Having finished my course of dental treatement in Bangkok it was finally time to strike out to new territories - Cambodia was the destination; Siem Reap the first stop. I jumped on a train from Tony's gaff and sat in the open doorway for the whole journey; 5 hours of rattling along through the Thai countryside. Through reading the lonely planet and various internet sites it was clear that Cambodians at the border will try every trick in the book to relieve you of your money for the journey to Siem Reap. Poipet was described as the "armpit" of Cambodia; luckily this was exactly where I was to cross the border.
Leaving Thailand behind, trudging through the casino zone (between border posts), I arrived at Cambodian immigration and presented my Cambodian visa printed for the short of seeing at A4-size. This raised a few smirks but It wasn't my fault if they emailed me at that scale.
Having been stamped in I set foot in Cambodia. Mos Eisley spaceport made real life. Chaos and scum littered the streets and I seemed to find myself wading through plastic bags and filth. Alert to scams I waved away the first gents to approach me offering taxis. I waved away the second group too. At the third group one fella decided he would tail me all the way to where I was wanting to go - the bus station. Except I never made it there. I bartered him down from 1500 baht (thai money) to 500. He then led me to a car that already had two passenger in. They were an aussie father and daughter and were only too happy to have an extra body share the cab fare. Off we set.
Cambodia drives on the right. The car was right hand drive. This provided me with the opportunity to see oncoming cars first, before the driver tried to overtake. Much like Thailand there are laws of the road that seem to be open to interpretation. Combined with wrong-hand drive cars I was a little wary of the possibility of being flung through the windscreen at speed. We made it to Siem Reap unscathed, only for the driver to inform us he doesn't know his way around Siem Reap or to our hotels, so he needs to go and see his friend. We pull into a side street and then the scam starts.
His friend says the driver needs us to pay him an extra 500 baht because the driver paid the police at Poipet. It was never made clear what he paid the police for. The aussie guy starts to mutter. He is in the military in Australia, had been for 20 years, and so I suspected he wasn't one for verbal negotiation.
We sat there for 15 minutes, the aussie guy and me telling them we agreed 1500 for the whole taxi all the way to our hotels. The Cambodians were adamant we pay. We stood our ground. The aussie was getting a little hot and bothered. Sensing there could actually be some bother fairly soon the Cambodians agreed to only take an extra 100 baht. How very kind of them...
I finally landed at the hotel and freshened up and took a wander. The old French Quarter of Siem Reap is actually very nice; loads of bars and restuarants and pretty good vibe about it - once you became immune to the begging kids. The next three days were spent touring the amazing ruins of Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and other surrounding sites.
See. Fan-bloody-tastic. Really an embarrassment of riches for Cambodia; they're rightly proud of them. Many are still be restored. Some, admittedly, have been subjected to some poor 'restroration' using modern materials. By and large though you have some awe-inspiring feats of building.
Along with ancient buildings and tourists I saw MONKEYS! Monkeys stealing bags of bananas from passing tourists. And monkeys being chased by women with sticks! Quality stuff.
At the end of the first day I also decided I needed to work on my tan lines.
Or have a shower.
It was during my time in Siem Reap I began to see just how expensive it was to be a tourist. The tuk-tuk drivers take you for as much as they can get. Even the hotel-recommended driver tried to charge my $30 for a tour that should've have cost $20. On top of this they expect you to buy them lunch at noodle shacks that are no more than clip-joints. $5 for a pot noodle tipped on a plate? Don't mind if I don't thanks. Everyone basically has a scam running.
My last day in Siem Reap I tuk-tukked ($25) it out to see a riverbed that had been carved. The 1.5km 'moderate hike' to the river (not my words, the words of Lonely Planet) was, at times, as close to climbing as you can get without having ropes. Eventually though I was rewarded with some impressive carvings. Unfortunately the dry season meant that the riverbed was mostly full of stagnating ponds and the "refreshing waterfall" (Lonely Planet) was a dribble of brown water.
Anyway - here is a pic of some of the riverbed.
On the way back I stopped off at the Cambodian Landmine museum. It's run by a chap that diffused hundreds of mines in the Cambodian countryside. The centre-piece is a greenhouse housing all the mines he got rid of. Loads. Although you shouldn't laugh at the atrocity of war, oppression and it's long-term after effects, I had to have a little smirk at this...
Clearly, by trying to move on from the past, the best way to do this is to give the name of the one thing that ruled your life for the last 20 years or so to one of your kids. Good work fella.
After Siem Reap I hopped on a bus to Battamabang, apparently Cambodia's 4th most popular visitor destination. Fuck knows why. It is a hole of a place. The guesthouse I found to start - having decided to go off piste and dispense with Lonely Planet for more adventure, was decent enough. Only I opted for the cheapest room which was like a furnace. It would have been cooler to sleep in the corridor. I lasted one night there before consulting Lonely Planet once again... the owner had a face like a smacked arse when I told him I was checking out. Christ knows why.
Anyway, I pottered around Battambang for a couple of days - trying to find the one decent looking gin palace I'd heard about, only to find out it'd closed after the owner started to drink the stock. I went off to some temples in the countryside; one which had been used by the Khmer Rouge to imprison people. Nearby was a cave that they used to push people in to. The drop, 100 feet, killed most. Their remains were placed in a small structure for all to see.
I got back to Battambang by train. Bamboo train. There are no train services in Cambodia, so the locals have made their own. It consists of a buggy that sits on the rails and can be totally dismantled to allow other trains to pass in the other direction. Here it is.
I had to hire the whole thing for $8; but this didn't stop a load of other CAmbodians enjoying the ride with me. Bloody freeloaders. It seemed the intention of the driver and my moto driver for me and a female passenger to get it on. Knowing winks and laughter were exchanged between them. I just kept shaking my head and watching the buckled tracks loom in to view and bracing for impact. It was a great laugh. Then the train ran out of petrol and we had to abandon it...still paying full-whack mind, some 5km from Battamabang.
Having had enough of the town - really there is nothing in the town to look at or do - I opted to go to the seaside. Sihanoukville is Cambodia's premier beach destination. And beach is just what I wanted.
After a 12 hour bus ride, via Phnom Penh, I landed. I'd got chatting to Londoner alled Paul who'd been living in Wakefield most recently; we both checked in to the same gaff and knocked about together. It was good to have some company. Sihanoukville, unsurprisingly, is a fucking hole. The beach that I plumped for, Serendipity Beach, was awash with litter and rubbish and backtwatters. The sea was also full of shit. Not too fantastic really. I retired to the bar back at my gaff and met up with Paul. We headed to a few bars and got drunk. That about sums up my three days in Sihanoukville. Except for agonising toothache that started. Conscious of the last dental problem that croppped up I decided I should hightail it to Phnom Penh, missing out a trip further up the coast, to get this sorted.
Phnom Penh is pretty cool; not at all like the rest of what I had seen of Cambodia. The hostel I opted for has a good crowd in of longterm residents. Three British kids and an Aussie chap called Dennis, who can't get back in to Thailand...
The British kids, Luke, Monica and Kat, are all teaching here and know Phnom Penh very well. On arriving Luke brandished a can of beer which I duly sank, then after a few more we headed in to town. We got some scarna and then Luke rang one of his Cambodian buddies. HE joined us then invited us all to his house for a party...off we set. The house was down a warren of backstreets lacking any sort of lighting. A few lads loitered in the shadows. We ended up in a cul-de-sac, at one end of which was a soundsystem. It was switched on and the khmer tunes started up. The neighbours came out to find 6 foreigneres doing pretty awful impressions of traditional dancing. We gave up and headed in to a house and started boozing. One eye on the time, and conscious that my toothache was still making its presence felt, I was happy when mutterings of going back began.
The next morning I tramped of to a dentist recommended by the hostel owner. The dentist saw me straight away and got to the root of the problem (excuse hideous, non-intenional, pun) - some pesky tooth that hadn't come through my gumhad got infected. Extraction was the only viable option. And so within half an hour of walking in I found myself with my gob open and, not for the first time, peering up the nostrils of a south-east asian dentist. He grappled with the blighter for a while; swapping sides for extra leverage or something. Meanwhile I've taken am incredible fascination with the air-conditioning panels in the ceiling and counting the number of ceiling panels - anything to not look at the handy reflection of my gob in the glass of the light.
After a 15 minute struggle it popped out. Huge it was. Sure enough, some lovely infected pulpy stuff was clinging to the side of it. I handed over the $65 and stumbled back home trying to stem the trickle of blood from my mouth. The rest of the day was a wipe out really. I think the Dental Gods are getting payback for drawing Dr. Govan's blood as a kid. I hope now they are appeased and the rest of my travels can go on unimpeded.
Today! Yes today! Finally I had time to do tourism. So that's precisely what I did. The plan - go to the Choeung Ek Killing Fields, be moved by human atrocity, then go to Tuol Sleng Prison and be moved by human atrocity. The tuk-tuk driver whisked me off to the Killing Fields first. The site was unassuming; the Cambodian government have constructed a large stupa and placed bones and skulls of the those found in the mass graves at the site inside. There are 17 tiers of remains. It's quite a sight to behold - confronted with row upon row of human skulls. But at the same time, I wasn't moved. I find with these sort of things that I feel these are other people's sorrows, and that emotions such as sorrow are hard to feel if you have no connection with them.
I placed my level of interest at 'morbidly fascinated' at how someone can do this scale of killing without the general populace finding out.
Next on the tour was Tuol Sleng Prison. This was, before the Khmer Rouge, a school. The KR converted it in to a detention and torture facility. However, on the way between the two sites the tuk-tuk driver asked me, in broken English, if I fancied shooting.
Without hesitation my reply was "yes". I'd heard tales of people being able to shoot bazookas and other stuff in Cambodia, but had yet to come across it. I wasn't going to let this opportunity slide. Off we went. We drove out of town and down a few bumpy roads. We pulled up outside a military base (the checkpoints were in the shape of bullets. First class), the driver signalled to one of the guards but the guard pointed round the back. Off we went again. We were driving down a street and some lass shouted at us and pointed across the road. Two gates slid back and we entered a little compound. In it was 2 armoured personnel carriers and a cafe. It was a touch surreal.
The fella came from behind the desk and asked that I don't take any photos of the shooting range or of the staff. Quality. I walked around a corner and there was a wall full of guns - AK47s, Rocket-propelled grenade launcher (RPG), handguns, M50 assault rifles, pump-action shotguns, sniper rifles and heavy machine guns. My eyes lit up. I couldn't help but laugh.
The geezer produced a menu of weapons ("No Photos Of Menu"). Sure enough, I could fire anything I wanted from the wall. The AK47 was $40 for 25 rounds, as were a couple of other machine guns; handguns were $30; Sniper Rifle $50; RPG $350; hand grenade $80. So on and so forth. Glancing in my wallet and not finding $350 (actually only $30) I decided simply to go for the AK47. There was no problem with the lack of funds, all I had to do was get to an ATM and give it to the driver on the way home. He asked where I was from and if I had shot a gun before; "England and shotgun" came the reply (I didn't think .22 air rifle would have quite the same impact). And then we were off.
I walked in to the firing range, which looked EXACTLY like you would imagine a seedy, semi-legit shooting range to look like - targets at one end, tires behind them, some kind of smokey fug hanging in the air. There was a desk and chair and a support. I was told to sit at the desk whilst the gun was put in the support. I shouldered it and was told that the gun was set to one shot.
Five rounds later I was smiling like a loon and saying "fuck" quite a bit. "You want automatic?". "Of course I bloody do my good man!"
WAHEY! Blammo motherfuckers! It was ace. remembering everything I had learnt from...erm...war films I let off 4 shorts bursts of fire (longer ones disrupt your aiming ability you know). I couldn't even see if I was hitting the target. I could see the sparks from the end of the barrel though, and hear the shell casings hitting the floor.
And that was it. I was in there about 3 minutes but its the most fun I've had for 30 quid since...umm...well, ever! They did allow one photo to be taken:
Finally getting to Tuol Sleng, it looked unassuming from the outside. I suppose that hows they got away with it. Inside are the faces of those killed during its operation. Kids, women, men. Some women had their babies with them in the photos. Many photos the people looked fine. Solemn but Ok. This was because they had been told they had been chosen to advance their education. In truth, only seven people lived to tell their tales.
And thats it for now. I'm trying to get to Laos but I've been told there is no Visa on arrival if I come from Cambodia in to Laos. Which means I either hang here for a week whilst the Khmer New Year holidays happen and the Laos Embassy reopens, or I try to go in via Thailand. Right now I fancy the Thai route, purely because it saves time (providing I can actually travel during the festivities - I'm not entirely sure that will be possible).
Oh, and the title of this blog - The french for Cambodia is 'Cambodge'. I can think of no better description of the place.
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