Llew Wanders the World

We arrived at Siem Reap International airport relaxed and well fed. I’d spent much of the flight talking with the Englishwoman beside me about other parts of southeast Asia and was more than ready to make my way into my most “exotic” country yet.

Cambodians, perhaps more than any other people on Earth, have had difficult lives. The past forty years (and more) have seen the country involved in foreign conflicts during which it became one of the most bombed places in the world; racked by a vicious civil war; tormented by one of the most horrific genocidal regimes in recent history and thrown into another civil war that continued until very recently. And even now that the country is (finally) at peace, its people must still bear the legacy of the years of violence. The economy of the country was virtually destroyed and Cambodia is still one of the most mined countries anywhere, with the remaining mines taking hundreds, if not thousands of innocent victims every year.

Despite this, it still promises to be a beautiful and interesting place to visit. Despite the misery they’ve lived through, Cambodia’s citizens have a reputation of being a friendly and happy people. The country is home to some of the world’s greatest archaeological sites, the French colonial history provides a fascinating backdrop to many areas, and while the countryside is often dangerous to travel due to mines (not to mention horrid transport infrastructure) it too is reputed to be beautiful.

Getting into Cambodia was slightly trickier than anywhere else I’d yet visited, but only marginally so. My mom dad and I presented ourselves at the visa application desk with our forms, passport sized photos (I’d had about 25 made before leaving home) and US$20.

A few minutes later we had our visas, were through immigration and customs and were in Cambodia.

As in Chiang Mai, Thailand, there is a central taxi service at the airport, which provides flat rates into town. We picked up a taxi and told him our destination. As often happens in developing countries, he told us that our chosen accomodation was old and he knew of a much better place to stay (the reason being, of course, that he got a commission from the “much better place.”)

We had a look at his suggested destination and it seemed nice enough and less expensive than the place we were headed for, so in we checked.

After a short rest, we took the 10 minute walk down to the Siem Reap central market. It ws during this walk that I got my first real impressions of Cambodia (or at least of Siem Reap, which, since it’s so full of tourists, may well not be representative of the whole country.)

It was clear even from one glance that this place was much less developed than anywhere else we’d yet been in southeast Asia. There were many fewer cars on the roads and many more motorcycles and still MORE bicycles. Which was probably a good thing, since even in this heavily touristed town the roads were far from pretty.

After checking in, we headed up to our comfortable (though since there was no a/c I’m not sure if they would have been so wonderful in the summer…) rooms and relaxed for a bit, looking out over the town before heading out again.

Outside of the market area, most of the shopping consisted of ramshackle convenience store type stalls that offered drinks, cigarettes, candy, gasoline (poured into your motorcycle’s tank out of old liquor bottles) and miscellanious other small consumer goods. Many of these shops seemed to function more as social clubs than actual shopping venues, with people regularly lounging around, chatting and so forth.

The people themselves did look to be a happy lot, despite the obvious poverty and the horrible history they’ve had to endure. The childrens’ clothing was generally pretty beat up and they were usually covered in dirt, but that’s to be expected in a place as dusty as Siem Reap. The adults, meanwhile, usually looked quite tidy. And almost without exception pretty much everyone I met had smiles on their faces.

Things were a bit more organized nearer the market, but still not spectacularly so. The market itself was similar in character to what we’d already seen in Thailand, but was even more relaxed than those in Chiang Mai, to say nothing of Bangkok. As in Thailand, the most prominent place was given to textiles and clothing, but these tended more towards local designs than knockoff designer goods. There were also lots of carved wood and metal goods, brand name backpacks at incredible discounts and loads of books. Indeed, it was here that I finally found my long sought after photocopied guidebooks. I already had an original Camboida book, but I picked up the latest edition of the Laos one for US$3, with a minimum of bargaining.

I also got all of my remaining Christmas shopping done that evening, though I won’t say what all I bought, since that’d ruin the surprise for people back home!

After this, my mom and dad headed back to the hotel, and I stopped in at an internet cafe to write about Chiang Mai. After finishing, I walked back home along the darkened streets and across the bridge over the Siem Reap river. Just before I reached my street, a Cambodian man, one of a group sitting outside of one of the aforementioned store-cum-social clubs, beckoned me over.

It turned out that he was preparing for an English exam in a couple of days time (though it pains me to say that it did take quite a while for me to understand this.) He worked for the National Bank of Cambodia, and regarded it as his duty to show foreigners in Cambodia a good time. I pulled a chair up to near the low small table they were sitting around and was almost immediately offered a shot glass full of a dark reddish-brown liquid. I assumed it would be fairly alcoholic and thus safe to drink and wasn’t disappointed (I’m guessing it was 30% alcohol, give or take a bit.) With only a little difficulty, I learned that it ginseng steeped rice whisky or s’ra. I was also told that it doesn’t give you hangovers or make you sleep in like beer or vodka, but if you drink too much of it you won’t be able to stand up or remember things.

We sat and talked and my hosts offered me food from on the table as well: barbequed fish and bird of some kind, cucumber spears and salty, spicy pickled green bananas.

We sat and talked and ate and drank more for an hour and a half or so, during which time I met several of my new friends’ wives, and learned that aside from the banker, they were two shopowners and a tuktuk driver. When the first bottle of s’ra ran out, the English speaker, Mr. Duong asked if I’d mind buying another. Given how kind they’d been to me, and the fact that the stuff cost US$0.50 a litre, I would’ve been happy to, but never got a chance. As soon as the words had left his mouth, Duong’s wife began berating him, telling him (as it was later translated for me) that now I was going to think that all Cambodians wanted from foreigners was money and that they couldn’t look after themselves and so forth. By the time I conviced Duong to let me pay, his wife had already done so.

Eventually I did finally take my leave of my new Cambodian friends, but wasn’t allowed to make the 300m walk back to the hotel. Instead, the tuktuk driver insisted that he be allowed to drive me back.

That evening certainly proved to be a fun and auspicious start to my time in Cambodia.

The next morning we started out on the main purpose of our trip to Siem Reap: a visit to the Angkor temple complexes, a HUGE group of ruins of which the well known Angkor Wat is only a small part.

We stepped outside our hotel and were almost immediately greeted by a tuktuk driver (though only one, not hordes as had been the case in Bangkok.) Tuktuks in Cambodia (also known as Moto-remourques) are a little different than those in Thailand. They’re basically motorcycles with a comfortable, shaded passenger trailer pulled behind.

We’d originally been planning on just catching a ride into the main enterance of the archaeological park and walking around, but when the fellow said he’d drive us around for the day for US$10, we happily agreed.

The Angkor temples are a series of spectacular structures built by the mighty Khmer empire during its heyday from about 700AD to 1200AD. Most of the huge stone monuments are Buddhist or Hindu temples (the dominant religion of the empire changed throughout its history.) These spectacular structures are noteworthy not just for their size and the effort that went into their construction, but also for their incredible level of ornamentation in the form of carved stone figures.

Our first stop was the main gates of the park, to pay our admission fees, pick up our park passes and in my case, have a photo taken, since the pictures I’d brought with me were two big for use with the pass. Given the fact that passes sell for $US20 for one day and $US40 for three, it’s easy to see how fake ones could be big business.

After this was all dealt with we drove into the park and past the first temple: Angkor Wat. Given how spectacular it, and the second major group of temples, Angkor Thom, were we decided to carry on further to some (slightly) more secluded ones and come back to the highlights later.

The first temple we visited was Preah Kahn. This is one of the larger temple complexes in the Angkor area, but not one of the best known. Our driver, Sun, dropped us off out front, indicating that he’d wait for us there. We walked through a big stone gate, and along a long pathway towards the temple itself in the centre of the otherwise heavily forested complex.

As we walked in, a band made entirely of amputees (almost certainly from landmines) was playing traditional Cambodian music. This added to the atmosphere and anticipation of reaching the first temple. Their presence made our introduction to Angkor pretty much perfect. I was more than happy to give them a small donation, as I sat listening for several minutes as my parents walked on towards the temple. (The file is about 800k, so it may take a few minutes to download on a slow connection, but trust me, it’s worth it. The sound you hear at the end is a police motorcycle driving by on the way into the temple.) Walking around the temple we were in awe of the place. And while it was a good size, this wasn’t even one of the “main” temple complexes in the area. The only irritant (although it was a little bit funny, I must admit) were a couple of older American ladies who I crossed paths with a few times and who were invariably saying things like “this place is a mess,” and asking their guide “are they ever going to fix it up, you know, put it back together again?”

From this point on, I’m going to dispense with lengthy explantations of the temples, and just give a short description of each. Mostly the photos (I took about 350 of them) should do the talking.

Looking Through Successive Gateways Into Preah Kahn
Carved Stone Figure in Preah Kahn

The second site we visited was a smaller one, named Preah Neak Pean. It was here we were introduced to our almost constant companions for the next few days: The masses of women, children and sometimes men near the entrance of almost every temple shouting offers of cold drinks, postcards, food, handicrafts and almost anything else you can think of.

Our third temple of the day was Ta Som. While the grounds of this temple weren’t as huge as some we’d already seen, the central structure was big and impressive. Even more impressive, however were the areas where the forest had been allowed to intrude on the temple.

Following Ta Som, we headed down the road to the Eastern Mebon. This temple was originally on an islet in the middle of a gigantic hand-dug resevoir or Baray. No HINT of exageration there. It was 7.8km long by 1.8km wide. It seemed that the ancient Khmers never did anything small. At the Eastern Mebon we met the first of relatively few kids who were actually begging at the temples. The majority of the children were sales-kids. Very persistent ones, true, but they were almost always offering something in return for their requested money. The two kids I met here were brothers. The younger of the two had a coin, which I assumed was Cambodian, and was happy to trade him a 1000 real note for (they no longer make coins here.) As it turned out, it was a 10 Eurocent piece, so he really made almost no profit on the deal. At least he got something useable out of it, though his older brother was a bit perturbed that he didn’t get anything.

After the Eastern Mebon, we took a long drive across half the length of the Eastern Baray to a less central temple named Banteay Samre. On the way there, we drove through a Khmer village that was in the form of a long strip on either side of the road. Driving through it, it seemed that almost every house (almost all of them of traditional Cambodian design) had a Cambodian flag in front of it. In spite of all the misery that’s overwhelmed the place (or perhaps because they’ve endured it all and now have peace), Cambodians seem a very patriotic folk.

Banteay Samre turned out to be one of the temples I liked best, simply because of its isolation. It wasn’t as big or spectacular as some others (though still large) and wasn’t the best preserved of them all (though was still in good shape.) The most wonderful thing about the place was the fact that it was far enough away that few people visited it. We saw only four fellow tourists on our walk around the compound, compared to dozens at the other sites. There were many workers and guards there, msotly sitting around chatting. They seemed almost surprised to see us!

Substructure within Banteay Samre
Banteay Samre Gopura (Entrance Tower/Gate)
Inside Walls of Banteay Samre With Flowering Tree

On the drive back to the centre of the Angkor area, we stopped in the village to pick up a few baguettes. One of the great legacies of the French in virtually every place they controlled for more than a year or two is their bakeries. In Quebec, Indochina, even in Mexico where they were only in charge for about 10 years, it’s always possible to find good French bread.

Our next stop was Pre Rup, a larger (I found this tough to believe, but it was true) version of Ta Som. This structure exhibited the quincuncial towers that was so common amongst Khmer temples. I just love that word, quincuncial. For those who aren’t familiar with it (and believe me, I don’t blame you) it means “in the shape of a quincunx.” Which in turn means that it looks, from above, like this:

X_X
_X_
X_X

Interior of Pre Rup from above
A false door at Pre Rup.
The Khmers were so fond of symmetry (the quincuncal structure they so loved is symmetrical about 4 axes) that they even put false doors carved out of stone on three faces of their square structures to maintain their regularity.

The crowd that gathered as we approached the food stalls across from Pre Rup was impressive. Everyone was shouting, encouraging us to come to their stall instead of the one next door. Kids bearing menus ran out towards us, pushing their pamphlets forward, their chirping adding to their mothers’ slightly more distant shouts.

After our late lunch we were almost done our loop around the northeastern part of the Angkor area. We headed next to Banteay K’dei, a medium sized temple near the small (only by comparison to the Barays, it was still almost a kilometre long) resevoir of Sras Srei. Unlike many of the temples we’d seen so far, Banteay K’dei’s moats were almost completely full, and the chirping of frogs filled the air. The amount of reinforcing work done on the temple to make it safe for visitors (and to ensure that it didn’t further damage itself in a collapse) also distinguished Banteay K’dei.

Our final stop for the day was the spectacularly busy Phnom Bakking. Throughout the day, relatively few people visit this temple, since it’s such a long climb up to it, but around 17:00, this changes markedly. At this time, hundreds of people start the climb up the hill on which the temple sits, then up the temple steps themselves to get a view of the sun setting over Angkor Wat. Even those who can’t quite manage the climb up themselves aren’t left out. They can take an elephant up the hill, though they still need to climb the (very steep) temple steps on their own.

The view from the top was nice, but not as spectacular as it was made out to be. I actually spent most of the time talking to two fellow Canadians, Dave and Jackie who had just passed through many of the areas I still had to come.

Before I headed to bed, I went to pick up a bottle of ginseng S’ra for my mom and dad to try. Naturally, I had to have a few drinks with my friends from the previous night. The first of these was a water glass almost full, which was followed by toasts with each member of the group. I was having fun, but did want to be able to walk back to the hotel, so I managed to extricate myself, buying a second bottle to leave behind with my Cambodian compadres.

The next morning was a VERY early one. We all woke at 04:30 so we could get to Angkor Wat in time to see the falously beautiful sunrise there. Sure enough, Sun (our tuktuk driver, not THE sun) was there at 05:00 to meet us. We arrived at Angkor Wat in the dark, and were only able to make our way around to the back and up the stairs with the aid of my flashlight.

As we climbed up the stairs, the sun was just starting to light the sky. There were only a few people here at this point, though there numbers grew and grew. (Included in the bunch were a few spectacularly obnoxious young French men who sat around smoking, drinking beer and making lots of noise. Yes, I know, that could be me, save for the smoking, but I like to thing I wouldn’t do it in such a beautiful and special place.)

The sun rising through a window on the upper level

We sat and watched the sun rise, then walked down to admire the view of the first rays of the sun hitting the temple’s towers above, and on the beautiful carvings all around.

The stairway and gate of the temple’s third level
The central tower of Angkor Wat
Inside the courtyard on the top level of Angkor Wat
Carvings on the top level of Angkor Wat. (It was with dismay (over the mindset of visitors to this wonderful place) that I noticed only the breasts of the sculptures had been rubbed smooth by human hands.)
Looking up at the top level of the temple from below just after sunrise

After this, we climbed back down to the first level to admire the 800m of bas-relief carvings around the wall of the temple’s first level. These featured scenes from many different areas of Hindu mythology.

Shiva riding on a sacred goose during the Battle of the Gods and Demons

As we headed towards the back gate of the Wat, a security guard approached us and indicated that we couldn’t carry on that way, since they were preparing for the king’s arrival. I’d heard earlier that he was visiting Siem Reap, and we’d seen the setup for an elaborate ceremony of some sort… This must have been it.

Since we were all terribly tired, we simply wandered to one of the small library buildings within the main temple walls and laid down to sleep on fallen stones.

When we woke an hour or so later, we were in for a surprise. The place was empty. This was very, very surprising. As the most popular of the temples in the whole Angkor area, Angkor Wat is invariably overrun by tourists whenever it’s open. We spent the next hour or so wandering around the grounds all alone, marvelling at still more bas-relief as well as the awe-inspiring structure of the temple itself.

The Demon King pulling on a naga (giant serpent) against the gods to churn the Ocean of Milk (one of the most famous Bas Reliefs at Angkor Wat)
Ornamental carving on columns in Angkor Wat
Looking out towards the front of Angkor Wat from its top level

Through this time, I kept waiting for one of the many security guards or policemen to stop us and say “what are you doing here? You must leave, now!” But it just didn’t happen. Plenty of people saw us, but no one seemed to care. I can only assume that they’d cleared the place out prior to the king’s visit, and that they’d missed us while we were asleep. And from that point on, anyone who saw us must simply have assumed that we were supposed to be there…

After an hour or so, the crowds did flood back in, and we were no longer anything close to alone, but we still felt very privliged to have had Angkor Wat to ourselves (okay, ourselves and somewhere out of sight the King of Cambodia) for an hour or more.

Our next stop on this, our second day in the Angkor area was the huge walled city of Angkor Thom. We asked Sun to let us out near the gates and told him that since we planned on walking around the city, he didn’t need to sit around waiting for us, but could simply meet us back there at 16:30.

We started out with a walk around one quarter of the outside wall of the city. Almost as soon as we’d stepped off the road and onto the grassy, treed area, we met a troop of medium sized monkeys heading in the opposite direction. There were perhaps 20 of them in total, from big males to mothers holding babies, to young ones probably just starting to move on their own. They were very unexcited by our presence and moved all around us before heading down onto the grass then back into the woods. It seemed as though we were the only ones that had noticed they were there, despite their being less than 100m from the road.

During the 3km walk that followed, we saw not a single other tourist. The only people were Cambodians out fishing or bathing/grazing their water buffalo in the moat around the city. We even had the small temple of Prasat Chrung to ourselves and stopped to eat one of the small watermelons that grew in huge numbers in the surrounding area.

Near the end of our walk we reached the west gate of the city and met several people on bicycles, one of whom was an old man who I got to speak French with for a bit (French is a very common second language in the former countries of French Indochina.)

Returning along a dirt road to the centre of the former city, we enjoyed the peace and quiet. Along the way, we came across one of many beautifully coloured insects that we’d meet during our stay.

The first place we arrived at upon reaching the centre of the city was the second most famous of Angkor’s temples: The Bayon.

While it doesn’t have the incredible structure of Angkor Wat at first glance, a detailed examination makes it perhaps an even more fascinating place. This is due to the 216 huge faces of Avalokiteshvara (yes, that is a bit of a mouthful, like many Khmer names) that look down on visitors from almost every vantage point. See how many you can spot in this photo alone.

Aside from the faces, the Bayon also has some impressive bas reliefs of its own. This one depicts a naval battle between the Khmers and their enemies, the Chams.

Our final stop on this day was the small but incredibly steep temple of Baksei Chamkrong. I climbed up to the top, while my mom and dad contented themselves with exploring the small structures around the base.

Since we’d started so early that morning, we were looking forward to fnishing early. I wasn’t terribly concerned when Sun was late meeting us, but after about 25 minutes of waiting, I followed my mom and dad down the road in search of someone else to drive us back to town. After about 1.5km of walking, Sun pulled up alongside us, apologizing for his lateness. How he spotted us as he was driving I’ve no idea, but we were happy he did.

That night we feasted on delicious French style bread with coconut milk and tropical fruits purchased at a market on the way home.

The first temple we visited on Day 3 was the Baphuon. It’s been under reconstruction since 1995, and is still not close to being finished. This is undoubtedly because the work was begun in the 1970s, with many stone blocks being removed and numbered for later reassembly. Then the Khmer Rouge took over the country, forcing the foreign restorers out and leading to the loss of the key to the numbering system. This led to a 3-D puzzle, with literally thousands of (often) barely differentiated pieces. A tricky situation indeed…

Mom and Dad climbing up the incredibly steep steps of the pyramidal Phineanakas.

The Crumbling, but impressive tower of Preah Palilay. One wall of the tower had collapsed, so its interior was full of rubble. The exterior was covered in trees of varying sizes and the nests of burrowing spiders.

Carvings on the smallish, but impressive Terrace of the Leper King. This terrace was built overtop an earlier, smaller one. The space in between has since been excavated so that visitors can see both terraces at once.

After the Terrace of the Leper King, we headed to the nearby Terrace of Elephants, where I managed to somehow lose my mom and dad. I continued to wander along, admiring the carvings along the entire front of the terrace, and especially the elephants at the central platform where the king would have sat as parades passed before him over 1000 years ago.

I continued looking for my mom and dad across the road amongst the Preah Prithu Group of temples, but the only person I met was a young boy who gave me a short tour of the group in very rough English. He was very disappointed when I only had riel to give him, claiming that his teacher would only accept Thai baht or dollars. I hope he was only trying to squeeze a bit more money out of me…

My final stop in search of my mom and dad was amongst the 12 Towers of Prasat. These 12 (originally) identical towers are now in varying states of repair. Some of them are in fine shape, while others are in need of serious restoration.

Before leaving the walls of Angkor Thom, we walked across the road to the food stalls for lunch. As usual, crowds of kids, menus in hand approached. This time, we were a little more indecisive, which led to new menus being pulled out with prices at $1.50 and then finally $1.00 instead of the original $2.00.

As we sat and ate, some of the most persistant saleskids yet danced around our table, offering the usual wares. They’d probably seen and heard every response to their pitches, so quickly put me back in my place when I offered to sell them a spool of thread out of my backpack. “You buy flute for $2, then I buy string from you for 1.” The most persistant of them was a little girl dressed in pink pants and top. She wasn’t pushy as some of the kids, but seemed to be almost playing with me as she made her pitches. It got to the point that I was actually having fun chatting with her, both of us laughing whenever she offered the same postcards, trinkets and instruments yet again and I came up with a slightly varied rebuff each time. In the end I gave her a few riel, not because I actually wanted anything she was selling, but just because she made eating lunch so much more fun 🙂

After lunch we headed out to two identical temples just beyond the east gate of Angkhor Thom. The one to the north, Thommanon was probably the best preserved of any we’d seen. Its stones fit so tightly that it looked as they had been laid yesterday. The one on the southern side of the road, Chau Say Tevoda was in the middle of a big restoration effort by a Chinese group, and was clearly in need of the work.

We next visited Ta Keo, a huge temple that looked very stark compared to others we’d seen. After reading a bit, we discovered that this was because it had not been finished. I marvelled at the fact that the kings of old would begin working on new temples while huge earlier ones like this remained un-finished, being taken over by the jungle.

Speaking of temples being taken over by the jungle, our next stop was Ta Phrom. This huge complex, perhaps 70% of the size of Angkor Wat itself has been left untouched and unrestored. A few vines and the like have been cleared away, but the walls that have tumbled down have been left alone. The giant trees that have taken over parts of the temple are allowed to grow and do what they will to the stone.

Out penultimate stop was Prasat Kravan. Several kilometres from most other temples, this was one of the few in the area that wasn’t by commissioned royalty. It was smaller than the others, but did have some very pretty bas reliefs on brisk, such as this one of Vishnu riding a Garuda.

Before visiting our last temple, we stopped at the stalls across the road near the parking lot (which gives some idea of just how many people visit Angkor Wat ona given day. That probably hasn’t been quite evident yet) both to get a couple of photos to illustrate how numerous they were as well as to have a bite to eat. While we wandered, we observed an strange feature of the food and souvenier stalls: All of the ones in any given location offered exactly the same goods, but there was great variety BETWEEN temples. For example, near Angkor Wat you could get barbecued fish and fowl at any one of a dozen or so stalls, but almost no other food was available. Meanwhile, near the Bayon, you had a choice of 8 or so fried noodle stands, to the exclusion of all other foods. Odd. I certainly have no explanation for it.

Our final stop in Angkor was to be Angkor Wat itself, for the second time. We had bought tickets the previous night for a ballet to be performed on a stage overlooked by the towers of the Wat. We walked in at almost the perfect time, with the last, golden rays of the sun shining across the sky and onto Angkor Wat.

We walked slowly around the temple, admiring the view from every direction before finally arriving at the entrance to the seating area near the rear entrance. We were rather early, but that was fine, since there was no assigned seating and we ended up getting great seats as a result. We were in the front row (save for the reserved VIP seats) and surrounded by interesting people including, next to me, a Korean televison news reporter who shared her sweet, crispy Cambodian snack cookie things with me.

The first portion of the performance was a modern ballet by a French troupe. No unkindness meant to them, but I could really have done without it. Dance isn’t my favourite of the fine arts to begin with, and dance without narrative has to work awfully hard for me to not end up seeing it as boring, silly or both. The view of the towers of Angkor Wat lit up at night (a rare sight, since the temples are closed at night and almost never lit) was actually much more interesting than the dance itself.

The second and (thankfully) longer half of the performance was traditional Cambodian dance. The dancers were resplendent in brightly coloured, sequined, mirrored costumes, complete with wonderfully ornate masks. The story presented was a portion of the Hindu epic, the Ramayana. Though it wasn’t always easy to follow the plot, it was still fabulously entertaining. The animals characters were clearly the crowd favourite, especially the monkey army and the crabs and prawns in the sea life dance.

At the conclusion of the show, we walked back along the path through the still-active monastary within the walls of the Wat. We met our tuktuk driver Sun outside (I will forever be amazed that he seemed able to spot us through any crowd, even this huge one in the dark of night.) The traffic wasn’t TOO terrible on the way back to town, so before long we’d said farewell to Sun, thanking him profusely and making sure to give him a generous tip.

We had an early morning the next day, with a 07:30 bus to Phnom Penh, so we all headed off to bed soon after…

In conclusion, I’ll just say thanks to Sun, as well as Duong and all my friends I met at the corner store.

And I’ll apologise to anyone who actually read to this point for the ridiculously long entry. I’ll try to keep myself in check in future. Indeed, I’ll have to, or I’ll spend every second day for the rest of my trip writing…

Tags: Cambodia

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