Holiday in Cambodia

Cambodia is a strange place. In a lot of ways. It's the little things. How every room has a water heater. The light switches are different. They don't speak english but they all take US dollars. The sidewalks are made of tile. There are no traffic lights. And every taxi driver calls you "my friend". Today one of them said, "Six dollars, good for me, good for you." The same guy tried to sell me the Bangkok newspaper three times in the space of ten minutes. Maybe all of us tourists look alike?

Thurs November 14,

Our first morning in Cambodia. We found a nice cafe just a little walk from our hotel, the food was pretty good, if not too western and too sweet. Sated and ready for a long day we started our quest for Bicycles. A word of advice. Don't ride the bicycles. Most of them are in disrepair, have only one gear, and if you are lucky, like I was, they have no cushion between your hind end and the two giant springs. OUCH. Once in possession of our "wonderbikes" Kelly and I proceeded on our 15+ mile bicycle tour of Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples.

I'm not quite sure what to tell you about the temples. They are all amazing. One tricky aspect to meandering all of the ruins is strategically avoiding the massive throngs of western european tour groups. It's kind of like a small army that German/France/Denmark sent over to conquer the country with cameras. But when we found a site with no tour buses we often had it all to ourselves. We could stop, look and enjoy the ancient stone architecture which was almost 1000 years old, without someone saying "Allez! // Attend, je cherce le poisson" (translation: Come on! // Wait, I'm looking for the fish).

But overall it was amazing. We'll get some pictures up when we get back so that you can actually get a glimpse of what we saw.

Angkor Wat was our first stop. It's basically a huge castle/temple. It has a giant moat around it, and two sets of outer walls. Inside is a three level temple with shrines dedicated to Buddha interspersed in various alcoves. Most of the walls have been carved out into bas reliefs which depict the struggles of heaven and earth over various demons.

At 11:30 we got to eat a granola bar.

Two hours after we got to Angkor wat, we'd gone from one end to another and back again. I guess that makes it lunch time.

We went to a nice little local restaurant near the temple and Kelly had fried noodle w/vegetables. I had vegetable curry. Kelly had her first experience with buying from the local children. As soon as we approached the restaurant a throng of girls circled and swallowed her up. After about five minutes in this impenetrable cloud of hawkers, Kelly emerged $1 lighter and 2 flutes heavier. You should have seen her face when a desperate girl scampered after her saying "three for a dollar, three for a dollar".

It was now time for the "Tour d'Angkor". This is a not so famous bicycle tour where the goal isn't to finish in as fast a time as possible, but rather to finish at all. Given the equipment we were encumbered with it was a feat of pure will/pain/desperation that allowed us to finally finish the more than 12 mile circuit through the roads surrounding the temple. To complete the task we had to make many stops to rest our weary backsides, take pictures, and enjoy the scenery.

As we were leaving the park we ran into our favorite:

Monkeys! Wild monkeys. Monkeys, monkeys, monkeys. We saw them in Hong Kong, but these were true to life, wild monkeys. Of course, in Angkor Wat, wild monkeys sit in the middle of the road, eat apples, and have very little fear of people. But it was a sight to see.

Finally home. Finally we showered that fine layer upon layer (upon layer) of perspiration off our bodies. Finally it was time for dinner, and dine we did. Nothing too special, but no curry. Just one bowl of curry a day thank you.

And we've still got a full day of temple touring tomorrow!

- Andrew and Kelly