Cambodia

The ride into Cambodia was interesting... we had heard that there was a popular scam with regards to the road between Bangkok and Siem Riep, Cambodia (our next stop). Basically the Tourist bus company colludes with the guesthouse in Siem Riep, taking you on a long hard and wild ride taking the entire day in uncomfortable conditions so that when they finally drop you off at their guesthouse in the middle of the night you just agree to stay for the night no matter how overpriced it may be. Well we were in no mood to have the same done to us so we caught a local bus from the Bangkok bus station and headed for the border. After an easy 2.5 hours the real ordeal started.

There doesn't seem to be a single honest person at the Cambodian border, several different guys all tried to overcharge us for a visa but we ducked and dived them until we got to the actual legitimate visa booth manned by government personnel....it was here that we got overcharged and ripped off anyway, the sign says $20 but we ended up paying $25 with the bastards refusing to give us a receipt. Oh well we tried, getting ripped off at the border is as much a part of traveling as having one big bag for all your worldly possessions.

Then we were cattle prodded into a line for the bus taking us to Siem Riep, we tried to get away from this as well thinking that the tourist bus will be far more expensive than the local version and also trying not to fall victim of the Guesthouse scam, but even the police would not let us go anywhere but onto that bus... everyone seems to be in on this one! So the Mavrix like everyone else fell victim to this stupid scam.

We waited around for no real reason (there was a full bus with gas in the tank but the guys didn't go anywhere for an hour) and then proceeded to drive very very slowly on the tarred road and really fast on the bumpy dirt road thereby heightening the discomfort and dragging out the journey. The driver kept stopping the bus to check for flat tyres but after stopping 3 times he decided that he would just fix a perfectly good tyre just to take up some time... when we pointed out to our captors that the tyre was fine they got slightly aggressive but carried on with the farce of changing the tyre none the less. Oh well...since then we have heard that everyone going on that journey has a flat tyre with one guy swearing he saw the driver put a knife into the tyre just so he could change it, we don't see the logic but I guess a bus load of tourists at full price is worth a tyre or 2.

10h30pm came and we arrived in Siem Riep where we were driven straight to a Guest House that was according to the driver really good value and he was sure that everything else in town was full because there was a festival so we might as well just stay here.

The Mavrix bolted out of the bus faster than a post lunch spew from Kate Moss and headed for another Guest House via tuk-tuk. "Amazingly" we found another place in no time and at less than a 3rd of the price. Our first impression of Cambodia and the Cambodian people (Cambodies as we would call them) was not good!

We did however absolutely love the temples of Angor Wat! Angor Wat is Cambodias major drawcard and for good reason, the giant temple system spans kilometers and houses giant palaces and temples with intricate detail thoughout. You could spend weeks wandering the sites and not see them all, we only had 2 days though so we stuck to the highlights.

First we went to the "Tomb raider" temple, named so because this is where they shot the movie not because the Cambodians where really into Angelina Jolie. This site has been given over to the jungle and therefore boasts giant trees everywhere you look growing out of the temple roofs and constructs, ponds and grass make walking through the site tricky at times but really gives the place a sense of timelessness and a wild quality.

Then there is the temple of Angor Wat itself, a giant palace and temple structure surrounded by a moat with walls and passages within yet more passages all decorated with intensley detailed reliefs telling stories of great battles, heaven and hell and the Angor mythology. We spent more than half a day just wandering through the halls of this place and pressing our faces up close to the walls to take in the minute detail in every little figure and relief. We left here awestruck and amazed with little happy traveler smiles on.

We also got to see some of the other larger temples, each with its own character, each with the same high levels of detail throughout and some even with a smattering of monkeys and elephants. During this time we also started to enjoy the Cambodies, namely the kids and their sharp wit. While their initial sales technique is very annoying and very in your face naggy, once told no a few times they settle down to a conversation with you and their humour comes out. They are always ready with a smile or a joke and we were amazed at the number of languages these 10 years olds trying to sell us souvenirs could speak. At one point we decided to pretend we couldn't speak English only Spanish in the hope of dodging their insistent selling, the girl just looked at us funny and then started speaking Spanish instead! These guys are multilingual and multitalented and a lot of fun! We felt sad for them though as Cambodia is a hard country, they havent been out from under the thumb of the Khmer Rouge for too long and there are landmine vicitims and orphanes everywhere serving as a constant reminder of the hardships they have had to and still endure.

Our time in Phnom Phen would look at this aspect of Cambodia more closely as we would visit the infamous Killing Fields where thousands of people were brought for execution before being dumped in the marsh and the governments brutal prison, S21 where all manner of evil was carried out on those seen to be against the "people". It was a chilling and sad experience but gave us an even greater respect for the Cambodies, with all of this in their recent past they still manage to smile while they struggle uphill to survive.