Siem Reap - Day 5

Cooking and the Circus

Today was another rest day. I can't rush these things you know! Plus I need time out to go and have massages and pampering every day or at least every second day. At $18 for an hour at a very nice, clean, quiet, professional spa, its so worth it!

So today was cooking class and then night circus show.

I was picked up by Tuk Tuk after breakfast and taken just out of the city down a little dirt lane, past some very poor houses and then all of a sudden we were at a very nice building/resort i guess you would call it. I met up with the rest of our cooking class group, a family of 4 from the US and another Aussie from Maryborough. The teacher took us down the lane carrying a 2kg bag of rice with her to give to a local family that she would introduce us to. On they way she stopped off and showed us various herbs and fruit growing naturally by the side of the road, lemongrass, basil, bananas, papaya, oranges, mangos. Then we visisted with a poor family, met their kids, had a look at their kitchen and passed over the bag of rice to them. The father was very grateful. Although i had to wonder if the same family is getting a 2kg bag of rice every day from this cooking class? Hopefully they have other families that they have this arrangement with. The photos below show how the average rural family lives. Just surviving a lot of the time, with very little in the way of protein, mostly rice and some veggies. Needless to say all the kids are half the size both vertically and horizontally of most Aussie kids. 

The family kitchen, in a separate, low lean-to away from the house. Notice the smoke damage to the roof! I asked him about accidental fires and the father said that they keep a bucket of water nearby to put them out...What do you think their kitchens looked like 100 years ago? 500 years ago? Now think about what Aussie kitchens looked like 100 years ago, compared to what they look like today. Many things in Cambodia look and work exactly the same today as they did 500 years ago...and not in a good way.

The kitchen sink, laundry sink, bathroom sink, shower, bath, drinking water for themselves for their animals......installed by an NGO at some point. There were many of these in the front yards of rural houses.

This country reminds me in so many ways of East Timor. They both have many, many similar problems and issues, but Cambodia seems to be on everyone's radar more. Perhaps its just that Cambodia has been more publicised around the world over the last 30 years, whereas East Timor is so small and insignificant to the major western countries they haven't wanted to know about it so much.  Plus Cambodia has a bigger population and of course they have Angkor Wat and the other temples. This alone brings 1 million tourists  to Siem Reap every year. Tourists in their thousands flood the streets, hotels and restaurants. A number of local people told me that Cambodia is not as popular with tourists as neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam and so they stay poor. Whilst this is true to some extent,  tourism in and of itself is not going to lift the country out of its desparate poverty. Lots of the tourism dollars still end up going to local and national government in bribes due to ongoing corruption. 

What i did notice about Cambodia compared to my experiences with Vietnam is that the people are more trusting/naive? Not sure if Vietnam used to be like that and now isn't or if it never was. The Cambodians also generally seem to lack the sheer enthusiasm and drive that you see in Vietnam. This could reasonably be due to such recent social  and political problems, which have only just stopped having a direct and major impact in the past 10 years. The general attitude is, "oh well, whatever will be, will be. We can't really do anything about it." 
Obviously there are exceptions, Davy being one of them, but the general feeling amongst both the locals and the expats that i spoke to is that there has been decades, even centuries, of dictatorship led power and this has kept the vast majority of the population in poverty, with no education and absolutely no way of making something of themselves and improving their position. It just wasn't possible under the authority and rulership of governments and kings. They ensured that ownership of land and posessions was impossible. Similar to the position of Serf's during the European dark and middle ages. If you weren't royalty you had no hope. There wasn't any major rebellions against the government or leadership either. And whether this is partly due to their strong Buddhist religious beliefs or not i'm not sure. It has certainly contributed to them not having a strong desire to better themselves. This and the fact 1/4 of their population were killed and/or permanently maimed within the past 4 decades. In any case whilever they have an undemocratic, corrupt government in place nothing much will change. Even though every year for the past 15 years the world has continued to pump $500-$800m worth of aid into the country, which is 50% of their GNP. It has been estimated that half of this money each year goes directly into the pockets of the  countries leadership. The gap between rich and poor is so, so much greater than Australia. A small bottle of water costs USD$1. Lots of the population hardly make that much money per day.

Ooh, that went off on a political ranting tangent didn't it?? Now, where was I?
Oh yes, cooking class. Well we did lots of chopping and then pounding with the mortar and pestle and then more chopping and slicing and peeling and then cooking and voila! We created 3 amazing dishes which the cooking teachers then plated up for us and we sat at a beautifully decorated table on a timber platform in the middle of a rather green pond full of catfish and made ourselves very full. Proof is in the pictures below. I made it all myself, I promise!

Tasty  chicken and green mango salad with lovely, salty dressing and freh herbs

Best dish of the day. Amazing flavours, aromatic, but not too spicy, this freshwater fish Amok was so delicious.

Rice flour dumplings with a piece of palm sugar imbedded inside each one. Rather horrible, gelatinous, sticky, tasteless things these were, definitely not big on Sth East Asian sweets. Best thing about them was the freshly grated coconut on top.

And so to the circus that night! This ended up being another wonderful highlight of my trip to Siem Reap. I wasn't sure what to expect which was a good thing in this case. It is a mixture of drama, theatre, clowning, gymnastics, dance, humour, music and lots of laughs and energy. Its official name is Phare Cambodian Circus and the idea came from an amazing French NGO who are using this and music and art to assist young people to focus on learning and providing them with creative outlets. It was so good, amazing actually, shows just how fantastic young Cambodians can be when given the means, education and opportunity.  I have added a movie clip below which hopefully will give you some idea of the vitality of the night, was so much fun. The good thing was about 25% of the roughly 100 people in the audience were Cambodian families which was great. I was expecting it would be  tourists only. The local Cambodians sitting next to me on the benches were beside themselves with excitement, laughter and wonder.

Siem Reap - Day 4

The Grand Circuit

So my second big day of temple gazing today. I am doing what everyone knows as the Grand Circuit, which is just a flash way of saying you travel further between each temple…still only costs me $15 to hire the Tuk Tuk and the driver for the day which isn’t bad. He gets to spend a lot of time lounging around on his Tuk Tuk in the shade of large trees chatting to the myriad other Tuk Tuk drivers doing exactly the same thing. Not a bad life for them actually. Certainly doesn’t take a lot of physical effort. I guess they leave all the hard physical work up to their dear wives and teenage children at home. I didn’t see one female Tuk Tuk driver in the whole trip, but I did notice that there are now a couple of female taxi drivers in Ho Chi Minh city so perhaps in another 10 years Cambodia will start to have females doing more of this kind of work.

I digress. I have plenty of water, my umbrella for sun protection and my week long Angkor access pass around my neck. We are good to go. Off the driver toddles, he is an older guy and very careful, read slow. I think we are the slowest Tuk Tuk in town, he chuffs along, slowing down to go over and around bumps, which means a lot of slowing down, basically it means just going slow the whole time actually as the road is constantly bumpy. But that’s ok, it gives me more time to look at the scenery and in between temples more time for the sweat to attempt to dry. Weirdly enough, the more temples I go to the more fascinated I am becoming with them and the more photos I take. I thought it would be the other way around, but I think its partly because there are less people at these more remote temples and therefore you can spend a lot of time wandering slowly around without seeing anyone, which makes it a more immersive experience. There are also so many good shots to take, weird angles, strange corners, light and shade reflecting off 1000 year old pieces of carved stone. How can you not take a good shot!

So delicately carved, they look like they are made from timber.

The little evenly spaces holes in walls of some of the small rooms supposedly used to hole precious and shiny jewels that would reflect light and create a sparkly effect.

Each temple is different in its layout, decoration, style, shape, height off the ground etc. Its interesting to wonder why they were built in certain ways. Its also really hard to imagine a whole city built up around these temples, all made out of timber and therefore gone forever. I was reading today that at its peak the area known as Angkor was the largest city in the world and renowned for its power, majesty and sheer excesses. As in hundreds of elephants leading parades with the king standing on the biggest one at the front. Thousands of people holding flags and marching behind. It must have been amazing to see. Although life was pretty terrible if you weren’t one of the kings family or immediate assistants. Just like all monarch controlled countries before the 20^th century if you weren’t one of the few you were one of the many and the many had pretty terrible lives. They suggest that thousands and thousands of slaves would have been employed with elephants to cart the massive stones from the mountains 60km away and then to carve the stones once in place.

Each temple I go to there are loads of women, kids and some teenage boys trying to sell their wares as you walk up to the temple complex itself, from water, to guidebooks to scarves and trinkets. A trick the little kiddies have learnt to say is, “please give me a dollar so I can pay for school.” Heart wrenching if it were true. But its not. They have just at some point figured out that westerners feel sorry for poor kids and give them money if they ask for it. There are lots of little scams like this, similar to Vietnam, they catch on quick when they realise tourists are loaded and usually have a generous spirit. There is one going in Siem Reap that I read about online so knew to expect it. The American couple that I met on the zip lining trip were completely taken in and only realised after when they saw it mentioned on trip advisor. As you walk down the street a women or teenage girl will come up to you carrying a baby and holding an empty baby bottle. She asks for milk, not money so tourists think, “oh that’s good, I can do that and feel good about myself.” So they go into a shop nearby with the women, buy a big can of expensive baby formula and go away thinking they have done their touristy bit to contribute. As soon as they are out of visual range the women goes back into the shop, sells the un-opened container of formula back to the shop owner for half price and pockets the money. The shop keeper gets a good deal out of is and so does the lady. The baby doesn’t get anything. Not great.

As I’m leaving the last temple of the morning I realise that dark clouds have suddenly appeared  and its getting windy. I jump in the Tuk Tuk and we head off, back towards Siem Reap. We get just near some restaurants lining a lake just before Angkor Wat and it starts to rain. He quickly pulls into one of the restaurants and I jump out and run inside with seconds to spare. Within a minute its bucketing down and the next few lots of tourists who rush inside are already absolutely drenched. It pours for the next 45 minutes while I’m having lunch and then clears up with perfect timing. That’s me done for the day, I’m ready to go back, have a bit of a rest and then go into town for a massage.

I’ve seen some hilarious things on my walks around town and sitting in the Tuk Tuk whilst we travel through the countryside.

For instance:

• A small motorbike pulling a strange little long trailer thingy on two wheels, similar to the second last photo. Sitting on top of it were 7, yes 7, double mattresses all wrapped up in plastic.  And perched high on top of them was a young fella. I presume he was up there to help weigh them down and ensure they didn’t get some air under them and take the motorbike up and off into the yonder.
• I saw a teenager riding a bicycle with one foot stuck out to the side. Beside  him was a friend riding a motorbike. The bike riders stuck out leg was sitting on the footpeg of the motorbike so he could get a free lift. They were travelling along together at probably 30km an hour.
• An older lady riding a motorbike with a small kid in front of her and one hanging on behind. Hanging off the handlebar was a plastic shopping bag. Inside the shopping bag was about 8 baby ducklings, all alive.
• A motorbike roared past us with a huge live pig strapped lying on its back across the back of the motorbike. Its arms sticking up and its legssticking straight out making it look very weirdly human.
• A motorbike with a guy and two women riding behind him. Each women was holding a small baby, you can the one of them being held off the side of the women  in one of the photos below.
• A motorbike with two guys on it. The one at the back is just a young guy and he is carrying an 8ft ladder...it reaches way up above his head and nearly down to the ground. He has his whole shoulder through the ladder about 3 rungs up trying to keep it stable. It's swaying around dangerously each time his driver swerves erratically to get around slow cars etc.

Every day I see things that make me laugh out loud, so many things! Anything and everything goes here, no sense of danger, or nervousness, or of things being socially or publically unacceptable as they might to westerners. They live so much of their lives out in the open, on the side of the road and streets.

The poor duckies were very much alive and just hanging quietly

Siem Reap

Day 3

Thought I should take a day out in between each big day of temple gazing, just so I didn't get completely over templed. So I booked myself in for some adventure on the Thursday starting with zip lining through the jungle in the morning, followed by quad biking in the afternoon! Not really sure why i thought it would be a good idea, me not being particularly taken with adventure in general, but there you go. Luckily, it was a lot of fun and just a little bit scary, always good to push yourself beyond your boundaries!

The zip lining was very cool, encourage everyone to have a go. Doing it above the tops of the rainforest in the Cambodian jungle was a great first experience i admit, but anywhere would be just as good, the adrenline rush is awsome! Some of the ziplines  were 200m long, so that gives you a good 8-10 seconds to look around and really feel like you flying though the air! Sadly we didn't see any wild animals as such, no elephants, tigers, monkeys or snakes roaming the jungle, although the guides said they were more frequently seen before the country was decimated by war during the decades of the 60' and 70's. We did see a lovely large gecko and a huge millipede, does that count as wildlife?

In the afternoon I turned up to do the quad biking expecting a large group of westerners. Instead it was just myself and one of the couples from the mornings zip lining. We had to do a practice run first with a guide sitting behind us to see if we could manage the bikes. It took a few minutes to get used to 4 large wheels and a different way of steering and manouvering and he made me do sharp turns and then go up a really steep little hill then back down again. He asked me twice if I wanted to ride the bike myself and then when we got back he said i could do it. But the other couple weren't allowed to, they couldn't convince the guides that they would be able to handle it. I thought to myself, "well Glen will be  pleased that it paid off trying  to train me how to ride his crazy off-road bikes all those years ago!" 

So it was just me and the guide in front on a 250cc two wheeler off road bike. We went somewhere different to the couple for some reason. He later told me it was because we were going off road and over really bumpy, muddy and difficult terrain, whereas they would stick mostly to normal roads. So it was pretty crazy! Slippery, muddy, awkward tracks and then we left the dirt road altogether and went across the fields, up an over little hillocks separating dry rice paddies, through deep puddles and soft sand. There is no way a normal scooter or motorbike would have managed this without getting very bogged. Lucky I had the massively oversized quad bike then!! I felt like I was riding the hummer of the bike world. Everyone I passed did a double take, I don't know if it was the bike or that there was a female riding it, hopefully both! Loads of little kids ran out on their houses and yelled and waved as we passed by. I asked the guide to take me to out of the way villages and along narrow, local paths so I could get a feel of how local villagers live, very differently to the cities as it turns out. Much poorer, but space, quiet and animals everywhere! Loads of dogs, cats, hens, ducks, geese, cows, pigs. All running around free range and relatively happy looking.

 

It absolutely bucketed down on our ride home. We stopped and took shelter in a little palm leaf open sided hut, but just stopping and getting off the bikes in that heavy rain completely soaked my clothes, it took seconds. Big, fat drenching drops of rain, the clouds appear within an hour and all of a sudden without any thunder or lightning the rain pours down, turning the tracks to soft, orange, slippery mud and the once shallow puddles are now a couple of inches deeper. 

Whilst we were sitting somewhat sheltered I took the opportunity to ask my guide a few questions. He was relatively young, 28, and said that he is happy doing this job as it means he doesn't have to do other work that is more difficult. When he was younger he used to fight to earn money. I saw a small stadium/hall building here in Siem Reap with paintings of western boxers on it, he said yes, thats where he used to fight. He got paid to fight with other Cambodians and other westerners, its kick boxing, similar to Thai fighting. He said the only reason he did it was to earn enough money to send his younger brother to high school. He didn't get the opportunity to go to high school himself as he had to earn money for the rest of the family. They don't have a father around, can't remember if he said he was alive or not. So he paid for his brother to go to high school and now his brother is earning his own money as a guide because he learnt english at high school. Being a guide now pays his brother enough for him to save money to go to uni in the next couple of years. So the older brother pretty much sacrificed himself and a good life in his early years so his younger brother could have a better one. Fighters are not respected members of their local community. The good thing is that once he got married his wife asked him to stop fighting for money. He did and so now he takes crazy westerners on guided quad biking adventures! He grew up near the areas that he took me so he always tries to take some lollies or little treats with him and we stopped every now and then at the poorest houses and he would beckon the little kids over and hand them a little packet of biscuits. They would look at him in surprise and put their hands together under their chin in the classic buddhist pose and say thankyou, well i presume thats what they were saying. He obviously feels passionately about trying to give something back to his local area, but at the moment thats the best he can do. 

There is no electricity out this way 15km outside the city of Siem Reap and i'm not sure what they do about water, I think some of them have wells and/or pumps? Supplied by NGO's etc. In any case once you get a couple of kilometres out of town the locals are much poorer, their houses are much less often made out of timber and rendered concrete and more likely to be rough sawn timber huts or palm leaf huts, both of which provide much less protection from weather. The palm leaf huts have to be re-done every 4-5 years as they slowely rot away. I saw little shacks with large holes where palm leaves had collapsed and they tried to cover up with gaps with old plastic sack bags and other found items. The further out into the countryside you go the higher the proportion of dogs and kids as well. They were everywhere! Each house often had 3 or 4 dogs roaming about or mostly lying spreadeagled under a tree or half on the road, bikes just have to go round. And loads of little, dirty kids running around, I could see that there were kids who probably should have been at school and weren't out this way. Primary school is mandatory and free i think, but if parents need the kids at home to help earn money they will do what they need to do. High school costs money so its again the poorest who are disadvantaged, by high school their children could be helping work on the farm or selling food at the markets. Poor families need the extra resource. A shame that schooling costs money, it completely perpetuates the poverty cycle and its definitely something the government should be encouraged to change. Its interesting that our current government want to go back to people fully paying for their higher education, when in developing countries they are starting to realise the benefit to all of society by enabling a full and free education of their people. The long term paybacks to the community, (financially, socially, politically), are so much higher than the cost of the education in the first place...hmmm..

Cambodia - Siem Reap

Day 1-2

Well I arrived in Siem Reap dishevelled but alive late at night. I have already mentioned that journey elsewhere and don’t feel the need re-live it again myself by describing it in detail. Suffice to say I highly recommend flying your way around Vietnam and Cambodia rather than busing it. Unless you are completely broke and under 25, only because at that stage of your life practically anything is fun.

I spent the next morning getting to know where I was online first of all. I hadn’t done any research what so ever and wanted to know what people recommended in the way of what to see, where to eat, the best place to get a massage, how to get around and how to avoid being ripped off. At lunch time I set off walking with no real destination in mind apart from a restaurant for lunch. 

Siem Reap is a flat, well laid out place that feels more like a large country town rather than a city. Still no usable footpaths to speak of, well they are there but they are usually taken up with motorbikes, bicycles, cars, chairs, dogs, tables, people, fruit stalls, mobile phone cover stalls, in fact anything but space for a pedestrian to walk safely. So yet again I walk on the road, assuming that all the traffic coming up behind me will go around. Traffic is not quite so mad, but there are still guys lounging around on every single corner of the whole place ready to call out an offer of “Tuk Tuk?” or “you need a ride?”. I just smile and shake my head, probably do that 50 times in an hour of walking. I know they think I am barmy choosing to walk in the heat.

 I wandered slowly under my umbrella in 37 degree humid heat  for about 1km into the denser part of the town and went down a street that has lots of restaurants and shops for westerners along it. The one  I was looking for was called Sala Bai and is run by a French NGO who use it to train extremely disadvantaged young people. They also have a small hotel above and  use both to teach 100 students a year how to work in hospitality. They have a new intake every year, hand picked by the team who go out into the countryside and meet the family to ensure that they are from very poor families. 500 families apply for their child to attend every year, but they can only take 100. This is because the NGO is going to be paying for all board and lodging for that student for a whole year. It was a great meal made and served by the students, a very nice French inspired 3 course meal for $12. This pays for 1 student for 1 day of classes.

The next morning I had arranged to be picked up by Tuk Tuk for the day and taken out to the Angkor temple complex for my first day of sightseeing. This is now getting to the heart of my trip and the main reason I am in Cambodia. I was pretty excited, although still having done very little research I didn’t have any particular expectations or any background at all, which is probably a good thing in hindsight. So off we go, me perching in the little Tuk Tuk, the driver gunning along, weaving in and out of traffic, slowing down at intersections but never really stopping, just cruising through and all the traffic coming the other 3 ways just does the same, works ridiculously well in fact.

And so I arrive at Angkor Wat, the best preserved temple complex and the most famous. I have to admit its pretty impressive entrance, with a long walk to the external stone gatehouse in the 5ft thick stone wall and then another long walk between what would have been beautiful large lakes and then I was at the entrance to the temple complex and was pretty awe struck. Or I could have been heat struck, I couldn’t tell for a while. Think it was both. It was so hot you could hardly walk and breathe at the same time, so going up and down steep, awkward steps and climbing up and over stone entrances was taking everyone a lot longer than normal. It was amazing, all the detailed carving and various covered walkways surrounding what would have been stone lined water pools and ponds, it must have been incredible when it was all first completed. And so ancient, older than most of the buildings in England and Europe, incredibly intact for having gone through many centuries of wars, fighting, religion changes etc. The temples were  built and decorated during the period of Hindu beliefs but were then adjusted to fit changes to Buddhism in later centuries.

After an hour or so I went back down the long walk back to the maze of waiting Tuk Tuks and spent 5 minutes trying to figure out which one was my guy. I suddenly saw someone waving frantically and realised he was waving at me. So in I hopped and off we went, to the next one, about 3km down a road surrounded by rainforest. The next was a series of temples, structures and other bits and pieces and I spent a couple of hours wandering around, trying to avoid the Chinese and Korean tourists who make up the majority of people and hang about in huge groups talking extremely loudly, constantly taking photos of each other, and rarely seeming to actually take in what they are experiencing. Rush, rush, yabba, yabba, it all gets a bit much. Not interested in wandering around quietly and reverently and taking it all in which is what the few western tourists and myself like to do. Oh no, couldn’t possibly do that… I try to escape them and wander outside the main buildings and get lost amongst it all away from the crowds. You can really get right away from people if you wander far enough and it suddenly goes quiet. And then you can really feel the power of these places, the ancient stones surfaces, covered in patterns, pictures and markings are quite spiritual and you can start to imagine what it might have been like to live in one of these places had you been the king at the time.

 

 Oh and did i tell you i saw elephants and monkeys? I hand fed the wild monkeys some mango. Some other annoying tourists who should have known better were giving the monkeys cans of coke to drink, hello?? They thought it was hilarious, i walked away in disgust. But it was cool seeing lots of elephants crusing around the place.

My favourite temple of the day was Ta Prohm, seeing the jungle taking it over was really amazing. You know when you see or hear something that causes you a little sharp intake of breath and brings a tear of wonder and emotion to your eye? Well that was one of those moments for me, felt a bit silly but it just happened. A truly awe inspiring sight. It was like giant pythons were slowly crawling all over the buildings and smothering them, in fact some of the tree roots really did look like huge snakes, almost scary! Strangler figs meticuously re-absorbing human made edifaces back into the ground from whence they came. Nothing can compete with nature, it is the ultimate destroyer.