Angkor What?

Entering Cambodia was the first border crossing we have had to do by land so far on the trip and was a nerve wracking experience. We beat the visa scam that was operating on the bus by not agreeing to hand over our passports to the person on the bus, who may or may not have actually been working for the bus company (whose company name we didn't know), despite her attempts to worry us with tales of corruption at the border and there being no guarantee how much we would have to pay the police as a bribe if we didn't take advantage of her "service". We stuck to our guns and passed through the Thai immigration to 'No Man's Land' which was a bizarre kilometre or so of land full of casinos. Obviously there are no gaming laws in No Man's Land - maybe Buddha doesn't reign over that bit of dusty wasteland?!

The bus company representative at the border, upset that we didn't opt to use the visa "service", was not interested in helping us find where we should get our visa, and would not even point us in the right direction. His only comment on the subject was "Go find your visa" - sore loser! We found the right place eventually and duly filled out the seemingly pointless forms, handed over our passports and the necessary payment, and watched the Policeman walk away. It is a really awful feeling to be in stranded between countries with no passport to go anywhere, surrounded by Policemen who don't speak English and who don't care about anything except the exchange of money. But there was no need to worry as the guy came back with our passports and visas, and it only cost us $28 instead of the official charge of $20, which was still cheaper than the visa "service" we were offered, Ha! A little confidence paid off :-).

The first impression of Cambodia is that is that the landscape is very different to Thailand. It is full of ploughed crop fields rather than rice fields and it is very, very, very flat in all directions. The country is much poorer than Thailand and consequently there are more beggars and sellers trying to get you to part with your money. Trying to negotiate a Tuk-Tuk ride when faced with 3 or 4 guys all telling you that they haven't had a customer for 6 hours is heart wrenching. We have replaced the constant "You want massage?", in Thailand, with " You want Tuk Tuk?" and it annoys me to see foreigners walking past these people as though they do not exist. They are only to trying to make an honest living, and in a part of the world where there seems to be more dishonesty than honesty in the tourist trade they deserve a break, or even just a polite 'No thank you'.

We engaged a friendly Tuk-Tuk driver as our guide to the temples and as we set off at 9am the temperature was already soaring. I will gloss rather quickly over temple descriptions as a picture says a thousands words. We started at 'Bayon" - the temple of the faces, built by King Jayavarman VII in the 12th century, with 52 replicas of his face looking out in all directions so that he could keep an eye on everything that was happening in the Kingdom.

From Cambodia

The next temple of interest was the one featured in that Hollywood "masterpiece" 'Tomb Raider'. This has to be the most interesting and picturesque as the jungle has taken over. Huge trees, 20 or so metres high grow from the top of buildings; giant roots wrap walls, now keeping them upright through time.

From Cambodia

From Cambodia

We saw other smaller temples, but the temperature was now around 35 degrees and my interest was beginning to wane. The finale of the day was Angkor Way itself. A truly immense structure - it took 10 minutes to walk across the moat to reach the entrance way. It is unfortunate that they are currently undertaking restoration work and so the towers that are synonymous with photos of Angkor Wat are covered in scaffolding and tarpaulin which spoilt the photo opportunities somewhat. We walked into the temple and around its covered portico's, but I am afraid that I was a little underwhelmed by it. Sacrilege I know as it really should have made it into the revised Seven Wonders of the World, and sure it is a massive structure, but up close there's not much to differentiate it from the other temples. Macchu Pichu was more awe inspiring I'm afraid. However, we spent a few hours wandering around and exploring so I feel we did it justice and then we just had to retreat to the guest house to find some relief from the heat. I will try to do better at appreciating wonders of the world in future :-).

From Cambodia