught me. Oh and then as were leaving trying to get a head start before all the other tourists left climbing down at the same time, a man leaped onto me! I kid you not! WTH? Do I have trip me, push me, hurt me, written all over my face? Funnily enough, this was on a day Jai termed for me to be accident free. Well I somehow survived but do not have fond memories of that ruin other than flashing poor Jai! After many ruins, I knew I'd never remember the names unless I renamed them myself. So faces it became, Lara Croft, Stairway to heaven, Headless peeps, Elephant tower, and water stagnation. Ta Prohm aka Tomb Raider temple was easy enough, either that or trees gone wild! What a cool place to film a movie!
Siem Reap itself is a cute town with lots of good restaurants, a night market, and Pub St with tons of you guessed it, pubs. Angelina Jolie has a drink named after her at Red Piano bar. As you can imagine, they love her! Had a meal at the night market for $2 which consisted of chicken lok lak and a mango shake, not too shabby. One night we went to the Butterfly restaurant which gives some of its' proceeds to benefit children. As I have a fondness for things/words lost in translation and notice misspelled words and how they are mispronounced like flied lice, I sometimes take it too far. For instance, I loved when our server said cakecheese instead of cheesecake, is it mean that I asked him to repeat a few times? And shrimps, it cracks me up every time! Ok, please refer to engrish.com and you get my kind of humor. I guess it was my karma when I walked out to the tuk tuk, Theour jumped out at me and of course, I screamed bloody murder. Anyway, another random note, I'm getting used to having others do my laundry, it's really quite nice but I had never had a place count out the pieces and then when returned all had yellow ties on them. Meticulous! The little things that never cease to amaze me. Hmmm, either that or I amuse quite easily.
A night of cultural dancing was not exactly my cup of tea but thought I'd open my mind a bit, it was kinda interesting but mostly for the buffet, a bit too touristy for my taste or maybe it was ruined by the Russian men beside us as they left halfway through the performance and were loud and rude the other half. Afterwards checked out the night market but so low on money couldn't buy anything. Finally received my second wire from my parents and it came at exactly the right time: I only had $53 left to my name in cash which just so happened to be the exact amount I owed Jai, wicked! It was quite a frustrating thing to have your cards sent to Siem Reap and never arriving not realizing when I ordered them how terrible the post system was. We even went in to the post office to see if my card was just sitting there and the mailman instructed us to go through all of the mail and check in their book!! Not a very efficient nor private system but it amused us for half an hour. Some poor lady has a million letters just waiting for her gathering dust.
On the last day visiting the ruins, we got up for the sunrise and could only stomach returning to Angkor Wat, which truly was stunning. Even dressed appropriately this time so we could climb up the tower but wouldn't you know it, it was too early but not early enough for the men to offer to take us up for a steep price. So how is it not appropriate for them to be complete jerks to us and we are inappropriate by not covering our shoulders? So enough of the ruins, we asked Theour to drive us around the countryside and we saw some gorgeous countryside and made Theour stop when a motorcycle was passing by with 4 dead pigs on them! He must've thought we were nuts but really we don't see this in our respective countries. We tried to visit a floating forest but when we tried to split the cost with a Spanish couple and were told we were unable to, the Cambodian way of business, we were tired of feeling like we were getting ripped off so in principle skipped it and just enjoyed the ride instead!
Battambang and Sihanoukville to follow....this post is already so long!
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