Cambodia part 1: Angkor Wat
Day 1: 22nd Feb, 2014
Off to Cambodia for the a week!
Decided to do things differently this time. Typically I hate travelling alone, and plan my trip very precisely.
This time I’ll be going solo and haven’t booked any accommodation! Let’s see what happens.
Eh this Dayre filter not bad after all leh!
Bunking in a guesthouse near the Siam Reap river. Apparently dudes like to come here and “play phone”.
Come to think of it I guess I’m doing the same thing right now…
Ang moh: So how long are you on vacation? Me: a week! Ang moh: oh that’s not very long is it?
Stupid ang mohs and their crazy amounts of vacation 😡 (he was on vacation for two months)
Siem Reap Night Market
Well the night market is as you would expect. Didn’t see anything there that I wouldn’t see in Thailand.
The massage parlour ladies were very aggressive though. One would waylay whenever I passed by grabbing my hand and shoving me wtf
Day 2: 23rd Feb, 2014
Woke up at 420am today to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. When I was leaving the guesthouse some wasted dude had just come back from a night out haha.
An hour’s wait by the lake. Had a good spot but unfortunately it was pretty cloudy so the sunrise wasnt as spectacular as it sometimes is #cambodia #angkorwat
Sun decided to come up after half an hour!
The temple itself can be pretty imposing.
Butt aching and hair all over the place after a 40km ride to Bantay Srei. Guide says we should do this next to avoid the crowds so ok. The area around this temple seems to be more developed. There’s a poster here comparing Bantaey Srei to other monuments in the world — I realize I know most of them (Borobudur, Chichen Itza, Himeji Castle etc) from playing Civilization
Getting around via motorbike is faster than a tuktuk and a good way to get a glimpse of village life there.
I’m quite sure it’s dangerous to put petrol in bottles like that though…
Cambodian Landmine Museum
Visited the Land mine Museum. It was set up by a Khmer Rouge defector who had placed thousands of mines for them in the war.
Cambodians are relatively fluent jn English — much more so than Thais and Vietnamese for example. My motorbike hire said he went to a private instead of a public school specifically to improve his English, and had taken night classes for two years to get even better at it.
Which makes them effective salespeople/panhandlers! They are old hands at buttering you up so that even when you see it coming you’re likely to go “aw shucks” and give them what they want.
A young 10yo girl came up to me at one of the temples and rattled off a practiced routine:
“Sir, do you want a cold drink? No? For your driver? Later you come back you buy from me ok? Where are you from? Oh in Kuala Lumpur? How long are you staying here? Is this your first day here? Where is your girlfriend? Oh but you are very handsome sir why don’t you have a girlfriend? Here I give you this bangle for free you can give to your girlfriend when you have one. See you later sir.”
Needless to say, she got what she wanted. Didn’t help she was very pretty but I didn’t bother asking for a picture as I guessed I would have to pay for that too.
Same story in another temple, a teenager came up to me beckoning me to climb up an outpost for a better view (it was a good view). He then helped me up, complimented me on my photography skills, and went on to show me good photo spots around the temple.
Saw it coming a mile off when he pulled out a “donation book” with two entries already inside for “Mark” and “Jane” — suspiciously in the same handwriting — for a whopping $60 and $70 respectively. I laughed and told him I’m just a Malaysian student but gave him $3 for his trouble.
