Staf & Desh travel the world: Siam Reap

When you have 34degree heat and 90% humidity a swimming pool is a complete god send. Especially when you spend 5 hours exposed to the direct elements exploring temples. Perhaps we are a little indulgent at times, when some people we talked to were spending $2 staying in boxes with ceiling fans to cool down.. Fools!

We got to Siam Reap via bus from Phnom Penh - it takes about 6 hours. One of the biggest highlights of the journey was seeing the alternative transportation available. Instead of buses, the locals take pickup trucks or vans.. Sounds pretty sweet right? Well, with the pickup trucks they literally pile as many people as they can onto the back - perhaps up to 20, and the hilux will be usually tilted to one side dangerously weaving. Even better than the hilux is the van. Sure, you may be packed into this vessel like a sardine.. But maybe you are lucky compared to the 20 odd people on the ROOF - no handles and no roof rack to hang on to. I remember seeing jackass doing the same thing on one of their daredevil episodes. They called it car surfing, and hung on to a roof rack while doing a short stint through a tunnel. These guys just sit calmly for 6 hours at high speed in casual conversation. My absolute favourite out of the bunch though was a white van doing 80-100kmh with one guy cross legged on top in the centre. It looked as though he was praying for his life ( I think he may have been trying to light an incense stick but the wind wouldn’t allow;) . Unfortunately we were on a 2 level bus so the camera couldn’t capture the moment.

As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, Monsoons are early this year, so we had the most incredible lightning and thunder storm to enjoy for half an hour or so. With the sheet rain we had what seemed like a large cannon exploding next to the windows of the bus - it felt so close and dangerous - the bus was pretty quiet throughout.

** Another Monsoon story (sorry). On the second day at our Siam Reap hotel a giant storm broke out - so vicious that the power kept dipping out. After it was over I went down to reception where our cute little receptionist apologised for her tears “I’m sorry, I get so scared during thunder that I always cry - I can never think properly afterwards” . Because of the storm we lost internet for 2 more days.. But I’m grateful it wasn’t the power as that is really unstable here too.

With the travel comes regular bus stops at hawking grounds with little kids trying their best to sell you what they can. In this case they had bags of mango and pineapple which I resisted for a while - but then gave in and bought one of each. They are sooo happy, that after this they stated saying “thank you handsome man”. Next to us was a American guy with some unfortunate acne.. They didn’t take a shining to him and decided to gang up and pick on him. It was actually pretty funny, as we all got on the bus but he was right by the door, so for 10 minutes they stood there going “hey, not so handsome man.. Come on buy from us” and cracking up all the time - damn kids can be cruel.

Siam Reap is a pretty simple town. It is basically set out in a cross - one a thoroughfare main road with hotels - one a road into town with a few smaller streets inside - and one the road to the temples. If you want to eat you roll to “pub street” and get yourself some incredible food for $3USD and draft beer for 50c - happy hour rolls from start to close. Happy hour in Vietnam, and Cambodia seems to be the same, just a word they learned to use and stretch it to the extreme. Some bars have written up on their boards - “Happy day - 0.50c to close”

Ok....So this is what I’m going to do.. You really don’t need to be bored by facts, temple names and dates - cause it may not mean much until you get here yourself. So I will start with a quick sum up blurb, and then separate a couple of the 300 taken photos in daily clusters.. There - that should be fun right?

Fact sheet. Angkor Wat is the vision of King Suryavarman II.. He was a cool dude who decided that his reign should be rewarded with a royal temple that could perhaps be used as a tomb for him.. Somewhere around 1112-1152.

Then you have Angkor Thom which is a walled compound built by king Jayavarman as a Palace somewhere in the period 1181-1219.

Right - very summarised - but this is where they went crazy and just started building temple after temple until they had covered enough space for a Tuk Tuk tour to drive 37 kms.

The temples are a mix of styles, religions and movements. Since 1100 The Khmer people had been at war with the Champa - again and again. At one point the Champa defeated the Khmer and took over the temples - scratching out designs and doing some of their own scribbles. This is when Phnom Penh became a capital city. A hundred years or so passes and the King says “hey - what the.. I want the temple back” So they head up North and go on a Champa killing spree and take it back over.

Then.. Somewhere along the line it becomes a Hindu ownership - so designs get scrubbed again and new pretty pictures tapped into sandstone.

You will see in a lot of photos that heads are missing from statues. This is because when the Khmer Rouge were killing people and causing terror they decided to come up to the temples and chop the heads off to remove the Khmer identity. The heads were taken to the border and sold to the Thais who have placed some in museums, but mainly have sold them onto filthy rich Westerners for their gardens.. Beats having a gnome I guess. Another sad thing is the light chambers.. Most temples have giant chimney type structures that filter light down.. Well, these chambers are full of holes that used to contain precious gems ready to twinkle and reflect the daily sun.. stolen!

Today many people of Cambodia believe it was built by Giants - as they can’t imagine how it possibly got built - as the stones are massive. Each stone has holes drilled in it where I imagine poles were slotted for carrying and lifting. The other perplexing issue is where did all this stone come from? Desh and I reckon the flat city of Siam Riep actually was a mountain and they flattened it carting the stone up the road.

OK.. Can you tell that we didn’t have a $25 guide teaching us anything? We know better.

First day at the temples! The long circuit (27 kms).. Made up with the surrounding temples to Angkor Wat.
Unfortunately for me I woke up with some bad food poisoning from what I suspect was the cute little fruit hawkers kiddies - why WHYYYyy did I eat all the fruit in both bags.. And a fresh cold that Desh was rocking a few days before.

So into a Tuk Tuk ($15 for a whole day) we hopped with gripping stomach cramps, sweaty fever and runny nose. We had opted to do the long circuit which is 27kms of temples surrounding Angkor Wat. We really wanted to keep Angkor until the last day as it really is a special journey highlight.

Day two - short circuit (17 kms).. Probably the best temples on offer around Angkor Wat. We had the option of seeing Angkor at the end of the day - but refused so we could see it at sunrise on day 3.

Our first stop was actually a roadside attraction - a family of monkeys climbing up trees and leaping into a puddle below. They understood English - and the Cambodians were counting down from 3 - then the baby monkeys would leap - they were just like hypo children. These 2 pics are from a deal gone bad - the kid was feeding them, but obviously the goods weren't up to standard.

Day three - Angkor Wat sunrise. We were up at 4.30am and unto our Tuk Tuk for the drive to the temple to see the bleeding sun rise over this special place. We got there at 5 and almost no one was around - awesome. So we wandered along to a spot on the bridge leading to the temple and set base. Ten minutes go by and suddenly we are surrounded by 100s of tourists arriving in droves from big buses, so we jump off the bridge and instead find a great little spot of water with Angkor reflected into it.. Fantastic for photos. All was silent, and then at once like an alarm clock had gone off a million cicada piped up and started playing their song. Then some birds living in the tower of Angkor Wat decided to radce at full speed around and around, excited that another day had begun for them.

Unfortunately the cloud was quite thick so we didn’t see any incredible rising sun - but it was still special being there and with the sights and sounds. Funny thing was, that we went in to explore and almost no tourists followed - I guess they had the rest of their tour to complete first.. Phew.