Holiday in Cambodia *) - Siem Reap

So I finally made it there, about a month later than originally planned. The trip to Siem Reap was quite an adventure. The street, even though it is one of the most important in the country, linking Cambodia to Bangkok, is nothing but a very very bumpy dirt track. And if that wasn't enough, it was pouring down with rain that day, too. So all the vehicles you saw on the street were covered in dirt like hardcore rally cars, it looked like one giant Colin McRae tribute. It took us over six hours for 160km.

There are rumours that Bangkok Airways, "the boutique airline" and the only one that flies to Bangkok from Cambodia, makes sure the money that every year goes into improving this road disappears somewhere along the way in the system of happy corruption that is most of Southeast Asia.
Cambodia itself is really nice though. The people here are very friendly, and like Malaysia, sometimes enjoy chatting with you or merely greeting you just for the sake of it, without trying to sell you something. This is maybe because almost anyone here speaks at least English, some even really well. Little four year old kids that can talk English, this is even better than Malaysia! Quite a few Cambodians even speak multiple languages, we've met a cambodian painter trying to sell his works that spoke English, French, Japanese and some bits of German and Spanish! This is quite amazing when you realize how young tourism is in Cambodia compared to Thailand, where after 30 years of tourism you still meet a very large number of people that don't even speak a single word of English, and quite a few of them even work in the service sector, e.g. restaurants or as cabbies.
But this also has its downsides: A lot of -mostly very young- hawkers are relentlessly trying to sell their -mostly identical- souvenir merchandise almost anywhere here, but then again the temples here are THE main attraction in Cambodia (not only for tourists!), Angkor Wat is actually on the Cambodian flag itself. The children entrepreneurs used to be begging kids (run by pimp rings) not too long ago, but with great effort various organizations got them off begging and onto education, so I'm trying to support this by buying some of their merchandise every now and then. They're not only good in languages, but also in geography, wherever you come from - they can tell you the capital and the number of people in your country!


Cambodian kids - they're relentless entrepreneurs, but you gotta just love 'em!

Things can take quite a bit longer here, Cambodians never seem to be in a rush. It may happen that you wait for 10 minutes in a restaurant for your change or 20 minutes for your (quickly made) food. It's a bit cheaper here than in Thailand, in some areas even quite a bit. You notice almost anywhere that tourism is still fairly young in Cambodia, there are huge building projects everywhere, and building proper streets and a nice communications/internet infrastructure is currently underway.
After what the USA has done to Cambodia during the Vietnam War (Christmas offensive, Ho Chi Minh trail carpetbombing) it is the ultimate irony and pretty sad to see that these days the US Dollar is the dominant currency in Cambodia, with the Cambodian Real mostly being relegated to the role of a substitute for US coin change. Cambodian ATMs give you Dollars, and even if you pay in Dollars, you get mostly Dollars back in change.
At the moment I'm travelling with Reto from Switzerland and David from Austria, two really nice chaps i met on the Bus to Siem Reap. We also met Martin from Sweden on the border, who is coaching Cambodian kids in football.
We checked out six temples the other day, Angkor Wat, Angkor Tom, the one where some scenes of Tombraider were shot and three more. It was interesting because they were all fairly different:


The main temple in Angkor Tom had loads of amazing spires with faces on them


The Tombraider one was loaded with huge trees that grew their roots all around the stones to find some soil. I call this the "Davy Jones Tree" for want of the proper name.


Angkor Wat is the one that feels most like a Palace, it used to be the center of the Khmer Empire some 1000 years ago.

Siem Reap, being the second most important city in the country besides Phnom Phen, is fairly touristy with most of the nice bits i enjoy (24h supermarkets, ATMs, vibrant nightlife, cheap accommodation and (riksha) Tuk Tuks at any time you need them, while still retaining a bit of that "smalltown feeling", with a fairly modest "townscape" and not that many tourists around hell-bent on partying all the time - which is probably also due to it being the low season right now.

We hang out in the Temple Bar on Bar Street every night, which is a great place with free pool and fairly cheap drinks ($5 for a bucket, $3.50 for two cocktails).



From left to right: David, Reto Mario, Martin

Dinner is usually consumed at one of the various food stalls near Bar Street for very small money, and I'm delighted to say that it was there where I finally found (for just $0.5!) what I've been looking for all over Asia for ages:


A Jackfruit shake! THE mother of all shakes, pure delight!

*) A Song by DK - Dead Kennedys! ;-)