Adventures in CAMBODIA

Day 1 ~ 5th April 2007

Siem Reap

Touchdown at Siem Reap International airport.


We immediately hired motorbike drivers to take us into town. That's Sokhan, my driver. We agreed to use them throughout our stay in Siem Reap, depending on how far our daily travels were, the fee was between USD10-20 a day. We were taken to the 'King Angkor Hotel' (a guest house really), costing USD15 a night. The hotel wasn't too bad, clean and friendly crew.


We then wasted no time, taking a quick lunch and decided to go to the Floating Village on the Tonle Sap lake, the largest lake in South East Asia, measuring 2000 sq. km., adjoining the Mekong river. As it was the dry season, the river was shallow, and the lake only measured 1 meter deep, and can rise up to over 10m during the rainy seasons. Along the way to the river, there were rows and rows of attap village houses, which probably only measured around 12 by 12 feet, housing entire families with only hammocks and floor mats as beds, with no rooms. Really poor living conditions, and no electricity. When we got there, we hired a boat to take us to the lake, and we could see kids (who were more like little fishes) jumping into the river and splashing around while the adults were wading in the river trying to haul in the day's catch.

How cool is that, kids on buffaloes, a sight we never get to see in the city...priceless

Life on the floating village, fishing the only means of income

Little fishes...

Guess what this is???
Its a Floating primary school!!! Check out the basketball court on top!

Peddlars on sampans, spotted us from far away and rowing their lives away to reach our boat to try and sell us drinks and bananas. There were quite a few, and had all tried to see who reached us first. The only other kind of livelihood other than fishing.

After the fishing village, we had a little time to kill before sunset, so Sokhan suggested we chilled out one of the hammock huts. These are sheds with hammocks from end to end, facing paddy fields where locals go to escape the afternoon heat, have a siesta and chill out to the afternoon breeze. Wish we had these in the cities! After that, we went to visit the Bakheng temple, which was situated on top of the hill not too far away from the Angkor ruins for a view of the sunset over the Tonle Sap lake. Absolutely beautiful. It was a fair hike to get up there, but most worth it!
The Bakeng Temple

Once upon a time, some doorway/corridor of the temple...

Sunset over the Tonle Sap

After that, was just a quiet night. Cambodian beef noodle soup for dinner at some local stall, and then we hit some local bars. Beer Lao, a local brew, really not bad at all. I'm impressed!

Day 2 ~ 6th April 2007

10am To the Shooting Range

Jen the Communist: AK 47
Tommy the American: Carbine

30 Rounds each, awesome. Killed a few cows along the way and blasted some buffaloes.....go sick!!! No...kidding, haha.
12.30 pm The Banteay Srei

One of the most intricate and well preserved temples, designed by women using pink sandstone. Srei meaning woman. Small and neat, arguably one of the most beautiful of the temples, purely dedicated to the Hindu God Shiva.

Cambodian Laksa for lunch. Meatless, in a light coconut gravy with cucumber and peanut sauce. Not too bad, although some chicken would have been better (you know me...can't live without my meat).

2.15 pm Pre Rup
Meaning Temple of 'Transformation', and could've been an early royal crematorium.


The rest of the afternoon, we visited Ta Phrom, featured in Tomb Raider One of my favourite temples, built by the King Jayavarman VII for his mother. Bummer, cos my camera batteries went flat, so couldn't take any photos. Then to The Bayon - the main temple, had 54 towers representing each province (being a cheapskate, I sat around some tour group that had a guide explaining the story behind the temples, really interesting). Since I really loved these 2 temples and would absolutely kill myself if I didn't have any photos of them, we decided we'd come back the next day so with my battery fully charged. Lesson of the day: ALWAYS bring a spare battery regardless!!!

That night, after our showers and rest, there was a power failure throughout the town, so we had candlelight hawker food...could be romantic, if constant sweating teamed with mosquito buzz for background music is your thing.

Day 3 ~ 7th April 2007

One of the best highlights of this trip, a 5am wake to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. Yawning all the way there on Sokhan's bike, we got there at abot 6am. The temple took 37 years to complete. The sun peeked from behind the eastern side of the Angkor, illuminating the sky with a pinkish orangey hue, taking about an hour for the full sunrise. The view was absolutely breathtaking. Losing a few hours sleep for this was most worth it!!! There was a pond in the front courtyard, which produced a mirror image of the Angkor under the sun.

One of the Angkor towers, glowing in the morning sunshine

The we headed to Angkor Thom to explore the Royal Palace and back to visit Ta Phrom, and the Bayon.

The Bayon, with 54 towers, absolutely massive temple

Along a doorway in the Bayon

Amok with fish/chicken/beef, another Cambodian laksa accompanied by rice for lunch. Not bad at all, traces of fish sauce and chopped peanuts.

Ta Phrom

My favouritest spot in Ta Phrom, you would've seen this in Tomb Raider. Just totally amazing, overgrown trees, many many centuries old. This temple was completely enveloped by the forest when it was first discovered, and had undergone much restoration and is still in progress.

That's me with Sokhan, & Tommy with Da (pronounced Ya)

The nightspots in Siem Reap town. Check out the line up of tuk tuks, competing with each other to eke out a living, ushering tourists to get on their ride...

Kampong Thom

Day 4 ~ 8th April 2007

Got us tickets to move on to Kampong Thom, I was feeling sick for some reason and slept all the way on the bus, had a really bad headache and feeling nauseous. Probably food from the previous day wasn't clean, and even chucked up twice in the morning...bummer!

Anyhow, the bus ride took about 3 hours, heading southwest of Siem Reap, which is on the way to Phnom Penh. Arrived at about 3pm, checked in to a hotel, and continued my snoozing as I was still feeling really off. I had to drag myself out of bed after an hour as I didn't want to waste the day. We headed to Phnom Suntok, a hilltop temple, about 45 mins away from town.

As it was getting late, we raced up the steps to try and catch sunset as we didn't want to be caught there in the dark. And guess what Phnom Suntok is famous for? Its 980 steps!!! And note that I used the word race earlier, gosh...it was some serious crazy 25 minute cardio workout!!! We had to pause for breath ever 20 steps, and can I just say I'm damn proud of myself, having not had any exercise prior to this trip!!! The steps were lined with little guardian statues, girls on the left, boys on the right.


Day 5 ~ 9th April 2007

Sambor Prei Kuk
Started off at 8 am, it took a little over an hour's ride on motorbike to arrive at Sambor Prei Kuk. The only other attraction in Kampong Thom are these ancient temples, older than those in Siem Reap, dating back to 680 A.D. Clusters of small temples that took years of excavation and restoration. Great place for a stroll, with thick forest leaves providing cool shade. Some of these were pretty cool and neat, and doing my cheapskate thing again, stood with some tour group to get to know the temples.

How cool is this?

Talk about transportation, here's a hog on a bike!

Khmer sour soup

Primitive way of preventing ice from melting, using sawdust.

No wonder I was sick, remind me NEVER to drink anything that's not out of a bottle.

After our early morning visit to the local temples, we checked out of the hotel around noon and had lunch before heading for Phnom Penh, taking a connecting bus to the capital city. After a 3 and a half hour ride, we checked in to a guest house and just spent the night wandering around town and checking out the local scene.

Phnom Penh

Day 6 ~ 10th April 2007

Totally slept in to catch up on some rest, only started checking out the local attractions during the late afternoon after we had purchased our bus tickets to Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam (costing USD8 at the bus station, whereas when we asked at the hotel, they were trying to rip us off for $15 each!!) due to leave tomorrow morning.

The Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda

Above is a small templet in the city square where locals were making their new year offerings.

As it was close to the Khmer New Year, the streets were filled with people in the evening , peddling local delicacies and 'small eats', like fried grashoppers and locusts, and some other kind of yummy 6-legged creatures which names don't exist in my vocabulary...

Of course, being tourists, we couldn't resist the temptation and got ourselves a bag of crispy grasshoppers (the smallest of the lot and least terrifying as it was one of those where we were daring each other with "You eat, I eat!!"). Arming ourselves with a few cans of beers, we parked ourselves in the open grass area in front of the Royal Palace. A few locals who went past noticed we were having some difficulty with their delicacy, stopped and laughed at us and pointed out that to enhance the eating experience, we should firstly peel off the wings, followed by the legs, leaving just the body. After many attempts, finally had one and guess what, it was most liberating!! It didn't actually taste bad at all, just tasted like some lightly salted crunchy peas of some kind!!!

Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City

Day 7 ~ 11th April 2007

Boarded our bus to Ho Chi Minh at 8am. The most bumpy bus ride ever as the road conditions were very poorly and narrow.

One of the more common sights when traveling by landed vehicles (notice the adboard behind the van, its probably too small for you, but it is for a "GOLDEN MUSCLE" Liquor, had me laughing my guts out when I saw it....absolutely hilarious!!)

The border between Cambodia & Vietnam, kinda like S'pore & M'sia where we had to get off to present our passports to customs.

We reached Ho Chi Minh around 5pm. Found ourselves a cheap hotel and started walking around town. I have never seen soooo many motorbikes in my life, and crossing the roads were nearly impossible!!! The picture below is nothing, just imagine the road completely filled with motorbikes...

For dinner, we headed to the local central market called the Ben Thanh market. As usual, my favourite time of day, dinner!! Above is bunh rieu, rice vermicelli in tomato/tamarind based crab meat & shrimp paste....yummmm....washed down with the local 333 beer (didn't like the beer very much, less refined and a little too carbonated for me).

Banh Canh Cua, thick rice noodles in a crab meat broth....so good....two thumbs up!

Day 8 ~ 12th April 2007

By this time, we kinda got lazy and signed up for 2 local tours with Happy Tour company.

Cu Chi Tunnels @ Iron Triangle

These tunnels were dug by the northern vietnamese, communist troops called the Viet Congs, or the National Liberation Front, using simple farming tools. Back then, the only way to win the war against the south colonial powers, which were backed by the Americans, was by guerilla warfare. These tunnels were complete with secret entrances, kitchens (with cleverly concealed smoke holes, guard rooms, surgery rooms, artillery rooms, booby traps, and escape tunnels, which extended down to three levels.

I was totally amazed by the perseverance and versatility of the Viet Congs.

Secret entrances to the tunnels were tiny!!

One of the many booby traps used to trick enemies

After the tour, back in Ho Chi Minh, we had banh chanh, kinda like hong kong chee cheong fun but with mince pork and prawns served with fish sauce, and bun bo hue, spicy beef chilli noodle soup. Satisfying!!! Then it was off to the Ben Thanh market in search of a hammock stand. Spent all afternoon searching in vain as it wasn't sold in the market, but still enjoyed the cultural and local stuffs on sale, seriously like Central Market in KL except with alot more narrow stalls and pathways.

Day 9 ~ 13th April 2007

Tour of the Mekong Delta

Starting with a short bus trip to My Tho city, then we traveled by boat all day along the upper Mekong river, cruising down through 4 islands named after Buddhist mystical creatures - Dragon, Unicorn , Pheonix & Turtle. We stopped at each island for a short tour, one for lunch, another for local fruits and traditional music performance by local villagers, another for nectar and honey at a bee farm, and lastly one for a display of coconut candy making.

I have to say were quite bored on this tour, as it was all 'yum yum sek sek'. But also kinda suited us as laziness had set in by then, and taking a leisurely tour like that wasn't too bad.

In the evening, we had Pho, traditional beef noodle soup for dinner (which we get here in Melbourne and I actually prefer the ones in Melbourne, I think maybe the quality of fresh foods here is far better). Then we just sat down at local stalls for a couple of beers to cool ourselves down in this hot and humid weather.