Last day in Cambodia
Tonight will be our last night in Siem Reap, Cambodia. It’s been fun, to say the least. Speaking of the temperature, yesterday was the hottest day — 38°C and very little wind. I bought a 2 t-shirts at Angkor Wat and although I couldn’t seem to get much better than 2 for $5 USD, I got the lady to throw in a small hand towel for wiping the sweat from our faces. She wasn’t too happy to cave in, but it was still a good deal.
We still can’t get over how expensive it is here. For us, travelling on a tight budget, everything is so inflated for the American, French, and Korean tourists. There are several 5-star hotels, and more being built. We splurged and have been paying $40 USD/day for a personal guide, and they said that the Korean tour companies often charge $80 USD per person and more! Sometimes for dinner we end up spending close to the same as we would to eat out at home. Cans of Coke cost us $1 USD, where we can get them for $0.50-$0.75 CAD at home. Of course, why drink Coke when you can have fresh Watermelon/Coconut juice for the same price–YUM!
Yesterday we spent our second day at the temples. The Bayon temples are surrounded by carvings that tell stories about the history of local wars, and religious events; it was a real highlight for me. On the way home we stopped near a massive moat to feed some bannanas to some wild monkeys that were sitting beside the road.
Two days of temple exploring in this heat are really draining, but instead of heading in for bed, we met up with an Israeli woman whom we first met on the bus into Cambodia. She’s spent the last 2 years living in India, and has obviously fallen in love with the country. From her stories, it would be hard not to.
For today, our last day here, we avoided the temples and had our guides show us around the city. The day began with a visit to the floating village. (Josh: you’d love this) During the raining season (lasts until November) the giant lake in the centre of Cambodia floods much of the landscape. This village is all floating homes–some built on bamboo rafts, and others on stilts. For $10 USD/each we took a boat along the corridor of homes, businesses (including electronics, fish farms and restaurants), and swimming children. The corridor, which is lined with the folliage of trees hiding under the water, leads directly to the lake which is a site that is incredible. The lake looks like the ocean because of it’s size. The shores stretch to your left and right and you cannot see any side of the lake. On the way back to the dock, we stopped at a restaurant with a fish farm of catfish. Our guide scooped some shrimp pieces into the calm water and we were suddenly being splashed by so many of them. In another tank they had at least 15 small crocodiles, and other cages with animals.
We visited a small Killing Field monument, which was a small building (~4 sq. ft.) with glass panels in the sides so one can see it filled with human bones and skulls. The big monument to the destruction from the Khmer Rouge is at the capitol city of Phenom Penn, but killing fields are all over the country. Nearby, we visited a landmine museum, where a local has made it his passion to educate tourists and locals about landmines, and also help clear them. He has amasssed thousands of mines, grenades, and other inactive ordanance and displays them. The museum seems to be run mostly by volunteers and amputees. The most moving aspect of the museum is seeing paintings that depict life stories of the people at the museum. The founder was himself recruited to the Khmer Rouge when he was very young and spend many years planting mines. Later he began working with the United Nations to remove mines (nearly 20,000 just from the local area). There were other stories from locals of how they avoided death, or successfully killed groups of enemy soldiers. I will never understand what effect this has left on the people, but the most visible reminder is the absence of older people. There simply are few middle aged, and almost no old people here.
Anyway, I’m going back to my room to be refreshed by our air conditioning. In 20 minutes it will be 5 pm and we’ll head to one of the temples to watch the sunset at 6 pm. Tomorrow morning, we will catch our bus and head back across the “dancing” road eventually arrive in Bangkok. We’ll only spend the night in Bangkok, and in the morning we’ll catch another bus (details unknown) southeast and then a boat to the island of Ko Somet. Take care!