Siem Reap

Our trip to Siem Reap requires a return journey to Phnom Penh which we're happy about as we grew to really like the city.  We're travelling "Mekong Express" a slighty upmarket outfit (the 4 hour trip costs all of $6 US) which include a "inflight meal" and an Hostess.  Today our hostess has a voice that is particularly annoying.  She clearly does not understand English and has learned the script, which having repeated it so many times she now speels out at an enormouse rate of knots. The words and sentences all jumble one into the other with no discenable punctuation.  Each "barrage of words" starts at the top of the octave and finishes at the bottom.  Not such a problem but of course it's rendered at ear splitting volume, and every 5 minutes there's "something of interest" for her to bellow about.

We get to PP ok and spend some time perusing the marklets then an hour or two Air con bathing (our latest sport....turn aircon up full while having cool shower......leave shower..........loll about on bed in the buff {steady Ms Harding!!} for a glorious hour) such is the fierce heat.... 35 degress +.

Phnomm Penh is a great city it's very " alive" and fascinating just to watch.  It is however the "hand gun Capital" of Asia.  Tonite while Kim and I are tucking into so,me smoked Salmon, chicken and Cashew and a very passable bottle of french wine 3 shots  are fired.  We're not experts of course but having heard and fired live rounds in Vietnam what before would have been "very loud bangs" are now unmistakably live gunfire in the propert next to where we're eating.  Ourt little area of Phnom Penh copmes to a complete standstill, the chef runs past us and into the street with a large knife!!and a large crowd gathers. 

Kim and I ....closest to the thin wall the otherside of which has been the location of the gunplay.........sip our wine and comment on the quality of the salmon.....nuts isn't it??  We should have thrown ourselves to the floor and pulled over a few tables but that wouldn't be British would it??  Everything calms down and it seems it was just a case of Saturday night fever and someone firing into the air rather like a loud yahoo when you've won a pool game.  You've got to love this place!

We set off to Siem Reap early on another Mekong Express this one is a six hour trip and we're over joyed to find that today our hostess has a voice exactly like Blue bottle from the Goons.  Less aged readers may need to consult (grand) parents or my good friend Kenn Scaddan who does a more than passable impression.  She also has an ineteresting translation "tick"  I'm sure she wants to say "We hope you will travel mith Mekong express limousine bus service again" But what she says is "you will stay on the mekong express limousine bus...........forever" in her exultant bluebottle voice it sounds like the culmination of some dastardly plot hatched between him and Eccles to murder poor Neddy.

The trip out of Phnom Penh is just full of interest.  Crossing the river where the poorer communities huddle, their homes, formed of corrugated iron, hardboard and leaf rooves looking for all the world like a crust of flotsam and Jetsam after a really high water, past the Washington hotel,huge,stylish, odd, "the peaceful World" bar and nightclub, the villages each of which has a specialist market; sweetcorn by the ton being boiled, fried, barbecued, fish, shrimp, a two mile+ stretch of Budha carvers with budhas of varying sizes, styles and colours lining the road;  piles of hay amongst which nestle the real product, terracotta pots, jugs and huge water vessels all drawn on bullock carts; and then the paddy fields which stretch emerald green to the horizon. For lunch we stop at a small town and Kim and I resist the invitations to partake in fried spider, roach, moth, raw sour beef or chicken sinew and fish bladders and leave with a box of pringles and a nana..............

The trip is also puntuated with video entertainment.  This ranges from incredibly violent Kung Fu movies to Kareoke tapes (all with the sound down and subtitles in Cambodian). It's impossible to grasp entirely what's going on but in one kung fu film we have a graphic rape scene (on a bus!!) then our hero has villian after villain pitted against him by a wheelchair bound master criminal, after killing or maiming a dozen or so in particularly gruesome fashion he approaches the evil one.........who promptly pulls out a gun and shoots him!! Why the bloody hell he didnb't do it in the first place is beyond me....anyway the bullet hits a lucky amulet and our hero survives to whack the chair bound evil one on the head so hard he goes through the floor........wheelchair and all....brilliant!  Next up is kareoke from the videos it's imppossible to understand what's going on as pasty faced 'erberts try and look sincere into the camera.  One particularely perplexing movie has a bride peering coyly from behind a tree and imaginingt (1)  Half a dozen gentlemen on some stairs banging dinner gongs and (2) A flock of geese.  These give her great pleausure apparently as she starts spinning round , and 4 blokes appear and ride around her on mopeds.....bit like bohemian rhapsody actually.

In Siem we head straight out to organise tickets for the Angkor temples.  If you arrive around 5PM it's possible to have your 1 or 3 day tickets start the following day but get instant entry for a free sunset....so in we go!

Angkor Watt, like a lot of attractions in this part of the world is as if the locals have no idea what they have.  People have flown all around the world for this 1st sight of Angkor and they stick two bloody great bits of tarpaulin on the front.  With the long trip and the rush to get in and doubtless a little knackered we a are a little underwhelmed with our first view of Angkor  We go into town for a good meal and see some beautiful Apsara (classic Cambodian) dancing. 

We spend the next two days at the temples and having had a nights rest the place is just awe inspiring.  I had no idea of the scale of building here.  There were cities here in the jungle housing millions when in london we were still painting our arses blue and hiding from the sun (actually have you seen Ambre Soliare Blue?)  Some of the temples have been left with the jungle trees in place looking like they have melted across the huge walls, their roots pushing Ford Fiesta size blocks of stone aside to get to earth or sunlight.  The faces in the rock at Bayon are just indescribable and it is great to try and imagine life here in the 8th/9th century when it was all new and full of life.  The ruins now are fantastically atmospheric. On revisiting Angkor watt itself we get to appreciate its' majesty.  In the early light it is just staggering in its complexity and detail. There are 3000+ different carvings of Apsara (dancing girls) each unique, each of the towers including the 55 meter tall centre is carved in impossible detail from ground to summit, there are almost 3KMs of carved bas relief work around the perimeter to a height of maybe 9/10 feet that is just breathtaking, all in all it's an unforgettable place.  Other temples surround the watt for many many square Ks and we spend the entire two days belting around them with our driver Ol, who we hired with Tuk Tuk for 2.5 days for the princley sum of 15 quid we got to see all the creeper hung and infested Indianna Jones locations that you would want, incredibly tiring but fantastic. 

In the evening we arranged our onward travel to the border (6-8 hrs in a bus 11 quid ...........3 hours taxi 17 quid you choose!) across the counter one of the travel staff thoughtfully munches away at a fried roach the size of a mans thumb..............want one? he says......In our nightmares we say OOOh yes please!  .....Meanwhile back on earth!  

We have a lovely evening seeing more Apsara dancing..... really............ seriously..... beautiful.