Siem Reap, Cambodia

This was the stop on this trip that I had been waiting for. Siem Reap is the home to Angkor Wat, one of the world's best known sites and for good reason. More on that later. Siem Reap is a city that seems to exist for tours to Angkor Wat and the other temple and tourist attractions in the area. Every third shop organises trips and tours, likely all with the same three or four bus companies. Many times they will take you themselves in their own car at a greatly inflated rate. If you get a three day pass to the Angkor sites, know where you want to go and what to see (all achieved with just a tiny bit of research or just look at a map), and get your own tuk tuk to take you around to the sites, again all very easy to do as tuk tuks are everywhere, you can see some of the most remarkable and truly iconic sights in Cambodia and indeed the world. I am getting ahead of myself again. We stayed in a place just off of Pub Street, and I am sure that if you make an intuitive leap you can figure out why. We had a little foreshadowing of our stay when we found out the hotel had booked our room out to other people, then kindly gave us a larger room. All well and good except they charged us the larger room rate. So basically they moved us because they double booked and then punished us for booking at all. It was a better room, and not that much more so we grudgingly accepted the room. We were told there was free coffee and tea. Not as such. Or at all. We were then told we could have a kettle in the room. They lent the sole kettle to another room, said they would go get another one, then didn't. Sighs getting deeper. At least the breakfast was included in the price of the room. You know where this is going. They explained that the booking agency erroneously stated in the listing that breakfast was included when it was not, and then charged us for all breakfasts eaten. Officially pissed off now. Since there was no tea or coffee, I kept going and asking them for pots of hot water. Not what was offered, but the best I could get. Siobhan's fears are getting worse, fortunately Valium and xanax and morphine are sold over the counter at reputable and disreputable pharmacies alike in Cambodia, so we stocked up. Not on the morphine of course. Not to sound like drug fiends but the novelty got the better of us, and we bought whatever we liked. Fortunately we like pretty tame things these days, so we just got things we would use, tramadol for the days when my dosage isn't enough to keep me walking all day, xanax because Siobhan is an insomniac, and Valium for the terror she relates to most moving things. Pub Street is pretty bananas. Neon flashing lights every where, loud music, restaurant hawkers, tuk tuk hawkers, tat hawkers, they all add to the feeling that you can't get away fast enough. We have seen some very lively areas all over the world, but we didn't expect this level of crazy here. Perhaps we are naive on the way we thought about Cambodia, and the way we thought about a city that is basing its GDP on the tourism of holy sites. We honestly didn't think that people would want to get stupid drunk and get tattooed. We were wrong. This part of the city is bright and loud and crowded and horrible. Not at all what we want in a place to stay. By night. By day, the feeling is completely different, you'd never know they were the same street. The shops are still open and so are the bars, but it just seems so much more civilised. During the day, the main problem we had was trying to find somewhere to eat without being forced to leave for all the cigarette smoke. It's amazing to me that despite the open patios, every smoker sits inside and puffs away, ensuring the air is unbreathable in minutes. I used to smoke an awful lot, and I used to smoke everywhere I was allowed and sometimes where I was not, so I do understand then when you're suddenly free to smoke with impunity, you absolutely will. I also understand that this is not really place that most people will bring their small children on holiday. I also understand that there is enough education about smoking and it's effects on others that there should really be some kind of separation between smokers and non. Enough ranting. The rest of the city is a filthy southeast Asian city like they all are. This one has a Hard Rock Café, and I have seen then in most every major city I have been to and never gone in. This time I did, and I must say, there's overpriced, and then there's this. Nothing wrong with the burger, it was really nice, but the prices, my god the prices! The souvenir drumsticks, which I thought must be reasonable as they are just drumsticks are $25. I rant too much. It's a nice enough town, I just think that I have seen enough filthy cities and the shine has worn off the charm and novelty of it. The Angkor complex is made up just the one very large walled, moated temple, but there are loads of other temples and shrines in the area, some really impressive, some less so, but all of them are gorgeous, breathtaking structures. The ancient city of Angkor Thom is, for the most part still standing, as it is made of several smaller buildings all surrounded by a wall 9 km square. The city is said to have held somewhere between eighty and one hundred fifty thousand people (thanks wikipedia), and the central structure called Bayon is in fair shape due to the constant efforts to reconstruct it from existing blockwork whereever possible, and reconstruction using new materials and historical sources to create a true rendition. It's remarkable the work that goes into the maintainance and the recreation of the temples, facades and bas reliefs, and it all adds to the sensation of time travel. The only thing that gets in the way for me is the tourists climbing all over the statues and towers and spires to get a photograph. They stand next to the things and try to inject themselves, co-opting history. I don't know why it makes me so annoyed, it just does. I just think that maybe these things are just very important, and by inserting yourself you minimise the impact, it just becomes another tourist stop, and lessens its historical value every time some Dick pretends he's lifting it. Stop pointing to it in the picture, we can all see it. Maybe I am being petty. I don't care. Stop climbing on the monuments. Stop trying to claim history. Look at it, admire it, marvel at it, photograph it, don't pretend its a hat. Dickhead. Do I rant too much?
The monument I can't accurately describe, you'd really need to just come here and see it, walk the whole site, investigate every dark nook and crumbling cranny. The opening to Raiders of the Lost Ark and Tomb Raider was filmed in the complex, and one of these temples has essentially been reclaimed by the jungle, with banyan and bodhi trees growing right through the walls and roofs of temples. Again I can't accurately describe the scene, and pictures really only tell half the story. Do look at the pictures though, they will make you want to see it with your own eyes.
Siem Reap slowly grows on you, not with quite the same warmth as Chiang Mai, but still quite relaxing by day at least. Next up is a night bus to Phnom Penh and a taxi to Sihanoukville, where we will stay at Otres Beach. Sounds nice, right?