Cambodia

Let's get things straight from the start: we were still too enchanted by the ''Laos feeling'' to give Cambodia a real fair chance, or even appreciate it fully from the beginning. Everything seemed suddenly so expensive. Everybody so aggressive, so pushy. And everywhere we went was so busy!!
We needed some time to let grow on us.
Here is the tale of a country that lives at the rhythm of scams, annoyances and deceits.

Scam number 1.a:
Once we exited Laos, we needed to cross the river to the cambodian border post, and then go onwards on the river for 45 minutes to the first town in Northern Cambodia, Stung Traek. The cambodian long-tail boat mafia on this stretch of no-mans-land surely knows how to take advantage of this situation, and they dared demand usd 40 for the short boat ride! Forty freekin dollars when the average annual Cambodian income is usd 375?? Forty bleeding dollars when all the travelers who had come in the opposite direction had paid usd4/pp??
Forty damn dollars was the price that the ugly fat mafia leader had set as 'price of the day', and he did not want to hear about discounts, negotiation or be reminded of what the price usually is.
We were stuck between two borders, we were alone. And he knew it!
In a last desperate attempt, Chris went down to the river bank to stop the first incoming boat and deal
with the driver directly.
The mafia crowd began shouting from the cafe above: "40
DOLLARS, WE TOLD THEM 40 DOLLARS!..", which prompted Sil to scream even louder:" HEY!, SIT DOWN AND STOP INTERFERING. IT IS HIS NEGOCIATION!"
A woman shouting was probably not the most politically correct thing to do, but given the situation, it was the only thing Sil could do to try to get out of the monopoly-price-setting bullshit).
They probably did not understand a word she said, but even a mafia boss can recognise the threat from someone twice his size. So they all shut up, and Chris managed to get the price down to USD 25 for the boat (which is better though still extortion.)
We waited a while to see if any other people would come through the border so we could share the cost, but, as we also wanted to catch a boat to Kratie from Stung Traek the same day, we couldn't wait too long.
So we boarded the boat and made our way to Scam number 1.b: the cambodian border post who was adament about receiving usd 5pp to stamp our passport (may we remind the listeners back home that this is an officially open border and that our visas were okidoki). We argued, discussed, and finally just put two dollars on the table making clear that it's all they'd get from us. And it worked.
One noisy-boat-ride hour later (which probably scared all the dolphins we were supposed to see along the way...), we were welcomed in Stung Traek by Scam number 2:
No one in this god forsaken town wanted to tell us how we could get to Kratie.
We had read that there are boats that cost USD 8 per person but we didn't know where they left from and at what time etc. The lovely people of Stung Traek thought it would be perfectly acceptable to ask us to pay ''only'' usd 100 for a boat to Kratie, and then just kept laughing when we made it clear that this was an absolutely absurd amount, and that all we wanted was some information about the regular boat service. Finally after ranting, raving and getting seriously frustrated for 15 minutes, one honest person came forward and said there is actually only one local boat at 7.30am for usd 8 to Kratie, but that we were welcome to sleep at his guesthouse and take the boat the next day. Pissed off but happy we got that info, we settled into the guesthouse and walked around town for the rest of the day. Chris even had time to get a great, slightly high-in-the-neck-more-like-above-the-ears military style, USD 0,50 hair cut.
Since our start wasn't all that great, and as we were not really motivated to explore the northern part of the country, we decided to head straight through to the capital Phnom Penh by boat to kampuchan (6hrs) and then by mini-bus to phnom penh (2.5hrs).
Along the way we met Gailan from Seatle who had been to Phnom Penh and knew a nice guesthouse, the Royal, where we could get a good room with cable TV and private shower for usd 6. Wow, cable TV! yoopie!!
Although Phnom Penh is noisy and quite dirty we really enjoyed the feel of the city, and spent the first day going around getting to know the place.
The day after we decided to take a taxi with Gailan and Mia-from-sweeden to the the killing fields and the
S21 Sluong Treng museum. The museum was a former school transformed into a horrific interrogation prison under the Khmer Rouge regime.
The visit was very emotional with plenty of pictures and stories of the brutal period from 1974 till 1979 when
1,7 million Cambodians (a third of the population!) were killed. There are hundreds of pictures of the prisoners with the methods with which most people were tortured, and eventually killed. The worst were the dreadful 'before-and-after' pictures of men, women, children and even babies.
We left in a sad and somber mood, and continued to the Killing Fields, one of the many areas where mass graves were found, I5km out of town on a terrible road.
Even though the site bears the traces of an undeniable historical tragedy, it does not make justice to the atrocities that took place here. No historical background, no pictures, or explanations to honour the dead. Just a perfectly well kept lawn with here and there a hole by which a sign states "mass grave: 800 bodies found". And then there is this new stupa-like monument that contains hundreds of skulls separated by gender and age, that looks more like a piece of modern art than like a honorary monument..
All in all, the place is a bit of a waste of time.

We then visited the other attractions of Phnom Penh, the Royal Palace, the Silver Pagoda, and the art museum which were stunning all to see (particularly the national museum, which is architecturally stunning with its inner courtyard and red roofs.)
We of course also went to a highly recommended bar/restaurant, the FCC (Foreigners correspondents
club) where we felt right at home: It could have been a place anywhere in Dubai and we
loved the atmosphere. We were there for about 15 minutes enjoying a lovely glass of wine, the great view of the river, and thoroughly looking forward to our first Mexican dish since we left; when Chris jumps up and starts hugging a guy who had just walked in in a group. This turned out to be Patrick de La Fuente, an old classmate from hotel school, whom he hadn't seen in more than 6 years. and a clear reminder of how small the world is.
We left the FCC and joined Patrick for dinner at a nice French restaurant a little further. We had a great night, caught up on the events of the last 6 years, and went home tipsy from very nice wine (As Patrick, apart from being quite a nice chap, is also a major importer of wines and spirits into cambodia, which makes him a very nice guy, a friend to have and keep! :-). The next day we rented a motorbike and toured around the city and its the markets and then met up with Patrick again for diner at a very typical Chinese restaurant, as guests of his Cambodian/Chinese associate.
There were also some other Dutch friends of his, who we had also met the day before, and again had a great dinner,
wines, champagne, gigantic shrimps the thought of which makes my mouth water and my stomach grumble for decent-non-green-curry-or-friend-rice-food!!)

When it was really time to move on, we took a bus to a small town called Kampot to visit its National Park and enjoy a feel of a genuine cambodian provincial town.
The roads to Bokor National Park have not been asphalted since the french aristocrats and other rich wannabe last used the hill-top hotel as a summer resort, a gambling paradise or a convenient place for discrete orgies back in the forties. 0ur ride in the converted giant dildo - I mean... pickup truck - was, euh, well..., euh, of a penetrating beauty...

We nevertheless spent a great day hiking in the bush, climbing to a waterfall, and the best part, roaming through a completely abandoned former 5 star hotel, which was built on top of a mountain in 1927 and was last used in the early seventies.
The place was really erie and mysterious, although you still see, through its skeleton, the grandeur reminicent of colonial lush and luxury that it must once have been. Walking through those huge empty rooms covered with red moss was like being transported into a 1920 movie where loud big-band playing jazz would be playing in the busy grand ballroom whilst ladies in long dresses would be spending someone else's money at the Casino.... we spent about 2 hours wandering through this place, visiting every corner of it, from the basement to what is left of the bedrooms.
At night we had dinner with a very nice Dutch couple and left the next day for what should have been a brief drive to a beach town of Sihanoukville.
When we arrived at the "bus terminal" (more of a court yard with hundreds of chicken, some water buffalos and a few dogs running around, with here and there a few 30-year old pick up trucks), we were told that the drive would be of 1,5 hours, so we got unto the back of a truck with two lovely local ladies, an annoying drunk local man (at 10am!), 2 live chickens, 3 little ducks and what seemed to be 3 tonnes of fish that has not seen the sea for at least 10 days. Half an
hour into the drive, one of the wheels broke, we all got out of the truck, the men started playing around with screwdrivers and hammers, and finally, after 40 minutes, declare that the damage is unrepairable and that we would have to think of a backup plan. This came in the form of another truck - equally old and run down, that towed us all the
way to Sihanoukville. We eventually made it, in a grand total of 7 hours for 140 km, certainly the slowest ride so far.
In Sihanoukville we were welcomed by an army of touts who all started to pull our bags out of the truck. It is only when they heard our loud screems, shouts and not-so-friendly threats that they backed off a bit and actually let us come down of the truck on our own. We then jumped on the first bike - after, for once, ripping them off on the price ourselves!! - and
asked to be taken to the sea side. We found a room reasonably quickly but were
quite surprised by the price/quality comparison. Our heads were still in laos money wise, and we did find almost everything a rip off, and granted, almost everything was.
Sihanoukville is a lovely little modernish beach resort (no paradise-like white sandy beaches and coconut trees here!), where we spent a pleasant two days on the beach, chatting to local kids selling everything from fruits, chips, cookies, to fried fish and spoke incredibly good English. At least they were in for a laugh, even if you did not buy anything, which is really rare these days.
ready to face the temples of Angkor after two days of rest, we finally made our way back north.

Scam number 3:
The most common way to go from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap is by boat. However like all other boat travel in Cambodja they base themselves on the singaporean standard of living when setting the prices: usd 22 pp for a 4,5-hour boat ride is ridiculous, particularly when locals pay only 6 dollars!. They all say that the road is so bad it is impracticable, and that the boat is the only option.
Bugger that! We decided to give it a try anyway, and we embarked on a 10 hour, USD 5 pp bus ride the next day, which turned out to be not so bad (ck: You can clearly see that Sil is writing this bit. She would not know the first thing about the condition of the road.. the moment she puts one foot in a bus -or any moving motorized vehicle for the matter- bam! she falls fast asleep. Truth is, the road was horribly dreadful, I would not even have dared take it in my 4x4, but for cambodian standards, it was pretty bearable!)
We got into Siem Reap, a very pretty, fairly provincial town, where the people are relaxed and the food is great, in the late afternoon. Dinner, shower, and an early sleep was what the doctor has recommended in order to be ready to face the long days of temple watching...

Scam number 4:
There are debates about whether tourists are allowed to drive their own motorbikes around the Angkor temples complex, and there are plenty of rumors of exorbitant parking fees, sabotage or bikes getting simply stolen by the moto-mafia.
We had thus opted to hire a moto with driver to take us around for three days.
Our guesthouse, thinking they could make some easy money, had told us that it was forbidden to go at two on the back of one moto and that we both had to take a separate moto with driver, and that they would give us a super special price of usd 7/day.
We laughed a bit, and we left.
The next day at 5am, we stopped the first moto on the street, ready for heavy morning negotiation, but less than 30 seconds later, we both hopped on the back of the 110cc bike at the agreed price of usd 6/day... Oh yes, that is indeed 3 adults on a normal scooter size teuf-teuf, which is actually quite normal in Cambodja; hell, some of them drive
with 4 people on these things, plus a few kids casually holding on the steering wheel.)
Along the way we met lots of people who were told exactly the same rubbish by their guesthouse and ended up taking them on their offer of 2 moto for the exceptional-super-no-profit-discount of...usd 9/day!!
It is not only ok to be at 3 on a moto, but it is now super common -and safe- to rent your own mountain-bike or moto... (tip: if you do not feel like driving, they also have super comfortable little moto-and-carriage that can take 3 or 4 people for usd 9-11/day and that are much better than a moto...)
The first day we went to Angkor Wat at 5:30am for what we were told was an amazing sunrise. We waited in the pitch black night for the sun to reveal to us the magnificent grandeur of Angkor Wat (the complex' biggest and most important temple). With the first rays of light the skeleton of the structure began to show, and with every passing minute shapes and colours were getting clearer, camera flashes were getting brighter, ooooh's and aaaah's getting louder, the crowed getting denser and the excitement higher... We looked at each other and said: is that IT?
The temple looked small, unimpressive, the monochromatic gray colours were dull and flat. We were so ready for a ''wow'' effect, so open to be amazed and mesmerized, that we were extremely sad to be so underwhelmed by our first encounter at Angkor.
We decided to leave the 700-some other early-risers and go exploring the rest of the complex at our own rhythm
Later the same day, when we saw the temple again under the warm afternoon light, we were really glad to have had such a disappointing 1st experience as the temple now looked as it should: grand and majestic..
Following the advice of other travelers, we chose to visit the complex in an anti-clockwise fashion. In that way we were able to avoid the crowd and the horrible tour busses, and to take our time roaming around the 30-some ruins, freely taking pictures, reading aloud passages from the wonderful book of Dawn Rooney ('Angkor, an intoduction to the temples, 4th edition').
It is very difficult -not to mention far too long- to describe the days we spent at Angkor, and even more to try to write about the incredible beauty of all these temples lost in the jungle. Nevertheless, the feeling of unreal and magic you get when looking at photographs of Angkor are generated 100 times stronger when walking in the midst of the temple complex.
And although the temples of Angkor are very touristic, and often crowded, and restored, guarded and cleaned; they still have the power of making each one feel like an adventurer discovering incredible jungle treasures for the first time - that is, if you manage to make complete abstraction of the many food and souvenir stalls surrounding each site, and the thousands of kids shoving violins, postcards, coconuts and Angkor-Beer t-shirts down your throat while screaming: ''Sir you buuuy'', ''Mam you baaayy'', ''You buy later?'', ''You promissed you buy later'', ''If you don't buy I cry!!''...
We have not had the time to visit all the ruins (nor the energy minde you, one day of temple visiting from 5am to 7pm should be enough to knock down even the keenest historian or wannabe archeologist!), but clearly had our favorites:
Silvia top 5: (top 4 actually as she is a bit undecisif about her numero uno's!)
-1 The Bayon, with its thousand giant smiling faces
-1 Ta Phrom, the jungle temple with the amazing trees holding its structure together.
-2 Angkor Wat coloured in warm orange at sunset.
-3 Pra Khan, with its gorgious lightning, its arched galleries and its fairytale-like forest location
-4 Bantei Srei, the tiny far away temple that is so delicately carved and decorated.

Chris top 5
-1 Ta Phrom
-2 Pra Khan
-3 The Bayon
-4 Angkor Wat
-5 Bantei Srei

Following the first 14-hour marathon day, we decided to take it easy the following two days by limiting the number of temples we visited. One the second day we even took the time to go back in town to try the newly opened super art-deco Siem Reap FCC for lunch.
We finished just on time for a completely waste of time sunset at Angkor's only hill-top temple: Phnom Baekeng.
Yes, this place is mentioned in all the guides as 'Ze' sunset place, and yes it is crowded as hell by people who actually bother climb the steep hill and the impossible stairs, and yes all the tours include it in their standard itinerary; yet, it still sucks! (After all, millions of people listen to Celine Dion and Marriah Carey, that doesn't make them right, nor does it make the ''music'' beautiful, does it??)
While the masses struggle to identify a match-box size Angkor Wat in the middle of the bush-bush some 8 km away from Phnom Baekeng, the few sunset connoisseurs (or people like Silvia who actually read Dawn Rooney's book) are sitting at the right pool in front of Angkor Wat, admiring the temple and its reflection slowly taking on the warm red and orange colours of the setting sun.

On the third day we rented our own motorbike and first headed to the Vietnamse floating village some 10km west of Siem Reap. Although neither very floating nor particularly vietnamese, the long-tail boat ride was quite nice. (It was. Wasn't it??).
We then headed to the magical 'hans-&-grietje-like' (Hans and Grettle, the anderson tale for the ignorants amongst you!) small temple of Bantea Srei, 35 km away from the main temples, before casually re-visiting some of our favorites
We also booked our bus ticket back to ''civilisation'' with one of the many bus companies (usd11 will get you from Siem Reap to Bangkok with a reputable bus company, while as low as usd 4 would do the same with a company reputed for its rip-off scams).
What we did not know before leaving is that both the bus and its driver suffered from a severe case of schizophrenia. The 56-seater bus thought he actually was a small 4x4 monster-truck, and the driver thought he was Michael Schumacher.
The roller coaster ride on a road that would not even be mentioned as a cow passage-way on an agricultural map anywhere else in the world, lasted 5 hours. And that is for the first 130km only.
Once we crossed the border in first world thailand, we got into a minibus driven by the only human reincarnation of the road-runner who beep-beep'd us to Bangkok in just over a whiz...
Conclusions
Looking back at it, Cambodia was both very charming and diverse (despite the unremitting attempts to rip-off tourists).
Through its atmosphere, character, customs and people, it often felt more African than really Asian.
Cambodia is also a land of paradoxes, where century-old history of greatness prevails on the dark recent past. It is a country where every man or woman over 40 could be an ex-khmer rouge torturer and murderer, or a victim forced to collaborate with Pol Pot's regime in order to stay alive. Every one bears the scars -and the guilt- of a past they so much try to forget - even to the point of denying it. That was one thing we could never get really used to.
Although Sil will continue to swear only by Laos (because, let's hear it again, ''Laos is so great!''...), even she admits that we had a good two weeks in Cambodia... a great two weeks if you ask me!

go home camel!