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Siem Reap, Cambodia – Day 3

By jeni | September 10, 2008

Back to our regularly scheduled programming – Siem Reap Day 3. Let’s see, where were we? Oh yeah, we saw so many awesome things on the first two days, but there were so many more to see, and we were going back and forth and back and forth about where to go and when to go. I was obsessed with going to Tonle Sap, a huge lake south of Siem Reap, but John wanted to go back to Angkor Wat and see Phnom Bakheng, Ta Keo and Banteay Kdei. So we did it all! I was really worried about squeezing it all in and not dying of exhaustion or killing each other, but it ended up being all good.

First, we went back to Angkor Wat, site of the amazing sunrise, the death of our camera battery, and the biggest temple at Angkor. In fact, many people refer to the temples of Angkor as just Angkor Wat, simply for the reason that this is the largest and most well known.

When I say large, I mean ginormous. It baffles the mind to see this place. And of course to imagine 300,000 Khmers working night and day to build it. 300,000! More than many towns in the U.S.

I’m just going to put in a few pics of the various pieces of Angkor Wat, but you can get a better idea of the massive scale of it from our sunrise pictures from Day 2. John has also promised to get the full set of pictures up on a separate page sometime in this lifetime.

A little girl feeding her monkey a spider. She was precious.

Next, we went over to Phnom Bakeng, which is up on a huge hill and overlooks miles and miles of forest and Cambodian countryside. Maybe not miles and miles. A long way though. Lots of people climb up Phnom Bakheng to see the sunset, which is supposed to be incredible, but unfortunately this did not fit in to our schedule. Fortunately it meant when we climbed up, we were almost the only two people up there. Sothea, our tuk tuk driver, even walked up with us to enjoy the view.

Next up, more climbing, this time to the top of Ta Keo. We were virtual monkeys on this trip. And again with the tiny tiny stairs. Poor John, he has such big clown feet, so he had quite the time turning his feet sideways to get up ever stair. For me going down is the really scary part. Last thing I want to do is fall down 200 feet of steep stairs.

The approach:

John at the top:

Next, Sra Srang and Banteay Kdei, but not before we had lunch at a Khmer restaurant. Oh yeah and got totally hosed by this kid selling water. Two kids ran up to me before we went up Phnom Bakheng trying to sell water, and I told them if they remembered my name when I came down, then I would buy some from them. Well of course as soon as we got down the little girl is going “Jeni Jeni Jeni Jeni Jeni” so I gave her some money and got two bottles. Then the little boy is mad because he expected I would buy some from him too – he starts crying! Totally faking it, because of course they are working together and the money probably all goes to their parents anyway, but I am a sucker so I bought another bottle from him. Afterward I was mad that I fell for it and I felt like an idiot, but eh, what is another 50 cents to me, and it helps them out a lot. I just don’t want to teach these kids that if they start crying at tourists they’ll get money. That is not the right way.

Moving on, some pics from Sra Srang and Banteay Kdei. This is where we ran in to an American kid and an Isreali kid arguing about being proud of your country, so we pretty much blew through this place. I did not want to get into that conversation. Oh yeah also, this temple looked very unstable. See how the pillars are swaying?

Is this held together with string or something? Wow.

Finally, we were finished with temples and on the way to Tonle Sap. The Tonle Sap is the largest freshwater body in Southeast Asia and it is of huge importance to Cambodia. Almost all of the fish eaten in Cambodia come from this lake, which drains into the Mekong Delta in Vietnam during the dry season.

The ride to get there took about 40 minutes in the tuk tuk, and on the way we got to see how many Cambodians live. Some of these pictures are a little blurry because they were taken from inside a moving vehicle, but I want you to see some of these houses. And the ever-present cows.

Apparently there is a Korean company that sort of holds the boat drivers hostage and totally overcharges tourists for boat rides, but John busted out his negotiating skills when we got to the mouth of the lake and got us our tickets. Sothea pulled up to a group of about 20 young men, some of whom were fighting and calling each other lady-boys, in English only for our benefit I’m sure, and that is when I started getting a tiny bit nervous. It was pure chaos I tell you. One of them randomly became our boat driver, so we followed him to the boat. Sothea came with us and I was glad because I felt like we weren’t going to get robbed/beat up/driven into the middle of nowheresville on the lake with him around.

So we get on the boat. It’s not so much a luxury cruiser, as you can see from the state of the captain’s chair.

I fear we may sink, but I’m happy. This is what I wanted to do. I look totally happy here right?

The lake was actually quite beautiful, and filled with water hyacinths and tons of greenery. We went through the floating village of Chong Kneas. The boat sputtered and coughed a lot, but it worked just fine, and since we didn’t go too far out on the lake, I was confident that if we were to capsize, I could most certainly swim to shore. I was on swim team back in the day you know.

We stopped at a little restaurant/crocodile farm (what?!?) and had a beer and watched what I must say is one of the strangest things I have ever seen. A large group of Vietnamese (now living in Cambodia) people had pulled up to one of the docks. The people on the dock were throwing food at them, and they were weaving their boats in and out trying to get to the food. It was quite the spectacle. Yelling and screaming and kids falling into the lake. Most of the people on our side of the dock just watched in awe. A Cambodian girl came up to John, pointed at the Vietnamese people and just goes “Vietnamese” in the most exasperated voice. As if that explained everything.

After all of that craziness, we made our way back home. The sky looked awesome as the sun was starting to set, and Sothea, our tuk tuk driver, even tried his hand at driving the boat. Our two drivers actually ended up making friends with each other too, and enjoyed the ride as much as we did by sharing some shrimp and a drink.

So, I think that’s it for the blow by blow of our trip to Cambodia. There’s tons more, so many little stories and anecdotes, our trips into town and encounters with the locals, watching Cambodian TV and the hotel mistakenly washing my tennis shoes, and the fact that John is still paying the price for drinking the water, but I think I’ve been through all of the biggies. I hope that by documenting it all here I’ll be able to keep this trip sharp in my memory for years to come, because I know this was a trip that I never ever want to forget.

Topics: Cambodia, culture clash, sightseeing, traveling | No Comments »

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