Cambodia

Time: 8:04am

Location: Kep, Cambodia

Weather: sunny, 24C

The last day of 2015 and in just a few hours we will be whisked across the border to Vietnam! We are going to spend New Year's Eve at Phu Quoc island. If I thought Thailand was chill, it's got nothing on Cambodia, especially here in Kep, a beach side town where all we see people do is lie around in hammocks all day. We spent a good part of yesterday doing just that, after going for a insanely hot walk in Kep National Park. 

After spending all day on a bus on Christmas Day, we finally arrive in Siem Reap in the evening. Exiting Thailand and then walking through no man's land with its multitude of casinos to the Cambodia side was such a chaotic experience that I will never forget. My first impression of Siem Reap was that it was quite westernized, from all resort hotels to the Christmas lights. Just about all restaurants also offer Western food (side note: while we've had a few great Cambodia meals, the majority is mediocre, especially the stands inside Angkor, which makes me miss Thai food immensely even if every meal leaves a fire in my mouth). The next morning we rented bikes and rode in the direction of Tonle Sap, the largest lake in SE Asia. The road deteriorated into dust as we were met with rural Cambodia, and it's clear that Cambodia is not as developed as Thailand. Even the countryside Thailand towns we passed on the bus had 7-11s, but here there were not much more than wooden houses on stilts amidst fields of rice, and I have never seen cows so skinny. Tonle Sap flows into the ever so important Mekong River which eventually empties out into the ocean, but every year during rainy season, the flow of water is reversed, making Tonle Sap flood into the outskirts of Siem Reap. We ended up taking a boat ride out to Chong Khneas, the closest fishing village, which wasn't the most picturesque but we visited an interesting school, fish farm and community market, all floating on the water. Our boat driver kept urging us to buy some rice to donate to the school (that he went to), but it was a whopping $50USD for the bag and we couldn't really believe it was worth that much. We've read about a quite a few scams associated with donating in Cambodia unfortunately. An even worse occurrence that I learned was about Cambodian orphanages. Many of the kids at these orphanages are not actually orphans but are taken away from their parents and put there so that tourists can visit them. It is horrible that they are being used as a revenue generating tool and orphanage visits hence are not advised. 

In the afternoon we checked out a modern temple, which was surprisingly deserted, before getting our tickets to Angkor Historical Park for the next day and our first glimpses of the grand Angkor Wat. It was just as magnificent as the pictures but as it was sunset, extremely crowded. The guards started shooing people out at 6pm but we managed to return a bit later and sat in solace on the front entrance watching the stars. 

We started our next morning at dawn pedalling to chase the sunrise over Angkor Wat. I have to admit it was a touch disappointing as we got there a little too late and the sun wasn't exactly over the ruins, which only happens twice a year I believe. Being inside the complex surrounded by the intricate carvings from another era ago instills an incomprehensible sense of awe. From Angkor Wat we moved onto my favourite Bayon, with its numerous faces peering out to the sides. Most of the temples in the park can be categorized into Angkor, Bayon or Bakheng-style (like a temple mountain). After few hours in Angkor Thom, much bigger than Angkor Wat, we went over to Preah Khan, which itself is gigantic, thinking we were going to do the small circuit. Soon we got so called "templed out" and with the heat getting the best of us, we just went to Phnom Bakheng (phnom meaning hill) and laid around waiting for the sunset. Phnom Bakheng is the prime sunset spot at Angkor and so popular that they start handing out tags hours before to limit only 300 people at the top. It's quite different from the others in that you walk about 15min uphill on a dirt trail before seeing any temple remnants. 

We finished out time in Siem Reap with some dinner at the Old Market, where I tried amok, a Khmer fish curry, before catching a night bus to Phnom Penh. It was my first time on a bus with almost fully-reclining seats which were pretty conducive for sleep. 

Waking up in Phnom Penh, we were instantly met with its hectic traffic and commotion. Phnom Penh only has a fraction of the population of Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi so I'm told it's a whole lot more congested in Vietnam. The city is named after its founder Penh who arrived by boat with four Buddha statues and built a hill, Wat Phnom, to place them there. There was quite a bit of French influence throughout the city and that was noted in a lot of the architecture. Cambodia is a country that has been battered by three decades of war and the atrocious Khmer Rouge regime, which can be said to be one of the worst massacres in history, and the capital city is just starting to slowly rebound back. Originally I had wanted to go to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a schoolhouse converted to a torture and execution center during the Khmer Rouge, but I wasn't feeling too well that day and spent the afternoon resting at the guesthouse. My friend who went said it was filled with somber and not a place for the faint of heart. 

From a short stay in Phnom Penh we headed to Kep which was a big change of pace. Kep and the nearby riverside town of Kampot is famous for their pepper and seafood so we hit up both the afternoon we arrived.  At Sothy's Pepper Farm, which is situated in the beautiful foothills of the surrounding jungle, we listened to Sothy herself explain how pepper is grown and how she came to acquire the farm after quitting her job in Phnom Penh. There were many international travellers partaking in work exchanges there and giving tours in all sorts of languages. We noticed that Cambodia but Kep especially has many many French visitors. Following a dip in the warm waters of Kep Beach, we went to the Crab Market and sampled some of the freshest crabs I have tasted (they grab straight from the ocean after we order!)

See you in 2016!