Cambodia... the land of suprises

The journey to Cambodia felt like a massive task. We caught an overnight sleeper train from Chaing Mai which left at 16.30 and arrived the next morning at about 7.00 the ride was really bumpy, so none of us got a really good nights sleep. After a quick breather we then caught a cab to the Northern bus station where we had a two hour wait for our bus to the border. The bus ride was a long and painful four and a half hours to the border, which included a stop at a military checkpoint where anyone without the proper identification was escorted from the bus! We finally arrived at the border town of Aranya Prathet at about 3pm where we decided to call it a day and checked into a local hotel.

The next morning we were up at about 9.00 to catch a tuk-tuk to the border where we were immidiately hassled by kids begging, and dodgy looking men who wanted to sell us a Cambodia visa. We had a sort walk to the immigration office to be stamped out of Thailand. We then walked to the visa office to get our Cambodia visa, and had to stand our ground as the corrupt officals tried to charge us 1000 thai bhat for the visa (about 30US$) when the sign on the window clearly said the price was 20US$ 'no, no, everybody pay thai bhat' fortunately we had been warned about this little corruption and after a little debating we eventually agreed to pay $20 and an extra 100 thai bhat.

After a short wait we then had to join the immigration queue to get our stamp into cambodia. Next we had a little helper who seemed to keep popping up trying to help, when it was clearly not needed guide us to the bus station to catch a taxi to Siem Reap, our final desitination. It soon became apparent that our helper worked for the cab company, as he got pretty pissed off when we tried to buy our cab from another window.

So anyway we finally agreed to pay $60 for the taxi, even though the sign seemed to suggest it was $15 per person and started our journey, but not before the helper had asked us for a little something 'for some food'. This guy was well dress, and clearly not under nourished and as we would soon see, there were plenty of people who were suffering. All in all it had taken about 2 and a half hours to get across the border, so we thought we had done quite well.

The taxi ride into town was a real experience, it was 150km down the craziest unmade, potholed, bridges washed away, rocky road. For the first twenty minutes we couldn't even decide what side of the road they drive on, as the driver was going everywhere, the only rule of the road appeared to be, if someone's honking at you, get out the way!

3 hours later we finally arrived in Siem Reap, only for the taxi driver to refuse to take us to the guesthouse that we asked him to, instead taking us to the one he wanted us to stay at, and after a bit of arguing and the guying coming out with one of the best excuses ever 'the driver can't take you into town as his car is too dusty and the police will stop him' 'Rubbish!' replied Dawn, we've just driven through the town!' we got our bags on our backs and walked. We finally arrived at about 2pm nearly 48hours after we left Chang Mai. What a journey!

The trip to Cambodia was mainly planned to see the temples of Angkor Wat, the largest religious building in the world, but it soon became apparent that it is an amazing country in its own right. On our first day we whet to visit a floating village and caught a tuk-tuk down to the dock. On the way we passed through some amazing scenery. The country side is beautiful with all the rice fields and palm trees, but you are soon stuck by the absolute poverty of the people. There are whole families living in one room shacks by the side of the road surrounded by rubbish, which in many places in swept into piles and burnt. Alot of the houses were sponsored by NGOs or personal dontations from people.

The floating village was not much different, except it was on water, there were alot of building that had been proived the UN and other organisations and even a floating school, but as we soon discovered education is not the privilage that it is in the west, if you can't afford to send your child to school, you get no education.

Out on the lake as soon as the boat stopped we were surrounded by villagers trying to sell us drinks and bananas, all for $1, a phrase that we would soon become familiar with. All the boat people were there with there kids rowing as hard as they could to get to our boat first, and they all looked so desperate you felt bad that you couldn't buy something from everyone.

As our first real experience of everyday Cambodian life, it was a real shock and one hell of an eye opener for all of us. At one point we had three young boys row over to us in just old tin baths and wooden spoons and they clung to the side of our boat looking us straight in the eyes and desperately begging for help. We all knew that this was going to be one of the hardest parts of our trip and yet still nothing quite prepares you for the real thing.

The next day we decided to start our three day pass to Angkor Wat, to explore the ancient temples which really are a great wonder of the World. Each temple had its only personality and interest. All in all there are 10-20 various different temples stretched over a large area of jungle. Our favourites were Angkor Wat itself, the largest of them all, Ta Prohm (the scene of Tomb Raider and totally overgrown) and the Bayon, which is covered in carved face towers.

On our 3rd day we decided to go much further out to explore a hidden carved riverbed, waterfall and womans temple. All of which were quite interesting to see, however the real memories are of the journey back to Siem Reap.

First we managed to blow out one of the tuk tuk tyres, which was hardly surprising along the road from hell, covered in rubble, potholes and nails! Luckily for us we had already crossed most of the open forest and blew out just 1km away from a few village shacks, which doubled as the local repair and petrol shops. While we waited for our tyre to repaired (jacked up on a simple plank of wood), we noticed that mothers and children started to come up to us, intrigued by what was going on. The children were really curious and Adam gave two of the young lads his big zoom lens camera for them to look through and take pictures. They found it great fun and so did we!

Then we carried on our way, and got a bit further down the road when we suddenly got a jolt as a pig ran out into the road and under the front wheel of the tuk tuk! It gave Rock, our driver a real shock, and he did well not to come off the bike, but we stopped again for a bit, and we could see that he was abit shaken up by it. It's not every day you hit a pig!

On our last full day we headed over to the landmine museum. We had seen people who had been victims of landmines begging on the streets and it was a really moving experience to visit the museum. It was set up by a man called Aki Ra, who as a child was forced to join the army and lay landmines or walk infront of officers across minefields. He now works to clear landmines across Cambodia (of which there are an estimated 3million) and also runs the museum and offers a home to children who have been victims of landmines. We dont normally soapbox, but have a look at http://www.cambodialandminemuseum.org/mission.htm to learn about the amazing work that this guy does.

All in all we really enjoyed Cambodia and it was a real eye opener for us all, alot of the people are really struggling to make ends meet living in filthy conditions affected by the constant threat of unexploded mines and disease, yet they still manage to have a smile on there face and are genuinly nice people, even though they have every right to feel bitter and resentful towards alot of people. Families have to send there children out to beg or live on the streets, we met a woman one night who was supporting her three children by selling books from a cart in the street, her husband had lost his leg to a landmine and they had both been beggars (as no one would employ him) for 6 years before they could afford the book cart.

Her husband is now enrolled in a program to train him to make crafts to sell and giving him support. But night after night his wife and three kids sit on the street trying to sell books... and there are many people in a similar or worse situation.