Cambodia

Well another quick update. Spent a couple more days in Siem Reap, for some reason I really liked it there, it was very laid back, very un modern, and rather muddy and dirty. It does have some of the most friendliest people you can meet though!

Me and my travel buddy Ritwick, (a Indian guy who has been living in Singapore for 8 years, but moving to Chicago soon to get his masters), boarded a bus for Phnom Penh, it was supposed to take 4-5 hours, but it really was closer to 7, which made for a long day. We then found a cheap little guest house, $8 a night each, for our own seperate private room, it even had a tv, and was clean, so pretty good deal. Went out for dinner, the vibe here is certainly different than Siem Reap, more agressive tuk tuk drivers, and various sales people, oddly enough books are very cheap here, you can pick up a brand new Lonely Planet guide book for $5usd. Next day we headed out for the killing fields, there was some big festival going on there, where Monks were being given food and money by many people, it was rather interesting to see. The killing fields didn't have much there really, but there was a pile of 8000 skulls, and they showed many graves where people were buried, it was quite a learning experience, and this happened less than 30 years ago, so it is quite recent. If you don't know about what happened here, you should read up a bit about it. Basically a radical leader named Pol Pot came into power, and he decided to kill everyone that was educated, which has left a rather young population here in Cambodia.

After that we went and toured the National Museum and Royal Palace, went out again last night, but again nothing much going on anywhere that we could find.. Ritwick also was leaving today to go to Vietnam, so I am back on my own again, although the guest house I am in is quite large and there are always people milling about, but most people don't stay here very long as there is not that much to see. I am here until Friday, I was going to go else where, but it takes like 7-8 hours to get anywhere, and I could only go to a place for a day, so I will just hang our around here, and see a couple more sights, and do some shopping, since clothes are quite cheap here.

Photos will come on the weekend when I get back to Bangkok.

Posted by Jason Willock

Just a quick update, as I am writing this on the hostel computer.

I was a tad worried when I first crossed the border into Cambodia, basically the border town was just mud, and people trying to get you into there cab. Fortunatley I met a girl on the bus from Bangkok from Canada, who has been in Cambodia a few times, so we shared a cab to Seim Reep. The road was terrible, it was 150km, and took us about 4 hours to get there! As we had to go very slow to dodge all the massive pot holes. Oddly enough they drive on the same side of the road as us, but the cars are a mixed bag of left and right hand drive. All the cars are Toyota Camry's from the mid to late 90's. Which seems a little odd to me, the car we were in was all Miles Per Hour, so it had to have come from the states. I think they may all be stolen cars, as I remember hearing Toyota's being very easy to steal.

Anyhow arrived at my hostel in Siem Reep, a very nice place, went out and had a quick bite to eat, $2usd for a chicken stir fry, and pinapple shake, pretty good deal! In the morning met another guy from the hostel and we went to tour around Angkor Wat. A massive complex of old temples from the 10-12th centuary, pretty impessive. It was a long hot day though climbing up and down the temples.

Then went out to eat at a place called Dead Fish, that had a few crocodiles in the middle of the place, just small ones though, Interesting place, and then went out to look for a place to have a couple beers, and found a bar that had free pool, so ended up playing partners with some girls from Phnom Phen, Cambodia, it was good to play pool again, and I did pretty good, me and my partner won 8 or 9 in a row, before being taken out. We didn't stay out to late though as we had to get up early for our second day at the temple, which today was even hotter, but we did less climbing so that was good. Then we went to see an impressive floating village in a massive lake, pretty amazing to see all these house boats on the lake, what is more impressive that these places actually move inland when the rainy season starts, as lots of them are just made of bamboo.

It has been raining every evening, not a light drizzle, but a huge downpour, with some breaks here and there, so fortuatnely haven't got caught in one yet!

Not sure where I am going next, I will have to figure that out tomorrow, as I have one more week here in Cambodia, before I fly back to Bangkok to meet back up with Tan who also gets back at the same time.

Posted by Jason Willock