The hotel in Pakse gave us a great breakfast and then it was off to the airport for our trip to Seam Reap in Cambodia. Our flight gave us some good views of the vast rice paddies surrounding the Mekong river.
Seam Reap definitely got the award for best visa processing. It couldn't have taken more than 20 minutes from the time we got off the plane until the time when we got our luggage and were out the door. Our guide met us in the parking lot and took us to our hotel to drop off our things. The hotel was a beautiful place, tucked away on a side street with lots of plants and a lovely pool. But there was no time to stop and enjoy our new diggs as we had to be off to start our touring of the Angkor ruins.
While most people think of Angkor Wat as the main attraction in the area, the Angkor is actually a huge area full of temples and ruins that represent hundreds of years of rulers in the Khmer empire. There are so many, it was impossible to keep track of them. Unfortunately, it became quickly apparent that our guide wasn't a very good guide. He tried hard, and knew a lot, but presented his information in a very convoluted order and often insisted that we stand outside of a temple while he rambled before letting us see anything. It got very frustrating at times, but the splendor around us made up for it.
We saw everything from colorful modern temples-
- to massive ruins dating back as far as the 8th century.
On our first day, some of the most impressive ruins were the ones that had been overgrown with huge trees over the centuries. Our guide mentioned that once the trees grow into the ruins this much, they actually serve the purpose of holding them together, so it's better to leave them. If they're caught very early, they're best removed before the roots can grow in between the stones.
During the day we climbed almost every temple we saw. It puzzled us as to why the stairs were so huge and steep considering the people are so small. It was a challenge even for us.
January is smack in the middle of the cool season for Southeast Asia and in Thailand and Laos we were very comfortable and sometimes a little cold. But Cambodia was very hot and by the end of the day we were both feeling rather gross. Nonetheless, we wandered into the downtown area for some dinner and found a massage place that was half the price of the massages we got in Thailand - and that's saying something. From there, we made our way to the night market, which was better than the ones in Laos, but still not as good as the ones in Thailand.
One thing we quickly discovered was that Cambodians are much more aggressive towards tourists than people in the other two countries. The constant refrain as we made our way through the market was "Hey lady! Buy something!", shouted at the top of the lungs. Let's just say it got old pretty quickly, so we decided to go back to the hotel and cool off. The pool was empty when we got back, so we had a nice private swim that left us wonderfully refreshed after our long, hot day.
After a wonderful breakfast, we returned to the Angkor for another day of sightseeing. Our second day focused on Angkor Thom, one of the ancient capitals of the Khmer civilization, and Angkor Wat itself. Angkor Thom was surrounded by a wall, three kilometers on each side. We entered through one of the main gates, which was lined by demons on one side and gods on the other, each row holding a Naga, (big multi-headed serpent), to represent the tug-of-war between good and evil.
Inside, we explored a temple with dozens of huge faces built into the stone towers. Each face had a different expression, which made it both eerie and surreal.
In the private area of the city, we saw the temple of the king, where he ascended nightly to sleep with a serpent that could change itself into the form of a woman. I guess a king's gotta do what a king's gotta do.
From there, we took in the amazing carvings at the elephant terrace, where the king would make public appearances before his people.
We even got to see a troop of monkeys in our travels.
After lunch, we toured Angkor Wat. I was disappointed to see a huge section of the front of the temple was covered in scaffolding, (story of my life), but I managed to get creative with the angles and avoid it most of the time in my pictures.
Furthermore, the scaffolding didn't stop us from enjoying the amazing carvings that cover almost every surface at the temple. The carvings tell stories from Hindu mythology, some of which we recognized from the murals at the grand palace in Bangkok.
In the evening, we hiked up to a hilltop temple to enjoy another sunset, but as we reached the top, the sky clouded over so there wasn't much to see.
Back in Seam Reap, we found an even better restaurant where we had the traditional Khmer dish called "Amok", which is a fish curry served in a coconut bowl.
It was a nice meal, but we were a little annoyed because kids came up several times to sell us postcards, and the restaurant staff was unwilling to ask them to leave when we couldn't get them too.
With a full stomach, we gathered our spirits and went back to the night market to do some shopping. In one place we simply had to leave because every time we walked past a vendor, they would follow us around picking up their wares and shoving them in our faces asking us "Hey lady! Buy something!". Even though we saw some things we were interested in, we couldn't stand the hard sells and left for a quieter part of the market. We did some serious bargaining and in the end found some items we wanted, but Stephanie got cursed.
She was looking at some scarves and we finally found a lady who wasn't too pushy. Stephanie took her time looking at the different scarves and debating if she wanted them. The sales lady was very patient. But at the end of it all, Steph decided she wasn't ready to buy and the lady got very angry. "But you spent a lot of time here!" she said. "You're my first customer, you will give me bad luck if you don't buy" (a common superstition that helped us get some good deals earlier in the night). And when Stephanie walked away, I saw the lady curse her under her breath. Pretty scary stuff. Luckily, nothing came of the curse, and we enjoyed another refreshing night swim back at the hotel.
On our last day at the Angkor, we had a lighter itinerary and saw some of the outlying temples. I think the pictures say it better than I ever could.
On the way back to town, our guide stopped to show us how they make palm sugar (which is similar to how they make coconut sugar, but from a different tree). We relaxed at the hotel for a bit before heading out for another evening on the town.
That night, we got our best massage deal yet. For $5, the two of us each got a 1 hour footh massage, plus a 10 minute shoulder massage. it was wonderful, and just the thing after three days of walking and climbing temples.
Then, while Stephanie shopped for scarves (avoiding the lady who cursed her), I got another fish pedicure. The difference in Cambodia is that the fish are bigger (but didn't bite any harder), and I got a free beer while the fish did their work.
After that, we went to a nice restaurant for a 9-course Khmer tasting menu that included banana flower salad, eel, and crispy catfish. We followed it up with one last night swim and went to bed happy.
You can find all of the pictures here:
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| SoutheastAsia 2011 JPGS |
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