Cambodia Day 3 - Angkor

Friday, 16 October, 2009

We woke up early to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. Our guide and driver were already waiting for us at the guesthouse.

this is the only apsara who is smiling with teeth shown


bullets in the walls from the war


The sunrise wasn't as exciting as it could have been.. we headed back to the guesthouse for breakfast. After which we went back to the Angkor area again to see the temples.

The South Gate of Angkor Thom. Angkor Thom was the last capital city of the Khmer Empire. Many of the temples/buildings/hotels have this long snake creature with lots of guys pulling it. That's a naga (serpent), and the guys are asuras(demons) on one side, and gods on the other side. This is the story of the 'Churning of the Ocean of Milk'. Quite interesting.. So basically these guys are using the serpent to churn this ocean of milk and in the end they get some gifts:

1. Lakshmi, the Goddess of Fortune and Wealth -Vishnu's consort
2. Airavata, the 3 headed elephant of Indra
3. Apsaras, various divine nymphs like Rambha, Menaka, Punjikasthala, etc.
4. Uchhaishravas, the divine 7-headed horse
5. Sharanga, the bow of Vishnu
6. Shankha Vishnu's conch
7. Amrita the nectar of immortality.

There are 14 in all as listed in wiki but these are the ones we learnt from our dear tour guide Vanna.

the good guys!


these are the gifts.. the 3 headed elephant, apsaras..goddesses..


we climbed on top of the gate for some photos

Bayon

This is definitely a must-visit! Easily my favorite place in Angkor.

learning to apsara-dance


most of these are excerpts from the ramayana.. the different armies have different details to them.


Many of my travel mates were super fascinated by this lingam, which is a phallic symbol. However seems like no one really knows what it represents.




Our poor guide was really patient with us. He kept wanting to move on but we took the longest time to take photos. So we made him join in the fun!


wherethehellismatt at bayon!




apsara dance practice


vanna was a good photographer!

Terrace of Elephants






Phimeanakas




it's always abt the 3 headed elephants




cambodian cows don't moo. they go 'more...'

Ta Prohm





tomb raiders

These trees are called 'spung'. They grow very easily and grow through crevices in the temple walls, breaking down the structures. The authorities are now in a dilemma whether or not to remove the trees. If they do not remove them, they will continue to destroy the temples. However, if the trees are removed, temples like Ta Prohm wouldn't be as beautiful as it is today.

kinda christmassy


and it was back to Angkor Wat

vanna spent the LONGEST time here explaining the ramayana to us. See how excited everyone is. Heat + afternoon = no ramayana please! I did remember some bits about some monkey.. something like that..

interesting light in this photo


too bad we aren't allowed to climb up the tower anymore!


when you don't have a wide angle lens.. you end up having to twist, bend, and lie on the floor

It's getting late. There wasn't much of a sunset to talk about either. Vanna asked us if we had plans after this and mentioned going to a 'discotheque' after dinner. Thinking that he was joking, I gamely replied sure!

We wanted to have French food for dinner, however with the guide and driver around, they refused to bring us to a French restaurant (er, cos they won't get free food there.. and it may be too expensive for us to treat them). So we realized that we could only have that on a day where we didn't use the driver.

Ended up with Thai food (and korean bbq beef).

And.. Vanna wasn't joking about the disco. We did end up at one! Here we are at 'Soksan Palace'. The kind of place we would never dare step into if we didn't have a local with us.

my choice of strawberry daiquiri

So, we were getting a bit bored sitting aroung with our drinks, and our guide talking to our driver at the side. We saw a karaoke room at the corner and asked the guide how much it would cost. After he asked around, it was $10usd/hour and we could bring our existing drinks in. They also have english and chinese songs. Sounds reasonable.

We walked into the room marked 'Karaoke' and realized that it was actually a passage way that led to many more rooms behind. We walked by an area where there were erm, a lot of girls sitting there. We quickly shuffled into one of the rooms and wow, it was quite nice! There were even 2 waitresses in there who helped us to choose the songs.

our guide sang too!


nice room


turned out there was a resident gecko in that room.

We were quite worried about being overcharged, but at least our guide was there with us. And amazingly, it really did cost exactly $10. Haha! cheap and fun entertainment! I guess people usually get more drinks but we were super cheapo and just drank our existing ones.

Cambodia Day 2 - Spiders for Breakfast

Thursday, 15 October, 2009

Today we set off to Siem Reap! This is a 5 hour journey by bus. The best way to go Cambodia and visit both Phnom Penh and Siem Reap is to take an open jaw flight from SG-PP, drive/boat to SR, then fly SR-SG. However it is rather tricky to get this open jaw flight, and the SR-SG leg alone could cost $60usd.. So in order to save, we got a SG-PP round trip and had to waste a bit of time and $ to do a round trip bus ride from PP-SR.

We were rather freaked out by the level of English our 'guide' or actually, driver knew, and we were worried about how he was gonna bring us around. The night before, we called up the company daraprumtaxi (wondering if Dara is even a real person or just the company name) and asked if we could change the driver. 'Dara' assured us that Sang, although he did not speak much english, knew the route very well. And he was just a driver, not a guide.

Well.. because a one way cab ride from PP-SR already costs $80usd, we decided to just go ahead with Sang cos it was cheaper (3d 2N for $250, including this 2 way PP-SR trip which has a value of 160usd) Kinda luxurious actually, to have a driver bring us anywhere at our whim. (what's that expression, ___ and whim. I can't recall)

Okay. Enough of boring details.

We had an expensive $3.50usd breakfast at Goldie Guesthouse cos we wanted to save time. On the right is a book that I bought from a guy outside the Golden Palace for ahem, 5usd, after negotiations. I knew that it wasn't that cheap but it's ok cos we kinda needed a book anyway. We later saw more people selling these books, and other full colored books for 2usd (even before bargaining)

Sang was there waiting for us while we had breakfast. His service throughout the days was perfect. He was polite and always ready for us outside the temples after we were toured them. He brought a cooler which was always stocked with cool softdrinks+water. What really impressed me was that the van was always kept spotlessly clean! We always brought lots of mud into the van.. and the next time we came back from the next temple, the mud would have disappeared. We never caught him sleeping in the van while waiting for us.. And each temple visit could take up to 2-3 hours. Impressive!

We had asked Sang to bring us to anywhere that sold spiders for breakfast! We had always wanted to try. This is the sort of thing you see on tv but don't actually get to try cos you don't know where they sell it or have no idea how to buy them or eat them.

And here we are.. We took a look and immediately regretted asking him to bring us here. These ladies sold piles of insects, and they weren't prettily fried or anything. They looked soggy and uncooked.. Looks like they just caught them and drowned them and piled them there to sell.

EEW. Ok, eating insects? Not gonna happen.

This sweet little girl sold some pathetic bananas. She agreed to let me take a photo.. Later on I bought a pomelo from another little girl, and this girl started whining 'You take photo with me you buy fruit!' [Again, better english than Sang].. I felt really bad!

After taking photos of this little girl, I turned around and there was this frenzy.. The rest of them were swarmed! Not by insects but by a horde of little girls selling their fruits.. I walked towards them and suddenly this girl threw a huge ass spider onto my teeshirt!

They claim that it isn't poisonous and I sure hope it isn't


haojie is way too nice.. everywhere he goes he can't reject those sweet little kids, and they can sense that so he always ends up with a whole swarm of them.


The kids here are really pretty! And good natured really.

They followed us to our van and Sang quickly closed the door.. Notice that girl with the spider on her shirt, she's the one staring at me angrily and sayin 'You take photo of me and you buy fruit from her!' Oh man. I feel so guilty.

Unfortunately for us, Sang had bought a packet of crickets for us to eat! We would never have bought them on our own accord. OH well we asked for it so now we have no choice but to just try it and hope we don't fall sick on our 2nd day.

Sang teaches us to remove the wings and legs before popping it into your mouth. If we had bought it ourselves we would probably have eaten the whole damn thing, legs and all.


some preparation and...


yum. It was okay really. Oily, crispy and slightly salted. I had a few servings!


We bought mango, pomelo, pineapple and jackfruit which we polished off right away.


Time for lunch! We tried to order as much 'Cambodian' sounding food as possible.

The route to SR was rather pleasant. And the weather was perfect.

Rolling plains.. Many were rather flooded because the typhoon Ketsana had just blasted the area merely a week ago, leaving 11 dead.

And here we are in Siem Reap! First we found our lovely guesthouse Jasmine Lodge to check in and put our things. We're gonna head to Phnom Bakheng today for sunset, and the receptionist tells us that we can leave at, 4.30pm I think, and definitely make it in time. With some time left, we drop off at the old market to do some souvenir shopping.

Looks like some sort of fermented fish paste.. But it looks different from prahoc. No idea what it is but chances are we probably ate it in some of the Khmer food we had.

We decided not to listen to the experts at Jasmine Lodge and go to Phnom Bakheng earlier (cos it's usually SUPER crowded, and if you go earlier you won't be blocked by the thousand of tourists there)

We have to buy an Angkor ticket first. We're gonna get a 1day pass for the next day, and they allow us to go check out the sunset today with the ticket. Guess what.. the ticket booths only start opening at 5 pm! We were there an hour early. So much for not listening to the experts.

Come to think of it, our driver also damn blur lah. I guess cos he'sbased in Phnom Penh so he's not so clear about the rules here.

We waited for a while before lining up here to get the 1 day pass.


There!

We drove towards Phnom Bakheng and here we are at the base. At many points in Angkor, there are these landmine survivors playing music. Look carefully and you'll see the left most guy, his instrument is a LEAF! he just leaves it in his mouth and kinda whistles and there is Music! Amazing.

Here we are!


We decide to do a wherethehellismatt or, better known as the Go Visa advert here.


Climbing up the steep stairs was fun





another wherethehellismatt

The sunset was okay but not spectacular. At least the weather was fine! And it was crowded, but really not that bad. I suppose it's low season. Sang asks us if we wanna watch Apsara dance and of course we do! We head to this Tonle Mekong restaurant which is a buffet for like, $10usd and provides the dance too. Sure!

peacock


I think we are supposed to tip them

After which, we headed to Lucky Supermarket (again. Loves it) to get some beer (erwin's treat because he is rich) and donuts for the next day's breakfast.