Diving in Cambodia

After our double boat trip we just relaxed and enjoyed the hotel pool, I finally finished the last book Dom and Katie had given me back in Manchester and I was a little worried where my next book was going to come from!! In the evening we decided to indulge and went to a European restaurant for tea, it was nice not to have rice for a change and we had our first bottle of red wine in nearly 2 months. It tasted great!

During this time we were wandering past the many dive shops cluttering the resort and decided to enquire. It had been something we had both been keen to do at the beginning of the holiday, but the opportunity hadn’t arisen yet. We popped into a PADI dive centre, and we were instantly sold. We signed up for a 3 day ‘Open Water’ course, were given a text book and told to come back the next day for a classroom session.

We spent the next day learning all the main principles and basic apparatus from a DVD and our books. After passing a test at the end of the day we were ready to go! Not that me and Rob are at all competitive but I am pleased to report I got a higher score on my test! However I knew this was the last time on the diving course that I would be better than him at something, so I thought I would use this opportunity to gloat!

The next day we climbed aboard a boat and sailed to the island where we were to spend the next 2 nights. The island was beautiful, very picturesque. We unfortunately didn’t get an opportunity to explore the island beyond the rickety wooden pier that was our accomodation, but we certainly did explore the waters!!!

Once we had arrived we had to show our swimming competence by swimming 20 lengths between the 2 piers. We looked at all the gear, were shown how all the various meters, buttons and connections worked and then got to put it all on and waddle into the water. There were four of us in our group with a very amiable French guy called Olivier as our instructor. The first day was all about learning the various drills. We did this in the shallow water near the beach so you could stand up if you had any problems. I got the whole inhaling/exhaling confused a few times at first while trying to clear my mask of water while under water - which I can tell you is not so pleasant, and trying to breathe water is not necessarily the best idea, I soon learnt not to get these confused!!! Once Olivier was happy we could do all the drills to a safe and competent standard, we finished the day by doing our first ‘dive’. Although we never went deeper than about 5m and stayed within the bay we had been practising in, it was magical. We saw a large colourful hermit crab, some sea cucumbers, sea urchins and loads of yellow and blue stripy fish. It was such a great way to end the day as it really inspired us to do well the next morning so we could get out into open water as soon as possible to start the real thing. I also felt lucky as when we got back to the shore we saw the other group of 4 older dive students were not doing as well and so did not get this experience.

The second day we set off bright and early and went to much deeper water. I was incredibly excited and slightly anxious as we jumped off the edge of the boat and into the water. Rob was a great dive buddy though and was always making sure I was comfortable and ok. He was a very natural diver. We went down to a depth of about 10m and did some of the more important drills again. Then it was back in the boat, and back to the island for lunch. After lunch we were back in the boat and went to our first proper dive spot. We jumped in, gave the sign that we were ok, and slowly sank below the surface. As we swum around I couldn’t get over the amount of sea life we were seeing, from large shoals of brightly coloured fish, sea cucumbers, a large moray eel, starfish, trumpet fish, clown fish and countless sea urchins (these ones I steered very clear of, they had viciously long spines and were apparently incredibly painful – all the divers had stories to tell about urchins, especially the dive shop owner who confessed to occasionally butchering them with his dive knife to watch the fish feed on them!). We went down to about 12m on this dive and it was about 40mins before we had to surface as we were running low on air. The whole experience felt like it lasted about 10mins and while I was swimming around I remember it all feeling very surreal.

The second dive was just as amazing, this time it was in a very different spot, a lot of the dive was much shallower, though we did eventually get down to about 15m. This time we did not have as great a visibility but we saw many more beautiful corals as we swan around a small island. It was an indescribable feeling of freedom while we were diving. It was wonderfully peaceful and I couldn’t believe how the sea life we were observing didn’t seem to be bothered by our presence at all so you could experience them so closely in such a natural way.
After two fantastic days in the water we were now qualified open water divers. This means we can dive to a depth of 18m, with a dive master. It is fair to say now that I can’t wait until my next experience, and I would recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity to try, if you can already swim it is actually very easy to learn and so very rewarding.

Shianokville Seafaring

Shianokville is Cambodia’s main beach resort so we headed down there next for some sea, sun and sand. The long beaches filled up at night with chairs, tables, BBQs and touts from the bars and restaurants that lined it. Because the rainy season had started the resort was fairly quiet but the sensation of swimming in the warm ocean to escape the cold rain was certainly interesting! While enjoying some cold beers at one of the more lively bars we were approached by an America called Dana who came to tell us about his boat that he co-owned and proudly built with a Bavarian guy. He offered an all day cruise where we would have breakfast and lunch on board, along with stops at the nearby islands for swimming, snorkelling, fishing and kayaking. We considered briefly and then Chris with his finely honed bartering skills managed to knock some money off his price and get us vouchers for a few free mojitos. We were sold.

We got up early next morning and jumped in a tuk tuk to the docks to see the ship. It was wonderful. It was very clean and new and consisted of three main decks; the lowest held the galley along with comfy sofas and chairs around a few coffee tables, the mid level housed a very well stocked semicircular bar with stools, soundsystem and more chairs. The top level was a spacious sun deck 7m above the waterline. The main material was wood, all painted in a rich mahogany colour with blue and red metal details.

As we arrived at the pier we were greeted by our cordial Bavarian host Robert and went straight to grab ourselves a cup of coffee to be met by the ship’s dog – a lovely Rottweiler even friendlier than her owner!
We set sail, unfortunately the weather wasn’t brilliant but with the covers down to keep out the rain there was a lovely atmosphere on the boat as we left the port. After cruising for about 3 hours, enjoying the unlimited coffee and cakes, we escaped the clouds and anchored off an island. Without delay our hosts stripped off and dived from the railings of the top deck down into the sea. Chris, Rob and Brian quickly followed suit and before long we were all in the water. We snorkelled for half an hour, entertained by the colourful stripy fish playing in the coral, while all the time watching out for the many spiny sea urchins! It was only my second snorkelling experience and it was equally as enchanting as the first - again, as in Thailand the water was wonderfully warm and clear.

For lunch we were treated to a wonderful Asian buffet prepared by Robert’s wife and the crew, with everything from noodles and rice to garlic bread! Once we had all eaten we set sail again, until we anchored an hour later just a small swim from a beach. I decided I would stay on the boat and have a go at fishing, but my luck must have stayed behind on the shore - it was not to be my day, I spent over an hour being outwitted by the fish who seemed very good at getting the bait off the hook without me being able to land one. I was feeding the fish rather than the fish feeding me! I drowned my frustrations with my free mojito - it’s a hard life!

We then set sail for the long trip back to Shinokville harbour – this is where the fun really began. Robert poured tequila for all and the many passengers on the boat united in a shot, with the traditional salt and lemon. He then asked if any one wished to join him for a dice game of Mexico - with the loser of each game round having to buy a liquid round for all the players. We stepped up to the bar, along with Chris, Brian and a guy from the Cook Islands – aptly calling himself Cookie (it turned out this was his 3rd time on the trip, and he had got this one for free!). After every game a new drink appeared, each more potent than the last - by the time we were approaching the harbour we each had a long island ice tea on the bar in front of us! Robert was in great spirits, and the more we drank the louder his renditions of Frank Sinatra became! When we arrived home there was a mixture of sadness and relief to get off the boat, but with Robert slightly the worse for wear, we got a generous discount for a return trip and decided to come back and do it all again on the very next sailing!! That evening we went for dinner with Cookie and enjoyed an excellent table BBQ and buffet, which helped to soak up the many drinks from the trip!!

Apart from missing our Mexico expert Brian who had to make a start on his diving course, our next cruise on the Sun was even better. No rain this time, and early excitement on the way to our first stop as one of the fishing lines that Dana was trawling from the back of the boat went crazy… After 10 minutes of fighting Robert managed to land an impressive meter long Barracuda! The catch was immediately gutted by Robert, who made the process look very easy, slickly filleting the fish at the back of the boat as it bobbed around. It made up part of lunchtime buffet as small battered fish fingers and tasted delicious!

I decided the Barracuda was an omen of a better fishing day, and indeed it was – using some lucky squid as bait I landed 4 fish myself, some more ugly than others, it was lots of fun and very satisfying. While I was doing this Rob and Chris had swum to the island and were trying to play what looked from the boat like a very unsuccessful game of 1-a-side volleyball. They were soon back on the boat laughing at my puny catches and ordering themselves a beer.

Time for Mexico again and this time we were joined at the bar by Jens from Denmark – who did not necessarily realise that we were by now seasoned Mexicans so he had to stand for more than his fair share of the rounds – thanks Jens! The game was great fun, with most players on a combination of beer and more exotic cocktails, and Robert’s wife playing on behalf of the ship who also stood for a fair few drinks! When we got back to the pier, all the other guests disembarked as we stayed at the bar drinking our many winnings and chatting with Jens and Katrine – it was then that we noticed that everyone else had got off the boat and we were sailing again! Robert poured us another beer and explained that we were going to the docks where the boat was moored overnight. He then offered to take us to a local restaurant and show off some of his favourite parts of the local cuisine – we gladly agreed and followed on. Dinner was lovely, many shared plates of different foods that everyone dug into and demolished. Some more easily identifiable than others! My favourite was a Cambodian speciality of raw shrimps in lemon juice. Drinks were Cambodian style too – Robert ordered several bottles of whiskey for the table which we all shared with our own choices of mixer! After a long evening chatting to an interesting mix of people who seemingly had appeared from nowhere (for example one guy was in Cambodia studying snake venom!) we staggered towards a Tuk Tuk and off home.

The Killing Fields and S21

Although we also visited these places while in Phnom Penn I felt they deserved a separate section. Before arriving in Cambodia I knew very little of its dark history involving Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge. The whole day turned out to be a very haunting and emotional day, as we were shown, sometimes in graphic detail, the atrocities that occurred during the dictatorship.

The first place we visited was the Killing Fields. This is where large amounts of the victims were taken to be tortured and killed. It is now exists as a memorial, and the first sight is the large stupa at the entrance which contains over 8000 mangled skulls of the people found buried at the site.

We slowly walked around the area, stopping for signs such as how many people were found buried in a certain pit, how people were executed and where they were detained. It was very moving, we were told that at the peak of the executions over 300 people a day were murdered, there were speakers fixed to all the trees which used to play loud music in order to cover up the sounds of the people being tortured and killed.

After a very sobering couple of hours we were taken to S21. If I thought the killing fields were bad that was nothing to our next experience. S21 was where Cambodians were detained and tortured before being executed. One of the first shocking things I discovered was it was run by child guards mostly between the ages of 12 and 18. They were taught to torture the countless Cambodians who were suspected of rebelling against the revolution – even just in thought. Confessing would not save your life. During Pol Pot’s reign most of the intellectuals of the country were killed, as they were perceived as a threat to the Khmer Rouge ideology. As the regime failed more and more working class and peasants were killed in a desperate effort to validate his attempts in building a communist society.

The school had been left frighteningly untouched since the regime. In the grounds there were signs displaying the rules of the camp, in the original Khmer, French and for the tourists now in English, such as “if you contest the guards in anyway you shall receive 10 lashes or 5 electric discharges”. The school was on several levels, the first level had rooms where they would detain individuals for torture, and inside each of these rooms was the original bed, the implements found in the room – and the most shocking of all a picture of the last victim that was discovered on each bed. These were very graphic and incredibly disturbing. We walked into each room, I found each and everyone very distressing and upsetting.

The next 2 floors contained a mixture of these torture rooms, rooms where they would detained up to 50 people, all shackled to the floor, and tiny holding cells which were barely big enough to sit in and had no light. A morbid juxtaposition in all of these places was there was still much evidence of it once being a school with lessons still written on the walls and classroom numbers still hanging.

In the second block of the school there was a gallery with all the photos of all of those that had been detained at S21. There were hundreds and hundreds of people all who looked emotionally weary, bewildered and so incredibly sad. In addition to the photos was a collection of paintings depicting the tortures and conditions, these were painted by one of the few survivors. To make the paintings more provocative some of the same torture devices were placed in and around the pictures, giving you a glaringly harsh reality to what you were observing.

We were shown pictures of the guards, what age they were when they joined the Khmer Rouge and the fact that most of them now just live ordinary lives, this was surprising and difficult to see, and made me think extensively of the situation Cambodia is now in. To think that so many people alive now remember very vividly the regime also does credit to the way in which Cambodians are now trying to move forward and build their country from this very dark time.

The whole day was a very humbling and sobering time, and I did not expect the atrocities I saw, especially as all of this happened in the 70’s! I could not believe things like this still happened in the modern world, and hoped this would be the only time on my trip that I was enlightened like this in such a horrible way, and although a harrowing day I am very glad to have gone to be able to respect the memory of the many victims.

Phnom Penn

We arrived to Phnom Penn by bus and what a welcome we received! As we got off we were instantly besieged by a hoard of Tuk Tuk drivers. There must have been over 15 of them all vying for our custom – even me saying “the first person to leave us alone will get our business” didn’t deter them. Instead you would find them grabbing at our backpacks in an effort to take you to their vehicle – it was complete madness! When we finally jumped in a Tuk Tuk he made a beeline for the lazy fish hostel, obviously where he worked, so the hostel paid his fare because we were happy as it was the area we wanted to stay.

Tuk Tuks are different in Cambodia to their Thai counterparts in that they are a regular moto to which is hitched a 2 wheeled, 4 seater carriage that they tow - and there’s no limit to what the drivers think they can carry! 4 travellers desperately clinging onto all their baggage as it spills over the sides, seemed to be fine by them and I’m sure if they could put people on the roof they would!

The hostel turned out to be fine. Basic but fine. It consisted of several wooden sheds on stilts over a small brown lake which gave it a nice view, but it was obvious some major earthworks were happening on the opposite bank. We later learned that the lake was slowly being filled in to make way for posh hotels and apartments, displacing the working class locals and their tourist businesses, so I’m pleased we got to stay there while we could. It was however a little disconcerting that there were holes in the floor of room where you could see directly down into the water, which was also where the sewage ended up! There was also an equal amount of mosquito sized holes in our net – but after a quick repair job with the LX tape we were protected once again!!!

Phnom Penn couldn’t have been more different from Siem Reap, it felt instantly much poorer and was a far more chaotic busy city. It was dusty and dirty but had a wonderful bustle about it too. Lots of street food vendors and interesting tiny shops selling anything and everything. There was also an assortment of backpacker bars around our lake, and it was from one of them that we heard about Michael Jackson’s death – they were blaring out his music and the blackboard outside announced ‘Thriller’ zombie cocktails on promotion! We even managed to get an Indian curry fix with an awesome canteen selling Thali set meals for less than a pound a head.

We spent a day touring the Royal Palace, which although not as ostentatious and well manicured as the one in Bangkok it was nevertheless beautiful. What was interesting was that areas of it reflected Cambodia’s French colonial past with a beautiful wrought iron building in one area. As always the temples were very decadent and peaceful and the gardens were great to wander around. Apologies in the photos for the rather bright T-Shirt I am sporting, we arrived at the entrance to find out I was deemed as inappropriately dressed so I had to buy one of their souvenir shirts in order to get in!

Another point of note is that the palace is still used. Next to the public access is the Kings residence, if we knew what he looked like we might even have spotted him - we watched over the fence as many black 4x4’s arrived and people were escorted up the red carpet and inside.

That day we also visited the National Museum, it was in a peaceful green more touristy area. It was quite an interesting place mostly made up of statues and stonework from Ankor Wat (which to be honest I think I would have rather have seen in context at Ankor). The highlight however was in the centre of the Museum - a courtyard with a series of ponds all containing lots of large koi carp. We bought some fish food and spent a lovely hour feeding and watching them, very relaxing!

Angkor Wat

Epic and awesome are often over used words – but in a case like this it is fair to say that the impressive Angkor Wat is both of these things! Angkor Wat is the largest religious building in the world. There are hundreds of temples, and many of these are apparently worth visiting, and although we were going to barely scratch the surface of what was to be seen we thought we would get a three day pass to try and do justice to some of the more popular ones.

The first day we hired a tuk tuk driver who took us firstly to the gates into the city of Angkor Thom. I might sound like a stuck record in this blog as I run out of ways to try and describe the scale and impressive nature of these structures. Each of the gates had four large faces of Avalokiteshvara and were still incredibly detailed considering they were built around 1181!! The whole ‘complex’ of temples and structures are set within a kind of park land which for me added to the epic but still peaceful feeling of the area.

Our first building was Bayon, this was a very large building, and there were signs around the ruins explaining what some of the rooms would have been used for including a library. It was stunning and although they were ruins there was a lot remaining, including corridors and structures that you climb up to get magnificent views. One of the things that was fantastic about the place was there was no restriction to where you could wander, climb and explore making the place wonderful to get lost in. The same face that we saw at the gates appears here 216 times (bless the guide book of facts we had)– every time as big as me in size. Combine that with many intricate and wonderful carvings and you have a place where I just kept finding things that were amazing and impressive.

We then visited Baphon which is in the process of being restored, so you could only look from the outside while they were still reassembling areas of the ruins. We visited the Terrace of Elephants which is aptly named as it is a 300m long terrace with bas-reliefs of elephans and garudas (mythical human –birds). Then we took a brief visit to the Terrace of the Leper King before catching our tuk tuk to see some of the slightly further away temples.

The next set of temples were far more ruined, and were slightly smaller but no less impressive. The jungle had been allowed over 100’s of years to begin reclaiming the land and there were many areas where tree and their roots engulfed the stonework. Apparently there were areas of these temples where Tomb Raider was filmed, and it was indeed a perfect area. I also found the forest helped me gain a sense of age of the ruins. I also felt they were more interesting and amazing to look at than some of the more restored temples. These were called Ta Prohm and Preah Khan. That was to be the end of our first day. Awesome.

The next day we decided to tackle the temples by bike. Angkor Wat was only a couple of Km from Siem Reap, so we jumped on our bikes and firstly came to Angkor Wat an obvious first choice as we had left that one out from our first day. It’s scale was unbelievable. It has a large moat around it, and then there is a temple within a temple. To get to these you walk along a causeway where you pass over the moat. After walking about 500m from the entrance it turns more into a large wide path and either side there are large square pools which reflect Angkor when the light is right. Then through a massive archway and I find myself inside the ‘first temple’. Here there are many corridors to explore, wonderful carvings to look at and large pits which apparently used to be pools. Once into the middle of the ‘first temple’ you see the temple within the temple and this was a funerary temple of a deity called Vishnu. Unfortunately this temple was not opened to the public but was still fantastic from the outside as it is 55m tall! However, much to our surprise we turn round to see Chris and Brian being lead up the stairs into this temple by one of the police officers that was on patrol at the temple! It turns out that they had managed to bribe him for a few $’s each to take them up there. They said it felt great to see apart that is not often seen by members of the public, and we looked at their photos with some jealously!


We managed to spend most of our day in this temple and after a quick bite to eat we jumped back on our bikes and decided to cycle one of the inner squares of the complex and try and catch a few of the smaller less popular temples before it went dark. We saw a few before it was time to cycle back. One had been partly restored and had many areas where it was very obviously stuck back together, I can’t help thinking that sometimes things are better left incomplete or as ruins. The last temple we got to see was very different in that it was all made from red brick rather than large grey stone blocks.

We were loosing light so decided it was time to cycle home, just as we had made the decision it started to rain; then it started to pour; then the heavens really opened! I can honestly say I have never seen rain as heavy – let alone cycled in it! It was quite an experience as the thunder and lightening started up! We were drenched very quickly indeed so decided there was no point stopping we should just get home as fast as possible as we had no lights (and the streetlights weren’t on either), Rob’s saddle kept falling off and my brakes didn’t work so it made for a very funny ride home! A hot shower has never been so welcome!

The final day at Angkor was just spent watching the sunrise behind Angkor. Me and Chris (both very stoned at this point!!!) and Brian (who had to put up with me and Chris) sat by one of the square pools to see the reflection forming in the water as it slowly became light. It was very strange watching the shadows begin to form on the stonework and the reflection form on the pool (or was that the space pizza?) but unfortunately the sunrise was pretty unspectacular as there were no colours and it was a little cloudy to really see the sun. I am still very pleased I did it despite Rob insisting he was also very pleased to stay in bed!

The whole experience was awe-inspiring and one of the most impressive pieces of man made history I have ever seen.

Siem Reap

The first thing I should mention before I start to tell you all about Siem Reap is that hotelier work was not the only thing that our guesthouse did to earn a living! After being told to check out the back of the hotel by a very excited Chris, we wandered down our top floor corridor and out onto a little balcony. We stared down into a stagnant green pool amazed as a dozen full sized crocodiles came into view! To the side of this pit was a series of little what looked like rabbit hutches, where the baby crocodiles were reared. We were later to discover that these guys were all being bred for their skin, and the hotel had guests (often Chinese and Japanese) who would pick their croc and then take the skin home – presumably to be made into a pair of shoes, handbag etc! I’m guessing the Cambodians don’t have a division of the RSPCA... and as we were to discover later the meat doesn't go to waste either!

After crocodile watching we headed into town, and I was surprised by what we found. The centre of town was very western and still retained a colonial French feel. It was in general a very pleasant place to stroll around and had a fantastic French influenced bakery and lots of bars and restaurants. It even felt European in the weather - lots of rain :)

We had a great couple of nights out enjoying the many drinking establishments all with cheesy names such as the ‘Temple Bar’ and ‘Angkor What?’ The whole town flaunted its obvious wealth in comparison to its neighbours, which undoubtedly derives from the hoards of westerners coming to see Asia’s version of the pyramids. I’m sure that outside of the tourist areas the place had a very different feel to it – this poverty was hinted at by the child beggars and the landmine victims who had a band on the corner of one of the streets. If Siem Reap was your only insight into Cambodia you could be forgiven for thinking that it was as rich as its neighbour Thailand.

The other thing of note we did one evening was take a wander around the night market. This was full of tourist souvenirs and goods and had a very vibrant feel. In the centre of the market was a big square tiled trough containing lots of tiny fish. These 'DR Fish' as named by the locals running the stall – ate dead skin. The idea was that you popped your feet into the water and these fish would nibble at your feet and remove all the dead skin – 'leaving your feet smooth and refreshed'. We were intrigued, we had to try it. So for a few dollars we jumped in for our 20 minute session (it is probably good to explain here that strangely they have 2 currencies in Cambodia the US Dollar and Riel. Most people preferred and would quote prices in Dollars but you would quite often get your change in Riel. Even the cash points only dispensed US Dollars!)
It is a hard sensation to explain – but it is incredibly tickly! I pushed my feet hard to the floor to start with so the fish did not nibble the bottoms, and as I got braver slowly lifted them. It was almost too much to bear, and me and Rob found ourselves laughing uncontrollably at times. You could have as many as 50 little fish nibbling all over your feet at points! We don’t have any photos unfortunately as we mislaid the memory card (more about that later). But I really recommend it if any of you ever get the chance – it is an experience, and what’s more it actually works! My feet have never felt to supple and smooth! Maybe one day it will reach UK shopping centres?

Also at the end of this market was a tiny cinema which showed a film about Pol Pot. If I am honest I didn’t before visiting Cambodia know much about the Khmer Rouge, so we went and watched the film; and although informative in places left out a lot of detail. It did however make me keen to learn more about this part of Cambodia’s dark history and I knew I would learn more when I got to the Capital.

The final thing to mention was our pizza experience in Siem Reap. We went to this restaurant for pizza and discovered you could ‘space up’ the pizza at no extra charge! We were of course slightly cynical at this claim so we ordered our pizza with ‘space’. We thought it was funny that the owner and his family then came and sat in the restaurant, and then we realised it was blatantly to laugh at us stupid tourists! He had done what he claimed and indeed the pizza was heavily ‘spaced’ so much so that within an hour we found ourselves giggling manically and making very benign conversation. Then we got very tired, and as myself, Rob and Chris were all planning on going to see the sun rise over Angkor Wat at 5am we retuned home to bed. However, when getting up at 4am to my surprise I was even more stoned than when I went to sleep, so much so I forgot our passes for Angkor and had to go back for them while Rob didn’t even make it out of bed. Needless to say watching the sun rise over Angkor was a very other worldly experience for many reasons! Our hazy evening is also when the memory card went missing, neither myself nor Rob has a very clear memory of leaving the restaurant with or without a memory card, but thankfully my camera and card survived the experience so we still have some photos of the previous 2 days. The moral of the story – don’t be responsible for anything for 24 hours after eating pizza in Cambodia!

What a journey!

“What a journey!” is a very polite summary of my thoughts on our epic trip from 4000 islands to Siem Reap.
We’d bargained hard to get a good deal on the transport (or so we thought) into Cambodia. So our large group clambered into our first mini van of the day at 9am where we were driven a short distance to the local farmer’s bank to exchange our kip into dollars and pay for the journey. The bank looked like it was something from the turn of the 20th Century – all work was still meticulously logged into large legers with receipts signed in triplicate, and everything was calculated and handwritten by the few administrators, one of which had such a streaming cold that the face mask she was wearing was damp where she had been continually sneezing into it – nice… The whole bank appeared to operate out of 2 rooms – an office for the male manager, flanked by a framed mugshot parade of his senior executives, and the main room where the female administrators worked with the customers. Every transaction had to be signed off by the manager, so it was a slow process, especially when those in our group who needed to withdraw money using their cards found that plastic-based banking technology had not yet reached this venerable institution so instead they had to visit the bank of Chris, who boasted a substantial fund of his native currency for loan at favourable rates!
It was actually quite an interesting experience seeing the bank operate at first, watching the locals coming and going with various dirty bundles of kip flowing over the counters but two hours later we’d definitely had enough!

Once we had got rid of the soon to be worthless Kip we headed to the riverbank and boarded a battered pontoon which was noisily and painfully pushed by a little tugboat belching out an acrid black smoke. A few bumpy dirt lanes later we stopped at a café a few miles closer to the border. The driver asked us all to get out and get some lunch. We had to unload our backpacks as someone else would be along to pick us up soon.

As it was lunchtime we grabbed a quick plate of rice and then waited for our next lift to arrive. We waited. We continued to wait. Finally about an hour and a half later someone arrived to pick us up. It was after 1pm by now and we had still failed to travel more than 10 miles. Our driver picked us up – we bundled in eager to get to the border, which wasn’t too far. Our driver drove very very slowly, and proceeded to tell us that they could take us all the way to Siem Reap for an extra $5 each rather than the agreed overnight stop off. That is when the alarm bells started to ring. We thanked the driver and said that we would like the stop off, he continually advised against it. We got to the border and were told yet another mini van would be waiting on the other side for us. So we got out paid the $2 leaving fee (or bribe) to the Laos officials to stamp us out of Laos and then walked through no mans land to the Cambodian border hut. With no problems we were stamped into Cambodia and jumped into the next mini van.

This driver then tried to tell us that it would be much better to pay the $5 and get to Siem Reap in one night, he said we could be in Siem Reap by 7pm, then he added that the ‘other’ mini van had broken down and he couldn’t guarantee us a lift to Siem Reap the next day as agreed – instead he said it would be 2 or 3 days before they could get us to our destination. It was quite obvious that they never planned us to do a stop and thought we would jump at the option to be taken straight to Siem Reap – so they were quite taken aback when we weren’t so keen. However, we finally decided as a group that now we were in the mini bus we would go straight to Siem Reap. I for one now did not trust these people and knew that if we had been dropped off for the night we would never see them again – so I figured it would be best just to get there and pay the guy his $5, we had done well not to be ripped off before hand. We told the driver and his assistant that we would pay the extra but not until we got to Siem Reap as the plans were being constantly changed and we wanted to ensure that we actually got to where they were promising us! That was when the drivers assistant well and truly threw his toys out of the pram, and after having a tantrum followed by a wonderful impression of a 3 year old sulking we pulled up at what turned out to be the drivers house! (During the journey we must have made 5 or 6 stops in a 3 hour period for the driver to empty his bladder at the side of the road!) After the driver had faffed around in his house for maybe ¾ of an hour we set off again, where we stopped at a guesthouse and met several more very disgruntled travellers who had been promised a lift to Siem Reap, had been dropped off there to be told they would be picked up soon and had been waiting over 5 hours!

They climbed into the mini van – which was now completely full and a Cambodian boy who we found out from the driver was the bosses son was sitting / crouching in the foot well of the sliding door. A few more hours and we stopped again – it was now 7pm and the sulky man had left us and we stopped at a café where we were told that we were waiting for a couple more people to join us and then we would continue. We naturally assumed that must have meant that the other travellers were leaving us at this point – we were wrong!

We got taken round the corner after another hour of waiting and moved into a proper rusty old mini van, and then it was filled to capacity and then filled some more! By the end of it the mini van had 5 more people in it than it was designed to have and we were very cosy indeed!! Although uncomfortable we all put up with it as by this point we just wanted to get to our final destination. We set off and very soon the road turned from tarmac to dirt and then it felt like we were off-roading, the potholes in the road were very deep and made up more of the road than the dirt! It was fun to start with – but an hour later we were more than ready to get off the road. At about midnight (we started our journey 15 hours ago now) we hit normal road again and could see houses at the sides of the road again.

What was interesting was there were large sheets of polythene that had been strung up which formed nets. Above this were big blue UV lights. The thing that was strange was there wasn’t one or 2 there were literally hundreds lining the roads, in the fields, outside people’s houses – it looked like we were on a film set for some strange sci – fi film. We managed to find out from the driver that it was cricket season (as in the bugs rather than the sport!) and these sheets were used to catch them. Apparently the Cambodians loved to eat them, and the ones outside houses were a personal stash for the owners. We stopped to look at them.

Another line that we had been strung was that accommodation had been organised for us when we finally got to Siem Reap – although slightly concerned about the condition of this accommodation we were just pleased to know we had somewhere when we got to the other end. However, yet again this plan turned out not to be true. When at the outskirts of the city we were told that they did not have anywhere for us to stay! We were then fed a load of rubbish of how they couldn’t drive into the city – but they would drop us off with some tuk tuk drivers who would take us to a place that was open. So at 3am we wearily got out of the mini van and into a tuk tuk and were whisked off to a guesthouse – fearing the worst about the standard of the place we were about to be taken. Thankfully it actually turned out to be a nice new place with reasonable prices too, so we all decided to stay. It was actually quite funny when we were checking in at what was now 4am they were busy trying to sell us trips to Angkor Wat the next day. We were all so tired by now we just ignored them, but it wasn’t the best introduction to Cambodia! Our 7ish hour journey had turned out to end up taking over 19 hours to complete….. I really hoped there wouldn’t be many more journeys like that to come.