I was already really looking forward to the bus ride from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, as in a lot of instances I consider the journey better than the destination; in life generally as well as travelling. However, I was also buoyed for the 6 hour trip as my iPad was full of $1 USD movies, including the Imbetweeners 2 and Good Morning Vietnam, from a slightly dubious shop near our hostel in PP. After a few days spent learning about the darker side of humanity I was in dire need of a laugh.
After leaving PP a little after 14:00 we meandered through some spectacular rural landscape and small hamlets. The bits of Cambodia that we passed through were much flatter than we saw in Vietnam and what was upcoming in Loas. Even some of the steeper bits I would describe as undulating rather than hilly. I had just finished watching 'The Life of Brian', I think when we approached our only stop on the trip.
Now, most people who know me wouldn't expect that I would be picked out from the passengers for the coach driver to get a second opinion on an issue he was having. I think it was because I was the only western man on the bus. Still I, did rise to the situation and did the only thing I could think of.
So, after kicking the tyre I was confident it had a puncture. More worryingly for all concerned it seemed he hadn't seen the oil pouring out the underside of engine until I pointed it out. To this day I am not sure whether he was either an unlucky driver, the coach was in dire need of maintenance or whether the coach driver was on the blag. My money is probably on the blag, if pushed.
Still, it mattered not as we had to wait for a replacement coach to be sent from PP, meaning we incurred a delay of five hours. This meant I could charge a few devices and also do what any right minded Englishman would do, have a few beers.
During the extended stop we befriended an elderly French lady and a young Vietnamese guy who were on their first trips out of their respective countries and were getting a little flappy because of the delay. I think they were both worried by the knock on effect to their pick-ups on arrival in Siem Reap; especially as we eventually arrived at 00:30 rather than the more sedate time of 7pm.
I am always conscious about the fact that you are representing your country whilst traveling and it is good Karma to help other people out who are in need. Besides the Dwarves and Elves were sworn enemies until Gimli and Legolas befriended each other, and we know how that one turned out in the end. The current issues in the world are caused, in my opinion, by extremists of all faiths claiming that we are different, so the more bridge building the better.
So a new fellowship formed such that we had four of us in the Tuk Tuk and proceeded to drop the other two off at their accommodation before we ventured to ours, arriving at ours around 2am. It just meant that Becs and I were both in a serious need to recharge our batteries before a day of touring the temples.
It has been proved over time that I am more impressed by the natural world and geekish love of engineering and public transport than temples and architecture, but I was blown away by the complex of temples. I also loved the fact that they sold advertising space on the benches around the temples. I have found people from South East Asia very entrepreneurial such that they are always looking for ways to make more money and do a deal.
We decided to push bike to and around the temples, which meant that we were independent and could complete the longer tour around the temples at our own pace. The distance from SR to AW is only 8km over flat terrain on good roads. Becs kept on saying that she felt like a presenter on Top Gear during the day, which is fine I suppose to say in Cambodia, but we might need to keep that reference to ourselves when we get to Argentina if we want to make friends.
I would just advise anyone to get their entrance tickets on route as we had a few issues and had to cycle back to town to buy the tickets. I left Becs at the ticket inspection booth to rest, only to be told at the ticket office that she needed to be present to have her picture scanned on the ticket. I have never been more pleased to see her when she peddled into the complex a few minutes later after being informed of this fact after I left her.
The main Angkor Wat temple that most people know of, is spectacular. It is not the most imposing of buildings, height wise, but it more than makes up for this in terms of depth and the annexes that are contained within the outer walls. The inside is made up of four separate squares which were swimming pools when it was first constructed and the tombs that form the boundaries of the square were in fact libraries, which surprised us. We were told that the Royal family stressed the importance of learning.
The other vaguely interesting fact that we found out is that Angkor Wat is the only West facing temple in Cambodia as the others do not want to be associated with death. Apart from Inca trail I am not sure what else could trump this in my leaderboard on our tour as it lived up to my expectations, and some.
The rest of the temples, which are all over nine hundred years old, we saw on the 20km cycle were nearly as spectacular, with the exception of the one used in Tomb Raider. This one is in quite a bad state and is currently being repaired. The locals say that Hollywood ruined it with all the equipment and stunts. I reckon it really did fall down after a relic was removed... ;-)
Each temple was built in honour of a separate member of the royal family as their final resting placing, with Angkor Wat built for the king. They are all an engineering masterpieces as well as beautiful. They all took 37 years and have 37 steps to the top as the religion of the royal household has 37 steps to heaven. They also seemingly chose 37 as Cambodians do not like even numbers and odd numbers are associated, rather bizarrely, with immortality.
My engineering fetish was fully satisfied when I found out that they brought all the materials in on boats and then used Elephants and tree trunks for rollers to move the rocks into place. Ingeniously they actually used the dirt dug out of the ground to create the moats and swimming pools, to increase the height of the ground on one of the side of each temple. This meant they could simply roll the rocks into place. I was also intrigued by the temple that was built on a manmade Island right in the centre of a substantial lake as I could just imagine the look on the workers faces when informed by their supervisor as to what their next project was to be.
The remaining two days in SR was spent cycling round the town sandwiched around two cracking nights. The first night was spent having dinner with Hayley and Luke after Becs had completed another cookery class and I had a cultural evening watching locals kick two shades out of each other at Khmer Boxing. The second night was down pub street watching a local heavy metal band with two new people we met that night.
Our short stay in Cambodia was complete as the next day we were going to fly to Laos.
LeeHi
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