Cambodia day 10 – Battambang

Posted on Tuesday, 09 Dec 2008 by Hattie

For $12 we hire a tut-tut to take us to an Angkor-period temple 13km outside Battambang.  Our driver speaks good English and has an itinerary planned for us.  First stop is the bamboo railway.   This is probably the most fun you can have in Battambang without drinking alcohol!  Next stop a small roadside shelter making and selling sticky rice and after an explanation from our driver of how it is made we try some and it is delicious.  Further on we stop at the memorial to people murdered during the Pol Pot years.  This monument stands alongside an area where many were slaughtered and buried where they fell  and contains a display of  human skulls and bones as well as a frieze depicting some of the atrocities carried out by the Khmer Rouge.    It is hard to take in that such things could have happened here only 35 years ago.  From here we make our way to the  ruins of Wat Ek Phnom.  Our route takes us through the villages strung along a leafy, palm-fringed riverside road.  Some of the houses are little more than rickety huts with canopies of plastic sheeting, whilst others are large wooden affairs with verandas and shutters.  Some are simple palm thatch houses on stilts and there are new, smart brick and rendered town houses which seem faintly out of place.  Poverty and comparative wealth co-existing side by side.  All along the road people are going about their daily chores:  washing clothes in the river,  cooking food, manning the small stalls which stand outside many of the homes.  Children in their blue and white school uniforms cycle (often two to a bike) or walk to school.  Our final stop is to see rice paper being made.

The bamboo railway was built by the French and runs between Phnom Penh and Poipet on the border with Thailand.  These days only one train a week travels this narrow gauge line.  In between times the locals run a flat-bed bamboo trolley with a small engine attached along it.  It’s a single track railway, but meeting something coming in  the opposite direction poses little problem – the bamboo frame isn’t attached to the wheels and both can be easily lifted of the rails and put to the side of the track as necessary.  In fact as we trundle along the route we see several trolleys sitting alongside the track..  The section of the railway runs in a completely straight line and stretches across the rice paddies and far into the distance.  The track, though, is warped and wavy and the trolley bumps and judders over the less than perfectly aligned rails much to the amusement of our driver who keeps turning round to check on us as if we might have been catapulted off.  Along the way we  pick up a man with an engine and  disturb several people sitting on the track or walking along it.

The sticky rice is made by placing rice, water, sugar, soya beans and a few other ingredients into 12 inch lengths of bamboo.  After sealing the open end the bamboo is placed over a fire trough to cook for a couple of hours.  When ready the outer bamboo casing is cut away leaving the rice enclosed in the inner skin.  It makes a perfect portable snack – simply peel away the skin and the rice is ready to eat.

Wat Ek Phnom is not a patch on the Angkor temples and is on a much smaller scale and less well preserved, but interesting nonetheless.  On arrival we are immediately adopted by a young Cambodian boy called Janhay.  Janhay has a cheeky smile and infectious laugh and with his broken English proceeds to guide us round the site.  Sharing the site is a more recent pagoda beautifully decorated with simple frescos both inside and on the ceiling of the veranda.   Alongside the site is an enormous standing Buddha towering over the surroundings.

Seeing rice paper being made is something of an eye-opener.  The process, not surprisingly, is almost identical to the making rice noodles that we saw on the Mekong trip.  The main difference being the mixture, which is made with rice and water.  As we approach a cockerel vacates his seat on the mixing machine which is housed in an open-sided shed along with a motor bike and various other items.  The mixture is cooked on a hot plated heated by an open fire and the resulting round sheets of rice paper are set on bamboo racks and left to dry propped up along the dusty roadside.  This is the rice paper used to make the spring rolls that make their way onto our plates in Battambang!

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Cambodia day 9 – Battambang

Posted on Monday, 08 Dec 2008 by Hattie

The weather continues to be hot and sunny and we hire some bikes ($4) and take a ride out into the countryside.  It is difficult to spot where the countryside starts and the town ends as  houses line the road which follows the river out of Battambang.  It is only glimpses of rice paddies stretching out behind the houses on the left that indicate we have left the town behind.  The road soon turns to gravel as we enjoy the peaceful beauty of this lush green lane.  After an hour or so following the river we decide to retrace our steps and visit a few of the pagodas in Battambang,  of which there are many.  All are well kept and some house monastic communities.  At Wat Kampheng we chat to a young man who is keen to practise his English.  It turns out that he  has been living with the monks for only three weeks and is intending to become a monk himself.  There are 60 or so monks living at this pagoda which consists of several residential and administrative buildings, statues depicting the conversion of one of the Khmer kings  as well as several shrines in addition to the pagoda itself.  None of the pagodas around Battambang appear to be short of money as work is under way to to extend or improve most of them.  Some of pagodas are beautifully decorated with frescos on the veranda ceilings.

Battambang is situated either side of the Stung Stanker river.  Despite it being Cambodia’s second largest city it only has a population of some 560,000.   At it’s centre is the not very clean central market, the Psar Nat.  This is the liveliest part of town, where sellers of fresh food congregate around the outside whilst clothes, shoes, fabrics, and household stalls occupy the interior.  The Psar Nat is also the place to go for cheap eats – if you dare!  This is a sleepy town with dusty, unswept roads and what  little traffic there is, is mainly mainly motor cycles and the occasional cars or tut-tut.  The buildings are low rise – not a tower block in sight – and with a considerable number from the French colonial period.  The latter boasting first floor verandas and shuttered windows.  Further out of town there are also examples of  wonderful old wooden colonial houses on stilts with wide verandas.  One of which houses the Riverside Balcony Bar which we visited yesterday.

We are staying at the Royal Hotel just by the Psar Nat.  It’s small entrance belies a huge and airy interior with tiled floors, wide corridors and a great view of the city from it’s roof-top balcony restaurant.  We have an enormous, well furnished and spotlessly clean room on the first floor for S10 a night.  A real bargain.

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Cambodia day 8 – Battambang

Posted on Sunday, 07 Dec 2008 by Hattie

We are taking a few days to visit Battambang, the second largest city in Cambodia with a population of some 560,000 people.  It lies 5-and-half hours drive to the north-west of Siem Reap about half way to the Thai border crossing at Poipet.  The $7 tickets include pick up from our hotel to the bus depot on the outskirts of Siem Reap.  Bus depot might be overselling the coaches that line up along the dusty road, with no signs, numbers or stands to give away their destinations to us English speakers.  The pick-up driver on enquiry finds a man to take us to the bus for Battambang and we follow him through the crowds of travellers and hawkers to a bus parked on a piece of waste ground further down the road.  This rather sorry looking affair with blue an purple plastic seat covers, matching chintzy curtains and dilapidated interior is a far cry from the Mekong Express that brought us here from Phnom Penh  No frills like luggage tags, free water or cakes for us on this trip!

A large section of the journey is on an unsurfaced dirt road and the surfaced sections are not much better.  This is a road in the process of being built and every so often we have to circumnavigate the new bridges that are being constructed across small pools that encroach into the path of this long straight road.  The usual mixture of huts, shelters and houses line most of the route as do channels and pools of water in which men and boys are fishing using circular nets and women wash their clothes.  We pass all manner of transport along the way – buffalo pulling heavily laden carts, pick-up trucks bursting with goods and people swathed in scarves to keep out the dust, two-wheeled engines with long handlebars, hauling carts behind them, motor bikes converted to carry livestock including live piglets in wire barrels and racks with scores of unplucked chicken hanging by their feet.  Our bumpy journey passes quickly enough interrupted for a comfort break and a puncture.  The latter involves an opportunity to stretch our legs and enjoy the cooling breeze in the shade of the bus. It takes the driver and his assistant about 20 minutes to change the  rear wheel, replacing it with the completely bald spare.  This the third puncture during our travels and judging by the laid back reaction of the other passengers it is not an uncommon event.

We arrive in Battambang in the early afternoon and after checking in to our hotel just by the central market we take a walk along the river side as far as the Riverside Balcony Bar, a rather charming old colonial house on stilts. This wooden house has a huge veranda at the back which overlooks the river – the perfect spot to relax with a cool drink and watch the sun go down.

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Cambodia day 7 – Siem Reap

Posted on Saturday, 06 Dec 2008 by Hattie

Hired bikes again today and our first stop is a local barbers to get Andy a hair cut.   We then cycle into town to look for a decent internet connection as the one in the hotel is proving very unreliable and frustrating.  Apparently there is some problem with the internet provider in Phnom Penh.  Why that should affect the connection in Siem Reap remains unclear!  We find a good bar/restaurant opposite Le Tigre de Papier and settle down for lunch and a laid back afternoon.  Ironically there’s a signal here but no internet service – perhaps they haven’t paid their bill – and we end up using the Paper Tiger’s connection instead.  Still no luck with Skype though.  We round off the afternoon exploring some of the streets on the west side of the river, stopping to wander through a small local market selling street food.

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Cambodia day 6 – Siem Reap

Posted on Friday, 05 Dec 2008 by Hattie

Our temple pass expired yesterday and we are feeling completely ‘templed out’.  It’s a shame  it isn’t possible to buy an Angkor ticket that allows you to spread three-days sight-seeing over a week rather than having to cram it all into consecutive days.  The weather is even hotter today and we decide to hire bikes for the ridiculously cheap price of $2 for the day.  Our first stop is the offices of Bangkok Airlines to find out more about their Discovery Air Pass which offers discounts on between three and six flights to destinations in south-east Asia.  But it turns out that involves picking up connecting flights in Bangkok – not the most direct route for getting from Siem Reap to Luang Prabang and then on to Chiang Mai which are the next stops on our itinerary – after making a short diversion to Battambang – and the fares  aren’t that competitive.  After spending a couple of hours doing some further internet research we decide that a better option is to use Laos Airlines to get to and from Laos where overland travel is difficult and apparently not advisable – there have been shootings on some of the main routes.  We’ll then work our way overland through Thailand and down to Kuala Lumpur where we are planning to pick up a flight to New Zealand.  For now we buy a couple of bus tickets for the trip to Battambang  leaving on Sunday.  A 5-hour trip for the princely sum of $7 each. Oh if only travel could be this cheap at home!

Siem Reap is a pleasant town which straddles the small Stung Siem Reap river.  Until recently a sleepy little place  it  is now an expanding resort town catering for the tourists that come to visit  the temples.  The old town and the French quarter with its rather faded buildings and quiet, tree-lined boulevards does have  a certain relaxed charm.  But the town is growing and fast – there is an enormous amount of new building providing accommodation for the locals and 5* hotel and resort complexes for the ever-increasing number of tour groups.   All this is apparently putting a strain on the water table which could present serious problems in the future for the stability of the temples.  Another manifestation of the tourist conundrum.

We are staying  on the east bank in Rosy’s Guesthouse which looks onto the river.  We are about a 10-minute walk from the main bar and restaurant area and it would be reasonably quiet if it weren’t for the local temple playing Cambodian tunes at 6.30 in the morning.  Nevertheless, this is one of the best hotels we’ve stayed in.  It’s run by a English guy from Norwich, who has a slightly hippyish air and  a bit of a drink problem, and his wife.  They also have help from some Australian friends who have been decorating the pool and TV room whilst we’ve been here.  Apparently they are going to be staying on to run the place while the owners return to England for the  birth of their first child.  The atmosphere is very chilled and friendly and it makes a change to stay somewhere where fluent English is spoken.  There are two other advantages:  it has a bar so there’s an opportunity for social interaction and a large balcony-cum-veranda on the first floor which makes for a perfect chill out area;  and they serve good English comfort food like full English breakfast and beans on toast  in addition to authentic Cambodian fare.  So of course we had to indulge!

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Cambodia day 5 – Siem Reap

Posted on Thursday, 04 Dec 2008 by Hattie

We pay Mr Su an extra $15 to take us on the 70km round trip to see Banteay Srei and the waterfall at Kbal Spean, not knowing quite what to expect other than our Lonely Planet bible seems to think they are worth the extra cost.  Mr Su turns out to be quite astute;  he has taken us to the main temples close to Siem Reap in the first couple of days, so that he could suggest the longer trip for today and earn the extra dollar!  Not that we mind – we are beginning to flag on the temple front and a  trip out into the countryside is sounding like an appealing and relaxing day.  And so it turns out. The journey may be a little bumpy at times and be in part on unmade, red dirt roads that throw up clouds of dust from the occasional passing car or truck, but we get to see some more of the countryside and villages along the way and coupled with the two sites, it’s well worth any minor discomfort.

Banteay Srey means ‘Citadel of the Women’ and the carvings which are among the most exquisite and delicate we have seen are said to have been the work of women as they are far too fine to been done by men!  Disappointingly, despite the distance from Siem Reap, the temple is heaving with visitors, which is a shame as they  definitely  lose some of their serenity and special ambience with so many people around.  We have come to the conclusion that the best time of day to see the temples is in the late afternoon when the tour groups have left and the sun’s fading rays glint through the ruins and give them a special glow.  www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/banteay_srey

To get to Kbal Spean involves a 1500m trek through jungle.  It’s a gentle up-hill walk with  the sun’s rays piercing the dense foliage.  There are only a few other people here and after about 30 minutes we reach the River of the 1000 Lingas. Here are some unexpected and intricate riverbed carvings which were only discovered in 1969.  There is also a small, not very well signed, waterfall which  is  tourist free, and, for a few moments at least, we are able to have this jungle haven to ourselves.  www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/kbal_spean

We have lunch in one of the several cafes at the bottom of the hill and decide to buy a scarf each to provide some protection from the dust on the journey back.  A sweet little girl comes to our table with thick wad of scarves in a host of colours including the traditional checked pattern that many Cambodians favour.  We buy two scarves for $3.

On the way back we stop at one of the village stalls and Mr Su explains to us how palm sugar is made.  He turns out to be something of an expert the subject  because this was his job during the Pol Pot years.   We had noticed on the way out several earth mounds on the roadside with large silver metal bowls bubbling away..  These are the pots in which palm sugar is made and then sold at the stalls alongside.  Palm sugar turns out  to be a little like a sugary fudge and we buy three packets for $1.

Late in the afternoon we stop at Bantreay Samre a comparatively flat temple with a distinctly Angkor Wat heritage.   The temple has undergone extensive restoration which rather detracts from its beauty.  The shrines are approached by extremely steep steps and are closely arranged within the outer walls.  As the sun starts to set we take a stroll along a walk way edged with balustrades, meeting some young boys returning from a fishing trip with their catch of tiddlers.

All the village houses en route are built on stilts and some have small stalls outside selling items of food which in some cases may only be a few bunches of bananas. Some sell petrol by the litre in old Coke and Fanta bottles. Thick layers of dust lay on the awnings and parasols that provide shade for these stalls.  Oh, how these villagers must  be awaiting the day when the  road is finally finished and surfaced!

The weather has been glorious since we arrive in Siem Reap and today is no exception – blue skies and hot sun beating down.  A tut-tut is the perfect way to enjoy the temples, sheltered by the overhead canopy and open to the  cooling breeze.  We pinch  ourselves again … are we really living the dream?  Can this be us in Cambodia?

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Cambodia day 4 – Siem Reap

Posted on Wednesday, 03 Dec 2008 by Hattie

Another gloriously sunny and hot day and we have arranged for Mr Su to pick us up at 8.30am for our second day visiting the Angkor temples.  Our itinerary includes Preah Khan, Preak Neak Prean, Eastern Mabon, Ta Som,  and Pre Rup.  At every temple stop there are a line of food stalls as well as others selling clothes and souvenirs.  Even before we can get out of the tut-tut we are accosted by young children selling scarves, postcards and bracelets.  They are hard to resist with their smilie faces, sense of humour and pleading voices.

Preah Khan (Sacred Sword) was home to 1000 teachers and may have been a Buddhist university.  One of Angkor’s largest complexes it is a better state of repair than Ta Prohm but still overgrown with trees growing out of and over the surrounding walls.  It includes a Grecian-like structure with Doric-looking columns which seems rather out of place here.  Part Mayayana Buddhist and part Hindu, the temple has  a cruciform layout.   The corridor dedicated to Buddhism has equal-size doorways,  whilst the other three dedicated to Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma respectively have successively decreasing doorways apparently reflecting the unequal nature of Hinduism.  www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/prea_khan

Preah Neak Prean is a small well-preserved temple set in the centre of a rectangular pond with small  shrines on each of the four sides.  It is a serene setting and we take time out to sit at the waters edge and chill.  www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/preah_neak_prean

One of the smaller temples, Ta Som’s eastern gate has been completely overwhelmed by an ancient tree which is both supported by and one suspects supporting, the edifice, invading between the cracks and engulfing the stonework.  A beautiful fusion of nature and man-made structure which warrants several photographs.  www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ta_promh

Eastern Mebon is a 10th century temple built by Rajendravarman.  It stands on what was an artificial island in the now dry East Baray reservoir.  Dedicated to Shiva, it was built to honour the King’s parents.  It was built in the style of Pre Rup using a mixture of sandstone, brick, laterate and stucco – although little remains of  the latter.  Impressive 2 metre high elephants stand at the corners of the rectangular raised terrace.  A central tower is surrounded by four others all built of brick and looking very much like enormous kilns.  Four landing jetties on each of the four sides tell of a time when this temple was surrounded by water.  www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/eastern_mebon

Pre Rup is built primarily of laterite and brick by Rajendravarman similar in style to Eastern Mebon.   www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pre_rup

By the end of the day we are hot and exhausted and we are losing track of all the temples we’ve visited.  So what do we want to do tomorrow our third and final day, Mr Su asks?  We decide to take a trip further afield to see a temple and waterfall about 30km north of Angkor Thom.  Of course, it comes as no surprise that this is going to cost us extra!

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Cambodia day 3 – Siem Reap

Posted on Tuesday, 02 Dec 2008 by Hattie

We make an early-ish start leaving about 7:30am for our first day’s excursion to the Angkor temples, capital of Cambodia’s ancient Khmer empire.  Today we visit Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm.  Whew! That’s a lot of temple and a lot of walking in the heat.  By the end we are struggling to remember what we’ve seen, when.  We are leaving the itinerary in the hands of Mr Su who seems best placed to know what is worth seeing and in what order.  Angkor is not quite as we envisaged;  much of the jungle has been cleared from around the temples and they sit in park land like stately homes.  Only Ta Prohm shows signs of the jungle’s encroachment and even here much has been cleared so that it no longer looks as it did when rediscovered in the last century.  Some are also under-going restoration or is it conservation?  In many cases it seems more like the former than the latter unfortunately, with a lot of new material being inserted in order to allow reconstruction using fallen stones.  The new material doesn’t  blend in with the old deliberately, with a rather artificial-looking result.   A shame as it detracts  from the mystery and magic of these magnificent, and in some cases, colossal structures.

All the temples are built of sandstone and laterite, with the former used as the facing stone with the carvings added after the buildings were completed.

Our first top is Angkor Wat itself.  It’s sheer scale and completeness is awesome.  This is the largest religious building in the world.  Built by Suryavarman II in the 12th century to honour Vishnu and to be his funeral temple.  Enclosed in 3.6km of walls and a enormous moat that once was guarded by crocodiles,  a central terraced walkway leads to the main temple.  The structure consists of three levels enclosing squares surrounded by galleries with the central tower 55 metres above  ground level.  Angkor Wat is a mountain temple representing the mythical Hindu Mount Meru.  The most detailed and intricate bas reliefs run the length of the galleries depicting Khmer battles and everyday life – the most reknowned being the Churning of the Ocean of Milk depicting 88 demons and 92 gods churning up the sea to extract the elixir of immortality.  This is probably the best preserved of all the temples at Angkor and the jungle is kept well at bay.  This is not the romantic setting that was in my mind’s eye and unfortunately it is no longer to possible to climb the near vertical stairs to the top of the central temple and survey the complex. www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/angkor_wat

Angkor Thom, built around 1200 was a fortified city with walls and moat stretching for more than 12 km.  There are five grand gates into the city each topped the four faces of Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of  compassion.  Built by Jayavarman VII the most revered of the Khmer kings (1181 – 1219) it includes the temples of Bayon (father’s magic) and  Baphuon, as well as the Terrace of Elephants and the Terrace of the Leper King.  www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/angkor_thom

Bayon is probably one of the most mysterious of the temples at Angkor – 216 gargantuan faces of Avalokiteshvara stare down from its towers.  Each tower is topped by four faces with almond-shaped eyes, flat noses and thick, smiling lips.  1200 metres of  incredibly detailed bas reliefs depicting scenes of life in 12th century Cambodia decorate the walls.  From a distance this temple looks to have no distinguishing features, it is only on closer inspection that its full beauty becomes apparent.

Baphuon is a huge pyramid-shape temple in the throes of an extensive reconstruction programme .  Originally built around a mound of sand that was gradually pushing the base outwards making it unstable,  it was completely dismantled by the a team of archaeologists before the civil war and painstakingly catalogued to enable it to be re-constructed.  The records were subsequently destroyed by the Khmer Rouge creating something of a headache for the team who resumed the project after the Pol Pot era.  Unfortunately, a lot of new material is being used as part of the rebuilding (including the addition of concrete inner retaining walls) and not always with  aesthetically pleasing results.

The Terrace of Elephants is an imposing 300 metre-long structure that originally would have been topped with a wooden pavillion.  The two stairways are decorated with three-headed elephants and the walls either side of the grand central staircase are lined with enormous bas reliefs of elephants and garuda (mythical half-man, half bird creatures).

The Terrace of the Leper King boasts some particularly well-preserved carvings hidden in a narrow corridor between the front retaining wall and the main structure.  These include many Aspara (dancing nymphs) and sinister figures which  appear to be molesting them.

Ta Prohm was used as the set for Indiana Jones and the Tomb Raiders, and it is easy to see why – this  is probably the most atmospheric and captivating of the temples.   Left largely as it was discovered, the jungle envelopes this crumbling maze of corridors  some of which are filled with fallen sandstone blocks and others roped off in case of further collapse..  Trees grow from the walls, their gargantuan roots spreading out in wondrous shapes, invading every nook and cranny, supporting and being supported by the structures they envelope.  As the late afternoon light trickles through the jungle foliage the whole place takes on a magical air.  Thankfully there are no signs of the overt reconstruction that marrs so many of the other temples.  www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ta_prohm

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Cambodia day 2 – Siem Reap

Posted on Monday, 01 Dec 2008 by Hattie

We leave for Siem Reap at 8.30am  a daunting six-hour journey lies ahead  of us.  We are travelling on the Mekong Express and apart from the pick-up being slightly late due to heavy traffic, the service is very professional.  This is the first bus we have caught that tags the luggage and issues a baggage receipt.  The $11 fare includes two rather nice pastries and a bottle of water, an on-board stewardess, a film (at least for those at the front of the bus) and a toilet. We’ve also drawn the lucky straw and have extra leg room.  We look set for a good trip.

The Phnom Penh traffic, even in the Monday rush hour is light compared to the frenetic chaos that is Hanoi or HCMC and most streets are empty.  As the bus makes its way out of the city we spot a 4×4 with its roof rack laden with people and their personal belonging.  It must be an uncomfortable and precarious ride up there, not to mention downright dangerous!  North of Phnom Penh the countryside is flat and many of the fields alongside the road are flooded.  Almost all the houses are built on stilts lifting them some 12 feet above ground level and  rice paddies stretch out across the landscape.

Surprisingly, there is apparently a rice shortage in Cambodia and the local English language newspaper ‘The Cambodian Daily’ is running a Rice Crisis Campaign  to help struggling families.  Whether this situation is due to policies or climatic factors we don’t know.  The countryside though is lush and green and dotted with beautiful and well-kept temples.  Flowering water lilies grow in the ponds along the roadside and coconut palms soar skywards, whilst skinny white cows with bones protruding wander untethered or lie in the dust completely unphased by the little traffic that passes by.  This lazy tropical idyll belies a harsh and poverty-stricken rural existence.

The bus journey passes remarkably swiftly and it hardly seems like six hours have elapsed when we pull into the bus depot in Siem Reap.  Instead of being greeted by the usual crush of touting taxi drivers there is a very orderly queue to buy tickets and after paying $3 a tut tut driver is allocated to take us to our hotel.  Mr Su is a very gentle mannered man who explains that he is paid a wage and doesn’t receive the three dollars and relies on getting additional business – would we employ him to take us to the temples?  Mr Su speaks very good, if heavily accented, English and we negotiate a price of $45 for three days dawn til dusk.  And as there’s no time like the present we arrange for him to pick us up at 4.30pm to see the sunset over Angkor ($5).  A three-day pass costs  $40 each and allows us free entry this evening as well, so we head for Phnom Bakheng  which is set on the only hill for miles around and affords a good view of the Angkor park.  Needless to say it is overrun with people with exactly the same idea and after scrambling up an almost perpendicular series of steps to the top of the ruins we attempt to position oursevles in order to get a clear view of  the temples below.  It’s a hazy evening and it is difficult at this distance to make out the temples in the jungle below.  But the sunset is a beautiful start to our visit.  www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/phnom_bakheng

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Cambodia day 1 – Phnom Penh

Posted on Sunday, 30 Nov 2008 by Hattie

We arrived in Phnom Penh yesterday and made our own way to the hotel by tut-tut.  We had missed our free hotel pick up because the bus dropped at the different place and two hours later than advertised.  Oh the joys of travelling in south-east Asia!  When we arrive at the hotel the room we booked isn’t available because someone hasn’t checked out (apparently!) and the hotel wanted to charge us 50% more for another one several doors further down the street.  A narrow set of stairs lead directly off the street  and the door is protected by a heavy-duty grill secured with a padlock!  This is either a very bad area or the room’s not used very often!  It was only when we refused to take the room that we got it at the booked rate.  Today our first priority is to organise our travel to Siem Reap.  We’ve decided to spend only two nights in PP and we book the Mekong Express bus ($12 each) leaving at 8.30am tomorrow.  If it lives up to it’s advertising it should be  a comfortable journey and we will be there by 2.30pm.  Once our onward transport is taken care of we visit the central market and the Royal Palace which are two of the main sites in the city.

Our walk to the travel agent takes us through the edge a street market on Ph 148.  (All but a few streets in central PP are numbered with even numbers running west/east and odd numbers north/south).  The market bustles with activity and we have to pick our way down the street avoid the rubbish, the food, the pot holes and the motor bikes.  People sit or squat on the floor alongside their produce which is either in bowls or sheeting on the floor.  Even meat lies directly on plastic sheeting uncovered and inches from by-passers.

Cambodia is a much poorer country than Vietnam and this is particularly evident in PP.  There is considerably less traffic and roads seem empty by comparison.  Fewer cars and fewer motorbikes.  There are also far more beggars.  Mothers and their children sleep in the middle of the pavement around the tourist district and beggars come into the restaurants.  There are also lots of children selling postcards, books, DVDs and the like.

The Central Market is a huge domed building with several halls radiating from the circular central hall.  Stalls sell everything from jewellery to meat, souvenirs and handicrafts to household goods.  In the butchery section there are a number of tailors who, having usurped former meat counters, look rather out of place cutting out fabric and running up clothing on their sewing machines.

The Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda make up a single walled complex set back from the river front. This is the official residence of King Sihamoni and is wonderful example of Khmer architecture with its classic tiered roofs and ornate decoration set in lush gardens.  The Silver Pagoda which sits alongside the palace in a separate enclosure so called because the floor is covered in some 5000 solid silver tiles most of which, unfortunately, are covered either to protect them, or possibly given their uneven condition, the bare feet of the devoted visitors.  It’s Sunday and the palace and padoga are very busy with a mix of tourists and local Cambodians.  And there is lots to see in addition to the spectacular main hall of the palace and the life-size, solid gold buddha in the Silver Pagoda.  The most strange and incongruous is a grey building given to the then king by Napoleon III and re-assembled here alongside the Royal Palace.

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