Cambodia 柬埔寨

Cambodia

An eyes opener to Angkok Wat

Cambodia, is know as the third world country, a place having full of bombs out in the field. Many bombs were hide under group and it will blow out anyone if you are very lucky to walk pass by.

When I told my friends I'm going there or after I came back from Cambodia, my friends would asked me; “safe to go?” I do saw a few local people; some was without their leg and some was without hand. Most likely, they were the one caught by the bomb.

Siem Reap

At the Bayon gate.
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Well, we finally reached Cambodia at the Siem Reap custom in noon; we had applied our arrival VISA to enter into the Combodia. It was a small airport and outside the airport, there were many type of transport waiting for visitors.

The transport fare will base on what type of transport you choose. There were van, car, truck and even motorbike as their way of transport. As we were budget travelers, we had chosen motorbike as our transport to look for a place to stay.

As my friend had done a bit of planning, she had the name of the place and we told both riders to go to the place we wanted. On our way there, the rider will introduce to us to stay in their hotel, it is cheap and clean with air-con and so on, I told him to bring us to the place we wanted first and we will look at the room and decide whether to stay.

As soon as we arrived the place we wanted, we asked the motorbike guys wait for a while, we went and check the room which was available for us, we found it clean and come with hot shower, so we had accepted the room and check in.

As my friend was inside at the counter fill up form for checking in, I went outside, to inform the motorbike rider that we will stay there and I'd paid him for his service. As I was prepare to go inside the local hostel, the motorbike guy started to talk to me, asking me to booked their bike for tour around and how much he charge and so on, while he was sharing, my friend came out, we were very tired on our first day of arrival as we didn't sleep well the night before on the train, I told him that we needs to rest first before we decide it and I walked away, he was talking to my friend and gives her his name card so that we can give him a call when we need it.

When my friend returned to the room, we both were already half dead and wanted to sleep, no mood to go elsewhere. We take turn to have a quick shower and we went lying on the bed straight the way, less than 3 minutes, I had fallen asleep. We slept through the whole afternoon till evening we woke up to have our dinner.

As it was our first day in Cambodia, we were so tired and lazy to walk, opposite of our hostel have one restaurant and we went cross to have our dinner there. It was a great meal we had in the restaurant, after finish our dinner we were ready to go back to our hostel.

Suddenly, the same motorbike guy was appealing in front of us asking us the same question again. I told him the same thing, we have not decide and we walked away, went back to our room.

In our room, I was discussing with my friend what we intend to do and what transport to take. My friend wanted to take motorbike (as it was the cheapest) from the same guy to explore around, just the same way we did in Laos and Chiang Mai but I felt very strange about this guy who keep on coming to us. We can't rent a bike on our own, as we were not familiar with the area.

To book two bikes, one on each bike, I felt not safe and furthermore we can't talk on our way to place of interest. I told her to choose “tuk tuk” as our transport to travel around. I told her the benefit of having the “tuk tuk”, we can seated relax, still can talk to each other along the way to place of interest and the most important it is safe to be together, if we took two motorbike, if the guys are bad and they gang up, we may be separated and we will be in danger all by ourselves alone. Well, after the discussion going on…. my friend has agreed with me to take “tuk tuk” as our transport to move around.

Next day morning, as we step outside of our hostel, we saw a “tuk tuk” and we were asking and checking on price going to place of interest. When we have finally set a price to book for three days, just about to on board the tuk tuk, the motorbike guy appeal at this time again, he was angry to see us on board the tuk tuk, not taking his motorbike and he started to scold…. I told my friend to ignore him and quickly on board the tuk tuk, as soon as we seated, I asked the tuk tuk guy to move on. I was not boarder by the motorbike guy at all, he doesn't appeal to me as a good guy, a bit like gangster look.

Our first day tour, right the way to the famous spot of Angkok Wat, at the entrance, we check on the price, there are single ticket, three days ticket so on, we bought the three days passed to visit Angkok Wat paid by US dollars, inside the place of interest is very big area, you can't cover every area in one day, no way.

On our tuk tuk exploring around, it was a right choice for us, at the parts we started to see the structures around us, we were amaze how it come about, in deed, it is a great heritage.

We went to place to place the rider would bring us to see different side of the structure. We had our lunch at their local stall outside the attraction, after many hours we end our day tour and went back to town for dinner, on our way back, we saw sunset, and we felt so warm and nice view.

Our tuk tuk rider I'll address him as our guide for easy address. Our guide has ridden us to a place to have our dinner. He has told us to meet the next day at 4am to see sun rise, wow… So early, we release him early since he has to get up so early to pick us up next day. We had our dinner, after dinner we walked back on our own.

On our way back to hostel, as we were walking close to the road side, I felt there was someone behind us, I turn around to take a look, guess what? The stupid motorbike guy again came and asked us for his name card back, my friend told him we have throw it away, he was not convince and keep on talking, I was really pissed off by then, we felt we were follow by him everywhere we went, I told him off, I was not polite toward him. When he sees my face color changes, he rides his motorbike far away. When we see him again my friend was shock to see him again, she don't believe such guy she has meet. What I felt about the guy from the right beginning was right choice that we didn't use his service. So if you are traveling in Cambodia lady/ladies, be very alert on the surrounding you.

Next day (6 Jan'2004)

Early the morning 4am we woke up get ready and waited outside our hostel doorstep, waiting for our guide to pick us. As soon as he came, we were on our way to Angkok Wat, it was still dark, I had my torchlight with me, we were shining our way inside the Angkok Wat (there was no light inside) and went up all the way to the top, seated there had our breakfast and waited. We waited there for a few hours until the sky begin to be very bright and we still didn't see the sunrise, we were wondering why? We started to ask question on our own, did we wait at the right place? Or we have missed it? At about 8 or 9am (can't remember the right time) when we were about to leave, my friend saw a bit of orange light and we stay to wait a bit more, when we saw it, we started to have our photos taken before we went down to explore other area.

We both like the area of Bayon, when we were there; we spend most our time there exploring. The structure of a Bayon was amazing, it is not a building look but a few stones form the faces of the Buddha, we had enjoy a lot whole day climbing up and down the area.

There was one area which amaze us; the trees trunk grown on top of those walls…wow…there were so many of them and it were all tall trees.

When come to late afternoon, our guide has brought us to a place to see sunset, during that hour, it was a peak hour, many people from all area went over there, climbing all the way up (involved our hands) to the top, some of the older one, don't think they can make it, they paid to take an elephant ride up to the top. As we were at the top, we saw the sun soon it went down slowly but it wasn't nice sunset as the sky was still very bright. I found the Laos sunset we had saw was nicer than this one we had seen.

Hey, are you thinking of visiting Cambodia after hearing me sharing? Please be prepare to climb up and down, it is not a flat land to visit the heritage area. Please wear correct dress code, no mini skirt please as it is a slop up and down, you might needs to bend down or involved your hands climbing some time. Don't wear long-sleeved, as it gets very hot in the noontime; try bringing some water with you for drinking, have your cap with you to block the sun, with a pair of sunglasses will be great.

On our third day tour in Angkok Wat, we went for sunrise again but this time we knew what time to wake up, no more wake up at 4am so early. As it was our last day of the tour in Angkok Wat, we went over to another side of the area to see the sunrise, this time we have the a different view of the sunrise, it was nice to have our sunrise with the back ground of Angkok Wat itself. After our lunch, our guide brought us to a river side take a boat to cross over on their other small temple, as we reaches there, the boat fare we found a bit expensive so we decide not to cross over.

We end our day tour early; release the guide early, paid the guide at the end of our tour as we reach our hostel in the late afternoon. We take a rest in our room and pack our bag get ready for tomorrow to depart Siem Reap. In the evening, we went opposite restaurant to have our last dinner in Siem Reap.

Next day (8 Jan'2004)

We have check out the room in the morning, we have arrange transport to bring us to the jetty, we had cruise all the way from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh. At the jetty, my goodness, there was whole lots of rubbish dump around and very smelly, the fish smell was really strong, it was not a present area to visit but we got no choice, that was the only direction to take the cruise all the way to Phnom Penh.

Phnom Penh

We were in the cruise for a few hours, the seat was very comfortable and I took a nap on our journey. By the time we reached, it was evening and we quickly find a place to stay.

Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia, we were left a few days in Cambodia and we visited the Palace in Phnom Penh, Museum (S21 Prison) and the Killing Field.

Inside Palace you are strictly no photo or video, if you want to do so, you got to pay for it to do so. The area is not very big area, not much to see, the palace very much like the one we had seen in Bangkok, if you have visited Bangkok palace, then there is no need to visit this one (not worth the money).

The museum is interesting but felt sad after viewing it. It show; it was a school, it was converted into a place of torture, the local has suffers, many were caught and lock in a small room, it was a class room coverted into many small rooms, a few classrooms has converted into a room of torture and many were torture and killed for no reason.

We visited the Killing Field, what is Killing Field? It was a place; the local people (in S21 prison) were killed and were buried over there. When we were there, all the dead bodies were no longer there but you can see is a clean and empty ground, have a lot of big holes remains, their skulls have kept in a display tower.

Both side of the Cambodia, we had two different kind of explore, right now most of the bombs has been removed, it is safe to visit and easy to get air ticket to go there.

Personally I felt; in Siem Reap I'd an eye opener of exploring the Angkok Wat, now a days, you can easily access to the website to view many photos of it, may be there is nothing new of what I've mention here but it was totally two different feeling to be there in person.

In Phnom Penh I felt very sad, don't feel good after visited those places. Seeing many souls had suffered and killed for nothing, there were a few lucky one (less than 100 people) were got save and they are still a life till today.

Overall, Cambodia is a country still developing, as many more people visit, it will soon catch up the foot steps of the world outside there.

Well, we end our adventure trip from Phnom Penh we took a train back to Bangkok (10 Jan'2004), by the time we reached Bangkok station, we went to the Bangkok International Airport, we pack a small bag with us and left our big bag at the airport luggage storage. We walked to look for place to stay, we were living Bangkok the next day so we didn't want to stay too far away the airport, as Bangkok is well know about the traffic condition.

As we found a hotel to check in, we went for explore and look for dinner, as we were walking, someone was shouted at my name, I looked around and I saw my friend's brother, what a small world to meet someone in another country like this.

Well, as soon as we had our last minutes shopping and dinner, we went back to our hotel to take rest.

The next day morning (11 Jan'2004), we check out our hotel room, took a taxi to airport. At the airport after had our big bag withdrawn back, my friend and I had our breakfast at the airport, after breakfast we depart our own way catch our flight back to our home sweet home.

Thanks for being patient to read my long journals.

Attached are some Asia cheap air ticket link, in case you are in Asia planning to go there.

Jetstar  http://www.jetstar.com/index.php?lang=sgen

AirAsia http://www.airasia.com/site/sg/home.jsp

SilkAir http://www.silkair.com/mbe/application/mbe

THE END.