Elusive Travels

Arrival in Siem Reap - 11th April 2013

We arrived in Siem Reap airport around 7pm which was actually 2 hours later than our scheduled arrival time. This was largely in part to a "technical fault" on Jetstar which resulted us having to disembark and then catch a "newer plane" (captain's words). Anyway once we arrived at the aiport we had to fill out a Visa form and then along with a single passport sized photo and 20USD our visas were processed. 

Once we exited the aiport there were a couple of options presented to us in terms of travel. There were buses that took you directly into the heart of Siem Reap and also taxi services. Seeing as we had already lost time, we opted for a taxi which cost 7 USD for a twenty minute journey into town where our hotel was.

Hotel Somadevi and our first taste of Cambodian cuisine.

The hotel located in the centre of town greets you with beautiful Ankgor architecture in its interior, a large swimming pool, courteous reception and concierge, a large dinner/breakfast hall and free wifi in the lobby. Rooms cost around 45USD a night and are of a pretty decent size, large enough to accomodate 2-4 persons. 

Feeling rather famished after a long trip we quickly unloaded our luggage and jumped in a tuk-tuk, stopping at Pub street for a cost of a 1 USD.  Pub street is littered with restauratns, on street barbecues, pubs, spas, markets, arts and crafts and plenty of tourists and localites.  After strolling around for about 10-15 mins and taking photographs we happened across a restaurant, "Cambodian Soup" where we had our first taste of the local cuisine.  For 20 USD  we enjoyed a delicious meal that included two drinks, spicy Cambodian soup, Khmer chicken curry and Khmer Amok, a local curry usually served with steamed fish though you also get the option of chicken or pork  cooked in a spicy coconut curry.

Our stomachs were now full and to help ease the digestion we took a stroll into the night market where locals and tourists alike were busy bartering for various items such as paintings, clothing, arts, crafts, watches, jewellry you name it. I myself was paricularly interested in a small vendor that was selling retro camera equipment, 8mm, 35mm, polaroids, daguerrotypes and a few other items I'd not seen before. As much as I was tempted, I did not buy anything, perhaps I should have.

Nearing 10pm it was time now to head back to the hotel as we had an early start the next morning to witness sunrise at Ankgor Wat. 

The Splendour of Ankgor Wat - 12th April

Built around 12AD Ankgor Wat covering an area of 500 hectares is the world's largest religious monument, based predominantly on Hindu architecture. It was built by King Suryavarman II and though initially a hindu religious monument it soon became adorned with Buddhist architecture at the turn of the 16th Century. Over a period of several hundred years the temple went through many changes and as a result what we see today is a marriage of two similar yet different religious beliefs adorning this magnificient wonder of the ancient world. Though Ankgor wat temple is the main atrraction it is surrounded by dozens of smaller temples each with its own unique history.

Now that you have but a small glimpse of what Ankgor Wat is,  let me take you back to the morning of April 12th.  "Beep Beep Beep" What is that noise I wonder, then I wake up and realise it is my alarm reminding me to wake up,  it is 4.30am. After slowly geting out of bed and getting ready we headed down to the lobby where we were greeted by our guide Mr Ross Savuan. 

On the road to Angkor we purchased a day pass which cost around 20 USD each and then carried on driving towards the temple complex. At 5.30am droves of visitors had already started to litter the place, all keen to see the sun rise illuminate the ruins of Angkor Wat.

SLR in hand I pressed forward finding a comortable spot with a decent view waiting for the sun to rise, we waited and waited, it was now almost 6.15am but still no sign, then around 6.30am we witnessed it arising but alas that was shortlived since there was too much cloud resulting in an obscured view of the rising sun. I did manage to snap a phew photographs but soon it was evident that we were not going to see any more, so we decided it was best to head back to the hotel for morning breakfast. 

Back at the hotel our guide informed us that he would be picking us up at 9am to continue the tour.  Breakfast at the hotel was the usual  continental, English and local foods  that are common in almost any hotel. I enjoyed a healthy serving of omlette, cereal, a nice plate of fruit and a cup of tea, after that as we all do, spent time updating Facebook until our guide arrived promptly at 9am.

Our first stop was visiting Bayon temple built in the 12-13th century for Mahayana Buddhist King Jayavaraman VII, after his death it was later redesigned according the preferences of the successive  Hindu and Theravada Buddhist kings. 

What you can expect to see here is a magnificent wall gallery depicting events from Khmer history, stories from the Mahabharatha and daily life of the Khmer people. The upper terrace of the temple is adorned with Lokesvaras who are synonymous with Mahayana Buddhism as symbols that embody the compassion of Buddha and  are also sometimes seen  amongst Theravada Buddhist art.  The guide mentioned there were around 200 of these. The most spectacular however are the faces of Bayon, 4 in total which seem to mysteriously follow you wherever you wander. It is believed that the King was depicted as one of the Lokesvara giant faces that adorn the towers, though there has not been any decisive evidence to prove that this was indeed the case.  Regardless, it is a truly breathtaking sight.

After about 1.5 hours at this site we moved to the next temple Baphuon, dedicated to Hindu god shiva, it too carries the classical style of the Bayon temple and much like Bayon was later converted into a Buddhist temple at the turn of the 15th Century.  I highly recommend you climb to the top of the towers to enjoy spectacular views of the ancient ruins.

 Lunch included we must have spent around 2-3 hours visiting the various temples before we headed back to explore the ruins of Angkor Wat, the prized jewel of the Angkor kingdom.  Our guide who was very well versed in Khmer history carefully took us around the temple over a span of 3-4 hours explaining every little detail from the smallest rock to the giant towering behemoths, every nook and cranny of the temple was described in vivid detail combinining mythlogy and history. We also explored the ruins where the film Tomb Raider was shot.  I do not do justice by trying to explain the grandeur of Angkor Wat in such a few words, one really needs to be there to revel in all its glory.

The last stop of the day was visiting another temple atop a small mountain with panoramic views of Angkor Wat. We had hoped to catch sunset as it brought the land into darkness. However, we were instead welcomed with a downpour of  torrential rain resulting in us having to quickly scurry down the mountain.

 At around  6pm  the tour had ended and we were driven back to our hotel where we were soon expecting our buddy to join us.

Khmer Street BBQ & Two Cambodian Kids

As you can imagine, with all that site seeing in the blistering heat and humidity we were now extremely hungry and needed to re-energise. Our friend arrived shortly after we got back to the hotel and we all jumped in a tuk-tuk for 1 USD stopping at Pub Street. We wondered around for a bit before settling at a streeet bbq.  It didnt take us very long to place orders for rice, tiger prawns, chicken, salad and fish and 3 coconut shakes, which seems to be a popular refreshing beverage. I highly recommend you try it should you visit Siem Reap.

Whilst  tucking into our food we noticed a few people running and appearing rather paniced, they were hiding near the tables, one had a baby as well. I looked on at them wondering what it could be.  I learned later that they were running from police, though I never fully understood why.  Soon after I witnessed something that tore me apart,  a young boy, bolted into the street to a table next to us and grabbed a few measly pieces of leftover bones, looked back in the direction he came from  and then darted around the corner.  We could see him sat a few feet  away with his back turned to us. The whole episode was playing in my head and my friend sensed this and  she said "Do you want me to go speak to him and see if he wants to join us" I nodded. She went over and had a chat with the boy, in the meantime we ordered a serving of Khmer chicken fried rice which we wanted the boy to have. 

The little boy joined us at our table, we learned that he was six years old, could speak a little English, liked to swim and had a very cool hairstyle. His mother we learned was at home sleeping, which was really sad since it was 10pm at night and this boy was out fending for himself. 

Woooosh!! Woooosh!! it started raining again, this brought out a whole bunch of kids who seemed to revel in it all, they came upto us or rather to the boy had a little chat and then darted back out onto the street. They seemd rather content in soaking in the pouring rain.  Our little friend took the opportunity to wash his mud ridden hands in the rain water, he was about to take his shirt off and join his play mates in the pouring rain when the rain suddenly stopped. It had ended almost as suddenly as it had started. 

It must have been a good twenty minutes now since the little boy had joined us, so we asked the waiters whether the food was ready but alas it wasn't.  The poor boy was starving and we were getting impatient but there was nothing we could do.  Shortly after a little girl who was a friend of the boy joined us and we were now a crowd of five, the girl was hungry too and wanted some food. The little boy told her that she could share his food. "Excuse me, excuse me is the food ready?" We asked again and this time it was. I could see the kids' eyes light up as the food was brought to the table.  We split the food into two portions and watched them devour it all. They both smiled at us several times and thanked us more than once, those smiles warmed our hearts and to me that was probably one of the most memorable moments of the holiday.  Stomachs full, the little kids soon parted our company and as it was getting late we decided it was time to head home too. 

The Floating Village & Craft School for the disabled - 13th April

Around 7.30 am our guide Savuan, picked us up and we drove a few miles down the road to Chong Kneas.  Here we took a boat which ferried us around for approximately 1 hour.  The floating village as the name suggests is a village built entirely on water. It is home to a large community of Vietnamese and Khmer folk complete with markets, schools, police and most of all people with a real zest for life.  Smiles all around, beautiful scenery all make this a truly wonderful place to explore.  The daily life for the men at least from my observation appeared to be fishing and the village itself dedicated to making fish paste  - A really foul smelling condiment which seems to be very popular here. 

We stopped for a short break in one of the markets and soon found ourselves being chased by a boy with a snake, asking for money.  Is the snake used as a scare tactic to coerce you into giving money or is it supposed to attract you? Not really sure but I'll leave that upto the interpration of whoever visits the floating village on their next holiday to Siem Reap.  Either way, we donated and soon made our way back to the boat for one last tour of the village before we stopped athe the Craft School. Here we saw many local crafts wood, painting, sculpting. silk weaving  all painstakingly bought to life by talented young artists who were either blind, deaf or mute.

Angkor Museum, The Red Piano, Tomb Raider cocktails and Acrobats - 13th April

The tour of the floating village ended around midday and after refreshing ourselves with Cambodian iced coffee we went back to the hotel, thanked the guide for all his help during the last two days, invited him for a group photo and then headed out to lunch. We ate at a local restaurant where my friend helped a group of Chinese tourists decide what to order. Somehow, after our delicious lunch we ended up being part of a group photo with the tourists, which was rather amusing.  After a heavy meal,  we were feeling pretty tired so thought it best to head back to the hotel rest for a little and then make our way back out to visit the Angkor Museum. 

Angkor Museum located centrally in town just around 10 minutes from our hotel charges 12 USD for foreigners and 2 USD for locals. There are 7-8  galleries in total each room explaining Angkor's  history from ancient times to the present day.   The most spectacular of all though  was the room of 1000 Buddhas which houses the worlds largest collection of Buddha statues.  There was also a spectacular scale model of the entire Angkor Wat temple complex.  The whole tour lasted around 2.5 hours and for  12USD we couldnt really complain.    After the tour we decided to visit the outdoor circus, "Phare" to purchase tickets for the 7.30 pm showing of "Eclipse" My friend had a voucher that would get half price and she tried her best to convince them to discount all three tickets but unfortunatley they wouldn't budge, so we decided to head to town for dinner and hope that we could grab two more magazines that had the vouchers.

We jumped in a tuk-tuk and stopped at  "The Red Piano, a Western/Khmer restaurant located in Pub street famous not only  for its signature "Red Piano" but also for serving the Tomb Raider cockail. One that was created by Angeline Jolie oduring her visit to Siem Reap while filming "Tomb Raider"  The cocktails were a mixture of lime, cointreau and some other ingredient that eludes me now, I found it a little too sweet for my taste buds. Dinner was a serving of Green Thai and Red Thai curry  with steamed rice and also salad,  which was OK, compared to the other places we had dined at the previous nights. 

It was approaching 7.30 now and in the meantime our friend had contacted a couple of her buddies, one in particular was one of the organisers for the "Phare" acrobatic circus. They drove us to the venue and the look on the faces of the salesman who denied discounting 3 tickets was priceless as we were granted free entry.   

Eclipse, is a story of a young man who is considered an outcast in his village for being different, he is bullied and beaten and unable to take it any longer, prays for divine intervention. The gods turn him into a beautiful woman who enchants the villagers, but soon find themselves in the midst of a mysterious plague. The entire  story was brought alive by the sounds of traditional instruments and gravity defying acrobats that left us with our jaws wide open and eyes popping out of their sockets! The performers were incredible, easily one of the best I had seen.   We had joked earlier that if the performance had been unsatisfactory our friend would be in trouble but they certainly delivered and more.  A truly wonderful way to end the night. 

A bit of shopping, goodbyes & The Flight home to Singapore - 14th April.

Throughout the holiday we had seen lots of arts, crafts and various other local artefacts that had caught our eye and the last day would be the day to  explore this avenue and make any purchases we deemed necessary.  My friend purchased a few paintings and some sovenir t-shirts whereas I simply settled for a beautiful painting of the "Floating Village" which is now sat in my bedroom waiting to be hung up, I can't seem to make up my mind as to where it best fits. Anyway we had great fun, touring all the different markets, looking at the various goods and haggling for better deals. It reminded me of my trip to China where I haggled at Silk street though, this was on a much smaller scale. 

By now it was time to leave and after saying our good byes we made our way to the airport, where we would fly to Phonm Penh for a 30 minute stopover before jetting back home to Singapore.

Sensational! This is the best word I can use to describe our experiences, from the splendour of Angkor Wat to the people, the food and witnessesing an entirely unique way of life in the "Floating Village" we had a truly memorable holiday.