VerrTravels: Cambodia Visit

After Hanoi we flew to Cambodia. First impression: Cambodia is definitely a third world nation! Well, so was Vietnam but Vietnam was more developed and looked better off than Cambodia. The Cambodian's certainly were welcoming to Americans and foreigners; however, I don't think that they seemed as outgoing in their friendliness as the Vietnamese. And it was hot and humid....upper 80's during the day and upper 70's at night. I thought it surprising that Cambodia officially uses two currencies: the US dollar and their own currency. At a grocery store they mixed and matched the different currencies. US money for the high value bills and often instead of US coinage (didn't see any) they use their paper currency. I think the exchange rate was 20,000 cambodian dollars to one us dollar. Most of the ATMs dispense US dollars! At least one dispensed $50 bills which seemed odd because most vendors couldn't take such a large bill.

Many of Cambodians looked like the Indians (real Indians not Native Americans) rather than the Chinese. Their language descends from Sanscrit and Persian scripts rather than Chinese. However, they celebrate the Lunar or Chinese new year and have many religious and ancester worship traditions more in line with the Chinese than India....or so I was told.....I haven't been to India. Religion is big in Cambodia never having had the Communist anti-religion push in their recent history. Every kingdom tried to out do its predecessor by building a larger temple complexes. So often the prior dynasties temple was abandoned when the new one was built. So their are temple ruins all through the jungles of southeast asia. I always had an image in my mind of a Thai-costumed girl dancing only to find out that those costumes are really Cambodian and the famous Angkor Wat was actually in Cambodia and not Thailand. Actually within the last century Angkor Wat WAS in Thailand not that it would be fair to attribute my mistaken remembrance to that historic shift in borders. That area of Cambodia has belonged to different countries during the last century depending on which country had the better army.

When we pulled up to the hotel in the town of Siem Riep, I was shocked to see my gray Honda Ridgeline parked in front. I guess I should apologize to VerrDon for accusing him of driving it to Cambodia after driving to Boise. I did eventually figure it out. It was a surprise in part because you see very few pickups in China and Vietnam....and it would be a non-US market toyota pickup (eg - they aren't the big Toyota pickups that are sold in the US).

The town of Siem Riep had several nice hotels like the one we stayed in above. There were some nice homes but then there were many shacks....not that you have to worry about the lack of central heating for their homes. There are only two seasons: hot and hotter! I'm glad I wasn't there during the hotter season!

There were a couple of people waiting for the bus....or was that the water buffalo brigade they were waiting for..

This is an older generation farm tractor than what was common-place in Taiwan in the 70's!

The town or city of Siem Riep....That is a modern temple complex in background. This is one of the few main downtown thoroughfares in the city.

This is river-front property in Siem Riep

Landscaping is a bit "over-the-top" at this restaurant. Many stark contrasts to have fine places like this and the hotel to the side .....and the poverty just a few more feet down the same road.

We were in Cambodia right before the Lunar new year and this ancester worship setup was in the lobby of our hotel. Drinks (eg - Coca Cola) and many dishes from the restaurant are set on the rug....and that is a glazed roasted whole pig.

Efficient family transportation.....and you kids complained about the legroom in the Ford van we had!

One big innovation in motorcycle transport common in and around Siem Riep (and not seen anywhere else I saw in our travels) is to connect a two-wheeled trailer to the back of the motorcycle. It is connected with a 5th-wheel like bracket that is bolted onto the back of the motorcycle allowing the motorcycle to lean, turn, bounce up and down all with a secure connection to the trailer.

We then took a boat trip on a muddy river to a large lake and visited a floating village.

Actually, this is what the boat we were on looked like. It was surprisingly unstable for its size and in a remarkable state of disrepair. The whole time I kept praying that I wouldn't be forced into the muddy soup of a river!

Here are two videos of boats going up the river. There is little freeboard.....meaning water easily spills into the boat so they also have little scoops to keep bailing water out that splashes in!

This floating village has a large number of Vietnamese refugees that stayed after the last war between Vietnam and Cambodia. The lake is a little over 10 feet deep at this time of the year....water levels were a bit low during the non-rainy season.

This "home" is supported by some old 55-gallon drums and large sections of bamboo. Some houses are supported on 2 or 3 small boat sections. Others use only bamboo or floating logs. Many of the floating homes have a netted fish farm under their homes where they grow some fish....yes, there are fish in that brown water.

I'm on a roof-top rest area at a local store and restaurant built on a few rafts tied together. The wet land areas of the river delta can be seen just beyond the tops of the floating homes. However, to get to a town on dry-land you have to travel approximately where the hill in the background is.

Here is a small home on one old boat stabilized by some bamboo floats. There were so many children! I guess they learn to swim early so they don't drown.

There were many boat-people beggars! The 3 little boys are floating in large basins and they have an oar and a paddle to keep splashed water out. The larger boat to the left is a couple of mothers begging or trying to show off their babies for a photo and then they expect you to pay after you take their photo. The little boys ended up fighting each other instead of begging...rather sad... Behind them on the larger barge are many foreigners looking upon a large tank of crocs and a crowded fish farm tank. The video of the crocs follows this.

In addition to begging and offering their children for photos, other boat people brought by large snakes for additional photo opportunities....for a fee. It was sad when 2 boats with different mothers were competing to have you photo and pay them. I saw two or three get angry when an adjacent mom received a dollar for a photo but the one next to her didn't get the picture.

Speaking of snakes.....

Did I mention there were temple ruins to see!?!?! Here are a few pictures of the oldest ruins we went to (late first millennium AD)

Here is a Norwegian ruin......no, a Danish ruin in a Norway shirt..

Jungle vegetation and trees have an uncanny ability to swallow old structures.

As stated above, this old temple was about 1000 years old.

But it is falling apart. You can see the braces keeping the wall sections up. This temple was built with a combination of sandstone and lava stone and brick hence the different colors.

And instead of bracing this section of falling wall, lets put a garbage can next to it and see if we can trap some unaware tourist...

Speaking of unaware tourists.....please note...if you carry good such as a mango the monkeys will do eveything they can to climb all over you until they get it out of your hand. Look at the face of the monkey on the right....I think he realizes that the other tourist....the hungry one that just lost his mango....also has a gun!

I'll spare you the hundreds of photos of the two most famous temples; Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, but here are a few.....

Entrance to Angkor Wat. The newest and largest of the large temples. This is still being used. The 9-headed serpent and lion guard one end of the causeway that crosses the moat on the island. The Angkor Wat Temple is the largest religious structure in the world

This reflecting pool is on the island and the temple comples is in the background.

As you get closer you get a feel for the actual size of the temple which is actually built on a hill.

You can't go up into the spires themselves but you can climb onto the upper structures on which the spires are built. The jungle you see in the background is on the island within the moat. It is hard to picture how big this site is within the outer moat.

Remarkably well-preserved engraving...or good reproduction...probably the latter.

The last photos are from the Angkor Thom complex where the movie Laura Croft: Tomb Raider was shot. The most remarkable features of this temple were how the amazing trees were growing over the top of this ruin. These large trees actually grow fairly fast.....the big ones may not even be 100 years old. There are two types of ruin-eating trees that I show in the next two photos.

These apparently bark-less trees look like they are from a different planet or like they are the creations of a movie set...why do they grow on top of the walls and why is that large root running along the top of the wall.... These trees grow relatively fast. Some of them are approaching 200 feet and the guide says they are less than one hundred years old.

The second type of ruin-eating tree is the vine type tree that is the type of tree that grows off other trees or structures. It is common to see these trees growing around other trees in the forest. Oft times the old tree dies and rots away leaving an evil-looking tree that is hollow (the cavity where the old tree was that rotted away) and you can see though the trunk.