Holiday in Cambodia: one week at Angkor

Ahhh, Cambodia... The name Cambodia in recent history hasn't exactly evoked images of a vacationers paradise, but there have been some big changes in Kampuchea over the past few years, resulting in a lush, travel-friendly environment that left all of us simply wanting more. I am imagining that Siem Reap (the small town outside the ruins at Angkor Wat) is just now experiencing some the rapid development that was typical in Thailand 20 years ago; the locals here are still quite friendly to travelers and seemingly haven't yet let their lives be dominated by the quest for the all-mighty tourist buck.

Our experience at the airport and the "visa on arrival" procedure was far less arduous than we had all expected; it involved no more than forking over 20 dollars and standing in front of a panel of stone-faced immigration officials... Once outside, we easily found our driver from the Golden Banana, the posh boutique hotel we had booked well in advance of our arrival... He whisked us in an air conditioned minivan to the property, one of our last encounters with aircon (outside the hotel) during the entire week. Temperatures here remained just as high as those in northern Thailand, with unrelenting sunshine through most of the day...

The Golden Banana proved to be one of the very best hotels we've experienced during this trip: super friendly staff, amazing location, and fantastic rooms all surrounding a tropical garden and huge saline swimming pool, complete with a waterfall feature... I've never been in a saline swimming pool before and let me tell you: it is so much better than a conventional chlorine pool... Not only does the saline kill bacteria, not sting the eyes, and allow one to float much easier, it also deters mosquitoes! We all spent the first 2 days just settling in at the GB, bumming around the Old Market area of Siem Reap, and catching up on our beauty sleep...

By the third day, we were ready for big, bad Angkor Wat. Johnna and I decided that the best course of action (being on the constant heat contingency plan) would be to head out at about 5am (which is the opening time of the park) and try to be back to the hotel by about 11am, before the extremely hot midday sun takes over... This turned out to in fact be our plan for the next few days. We purchased a 3-day pass to the ruins, enabling us to travel back and forth for 3 consecutive days for the same price as a standard 2-day entry. The day before, we had commissioned a good-natured tuk-tuk driver named Sopahl to be our driver for the morning; he ended up becoming our driver for most of the week! Sopahl was waiting for us when we stumbled, bleary eyed, out of the hotel at 5am: we slugged back a few cans of cold Nescafe on our 20-minute, open-air journey past rambling shanty houses, dense jungle, and finally the manicured entrance to the Angkor national park. We arrived to the front gates of Angkor Wat, the largest of the temple structures spread around the area, just as the sun was coming up.

There are no words to properly describe this type of experience. I remember the feeling that overwhelmed both me and Tre standing before the Taj Mahal during sunrise; this is the only memory to which I can compare sunrise at Angkor Wat. I had an intense feeling of stepping into another time, one in which the modern world plays no part whatsoever... there were no familiar aspects to my immediate surroundings that reminded me of life on earth as I know it... The stillness and almost eeriness of the the dark ancient stone and perfect symmetry of the architecture... There is nothing quite like it anywhere in the world... except maybe a few kilometers away at some of the other amazing ruins left behind by the Khmer empire some 1000 years ago.

We spent the next few days exploring not only Angkor Wat, but the ruins at the Bayon and Ta Phrom, as well as the walls of the Leper King and the Elephants... Truly amazing stuff. The detail of the carvings throughout Angkor (and the fact that it has all been so well preserved) is unbelievable. There is are more to see here than just a few days allows...

Paul's 45th birthday was on 21 April and we celebrated in grand style with the staff at the hotel: the Pina Coladas flowed like water and Paul seemed very pleased with his strange and funny gifts... Nat, one of the nice hotel staff, helped me to find a bakery that would create a personalized birthday cake, complete with candles, for the occasion... Riding home on the back of Nat's motorbike, swerving through traffic while balancing a huge birthday cake on my lap, was one of the highlights of my Cambodian experience...

Both our Mums and Christina have all safely arrived back at their respective homes... We are sad to see them all go, but also excited about the upcoming weeks of our trip. We are heading now to the Gulf of Thailand coast for a few weeks on the island of Ko Tao, plus a trip to the Khao Sok National Park, a preserved jungle wilderness with waterfalls, trekking, and several eco-friendly options for lodgings... Access to phone and internet in the jungle will be pretty limited, so I'll update once back in Bangkok.

More soon! x Jason