Tag Archives: travel

Angkor Wat

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Before I relate yesterday’s adventures, I’d like to do a quick plug for another blog, The Adventures of Lames McFuzzy, written by another Australian couple who, sadly, have just finished their 3 month tour of SE Asia. I’ve really enjoyed reading their adventures and if you’re planning on visiting the same part of the world they include lots of good travel tips. Whenever I have time, which isn’t often, I like to search for good travel blogs and this one is a lovely read.

Speaking of having time on my hands, Luke’s gone out temple-touring today while I sit in our room in close proximity to the bathroom. Just in case. People tell me this is bound to happen on any trip to SE Asia, I’m kinda grateful it’s happening while we’re staying in a four star hotel with reasonable wifi, room service and all the other mod cons.

Anyhow, enough about my bowels, on to Angkor Wat, reputedly the largest religious site in the world.

The thing to do (and it certainly seemed that everyone was doing it) is to get up at 4:30 in the morning and drive out to the main temple to watch the sunrise. An picked us up at 5:15 and we went to the kiosk along the way to buy our tickets. $20pp for one day’s entry to all the temples and they take your photo and print your ticket with your picture on it – very high tech!

There’s a pool of water right in front of the main temple structure and so the reflections of the sunrise look great. We were in a crowd of at least 2 or 300 people so there’s wasn’t a whole lot of serenity to enjoy, unfortunately. At least the dozens of people selling guide books sort of leave you alone at that point.

Even at dawn the weather was hot. It was 32 degrees, which climbed to about 38 over the course of the morning. After grabbing a few shots we wandered around the temple. The restoration works are much in evidence but are clearly very well done. The whole thing reminded me of Tomb Raider (the game), which I spent one Summer in Canberra watching my housemate play. There are parts of Angkor that look as though they should be filled with water and there’s so many swimming scenes in the game that I was half hoping to spot some kind of secret lever or trap door 😉 .

I don’t know whether it was the onset of my stomach issues or just being a wuss, but the heat was making me feel woozy. I didn’t take many photos and eventually went to the line of drinks stall in the hope of getting some ice for my neck scarf. After I bought some water and tried to explain what I wanted, the lady sawed off a piece of ice (they come in enormous blocks here) the size of a housebrick. Smaller please! I ended up with something the size of maybe 4 Mars Bars bundled together which was a bit awkward but heavenly nevertheless and there’s nothing like icy water running down your spine to perk you up in baking heat.

Luke and I wandered off down one of the side roads and found a run down little part of the wall where there was a gate and a gorgeous view over the lake. With no one else around it was extremely peaceful and lovely. From there we wandered around the outside of the walls back to the main entrance.

From there An drove us to another temple where the wall carvings were in excellent repair, even thought there was no roof left to this building. While driving us around An told us that all these ruins had lain in the jungle, completely unknown to anyone for over 200 years before a French Archeologist discovered them last century. Due to a war with Thailand everyone had left the area a long time ago and so even the local people had forgotten them. I can’t imagine how that explorer must have felt, coming across these buildings for the first time. It would’ve been magical.

We walked through two more complexes. One was the ‘Tomb Raider Temple’, featured in the movie and currently undergoing huge restorations, the other was the ‘Smiling Face’ temple (probably not it’s real name but handily, I didn’t write down anything An told us), which I walked around the bottom of and Luke went through. I have a minor phobia of steep flights of stairs and this one had lots of steep, slippery, narrow stairs.

But this time it was about 12 and An took pity on us and drove us by a few other sights before dropping us back at our hotel. He had been a great driver all day – unending bottles of icy cold water, lots of local information and even told us about his family and what happened to them under the Khmer Rouge. I was very glad I’d spent a while reading about the history of Cambodia on our way here. I’d heard of Pol Pot but I’d had no idea just how atrocious the history of Cambodia was. Seems like they’ve been at war for a very long time, and when it wasn’t other countries trying to take over it was their own leaders commiting genocide.

A very instructive, interesting and active day. I was very happy to get back to the hotel for a shower, swim and a nap before our evening excursion.

First night in Cambodia

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Since I napped the afternoon away and we have dinner booked I’ll make tonight’s post a quick one.

We arrived in Cambodia yesterday and, although the heat was as bad as Saigon, the air seemed better and we were picked up from the terminal by a man named An. The hotel has an arrangement where self-employed drivers pick you up for free and then, if you like them, you can hire them for some time over your stay as your driver to get to the temples. We decided, pretty much straight away, that we really liked An. He smiled a lot and his English was very good. He told us that he is traveling to Bangkok on the same day as us to meet his godfather who is Indian but lives in Australia.

We arranged to be picked up at 5:15 the following morning to watch the Angkor sunrise, then we checked into our hotel. The Somadevi Hotel is very nice. Big, deep pool, swim up bar (luxury!) and we have a nice big room with a balcony. We’ll sure miss this sort of thing when we get to Europe. The whole thing is costing us about $30 each a night.

After we checked in and dumped our gear (and went for a swim, of course – practically bath temperature water) we headed to Pub Street, the very bright, neon-lit, noisy part of town. We enjoyed some people and cat watching and had dinner, two of the local dishes – amok and luklok (sp?).

Cambodia is clearly making the most of the tourist trade, there’s massage stalls everywhere, fish spas where they nibble your feet, endless market stalls and people just generally hassling you everywhere.

Crocodile products also seem to be prevalent, apparently there’s a farm nearby. Another blogger mentioned that it’s not really a great place for anyone who cares about animal welfare so I don’t think I’ll be going.

Tomorrow: temple time!

Weird Pizza

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So after the crushing disappointment of not being able to go on the tour we wanted today, we sat around on the internet all morning catching up on blog stuff then caught a cab to the local mall to watch a movie – that one about Oz. The name already escapes me.

Before the movie we got lunch. There’s a food court at the mall and almost all the shops serve a variety of noodle and rice dishes but we felt like something familiar. Now, before you judge me harshly know that Pizza Hut is the fast food of my childhood and I *hardly ever* eat it. In fact… I’m sure it’s been at least a decade but I still have occasional moments of nostalgia when I recall the taste (I said don’t judge me!).

Anyhow, eating at known names and finding that things aren’t *quite* the same as you expect is a fun experience so we gave it a go.

I ended up having a pizza with the following on it: cheese (so far, so good), tuna, crab sticks, gherkins, pineapple and (if that wasn’t weird enough) thousand island dressing instead of tomato sauce.

And you know what? It really wasn’t that bad.

Blogging About Blogging (meta-blogging!)

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Blogging while traveling is easy (if you have the means) and serves many purposes. I have two primary reasons for doing it.

1. To record my travels. I find typing easier than writing. On my first trip overseas I kept a written diary that I treasure but using a blog means a more attractive and neater format with the ability to add photos and links.

2. To communicate with friends and family back home but also with new friends along the way (*waves* to Andrew from NZ!) and anyone who stumbles across this blog. On my first two trips overseas 10 years ago I felt very isolated at times and loneliness would often set in, particularly in countries where people did not speak English. Using the blog and Facebook I feel as though I can tell people what is happening in my life, get responses (if people comment) and keep abreast of what is happening back home. I’m an inveterate socialiser and without daily communication of some sort I pretty much wilt.

Not everyone wants to blog or understands why we do it. I’ve been told ‘don’t let it take over your trip’. But it’s quite the opposite. In fact Luke and I have, several times, pushed ourselves to go and do something new despite the fact that we felt tired/cranky because we wanted to put something interesting in the blog – win/win, really. We also interact more with locals through the video aspect, such as with the owner of the Wild Weasel Bar in Hoi An, whom we briefly interviewed.

It’s been a great balance, with Luke’s skills in video and my desire to write reams and take lots of photos. I’m imagining that if we can keep up this level of output we’ll have an amazing collection of memories when we return home and if anyone wants to know about our trip we can point them in this direction. I remember getting kind of sick of telling the same stories over and over when I got back last time.

We both hope you’re enjoying our work 🙂