My country my beer

Overgrown temples at Ankor - this one is Ta Som

It seems to be a feature of travelling that you wear a t shirt illustrating the local beer. Round here the local beer is, predictably, Angkor - slogan: "my country, my beer". Steve has bought two beer t shirts so far: Angkor and Tiger... with more to come..

Cambodia was a refreshing change of pace from Vietnam. Generally fewer people - itself a sad indictment of Cambodia's history (for those who don't know, the cultural revolution sparked by the Khmer Rouge - and indirectly attributable to US bombings as part of the Vietnam War - killed a quarter of Cambodia's population between 1975 and 1980, through "disappearances", famine, forced labour, sickness and war.) It is probably about 5 years behind Vietnam in terms of tourist numbers, and as far as we can see that is nothing but a good thing. The degree of ripping off here is substantially less, people are friendlier, the food is better, and even here in Angkor, which is quite simply one of the biggest tourist draws in Asia, you still feel you get personal attention.

We enjoyed Phnom Penh, and despite the LP's harsh warnings of armed robberies "If you are robbed, keep your hands above your head...." we had no problems at all. On the first day we had a massage by blind masseurs, an ideal job opportunity for blind people in a country where disabilities are hidden or paraded for begging.

The Tuol Sleng museum in Phnom Penh is a must-see. It is an old school - the monkey bars are still standing - which was used by the Khmer Rouge as a prison for intellectuals, anyone wearing glasses, anyone who spoke foreign languages, pretty much anyone the Khmer Rouge didn't like. 17,000 people passed through Tuol Sleng, all but 7 ending up at the Killing Fields where they were murdered above mass graves, often by bludgeoning to save bullets.

The day after visiting Tuol Sleng we thought we'd cycle out to the Killing Fields. According to the LP it is "clearly signposted and a pleasant ride when you get out of town". So off we went, cycling along busy roads. Two hours later we gave up. We had been cycling in scorching heat for two hours without leaving the city and having twice lost the signage. After cycling along a road so dusty it made us choke we decided enough was enough and called a tuk tuk instead! It is cyclable but only with a good map!...
There isn't much to see at the Killing Fields - a stupa containing the multiple skulls dug up from the site, many excavated pits, and an atmosphere.

On advice we forsook the beach resort of Sihanoukville for a little town of Kampot. There's very little to do there but the change of pace from Vietnam was stark - you can wander down the centre of the road, browse the one and only bookshop for hours or have dinner in quiet riverside places. We took motorbikes to the river rapids out of town where locals go swimming. The banks of the river were littered with the leftover meals and packaging of all the Cambodians who'd eaten there before us. We gingerly picked our way to the water, slightly wary of landmines - Cambodia is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world - (Ethiopia and Afghanistan are two other biggies) - they advise you never to step away from well marked paths.


Fire artist in Kampot
On the way back I overcooked the throttle on a gritty corner and skidded the bike over. I gave a yelp as it went, mainly because I felt so stupid but apart from a few scrapes I was fine. All the bikes over here are so low powered it would be difficult to get up enough speed to do any damage. The brake handle was a little scratched but when I showed the hire shop they were completely unbothered - perhaps lots of silly tourists do what I did.

We also visited a tropical island - Rabbit Island - while in Kampot. It was completely undeveloped, just a couple of simple cafes each hosting 6 bungalows, and maybe four island houses on the entire place. No shops, no tv, virtually no electricity. Our stilted bamboo bungalow ($4 US per night) was furnished with a mattress on the floor, a shard of mirror and a stub of candle which wouldn't stay lit due to the storm whistling through the walls. We walked around the island - obviously something not done very often because the path completely disappeared at one point. After being impaled by numerous thorns we gave up and waded around in the sea instead.

The sad thing is that developers from the west, having saturated Thailand, have cottoned on to the fact that there are loads of idyllic islands off the coast of Cambodia which are currently squatted by refugees from the Khmer Rouge regime, and now rich foreigners are busily buying up the land from the government owners and ousting the residents to develop luxury resorts. We heard Rabbit Island had been bought - In five years time there'll probably be a Starbucks on it.

Next stop was Siem Reap (translation: Thai defeat) - gateway town for Angkor temples. Angkor Wat, just one of many, is the mother of all temples: the biggest religious building in the world...

One of the biggest tourist attractions in Asia, it was certainly swarming with tourists, of every kind. We were suddenly indistinguishable from all the package tourists from Germany staying in 5 star hotels - it felt strange after battling our way independently through China.

One of the looted heads at the Angkor temples is replaced

I won't bore people with descriptions of the temples, suffice to say they're very impressive and that it's worth spending a bit more time in the area to see some of the minor temples. We cycled around on the second day there and saw some of the more obscure temples on our 35km circuit. Each temple, no matter how remote comes with an accompaniment of chanting children who speak excellent English but sadly, can't read: "What's your name?" "Where do you come from?"

Around the temples Steve was wearing his Tiger Beer t-shirt and it meant he was an easy target for the prepubescent salespeople: "Maybe later you buy something from me sir? I remember you, Tiger Beer..." and they do... and Steve more often than not caved and bought from them. It would take a very hard-hearted person to refuse when you are bombarded with small children with a look of desperation in their eyes trying to sell t shirts and scarves to you at every single temple. But it's very sad that literacy in Cambodia is still only around 70% 30 years after the Khmer Rouge tried to eliminate anyone with education - and the temple kids are too busy hawking to tourists to go to school.


The carved heads at Bayon temple

I really wanted to visit Preah Vihear, a remote temple near the Thai border, but about 2 weeks ago the site was declared an UNESCO world heritage site and Thailand suddenly decided that it belonged to them, not Cambodia (it used to be in Thai territory once upon a time), and started massing their troops on the border, so with the Cambodian election results also looming, not wanting to end up in the firing line we continued west to the Thai border.

Our Driver and Guide display ink-marked fingers post voting on Election day