The Kingdom of Cambodia

If first impressions count for anything, our first impression of Cambodia wasn't a great one. After all the horror stories of muggings and terrible food from our friend, Alex, I was slightly apprehensive of our destination choice for the Chinese New Year holiday. Add to this the disastrous beginning to the trip of delays, missed flights and an unplanned night in Beijing, and we weren't off to a great start. But, we did eventually make in to Cambodia, 24 hours after we'd planned but better late than never right?
As a welcome to the country the first thing we saw, pretty much as soon as we pulled out of the airport, was a dead body lying in the road. And yes, this man was definitely dead. I'm guessing some kind of road accident from the amount of blood. The most bizarre thing for me was the crowd of around 30 people - including police officers - just standing and staring at the uncovered body. It seem sort of surreal whizzing past a corpse crammed into the back of the tuktuk with our backpacks. A macabre start for sure.

But the theme of dead bodies and horror (thankfully) didn't continue and in the light of day the next morning we set out to explore.
One thing about Cambodia is that the architecture is great, everything is covered in extraordinary carvings and painted in amazing bright colours. The roofs are a curling mass of delicate spires, and (best of all) are nothing like anything that I've seen in China.  For those who have been to Thailand the architecture might not be quite so impressive but for me it was amazing. China has it's own distinct and beautiful style but, having lived in China for a year and having travelled a fair bit around the country, the initial wow factor has been lost a bit. Vietnam's style and architecture mirror that of China a lot of the time, and Hong Kong obviously is very Chinese too; so Cambodia is the first place that I've been in the last year that is really different.
As per usual Jenny and I decided to cram in as much of the country as we possibly could in the short time we had, and I think we did pretty well. Over the two weeks we managed to visit 4 cities and get in all the major sights.

First was Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Here we spent our time between cramming in culture and relaxing along the river eating copious amounts of, predominantly Western, food. The tourist sights in Phnom Penh can be split into two camps; the flamboyant royal palace and temples, with a perfect example being the extravagant Silver Pagoda, where the floor is tiled in solid silver. And the sights that memorialise the horrific legacy of the Khmer Rouge. Before going to Cambodia I knew of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot but I didn't really know that many of the details. That changed once we'd been to the Killing Fields(Choeung Ek) and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, it's horrific to see evidence of the horrible things we can do to one another and, perhaps worse, how the rest of the world can ignore it. I've never been to country which is so deeply shaped by such a short period of it's history and at some point I will write another post purely about the legacy of Khmer Rouge, but for now I'll stick to brighter topics.

Two in the bed

After Phnom Penh we embarked on a overnight bus to Battambang, a little colonial city about halfway to Siem Reap. The most memorable thing about the journey was the double bunks. By this point we are very used to the bunked buses that make up night buses, but what we weren't prepared for was shared bunks. Two people squeezed into a little bunk to bump along the unpaved roads together. Luckily Jenny and I were together in a bunk so the rolling and bumping wasn't too awkward! Once safely in Battambang we managed to kind ourselves a great tuktuk driver who acted as our guide for the time we were there. He was a lovely man, who not only took us to all the essential sights (crocodile farm anyone?) but also told us about his family and his life.

The highlight of Battambang for me was the bamboo railway, essentially a single rail track that runs though the fields and countryside of Battambang province that would trundle along on a "train"
(more like plank on wheels) made of bamboo. The coolest thing for me was that because it is a single track the trains go both ways on the same track, this means when two trains going in opposite directions meet on the track the one with the least passengers disembarks, disassembles and hen reassembles once the other train has passed. A genius solution, and a lot of fun!

Off the tracks...

And back on!

Another thing that can't be left out was going to the bat caves. After a day of temple tourism we went to watch the 7 million bats that live in the side of a mountain fly out in search of food. We had planned to watch it from the ground with the rest of the tourists but random chatting with strangers led us to a secret viewing spot that was directly in front of the bats cave. Essentially the bats fly out straight at your face and all around you, it was terrifying and amazing and one of the weirdest things I have done in my life. There is nothing like standing in a whirlwind of millions of bats, trying not to breathe in their phenomenal stink!

Bat attack!

Third stop was Siem Reap, home to the famous Angkor Wat. Here we met our friend from university, Henriette. The first face from home in a year! Siem Reap is truly a tourist town, there are most foreigners that locals and the city centre seems to centre around the infamous Pub Street, Siem Reap's centre of debauchery. To be honest Siem Reap itself was slightly disappointing, it seems more of a base for the Angkor Archaeological Park than an exciting city in itself and and most of our time here was spent relaxing. Of course, the highlight was the Angkor Archaeological Park, and we decided to go all out and go for sunset (too cloudy- disappointing) and the 5am sunrise over Angkor Wat (cloudy but less disappointing). Angkor Wat is the biggest temple in the world and it is truly amazing, it is massive and I can't even begin to imagine what it must have been like in it's prime and how simultaneously terrifying and awe-inspiring it must have been. But although Angkor Wat is what draws the droves of tourists the rest of the temples in the park are also amazing. Bayon in the city ruins of Angkor Thom, with it's enormous faces carved in it's sides, apparently there are 216; and Ta Prohm where nature has been left to take it's course and trees intertwine with the building were definite highlights for me.

Bayon, Ankor Thom

Ta Prohm

Ankor Wat at sunrise

Last stop was Kampong Cham, a city that used to be a colonial hub but now has been somewhat forgotten. The highlight there was the bamboo bridge which is built by hand every year when the dry season exposes a beach on the tiny island across the Mekong River, and taken down once the rainy season comes. I would never imagine the bridge that looks and feels so flimsy could hold four-by-fours carrying huge families and the constant stream of traffic that we manoeuvred walking across the kilometre long bridge.

Overall I feel like we saw a lot in the short time we had, Cambodia is a beautiful country with some of the friendliest people I've met. The traditional food (Amok and Lok Lak) was light, fragrant and full of flavour, despite the terrible review Alex gave to the food! Despite the terrible start and the dead body I had a great time and back in China (and back to work) I once again feel lucky to be see so many amazing things.