(Almost) one night in Bangkok

I had already rearranged my luggage the previous evening to account for my new painting (which I managed to fit in without taking off the frame), and had even pulled out my clothes for today, and for travelling (a black shirt which I didn't wear yet, chinos which I also didn't wear yet, socks and boots because they take up a hell of a lot of space, and my leather jacket strapped to my pack because England is cold in late October), so I just had to roll out of bed at 6.20, go and have breakfast, then get on the bus.

It was going to be about 4 hours to the border, so I dozed for a bit the first hour or so, until we stopped for refreshments. I decided to try a winter melon juice, because I wanted something still, and the bird's nest/Jew ear drink sounded too insane. I wish I had gone for the bird's nest, because the winter melon was not nice at all. Luckily Mony liked it, since I couldn't get anyone else to finish it off.

Yum yum, jew's ear

Mony came to sit next to me on the bus after that, I don't know why, but I'm glad he did. I happened to mention to him that you see a lot of Cambodian People's Party signs around, and asked if they were the ones currently in power. They are, and Mony told me a hell of a lot about the current political situation, which I think he might've been planning to share with the whole group, but everyone always wants to nap on the bus. I have decided I am Mony's favourite, since I always listened to his temple stories and stuff.

Mony reckons 95% of Cambodians do not like the current government, but they can't do anything about it. The CPP have supposedly lost the last 2 elections, but retroactively changed the results, and killed protestors. In fact even in the 1990s, where the UN presided over an election campaign to ensure fairness, the CPP lost, but bullied their way into being second in command by threatening civil war, then slowly subsumed that whole government. Both the military and police are thoroughly under their command, so they can easily quell any unrest.

He also said that they are more or less pawns of the Vietnamese, who are slowly encroaching into Cambodia. Apparently there are 5 million Vietnamese living here (compared to 15 million actual Cambodians), and they have to do more or less nothing to get a Cambodian passport. Also one particular very rich man, known as 'the Vietnamese guy' owns vast plots of land, huge hotels which violate planning constraints, and even Angkor Wat. He has been mentioned numerous times on the tour, and can buy more or less anything (see Angkor Wat) as he is bffs with the Cambodian prime minister. Mony also reckons that 95% or anything worth owning in Laos is owned by Vietnamese, and they even want to have a go at Thailand, basically to try and safeguard against China subsiding them.

This even dates back to Pol Pot, who was supposedly manipulated by Ho Chi Minh into becoming a genocidal maniac, so the Vietnamese could ride in and save the day, adopting a strong presence in Cambodia. 

From what I saw in Vietnam I somewhat doubt Uncle Ho would do this, as there were a lot of indications that he was a good man, but then again the Vietnamese aren't going to bad mouth the guy who got the ball rolling on their independence, and is well on his way to being deified (remember they are mostly Buddhists, and anyone can in theory become a Buddha (aka a god). The monk who self immolated is considered a Bodhisattva for instance). 

It is hard to know how much of this to believe, as objective information is so hard to come by. I don't think Mony would be lying, but who knows who he heard all this from, it could be blown out of all proportion for all I know. It is clear however that Cambodia has serious political issues (remember, you can talk about politics at all on the street because 'the walls have ears'), and if even half of what I heard is true then they could be in big trouble.

I'm glad there was something of interest on the trip to write about, because otherwise it was pretty mundane. The border crossing was very fast, much better than Vietnam to Cambodia, though our bags got held up, so we had to have an early lunch whilst waiting for them. Then it was on to Bangkok, with a quick stop at a petrol station with a 7/11, which was heinously cheap, and had all sorts of exotic goodies. The only other thing of note on the journey was that we were hit by a torrential rainstorm at one point, apparently the leftovers of the typhoon that hit the Philippines and Vietnam a while back.

I was interested to look around as we entered Bangkok, as I would not have much time to do so otherwise, given that my flight was in only 10 hours, then allow one hour to get to the airport, 3 hours early for check in, and the fact that we were having dinner smack in the middle of the remaining 6 hours, and that it takes ages to get anywhere here because of the traffic, and you will find I don't actually have time to do much at all :(. At least the hotel was nice. Very nice in fact, by far the nicest hotel we've had on the trip. 

Not the smallest building out there

The photo doesn't properly convey how posh it was

I just had a little bit of a walk round near the hotel before dinner. Bangkok is covered in bright colours, the people drive fast (and often ignore lights), the buildings are huge, the billboards are huge, in short it is a crazy place. I wish I had a bit more time to explore, but I might well come back to Thailand at some point, given I've done next to nothing here.

Tea was at a restaurant 10 minutes walk from the hotel. I had pad thai, and it was delicious. There was even a ladyboy serving in the restaurant, which surprised me since I expected them to be fairly rare. That wasn't even the most surprising thing I saw that evening either, as we left the restaurant, there was a turkey waiting for us. It was alive, and just standing in the middle of the road (a quiet backstreet). There didn't seem to be an owner around, and it didn't seem to be bothered by the traffic passing it. I find myself hoping that Bangkok randomly has wild turkeys.

He owns this street

I said my goodbyes to everyone, had a shower, got out my special clean travelling clothes, and got the taxi I had booked to take me to the airport. I am glad it was night time, as I think the ride would have petrified even me during the day, if there were more cars on the road. There were no seat belts in the back, my guy drove at 140km/h constantly, and swerved from lane to lane to overtake without slowing down. He had to open the door at one point to give money to a toll road, and didn't shut it properly. He proceeded to open the door and shut it again, at 50km/h, whilst still accelerating. I didn't die though, and we got there fast!

I had a long time to wait, especially since check in and security were quick, but the airport had wifi so I got a coffee and just chilled out for the four hours I had to wait. There was a statue at the airport of one of the stories I had seen on the reliefs at Angkor Wat, the one where gods and demons are pulling a snake, whilst Vishnu does... something in the middle. Once again it didn't make much sense, once again I got a photo.

Well, something is happening. Just not sure what

The plane was an a380 (which I think I mentioned on the way out is a step up in terms of quality, and super stable so even Kathy would not go insane on one), and I got to sit upstairs, with 3 seats to myself! Ideal for napping, if only I didn't get an altitude headache thanks to partially blocked sinuses (according to my Google fu). Luckily I had the cure, ibuprofen, on me, because it felt like what I imagine an aneurysm would feel like. I have more sympathy for Vicky now. I took the tablet dry because I couldn't wait for water, and finally got a bit of sleep.

Getting to my plane in Doha was silky smooth again: no rechecking in or anything stupid, just a 10 minute walk and done, making the hour transfer time ideal. Then another plane journey (unfortunately only a 747 or something), where I slept most of the time once again, and I was back in England, with the cold and the rain.

My luggage came out pretty fast, and even though the sniffer dog tried to follow me home (luckily this does not indicate a load of coke in my luggage apparently), I got out of Heathrow very quickly. The tube was busy as always once I got towards the centre, but it was lunchtime on a weekday so what can you expect.

I got on a train, only for the announcer man to worry me, making me think perhaps my ticket wasn't valid for this train (recall it was my super expensive open return). In the end I decided I couldn't be bothered to lug my luggage off and get the next one, so I just went for it. The ticket was fine, and I got home without a hitch, despite a delayed train making me exceedingly close to having to wait around for a train to Rotherham from Doncaster.

So that is it! Another journey is over, and I am quite happy to not write about my life in minute detail for a little while! See you next time.

Off the rails

We had a relaxed 8.30 start today. It was only 3 hours to Battambang (pronounced Battambong), so we didn't need to hurry. On the way we stopped at a roadside, where Mony kindly bought us some rat, small snake, and weird fish paste thing to try. I figured what the hell, can't be worse than tarantula! The rat was actually pretty nice, just like chicken really. The small snake was like eating a lot of thin, crunchy bones (in fact that was exactly what it was!), so not exactly top of my list, and the fish paste thing was weird, especially in the texture department, and ok.

A cornucopia of delights 

We got in to Battambang around 12.30, and Mony explained that we really should do the optional activity here, since otherwise we would wonder why they would bother having us stop in this place. Indeed as we walked out for lunch, I wasn't particularly impressed. The streets were moderately dirty, there was a river which was far from picturesque, and more or less nothing aimed at tourists. Even though this is the 2nd largest city in Cambodia, it was pretty much a huge village without the interesting village life stuff.

Good job then I had opted in for the optional activity, which was visiting an 'ancient' house, going on the bamboo train out into the country, then visiting a local village and having a look round. Surprisingly only 5 others went for this, the new group, aside from Bryce, doesn't really seem much for optional activities, which I find a bit strange on a holiday like this, but whatever.

We got tuk tuks out to the ancient house, which was on the outskirts of the city. Ancient doesn't really mean ancient in this case, as it was built in the 1920s, but the point is that it uses traditional Cambodian architecture, something which is disappearing these days thanks to the cheapness of concrete. The house is up on stilts, to avoid flooding, prevent the floor from rotting (the whole house is built of wood, and the floor is very often wet here, so it would rot very fast at ground level), and to have a cool place to stay in the day time (under the house).

The daughter of the owner of the house was showing us round (the owner only speaks Khmer and French fluently), and explained that they used 3 types of wood in construction, teak for the balcony (durable), ironwood for the stilts, roof, and exterior (even more durable), and mahogany for the inside (pretty, but soft). The walls were created by making a bamboo frame, then covering it with a plaster made of stuff like rice, coconut, and other common local materials.

We had a look round the house then, the lady explaining various features, and showing us some very strange traditional musical instruments (some pipes that were halfway between pan pipes and bagpipes, and a 2 string guitar used to accentuate story telling). The original kitchen was destroyed by the Khmer Rouge because they stored water up there all the time, keeping the wood all wet and rotting it, so the new kitchen is made of inferior quality wood. 

I wish I had taken a photo outside. I forgot.

Then there was a little gift shop, with all sorts of recycled things, and some very nice paintings, one of which caught my eye. I hadn't planned to buy anything, and I looked at the price fully convinced it would put me off, but it turned out to be only $9, and the lady pointed out that if necessary it could be taken off it's frame just by removing some staples at the back, so I was sure to be able to fit it in my luggage. At this point, what excuse could I have left? I think the lady liked me too, since I got a free coconut key chain, which Julie didn't get despite spending twice as much as me (since I think it could possibly have flown out of my pocket on the bamboo train, but I packed the shorts I was wearing away, so I hope it's still in there!)

Next up was the bamboo train, and the reason we had to sign a waiver for this trip. Mony assured us it was safe, though apparently there have been a couple of tourist deaths, so I just thought yolo. Since I am still blogging, I believe you can gather that I did not die. The bamboo train is 2 axles, taken from tanks, with a wooden frame on top holding a bamboo platform one layer thick. Originally they used to just use poles to shove them along, but nowadays they use a belt motor.

Safe as houses... that are on fire

For about 50 yards the ride was pretty smooth. Thereafter the joins between the tracks got exceedingly rough, with misalignment horizontally and/or vertically by over a centimetre in some cases. Often one side of the tracks was higher than the other, making the car tilt slightly, and sometimes the rails were bowed upwards, or otherwise generally not straight, worsening the transition between tracks, and making us sway alarmingly. After getting over the initial shock of it seemingly crazy dangerous, I loved it! The train can get up to 40km/h, and apparently we got close to that. Being so close to the tracks is exhilarating, and slightly frightening at once.

Tracks straight as a die.

And my, what a safe looking bridge!

If someone is coming the other way, the side with less carts has everyone get off, then they lift the frame off the wheels, and lift the wheels off separately to let the other side pass. I had a go at picking one of the wheels (on axles) up, and it was about 35/40kg, so not too bad really. I would suspect the frame isn't much heavier, being only about 3m by 1.5m, and made entirely of wood/bamboo (aside from the very small engine).

Apparently the trains themselves are very safe, with pretty much nobody falling off, and none coming off the rails. The fatalities are caused by cows running onto the track, and given the rudimentary breaks, the drivers cannot stop in time. At one point there was a very frisky cow running and bucking at the side of the lines, causing me to imagine flying headfirst off the front of the car in an explosion of cow blood, but luckily it kept away. I did get bitten/stung by a Cambodian death insect though. I have no idea what it was, but it hurt more than my fire ant, continues hurting for about an hour afterwards, and started coming up in a big weal. Luckily this went down and reverted to redness very fast (unless it burrowed in, and is now living inside me).

The tracks run from Battambang (remember, the second biggest city) to a Phnom Pehn, covering 200 and something kilometres, though the bamboo trains only go about 50km at most. Apparently there are plans in 2-3 years to create whole new tracks, replacing the existing ones, and getting new trains, which would lead to the bamboo trains disappearing. That'd be a great shame, and if anyone wants to try it, you'd best do it soon, just in case!

We stopped after 7km, to just look round a proper rural village. We saw a lot of plants, some of which we ate the fruits, which don't even have an English name, from. There were also custard apples, dragonfruit, and papayas growing, as well as sugar cane, and something called demongrass, which has medical properties. There were also some seed pods which the local guide picked. He then asked for water, and poured it on them, and they exploded pretty violently, even hitting Kelly on the forehead with a flying seed from a couple of meters.

There was also a rice mill, which housed an imposing, and very complex 2 story machine, as well as a load of people playing volleyball (a popular sport here), a parrot which our local guide could talk to (he could make convincing enough parrot noises for the parrot to chatter back; he used to have to catch parrot trying to eat grain in his old job), and who also ate out of his owner's mouth.

The rice grinding machine

A very friendly parrot

There were also some huge brick kilns, used to harden 700-800,000 bricks at a time, using masses of rice husks as fuel. It would take 28-30 days to properly harden the bricks. The husks were all lying on the floor, and walking along them was like walking on super deep, loose sand. We got to go inside one and have a look, and it was pretty nice in there. Thankfully nobody turned it on whilst we were inside.

Inside the kiln

After looking round, it was back to the bamboo train, and back to Battambang for tea, and bed in preparation for a 7am start the next morning, which would preceed an 8-9 hour drive through Thailand to Bangkok. On the way back to the hotel in a tuk tuk, I saw a tiny girl who couldn't have been more than five furiously hacking at a coconut with a machete half as long as she was tall. Probably not something I'll easily forget, and pretty much par for the course here in Cambodia.

It was nice on the way back.

Political Incitement (the post I missed out after hellos and goodbyes)

Once again I have combined 1.5 days for this post, since most of the first day was taken up with the travel from Saigon to Phnom Penh.

Also a little warning, there's some pretty dark stuff mentioned today, so don't read this if you don't want to read about atrocities, though I did try and leave out gory detail.

Also also, I have decided to defer posting this entry until after I leave Cambodia. As I intimate later, the subject is taboo here, and given that one of my friends was sent to prison in Iran (only for 2 days, but still) for inciting political unrest, and since I don't know how web traffic is monitored here, I will wait until I am sure nobody is going to arrest me (aka when I am no longer in this country).

7.50am wasn't a terrible time to set off from our hotel, given that a vicious rumour had been going round that we would have to set off at 5.30 (seems someone just made that up). We were on a coach, with various travellers from other hotels etc, but it was much nicer than it sounded (they kept calling it a 'local bus', and I had images of people hanging off the side, chickens in cages etc etc). It took a couple of hours to get to the border, which eased my mind, as my visa exemption was set to run out at midnight, and I had worried our bus might break down, forcing me to run 100km to the border like something out of a movie.

It took one and a half hours to exit Vietnam, and the whole exit system was basically chaos. Good job the guy from the bus was sorting everything out! It was another half hour to get the Cambodian visas, but once again the bus man had us covered, and we used the time to grab lunch in a weird place between the borders. Shortly after we passed into Cambodia, and Phillipe got a stern telling off from a guard for taking photos.

The south of Cambodia is flat as a pancake. There was plenty of rice growing, plenty of livestock, and a lot less buildings than in Vietnam. The language spoken is Khmer, and  this is from the civilisation which built Angkor Wat. It took another 3 and a half hours to get to Phnom Penh (pronounced P-nom pen), and to our hotel. Once again the room is sumptuous, and probably damn cheap. This hotel even has a gym. If we wanted a quick walking tour of a couple of monuments, we had 45 minutes to get ready, more than enough time for me, though nobody else from my original group was interested.

So me, the new people, and Mony, went and saw a monument to the king, and one to the current prime minister. Mony told us in hushed tones that he would explain more about the political situation on the bus tomorrow; it isn't safe to talk about in public! We then walked past the royal palace, and on to a lovely restaurant, which was on the first floor, and open to the night air overlooking a confluence of 4 rivers. I got to know the new people a bit, and they all seem very nice.

The next morning began with a mediocre breakfast (no cereal, no jam except pineapple), and it didn't look like it was going to get better any time soon with a visit to the genocide museum and killing fields on the cards. 

We had a local guide, San, to take us round both places. He lived through the Pol Pot (this name is apparently one he took himself, short for Political Potential) regime as a child aged 6-10, though he lost his father and 4 siblings. All in all over 3 million Cambodians died as a result of the regime, pretty much half the population at that time, and this means that currently only 4% of the population are aged over 60. Apparently the regime targeted intellectuals because Pol Pot feared that they would be the ones who would rise up, but the criteria for being an intellectual were wearing glasses, being pale, or having non callused hands, regardless of whether there was any proof.

Currently, many of the officers of the regime still hold positions of power in Cambodia (including the current prime minister). The reason given by the political party is that they didn't want to cause any more civil war, which seemed to be somewhat accepted by Mony and San, though I think they were more agreeing with the lack of civil war than accepting the officers of the genocidal regime should be able to have nice jobs. San also mentioned that guards/soldiers (who generally all undertook at least some torture/murder, albeit under orders and possibly in fear for their own lives) of the regime had also been given amnesty from their crimes, and anyone you talk to aged 50+ could have been one. The people tend to somewhat shun someone who is discovered to be an ex regime soldier, however there are rarely revenge killings, thanks to a combination of a lack of desire to go to prison for life (especially for those with families), and Buddhism being the religion of 95% of people, therefore they all believe in Karma.

The genocide museum used to be a school, before being repurposed into a 'reeducation centre' (read prison) by the Khmer Rouge (Pol Pot's party). From 1975 to 1979, over 17,000 people were incarcerated there, with detailed records kept. Only 12 survived, 5 adults and 7 children, with the rest being sent to the killing fields and executed (with the exception of 20 odd, who were murdered in their cells when the Khmer Rouge left Phnom Penh). The men survived because they were skilled, and were taken along when the regime fled (an artist and a mechanic are the only ones still alive), and the kids hid in the kitchen and so were overlooked. There were 200 odd (I forget the exact number) of these prisons under the regime.

Not the best school to be at

We learnt about the conditions people were kept under, torture methods used to try and get people to identify family members (family members of 'academics' were also considered dangerous. It was fairly in your face and not nice to hear about, so I won't go into detail) as well as looking at photographs of prisoners, guards, and the general population who were forced to work in (regular) fields with little food and no pay. San (who worked in these fields, aged 6-10) mentioned that people used to grab pretty much anything edible when a guard wasn't watching (there were guards in the fields), and eat it raw. Insects, lizards, leaves, tree roots, snails, you name it. If a guard caught you eating extra stuff, it was off to prison, and eventually the killing fields.

The only 2 surviving adult prisoners (the children were taken abroad and given a change of name etc.) were also at the prison.  They were an artist and a mechanic, both in their 80s. Their entire families were killed in the genocide, but they made new families after, and still need income to support them, so they greet visitors to the museum, tell their stories through interpreters, and sell books about their incarceration which 3 American/Australian journalists helped them write/translate into English, with 50% of proceeds going towards a charity which is building a memorial for everyone who was imprisoned at this site, and 50% going to them (the journalists take nothing). They also like people to know what happened, as it is not well known globally, and it is no longer taught in Cambodian schools (it is inferred due to the fact that the current prime minister was an officer of the Khmer Rouge, but this isn't something you can say in public). The artist unconsciously cries a lot of the time, and is quiet, but the mechanic is keen to talk (in Khmer).

The mechanic

Me and the artist

After an exceedingly sobering experience (some of the girls/ladies had been crying), we got back on the bus to go to the killing fields. San told us some more background on the way, however I covered it all at once here earlier, to make it more consistent. The killing fields are literally just some fields, with a lot of excavated and/or cordoned off mass graves, and a big stupa filled with the bones they have managed to recover (as Buddhists believe that someone whose bones are scattered cannot reincarnate until they are regathered). This killing field was one of 365 throughout Cambodia, and over 20,000 people were killed here.

Bullets were too expensive to be used up killing prisoners, so the guards basically used whatever they could find, with sugar palm leaves being commonly used (the edges of the big leaves especially are like saws, a lot harder and sharper than I expected). Music was played through speakers to trick the local farmers into thinking it was a military camp, as the Khmer Rouge spent an inordinate amount of effort trying to conceal the truth of their activities from the general population (hence the 'reeducation centre' prisons), and especially did not want foreigners to find out what was happening.

It has rained the previous night, and as such a fair few bones and scraps of clothes were uncovered. These are collected periodically, the bones to be added to the stupa, and we were asked to try not to walk on the bones of possible. As we walked round we had various facts given to us (for instance enemy soldiers were all beheaded, so they could not reincarnate), and we visited the stupa at the end, before leaving. Overall I think the prison/museum was worse, as there isn't exactly a lot left here, but I was glad to be don't with the depressing stuff!

The white things are bone fragments

The stupa

And what is inside

Tales of gods and demons

4.30am was a horrible time as usual. At least in this case I had gone to bed nice and early, so it wasn't the worst. After the short bus ride there, getting across the bridge over the most by the light of 2 torches was interesting to say the least. It was around 5am by the time we got to the optimal photo spot, just early enough to be on the front row.

Unfortunately 'sunrise' invokes a somewhat different image to the gradual brightening of the sky which we got. It didn't help that there wasn't a lot of colour in the sky either. It was worthwhile, but it could've been a lot nicer on a different day I think. At least it wasn't super cloudy.

Not bad, but not definitely worth 4.30am

Well, that was what I wrote, whilst standing around there. Our allotted time for leaving was 6.10am, but Kelly was dragging his heels, so I wrote some blog while we waited. I am very glad he waited (and that I waited around instead of walking back to the bus like some people), because at about 6.30 the sun came up between the towers, and it was brilliant! 

Definitely worth 4.30am

Afterwards, we returned to the bus, and to the hotel for breakfast, and to meet up with those who were too lazy for the predawn trip. An hour or so later, we were off out to another temple (whose name I have unfortunately forgotten) which was some way away from the Angkor region. The bus ride took an hour or so, but I was determinedly napping the entire time.

This temple was constructed of pink sandstone some time around 1000, by a guru of the 5th king of the Khmer empire. It has unique gate guardians, which are human in form save for having lion or monkey heads. 

Japanese people love white umbrellas

They don't look happy about being unique

All of the reliefs here tell tales from Hindu mythology. Mony showed the whole group one, and told us the tale: there was a demon who was blessed in many ways: he couldn't be killed inside, or outside, he couldn't be killed at night or in the day, he couldn't be killed by a god, demon, human, or beast, and he couldn't be killed by any weapon. So how could he be killed, Mony asked us. I got the answer, and impressed everyone, and I will let you readers have a think about it yourself, and put the end of the story at the end of the post. 

I suffered for my brilliance though. There were loads of fire ants around, and 3 or 4 jumped on me from out of the tree we were standing under! I attempted to deal with them peacefully, shaking them off, or blowing them off, but one spitefully decided to bite me for no reason (I hadn't even gotten round to try and remove it). I swore, interrupting Mony's story, and flicked the offender, who was big enough for me to see his mandibles biting me, and spent the rest of the day paranoid that ants were on me whenever I felt anything.

Now we could wander freely, but me and Bryce stuck with Mony, as we had been impressed by his knowledge of photo ops the previous day, and he was more than happy to tell us the stories behind the rest of the carvings, which I was interested in. I will relate them all, because firstly it will be nice not to forget them, and secondly because there isn't so much to write about today, so it will bulk the post out nicely. I am now quite disappointed I didn't get photos of all the carvings, but they didn't exactly tell the stories panel by panel anyway.

Not a carving, just me

In one Shiva was trying to meditate atop a mountain, but a thousand armed demon tried to disturb him by shaking the mountain. If Shiva moved too much his efforts in meditation to this point would be wasted, but just by moving his big toe he was able to push the mountain down, driving the demon into the netherworld for 3000 years.

In another there was a woman that was so beautiful that it caused countless men to fall in love with her, and wage war upon each other. She prayed to Shiva (I think, it could also have been Vishnu) to rid her of the beauty which had become her curse, and Shiva danced for her, causing her to become incomparably ugly.

You can see the final product at the bottom left. She is indeed super ugly

Finally, 2 brothers had discovered the resting place of a naga (a seven headed serpant, and water divine beast often used as gate guardians), and wanted to kill it (for some reason I didn't get, but they were definitely the bad guys). It was a divine beast, and they were just mortals, so they decided to burn the forest it was living in. Indra (God of, among other things, rain) saw what they were trying to do though, and caused a downpour every time they set a fire, so it couldn't spread. Then Rama came along (a reincarnation of Vishnu, and hero of many tales in this area of the world, such as the Ramayana, the Far East version of Romeo and Juliet, which I saw a ballet of in Indonesia), and the 2 men told him that the naga was evil and had killed their families, and that they couldn't do anything because of the rain. Rama didn't realise Indra was causing the rain, and shot thousands of arrows continuously from his bow, blocking the rain, and allowing the men to burn the forest. The naga had already escaped though, so the men were still thwarted.

You need to zoom in really on the bottom part to see all the arrows blocking the rain. Because that is totally possible

We went back to the bus after this, past a huge, metallic gold spider, and a load of police men who tried to sell us their badges and hats. Unfortunately, despite being told numerous times what way we were going (even once by Geoff just before going the wrong way), Stephanie managed to go the wrong way and get lost. We had to hang around for half an hour, until she was finally found.

The real gate guardian

On the way back to Siam Reap, we stopped for lunch, and stopped at a wood and stone carving workshop, where we had their methods explained to us, and saw some of the craftsmen at work. I had decided I wanted a naga statue as a souvenir of Cambodia, but so far they had been too rare for me to find, which I thought was a bit strange, since they are on like every gate, temple, and monument. Luckily this had one, so it got it. I would've preferred wood (as it would probably have been cheaper), but all they had was soapstone, and I didn't know if I would see another.

After that it was back to the hotel, and I did more or less nothing the whole rest of the day. There were no optional activities, aside from visiting the markets etc, but I have already got all my gifts and souvenirs, so I just hung around and the hotel. Some people went back to pub street, but I decided I didn't need another hangover!

PS: the demon was killed by Vishnu (a god), who transformed himself into a Demi God (in this case, half God, half beast, and not fully any of the things which could not kill the demon), and killed the demon with his claws (so not a weapon) at sunset (so not day or night) in a doorway (so not inside or outside). Top marks to anyone who got it! Now do it whilst a fire ant is biting you.

Angkor hot

It got messy when Kelly (recall he is a man), Steve, Phillipe and I went down to the street where all the restaurants are, called pub street. The clue should've been in the name! We looked around for a bit, and found a place to eat where beer was $0.50, and food was $2.50. On the way we were approached by a few ladies offering 'massages' which were clearly more than that, one of those guys who seemingly sell everything ('you want tuk tuk?', 'no', 'how about beer?', 'no, we are going for some food', 'ok, how about weed?', 'no'), and there were musicians all over the place, a random live boxing match in an open air ring, and tons of people. Turns out Siam Reap, gateway to Angkor Wat is a stealth party town!

Nothing was stealth about this bar

We got our bill at the restaurant, $12 for the 4 of us to eat and have 2 beers a piece. We then moved on to another bar with $0.50 beer, and sat there at a table out on the street for a few hours. Phillipe had to go home half way because all the techno was 'driving him crazy', but the rest of us stayed till 1am. We got the bill, and it was $14.50 for our 29 beers (aka about the price of 3 beers at home)!

The next morning dawned way too early, with a trip to Angkor Wat in store. I had to throw up, but afterwards felt a lot better, and managed to choke down a slice of plain toast and some coffee before meeting for the bus. It was also the hottest day we've had, I think pushing 40 around midday, and still high 30s at 8am when we set off. The bus was a bit rough, but by the time we got there I had luckily more or less recovered.

There are 94 temples in the Siam Reap region, so obviously we could not visit them all. Today we were going to 3: Angkor Wat, the most famous of the temples, which is on Cambodia's flag, money, and is the largest religious monument in the world, Bayan temple, which largely escaped the destruction caused to the Buddhist statues and reliefs seen at the other temples by Siam (now Thailand) because the statues had 4 heads, and were mistaken for Brahma, the Hindu god, and Ta Prohm, which is famous for the banyan trees growing atop and through the buildings.

Angkor Wat was first. We had a little background from Mony before crossing the bridge over the moat, which is 200m wide. We then had to go through the entrance in the encircling wall, looking at some carvings on our way through, before exiting into a huge garden area, which houses a few smaller buildings as well as the main building. We visited a library (now more or less an empty room) on our way over, mainly to get in the shade for a bit as it was a long walk.

The moat and outer wall. Swimming across would've been nice in the heat!

The sun was being a pain and hanging out in the wrong half of the sky

The library was the perfect place to meditate out of the sun

Angkor Wat means 'city temple', and the main building is set over 3 floors, representing hell, Earth, and heaven. It was built by the 7th Khmer king from 1107 to 1150, and as far as I can gather was an active temple for the king. As previously mentioned, it was overrun (along with the whole area) by the Siamese at some point later, and they destroyed all the Buddhist statues. 

The first layer has reliefs depicting various myths, and actual battles in which the Khmer  were victorious. This layer is the biggest, so the total length of these stretches into the kilometre range. Mony explained a couple to us, and most of them had one army on one side (gods vs demons, 2 brothers fighting over a girl, Khmer vs Siamese), and one army on the other, with some fighting in the middle. There were some which had depictions of everyday life too though, and the gods vs demons one they were pulling a snake for some reason, and Vishnu was in the middle. I have no idea why.

This is Vishnu. He was doing... something

Mony knows all the best photo places, so those of our group who had wisely stuck with him (some decided to go it alone) got taken back out of the first layer to the far side, where you can get the best triple tower shots, and the riff Taff don't know about it so it is quiet. The only problem was the gangs of vicious, bloodthirsty monsters roaming the area. That is right, there are monkeys here! (For those who don't know, monkeys are terrible people. If you don't believe me, visit the monkey forest/temple in Ubud, Bali. You will see what I mean)

I call this one the Mony shot

Both of these come both with tourist (me) and without

The enemy

The second layer had a lot more photo opportunities, and lots of headless Buddhas. We did a full circuit, and Mony explained to us that we could queue if we wanted to go up to the third layer, but there isn't a lot to see, and the queue was way long, so nobody went for it. We are coming back for sunrise tomorrow anyway so there might be a chance then. Mony also showed is an echo chamber, a room with strange acoustic properties that means a clap (for instance) will not echo, but if you put your back to the wall, and thump your chest, it echoes like crazy. People used the room for praying.

Looks like I wasn't the only one who got headless last night

The handbag the tour company gives out is surprisingly handy

All this took a good couple of hours, and it was time to move on, so we went back to the bus and got going. We saw a lot of the temples we couldn't visit as we drove the 5-10 minutes to Bayan, through Angkor Thom, the now ruined capital city of the Khmer. The whole area is walled, and we stopped by the Victory gate for some photos, since it was pretty impressive.

Slightly fancier than the entrance to Rotherham

Bayan is in a similar state of repair to Angkor Wat, which is to say pretty good, and as I already mentioned, this time all the Buddhas are in tact thanks to them having 4 heads. This is therefore the defining feature of this temple, especially since there are so damn many heads on the sides of the buildings. I am 90% sure this one had 2 floors of no especial consequence, certainly we only went on 2, and I didn't see stairs up. 

We pottered around the bottom a bit, looking  at some more reliefs with Mony explaining, and he also took us to a secret well, which was through some dark, twisty corridors which would not be easily navigable without a guide, especially since the well itself is in an alcove and pitch black. It was upstairs then, for a boatload of Mony approved photos. There was an inside section with a hole in the roof, which made for some good photos, especially since there were translucent bats fluttering around up there.

I was just saying I needed a drink!

This guy was all up in my face

Mony really had plenty of places lined up here

I think the Asian lady in the background likes my shoes

Finally a no people shot. I was getting sick of seeing that Roma shirt!

I have no idea why the wall is oozing radioactive material. Maybe that's why the bats are a weird colour

I got some daddy backup from the giant stone face man in my fued.

We stopped at a nearby cafe (with god tier air conditioning) for lunch, and I had the quintessential Cambodian dish amok, which is like a mix between Thai green curry and satay. This was actually the second time I had it, and it was a lot less nutty than the first, which was somewhat disappointing, although this also made it lighter, which was probably a good thing.

We then moved on to my favourite temple of the day, Ta Prohm. Apparently part of this place was used in the tomb raider movie, but since that was a mediocre film which came out years ago I don't remember it. It certainly felt like some kind of lost ruin, what with all the jungle surrounding it, and the trees taking the place over.

It was more or less a one story affair the whole way, with a lot of places cordoned off for restoration. Mony had us covered for photos once again, and though there wasn't a lot of carving, and hence a lot less of a story here, there was one notable room which was studded with thousands of giant (like inch diameter) pearls, diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds along with ~500 kilos of gold and ~500 kilos of silver. Funnily enough the Siamese weren't shy about taking all of this, leaving behind a room with a wall full of holes.

No, bad tree! I told you not to grow in the temple. Get down here right now!

Hide and seek level: master

This is an actor tree

If only there were precious gems in all those holes...

I shouted at the people to move, but they ignored me for some reason

Obligatory sun photo

It was about 4pm when we got done. Given we had to be up in 12 hours, some rest was in order!