Thursday, August 13, 2009

Holiday in Cambodia

We crossed the Cambodian border with only the usual amount of hassle and a small bribe, then headed onto Siem Reap, the nearest town to the ruins at Angkor Wat. Our first view of Angkor Wat was at sunrise the next day – it was pretty cool, but we're not sure whether it was worth getting up at 4am for. We preferred Ta Prohm, a nearby temple which has been left an unrestored state, with old trees growing up around the brickwork. However, our favourite thing we saw was a snake vs gecko fight under an archway at one of the temples.

After a couple days we were all templed-out so we left for the capital, Phnom Penh. for a few days. Phnom Penh is an ugly and fairly uninteresting town, but we were stuck there for the weekend as we had to wait for our Lao visas to be processed. Luckily Phnom Penh is home to the cheapest G&T's in Southeast Asia so we didn't have too much trouble passing the time.

We also took time to visit Choueng Ek, aka the killing fields, an area just outside of town where the Khmer Rouge murdered thousands of their victims in the 1970's. Bits of bone and torn cloth still stick out of the ground near to the paths. The site is now marked by a memorial tower filled with skulls dug up from the mass graves.

After getting out of Phnom Penh we spent a few days in a town called Ban Lung, near the Lao border, where we stayed in a dirt-cheap room in a beautiful old colonial house next to a lake. Unfortunately the place must have been just as attractive to the local mouse and ant populations, as armies of both seemed to have set up camp in our room. We went on a daytrip around the local area on the backs of two scooters ridden by our tour guides, and were driven to some local waterfalls and Buddha statues. We also went on an elephant ride through a rubber plantation. After a few days chilling out with the mice and ants, we headed north to the Lao border.

No comments: