I’ve uploaded the Cambodia pics! Here is the link, hope you enjoy them!

http://picasaweb.google.com/anitalgray/CambodiaMarch2010#

I left you on my bus journey five days ago heading to Siem Reap. It started badly when I realized that Andrea was not in her seat on the bus. I tried, in vain, to explain to the staff on the bus that we needed to wait for her as she had paid for her ticket, but they didn’t understand me. Oh well?!

The ride was about six hours long and was quite trying on the senses. For those of you that are fans of my blog, you may recall a certain bus journey I had to endure in Chile in 2008, where an alarm kept sounding every 30 seconds for no apparent reason. Well, in Cambodia, the bus drivers honk their horns, for no apparent reason, incessantly every few seconds. They honk to say hello to other cars, they honk to warn people who are walking on the street, they honk when they haven’t honked in
several seconds. After a while it really grates on the nerves and I cursed myself that I hadn’t brought ear plugs.

To make it even worse, they were playing loud Khmer pop songs….AND a really bad martial arts movie…AT THE SAME TIME! yikes.

Good thing I was reading a book about the art of Buddhism. Read: sarcasm.

We stopped half way for some lunch. The heat hit you like a slap in the face as you stepped off the bus, and then continued slapping for the next 20 mins…you could feel your own sweat trickling down your legs. I decided to have what the locals were having…which was some kind of greenish looking soup, with weird brown looking fried thingies, and pinkish meat. It tasted OK and it cost 50c so I didn’t complain.

At least not until later that evening…more on that in a moment.

We arrived to the usual ONSLAUGHT of Tuk Tuk drivers asking whether “Lady, you need tuk tuk to hotel? I know nice guest house, will take you”, though they were particularly aggressive this time. I ignored them all, as usual, and immediately walked over to whomever was NOT screaming at me and haggled a $2 ride to my hostel choice. No, I didn’t want to stop at another hotel on the way. No, I didn’t care if my choice was “far far from town”. No, I didn’t want to see temple on the way. No I don’t want to stop at shop. No, I don’t care if I lady travelling on her own. No, no, no, no, no. I just want to get to my hostel. Thank you.

Jeez. Its like pulling teeth and you have to be downright nasty to get through: this is a land where “No” means nothing to the sellers, they see it as an opportunity to win a sale through repeating their sales pitch again, and again, and again (not to mention, that together with the Khmer accent…the words come out so harsh and the intonation sounds like they’re yelling “hey you stepped on my foot!!” instead of making a proposition (this became ever more apparent during the temple visits at Angkor Wat, where you are greeted by a sheer CACOPHONY of “Hey Lady, you want cold drink?”, “Hey Lady, you want food?”, “Hey Lady, you buy postcard? Only 3 for $1!!! (which my future travel buddy, Camille, from France, hysterically corrected by calmly replying “No, its 3 for only $1!) “Hey Lady, you want pineapple?”…and so on. They SCREECH their questions at you- and I heard these expressions easily hundreds of times each day at Angkor Wat…the intonation of those voices have made easily as indelible an impression on me as the temples did themselves, which is kind of sad.)

Finally got to my hostel and was delighted to find an air-conditioned room overlooking the pool, including breakfast, for $17. Wonderful. Dropped my bags, and literally raced into my bathing suit and jumped in the pool. Amazingly refreshing.

I headed into town for dinner that evening with two lovely British girls named Katie and Becky. We started on foot and then decided to grab a tuk tuk (apparently the annoying tuk tuk driver from earlier was telling the truth about the distance, although this turned out to be a plus for me instead of a minus) to a little food stall area by the river for some cheap eats. He clearly had no idea where he was going and dropped us at some random restaurant at which point he refused to respond to our request to be taken where we’d been asked. We all were just so frustrated that we got out and plonked ourselves down there to eat. Sometimes, its just not worth the fight. And I have to say, the “fight”, was definitely worse in Cambodia thus far compared with Thailand.

Our meal was lovely and the three of us ate handsomely for only $9, although the fresh spring rolls I ordered were disappointingly bland. I was too hungry to care. We all enjoyed a lovely conversation getting to know each other and then we headed back to get to bed, having decided to brave the 5am departure for sunrise at Angkor Wat.

Angkor What?

Not for me. That night, my stomach awakened me with the command that its contents needed to be emptied. Over the next 36 hours I wretched and writhed around in blissful travellers’ tummy agony. Oh how I enjoyed crawling back and forth to the bathroom on my hands and knees. How I enjoyed laying there and counting the minutes tick by. How I loved not having anyone with ambulatory skills nearby that could kindly fetch me some water and flat sprite. How slowly the day passed.

On the bright side, I read over half of my new book….and I had A/C so that I wasn’t sent over the edge with being ill AND relentlessly overheated. I was also very grateful that we had a bar/restaurant in the hotel…and that the staff were kind enough to read in my face when I finally made it down the stairs with the words “water and 2 bottles of sprite, please, now please” that I wasn’t going to be able to wait the customary SE Asian amount of time for service.

In the end, despite the fact that Andrea had disappeared (she emailed me saying that she took a later bus but she’d given in to the tuk tuk driver’s guest house recommendation and not come to Earthwalkers where I was staying) I was glad that I’d given myself 4 full days in Siem Reap since I missed a day and a half being out of it.

So, the second day…feeling a little wobbly still, I tentatively ate dried toast and tea for breakfast and struck up a conversation with a French girl who came and sat nearby. She was also travelling alone (yay!….Becky and Katie did a one-day Angkor wonder and had already left) and after some persuasion, as she was on a tight budget (to which I responded that I would pay for the tuk tuk for the day tour of the temples anyway, and I’d prefer to have the company) she agreed to join me as we hit the road to see the Eighth Wonder of the world. Camille was wonderful and very inspiring. She had been “working” her way around the world for the better part of a year, at age 23, and explained that she left France with only 500 euros to her name, and still managed to have about the same amount in her bank account today. See folks? You don’t need money to travel!!! Just guts and determination….(and hopefully a passport from a developed nation. ugh.)

Our driver, Si, was recommended to me by Katie and Becky. He claimed to speak English, but that was questionable. I completely forgave him because he never failed to smile…all day long. I called him “Smiley”. He was lovely and gave us zero pressure- which was very refreshing.

On that first day, I explained that I wanted to see some of the outer temples and save Angkor Wat itself for the following morning at sunrise. No sense in seeing the Big Kahuna on day one and having the other sites not have quite the same impact.

Camille was the perfect temple companion because she took her time, and was a bit of a history nerd like me. I was worried that I might get “templed” out, as I sort of did in Thailand, but nothing could have been further from the truth here. The more I saw of these incredible 9th, 10th, 11th century stone meccas built by Kings, married with nature (sometimes overtaken by it, such as the trees at Ta Prohm) and dedicated to the practice of Hinduism and Buddhism, the more fascinating they became.

The crowds were another thing. They were annoying. Though not as annoying as the hawkers. Which included children. Tiny children. I had a little girl, barely 3 years old, try to sell me 10 postcards for over 15 minutes while I rested on a tree trunk. We agreed that, sadly, her first words were undoubtedly “only 1 dollar”, and not “Mommy”.

We were very lucky that day to have also had a reprieve from the heat in the form of an early morning rainstorm that cleared the air nicely. I even had to wear a jacket on the tuk tuk ride in because there was a chill! It meant that we were able to spend most of the day getting in four or five temples before heading back to town for lunch.

My high spot for the day was the temple of Bayon: which has faces carved into numerous towers; a fabulous display of the egoistic nature of its designer King Jayavarmann VIII. It was captivating to look at the level of detail that went into all of the art work, the painstaking depictions of everything from legions of armies…to a women giving birth!

Camille and I took lunch in downtown Siem Reap. The town itself did not impress me much: it was a tourist trap and the prices were surprising (woo hoo! It just started thundering and raining here!) The smog, traffic and noise all made me thankful for my choice of hostel. After another slightly disappointing meal (I had a “platter” of Khmer food, but none was to my liking except for the banana in coconut milk dessert), we walked back to our hostel and enjoyed a lovely evening in the pool and getting to know our fellow backpackers.

The next day was the highlight of my trip to Cambodia. Together with another hostel guest, Marius from Norway, the three of us decided to rent bicycles and brave a 4:30am departure in the morning to catch sunrise at Angkor Wat, before tackling the “Grand Circuit” of just over 40km of road in total.

It was so exciting to don my headlamp and head out into the dark streets, dodging cars on the same mission as us. It was a 10k ride out to the pearl of the temples, and you could just make out a glow in the sky as we parked our bikes and took what felt like a surreal march to heaven along the long path across the moat leading to the glorious structure that is Angkor Wat.

It was one of those moments that I’ll never forget. It was spiritual.

That is, until we parked ourselves by the lake to capture the rising sun on our cameras together with a couple hundred other tourists ( including of course the Japanese tourists, who, I’m sorry, but who CANNOT EVER shut up and appreciate a truly tranquil experience like the rest of us manage. They have to shriek at each photo and share, and point, and yell at one another with wild hand gestures.) It was still magical, regardless.

After a few hours of clambering inside the giant building itself and climbing to the top of its highest turret, we set off on our bicycle discovery and took in about four more temples before we crashed for lunch. Of course, I ate at the woman’s stall who hadn’t screamed at me- telling her so as well. She understood.

My favorite was Preah Kanh because it had the same trees as Ta Promh magically taking over the walls and roofs of the structure, but it also had very intricate tiny passageways and rooms that you almost had to crawl through. Wonderful.

After lunch, Marius and I decided to begin the long ride home as we were completely beat, and the afternoon sun was starting to get brutal. Oh my god. That bike ride was so very very long. I was so happy to make it back and quickly got in the pool. The three of us could barely move, so we decided to ask Si to drive us back to catch the sunset. We all went to the popular sunset spot, but turned around after we realized that it was just the classic sunset looking at the sky from a hill, and we wanted to see the changing colors on the walls of the temples themselves. Si, so generously, zoomed us back over to Bayon so that we could see the faces change shade with the setting sun.. Unfortunately, after about 20 mins of exploring, a guard came by to inform us that it was “cloe”. Not a spelling error.

That night, someone said the magic word “pizza” and we happily devoured a large spinach and mushroom washing it down with good ol’ Angkor beer before taking our wrecked limbs to sleep.

The following morning I awoke early to bid goodbye to Camille who was busing it to the border and then getting the train to Bangkok. Interestingly, she would only arrive about an hour before I did, and my flight didn’t leave until that evening!

I spent the day chilling out mostly. I read, swam and wrote my blog. Si gave me a ride into town. He was so lovely. He even made me well up in my throat and choke back tears when he bid me goodbye at the airport. He thanked me for being “special lady good customer”, and asked if I might email him to help him with his “very bad engrish”. Of course I agreed, shook his hand, and then as I waved…he yelled out what he’d said to me the previous 3 evenings…”Good night Miss Anita…see you in d morning!”

The flight was strange. 35 minutes in total, and they served a full meal. Weird how the Thai’s will constantly haggle and then give things away like that when they’re not expected? I shoved mine into my backpack as I was not feeling good – again! Can’t say I’m a fan of Khmer food 😦

Landing in Bangkok, I grabbed a cab to my familiar hotel in Rambuttri.

Today was amazing. I did SO MUCH in Bangkok and I have a far improved opinion of the city as compared to before. I saw the giant reclining Buddha at Wat Pho, took in the crazy crazy narrow market streets of Chinatown, rode the river boat along the Cho Phra, saw a VIP movie at the cinema (think food and blankets provided!), watched Thai people doing mass aerobics in Lumphini Park, took in the skyscrapers around Siam Square and then rode the Sky Train home.

Then I wrote this. Didn’t mean for it to be so long…but sigh……

Tomorrow, I head to the airport at 7:30 for my flight to Kathmandu. Not sure if I’ll write much in the next two weeks as I head to Everest Base Camp. You can follow the journey online at Alpineascents.com

Will be back in Bangkok on April 19. Till then,

Much love,

Anita

So last time I left you I was preparing for my flight to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, via Bangkok. That was last Monday and it was a full day of travelling. Tuk tuk to airport, flight to Bangkok (where I dropped off a bunch of gear at left luggage with my trekking bag), flight to Phnom Penh and tuk tuk (Cambodia style….same same, but different) to many different guest houses until deciding on a half decent one by the river. I should explain “same same, but different”. It is a phrase that one hears with extreme regularity from the locals whenever they want to express that something is similar to something else, or, more likely, that they have no idea how to explain the differences/qualities of something else in English. Therefore, it is used to describe another dish at a restaurant, a tour costing 30 bucks more, another room at a guest house…you get the idea. So, in that spirit, I describe Cambodia as just a little bit same same, but different.

On arrival in Phnom Penh, I obtained my visa for $20 and hopped into a tuk tuk (which is a 3 wheel taxi pulled along by a motorbike) with a French guy named Nelson, who kindly obliged letting me accompany him into town. It was ridiculously hot and I cursed my decision to wear jeans because it was a travel day. The traffic here was thick and the noise and crowds of the big city hit me pretty hard. In a very short time, I just wanted to get into a shower: jeans and all! We tried to find a decent hotel room, and I was quite surprised by the prices (all in US dollars, by the way…you only get Cambodian Real as change for something costing under a dollar) which were all over $20. I settled on a guest house on the mighty Tonle sap river, in what appeared to be a very touristy part of town…though I was too tired to care. Nelson was here to volunteer for an NGO designing a UV water purification system in Battambong and was only in Phnom Penh one night. After freshening up, we set out for some dinner. As I was still feeling under the weather, we settled on a place close by overlooking the water. My first impression here was the sheer number of tuk tuk drivers who bombard you with “Lady, tuk tuk? Lady, tuk tuk?” (I once counted 26 of these identical piercing queries during only a five minute stroll…which would test any one’s polite travel demeanor. I was so tempted to say…”Oh, yeah! I’ve changed my mind in the past TWO STEPS that I’ve taken since the last guy asked me, you annoying, screeching idiot!!! If I need a tuk, tuk, I’ll let you know!) Of course, men have it easy- they only hear “”Tuk, tuk?” In fact, I can honestly say that if I am never called “lady!!!!” again, it would be too soon…and I’ve only been in this country for 6 days.

I ordered Lemongrass chicken soup and was enjoying our conversation when we were joined by a rather strange Canadian man who appeared to be in his late fifties. He asked if he could join us, and began telling us that he was hear celebrating his engagement to a Cambodian woman whom he’d met here a few years ago, and that he’d just got back from her village where he stayed with her family on their farm along the Mekong River. That was all OK- I’ve gotten used to seeing old North American and European men with giant bellies prancing around with their trophy tiny young and lithe Asian women. But when he mentioned that she was all of 19 years of age…I was completely grossed out. He could probably read my expression, because he innocently asked, “What? Don’t you think we’ll be happy together?”, to which I responded, “You don’t want to hear my answer to that”. “No, no…I do” he insisted. So, I let him have it. I explained, which Nelson squirmed in his seat, very politely but firmly that he disgusted me, and that taking a young innocent girl, who doesn’t speak English, away from everything she holds dear, and taking her to the snowy north of Alberta and marrying her will only result in her extreme misery. However, with any luck, I said that I sincerely hoped that she used him to get a fine education, after which she’d figure out the mistake she’d made, and then take him for half of his money in a divorce and use the proceeds to give her family here a good life. He said he appreciated my honesty. I sincerely doubted him.

After wishing Nelson all the best for his volunteer work…I headed to my dark but air conditioned room and passed out.

The next day, I spent a solitary day sightseeing around the city…but having lots of small and wonderful interactions with various people. After breakfast of the smallest shake on earth for $2 I took a Tuk Tuk to the Tuol Sleng Prison museum, a gruesome reminder of the torturous occupation of Phnom Penh in the late seventies, during which a genocide of 2 million Khmer citizens took place. For those of you who don’t know, Cambodia suffered a horrendous civil war in the early 70’s, which culminated in the taking of Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge army, led by the insane and crazed Marxist, Pol Pot, on April 17, 1975. Every single citizen, man woman and child was forcibly removed from their homes, year zero was declared, money was abolished, and an agrarian class-less commune society was established which involved the mass production of food through forced hard labor in large “concentration camp-like” communes scattered throughout the countryside. What’s worse, families were separated, including children taken from their mothers. It was nearly 4 years of sheer terror for the people, while the military shot, and bludgeoned to death any persons failing to comply with their new gruelling life, suspected of siding with the old regime, intellectuals, professionals, teachers, and their children. Tuol Sleng used to be a high school but it was turned into a prison of torture where the KR could interrogate suspected rebels of the new order.

Of the 20,000 or so estimated inmates of the prison, none made it out alive.

The museum is a chilling collection of implements of torture, first hand accounts from the soldiers, holding cells, and of course, thousands of photos and documents that tell the story of crimes that few in the world realized the enormity of when it was going on.

It was so hard to believe that this was happening during my first few years of my life: in fact, I distinctly remember hearing about the situation in Cambodia while I was in the hospital at age 3 recovering from my burn accident. It is one of my first memories…

After that gruesome few hours, I walked over to a cafe that a friend in Chiang Mai had recommended that I try out. It was an incredibly delicious deli that served amazing paninis and cakes. It was just what I needed…a little taste of home. There, I met with Clare, an American from San Francisco who was also in Phnom Penh working on a clean drinking water project, but this time for her non-profit employer back home. It was interesting getting her perspective on life here in the city, and on how much the people struggle. We talked about the prevalence of PTSD, and how there was literally no-one in this country who didn’t have family who were murdered by the regime in the 70’s. By all accounts, Phnom penh is still a “new-ish” city that is trying to re-build and recover, mostly psychologically.

In the afternoon, I wandered over to the grounds of the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. I must have inadvertently found a sort of “secret entrance”, because there was no-one around and no ticket booth. I wandered around, happy to have the place to myself and standing underneath sprinklers that were working on the flowers. After an hour the place began to fill up and I realized that the grounds had been closed before! oops. Oh well. It was beautiful just wandering around the decadent gold and green buildings and going inside some of the silver laden temples to contemplate.

The heat was getting to me. I needed to head back to my hotel for a siesta- but before I did, I ran into and struck up a conversation with another single traveller named Andrea. We both had noticed one another because we shared a striking resemblance to one another. After sharing a tuk tuk back to town, we arranged to meet up for dinner that evening.

Later I tried to get on a boat for a sunset sail, but just missed it. Instead, I walked along the riverfront, calmly shaking my head at every “Lady!!! Lady!! you want….?” request for tuk-tuks, rooms, books, souvenirs etc. and tried to enjoy the sunset. I met Andrea at 7 and she convinced me to join her on the afternoon bus the next day heading to Siem Reap (a day earlier than I had originally planned) I agreed, deciding to visit the “Killing Fields” in the early morning, before the heat set in, at which point leaving this giant, loud metropolis would be just fine.

It was a 14km tuk tuk ride out to the Choeng Ek Killing Fields the next day at 6:45am – just one of the more famous areas of uncovered mass graves that were found after the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. The most chilling site greets visitors as you walk through the main gate- a tall shrine eight stories high that is literally filled with thousands of human skulls. It is quite a sight.

As suggested, I bought some flowers and incense and paid my respects to these souls last “resting place”, before exploring more of the site. Human bone fragments could still be seen just below the surface of the ground in many places and there were at least 16 distinct marked graves, that were discovered with hundreds of naked rotting corpses in them. Extensive forensics have been performed to try to establish sex, age, and cause of death. In the majority of cases, the victims were bludgeoned in the head and then had their throats slit. Difficult to comprehend was that babies and children’s skulls were often smashed against a tree before being tossed in next to their mothers. The museum again did a good job of interpreting the series of events that led up to this atrocity in history, and there was also a 30 min documentary in English, which just happened to be showing in an AC auditorium (which was extremely welcome). After 2 hours or so, I returned to the driver who was waiting for me.

I had the chance to observe a lot of the suburbs and surrounding towns on the drive to and from the Killing Fields, and here, in no particular order, are some of my observations:

– Cambodia is developing very fast. There was a tremendous amount of construction.
– Lots of women seem to enjoy wearing pajamas as their day wear. Curious?
– There was a lot of pollution in the rivers….plumes of grey and purple chemical froth pools clogging up the area.
– Most people and families get around on their moto (motorbike). It was very common to see 4 people and children seated on one bike dodging the traffic.
– I saw several babies “attached” and sitting behind their moto driving mothers simply by a too large cardigan that forced their little arms out straight like ram rods and their mothers then took the long sleeves and tied them around their own bellies!
– Most businesses are open air and simply line the main street.
– Stray dogs are everywhere as well as lots of water buffalo.
– People of all ages were hard at work in the fields.

Anyhow, I’ll end it there. I got the six hour bus to Siem Reap that afternoon (nearly forgetting
my passport at the hotel!!) and funnily enough, Andrea wasn’t on the bus! Oh well….adventure at Angkor Wat lay ahead.

Will write Part II tomorrow from Bangkok as Tuesday I fly to Nepal for my Everest Adventure!