The Global Guy

Meg and I have moved on to the coast of Cambodia. Getting here was a little more complicated than we’d thought, but it all worked out eventually. We’d planned on taking the train from PP to the town of Kampot, but when we showed up at the train station, we were told "no train today". This was despite the fact that the same guy yesterday told us that there would be a train for sure. There was enough of a language barrier that we couldn’t be sure exactly why there wasn’t a train, so we just chalked it up to one of those traveling things. We headed down to the public taxi terminal and caught a share taxi that was headed in that direction.

Kampot was a really beautiful town with a great river for swimming. At the river there were fruit stands selling the typical tropical fruit you see everywhere around here, plus one selling durian which I’d heard about but never tried. Durian is fairly expensive, but all over SE Asia it’s considered a delicacy. The fruit is a huge spiky looking melon with a rich creamy texture and a flavor similar to custard. However, the smell is one of the worst things I’ve ever experienced! The odor is similar to rotten meat, and is so pungent that the fruit is banned from most public transport systems around SE Asia. The best analogy I’ve heard about the durian is that it’s like eating raspberries in an outhouse.

Meg and I hired two guys to drive us around on motorcycles to see the sights, and on our way back from the river they indicated that there was a wedding going on, and would we like to go see it. We felt a little strange at just crashing in, but the entire wedding party thought it was the greatest thing in the world. We weren’t allowed to leave until we’d met all the relatives, and posed for pictures with the bride and groom. Definitely one of the highlights of the day!

The following day we rented a dirt bike and decided to make the drive up to the abandoned hill station in Bokor national park. This used to be a popular vacation destination for the French colonials back in the 1920s but with war and independence it was abandoned and left to the elements. It’s usually very foggy and we’d heard that visiting it was a delightfully spooky experience. There aren’t any hotels or guest houses, but we’d been told that for a few dollars it was possible to sleep in the ranger station, provided you brought all of your own food. We made a stop at the local market, and headed up the trail. It’s about a 34km road that is in absolutely horrible shape. There have been no repairs since the entire area was abandoned, and it was just one pothole and sandpit after another. Meg was a great trooper, and did a great job of holding on and not screaming when we fell several times. I ended up with my first motorcycle burn from the exhaust pipe. Eventually we made it to the top, and made arrangements to stay the night. We walked all around, exploring the old church, hotel and casino. It was everything we’d expected it to be and more. Unfortunately that night someone siphoned gasoline out of our bike, and we ended up running out about halfway down the mountain. Luckily it was steep enough that we were able to coast down to the bottom of the hill where Meg found a family willing to take her into town for some help. She came back an hour or so later with the guy we’d rented the bikes from, and he towed us back into town.

After that adventure we caught public transport to the beach town of Sihanoukville. Meg and I managed to find a room with two beds right on the beach for the amazing price of $7.00 per night. This isn’t the best beach I’ve seen, but the atmosphere can’t be beat. The vegetation is different than other beaches…it’s less tropical plants, and more woody trees. It’s a very laid back area full of locals, and hardly any foreigners. We’re spending our days roaming around the island, lazing on the beach soaking up sun, reading trashy books, and eating tons of fresh fruit that we buy from the local kids. There are nightly rainstorms followed by mini-raves at a different bar each night where they really seem to enjoy hanging out with Meg and I. Dinner is always right on the beach, sitting at a candlelit table, and watching the waves roll in. Both of us agree that with the right person, this would be an amazingly romantic spot!

After three days in Siam Reap, I decided to head down to the capital city of Phnom Phen where I was supposed to meet up with Megan again. I booked a ticket on a speed boat that would take me from Siam Reap down the Tonle Sap river to PP. The dock area in Siam Reap was at the end of a little fishing village..the main road was really just mud leading to the lake itself. Walking thru it was not the most pleasant experience, with dead fish and garbage floating by. The ride down was a blast but it was a little odd to see the driver putting on a motorcycle crash helmet before we started off! It took about four hours to get to PP, and I spent the time just relaxing, reading and chatting to some of the other passengers. I had a closer encounter with the "ugly American" type of tourist when one guy kept wanting to tell me about his photography gear and how many of the locals he could buy for the price of one camera.

Phnom Phen itself is a great city. It’s got a very French feel to it from the colonial days. I hooked up with Meg and another friend of hers, and we spent the first evening wandering around the markets and then drinking at a place called "The Mex". I don’t know how they decided to serve Mexican food there, but they’ve got a LOT to learn. The next day we hired a local to drive us around to see some of the local sights. One thing that’s not a lot of fun but seems to be on everyone’s itinerary is the genocide museum and the Chong Ek killing fields. These are the visible reminders of the Khmer Rogue’s reign of terror in the 70s and 80s. Talking to the Cambodians, everyone it seems has a relative or friend who was somehow affected, usually by being murdered. The killing fields are a place where the KR used to carry out mass executions. Now it’s a field with depressions all over the ground where they have unearthed the mass graves. After heavy rains its not at all uncommon for more graves to be uncovered, and human bones to float to the surface. The most visible reminder of the massacres here is a huge stupa with thousands of human skulls inside. While visiting this place, I’d never felt anything like it, except for Dachau in Germany. Following the killing fields we went to the genocide museum which was a former school turned into a torture and prison camp. Here they have preserved the cells, torture devices, and photographs of thousands of victims. One of the most stunning displays was a mural of modern day Cambodians who took part in these crimes. They are living free now, and their reasoning was very similar to Nazis at war crime trials…they were just following orders. Cambodia seems to have forgiven, and really wants to concentrate on the future instead of the past.

After this kind of grim morning we were glad to do something else for the afternoon. Our driver took us to a tiny little street vendor where we ate some of the best food I’ve had on the trip. I don’t think the bill for the four of us came to more than 3 dollars. Of course we bought our driver’s lunch…it was the least we could do for showing us this bit of the local culture. After lunch we toured the national museum where we got to see lots of carvings and statutes that had been removed from Angkor Wat and other historic sites for preservation and protection.

The next day after sleeping in late, I decided to wander around town by myself, and check out the waterfront and arts district. I ended up having lunch at the Foreign Correspondents Club which probably has one of the best views in the city. This was first world luxury at its best! The food and decor were fantastic, the views were amazing, and there were even Frank Sinatra tunes playing on the sound system. After lunch I wandered down to the arts district I’d read about in the Lonely Planet, and watched some people at work. Most of the paintings were absolute crap…the kind of mass produced stuff you see in flea markets back home. Some of the people carving statues were quite talented, and I really enjoyed watching the artists at work.

I decided to stop at a cafe for a pineapple shake on the way back, and ended up chatting with a lovely American lawyer from Philly. We ended up hanging out for the rest of the afternoon drinking beer and people watching for a while. At 5ish, the local traffic jam started, including a guy riding an elephant down the street! We decided to break for a while and then meet up again later to try the local delicacy of "happy pizza". I’ll leave it up to the reader to figure out what makes the pizzas so happy, but suffice it to say there was no false advertising involved! Unfortunately I had to leave Patty early so that Meg and I could catch an early morning train down to the towns of Kep and Kampot.

I arrived in Cambodia after a grueling 12 hour bus trip. It’s so apparent that you’ve crossed the border. The roads in Thailand are first class, while those in Cambodia barely deserve to be called "roads". It took 10 hours to go 100 kilometers! When I got to Siam Reap, I tried to find Meg, but there was some confusion about the name of the guest house she’d give me. No big deal I figured, we seem to run into each other often enough that we’d end up hanging out again.

Angkor Wat is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. If these temples had been located in a more accessible and politically stable part of the world, I’d be willing to bet that they would be as famous as the Pyramids of Egypt, the Taj Majhal, or the Coliseum in Rome. Without seeing them for ones self, it’s impossible to convey just how impressive these temples are. I spent two days exploring the temples. The first day I saw all the major attractions..Ankor Wat itself, the Bayon with its nearly two hundred identical faces staring at all visitors, Ta Phrom where the jungle still keeps watch over the temple, and lots of other amazing structures. In fact climbing on top of one, I did run into Megan coming up the other side. Amazing!

The second day I rented a motorcycle to go see some of the more obscure temples. The ride out is still one of my favorite memories of the trip. I had a great time passing thru small villages where the kids would just run out of their homes and wave at the strange white tourist. I eventually made it out to Bantae Srei, which is famous not for its size, but for the delicate pink carvings in the stone. On the way back I saw the Rolous group of temples, some of the moats around Angkor itself, finally stopping for sunset at the top of Phnom Bakheng.

Angkor is definitely someplace I’d love to see again, only next time I want to come in the wet season, when the temples are covered with coats of stunningly green moss, the surrounding jungles are at their brightest, and the moats around the main complex still fill with water.