cambodia pt5

this should be the final installment as i fly out tomorrow arvo but i just had to put down a couple of things that happened within a few minutes of each other today. i was sitting up at wat phnom watching the world go by when an american couple walked behind me. as usual there were kids asking for money but his response was anything but usual. the exchange went as follows:

kids: mister, give one dollar
american: you should study hard and become a successful executive... don't beg

bearing in mind the kids were no older than 5, i found his response very comical.

i then bought a can of sprite off a seller and put it down after drinking a bit. a monkey, seeing that i'd put the can down, walked up and took it. instinctively i reached out to get my can back and the monkey attacked me. it grabbed my arm and bit me on the hand and then ran off with the can before turning around and getting ready to attack again. another monkey saw what was going on and started running up the hill with teeth bared clearly ready to attack as well. fortunately a policeman came running and scared them off but i was a little bit shaken and will now have to see a doctor about getting rabies shots when i get home.

tonight i had a really good green curry from a small roadside restaurant. i picked it as it was full of locals which usually indicates good food. the excited shout of 'barang' from the staff when i asked for a table makes me think they probably don't get an awful lot of foreigners dining there. none of the staff spoke english and they did seem to see me as a bit of a novelty. again, the value is stunning. i had a huge green curry and a bowl of rice and a coke for the princely sum of around $2.50. dining out in overpriced perth will never be the same again.

cambodia pt4

sob.. it's getting close to hometime. yesterday was a fantastic day as a few of us took off on a yacht to go sailing to a couple of islands a fair way off the coast. it was a warm day and although the wind wasn't up, it was still a fantastic time. we got to the first island and went snorkelling. it was brilliant in the shallows as there were a lot of flourescent tropical fish that were happy swimming around my arms if i stayed still. unfortunately a sizeable crab wasn't so happy to see me and chased me away. after some lunch on the yacht we sailed off to another island with a snowy white beach of fine sand. the water was so warm and the weather so good that one couldn't help but be relaxed. we headed back from the second island and eventually got back to sihanoukville and dropped anchor as the sun went down. it was a beautiful sunset as we sat on deck drinking some ice cold beers and relaxing even more.

today was another day sitting on a deckchair and contemplating how life must be for rich people that aren't workaholics. being the stupid bloke i can be, i managed to get sunburnt on my last day on the beach which was the first time i've really been burnt since getting here. trust me to save it for the end of my trip. tomorrow morning i'll be taking the early bus back to phnom penh and then saturday i leave for perth. sigh.

2009 afl draft

wow, what an exciting draft. i'm stoked we picked morabito with our first pick as he looks a readymade afl player and could well rival the impact our past two first picks have had in their debut seasons. i'm also very excited that we picked up nat fyfe with our second pick. i watched him dominate the forward line in my mighty tigers' colts grand final win this year and had hoped we'd get him. i don't know a lot about the rest but i look forward to seeing what they can do. i'm also stoked greg broughton was promoted from the rookie list as, in my humble opinion, he was the best first year player last season. he's so unobtrusive that he's easily overlooked (a la shame parker) but he's an extremely effective and courageous defender who quickly became an integral part of the backline last season. i'm not sure where this leaves matty de boer as he's still on the rookie list but i've no doubt his future at dockerland is secure after his fantastic debut season.

also, as a die hard claremont supporter, it's great to see a number of our boys get taken in the draft, even if one did go to the yuppie scum up the road. there's a real sense of poetry that nicholas winmar has gone to st kilda, the club where his second cousin and namesake was such a superstar. what i did find very disappointing, however, is that no one picked up ian richardson. it's great for claremont that we'll have his outstanding talent again next year but it's sad for him that no clubs have recognised his huge potential. he's a bit of a cult hero down at tigerland now with the regular call of 'kick it to richo' ringing out from the grandstand. still, that's the one sad point in an otherwise exciting day.

i can't wait for the 2010 season!!!

cambodia pt3

so my last day in siem reap was great. first i went to a place in the mountains where the rocks in the river have been carved as a kind of wild temple. it was great as the carvings are not immediately obvious but gradually reveal themselves as you look harder. there's also a waterfall there which was nice and cool. then in the arvo it was off to beng mealea which became my favourite temple over ta prohm. it's a long way out of siem reap (the best part of an hour on the back of a motorbike) and is really a big ruin with the jungle having taken control. unfortunately we left fairly late and as the sun sank, the ride became quite harrowing. a note to cambodian drivers: when it's dark and you're riding a motorbike, TURN ON THE HEADLIGHTS!!! the situation was that i was sitting on the back of the motorbike (no helmet of course) with the driver doing between 70 and 80 kmh as it's getting dark. the road is bumpy and there's motorbikes coming against us on the wrong side of the road with no headlights on. it's at this point that he decides it's a good idea to answer his mobile phone. needless to say it made me very nervous and there were a couple of very close shaves. he also needed to keep his helmet visor down as there were plenty of bugs in the air but, of course, it was tinted so he had to keep lifting it to see what was ahead and then he'd put it back down again. i was so thankful to make it back to the hotel in one piece.

that night it was onto a night bus that took me all the way to sihanoukville where i am now. the cultural stuff has been done so it's now time to relax. i've spent the past two days sitting on a deckchair a couple of metres from the water getting massages and having cold beer and fruit smoothies. tonight i had tea at a russian run restaurant called the snake house. my table was a big ceramic urn with a glass top and a python inside coiled up on a branch. it was certainly unique! they also had a massive aquarium bar and a crocodile besides many other snakes and a turtle.

sadly my trip is drawing to a close and i only have a few more days before it's back on the plane home. still, i reckon i'll be heading back here again as it's a great country.

cambodia pt 2

wow, two days of walking around temples is so very tiring. i had a nice foot massage last night from a place called dr feet but even so, my feet and legs and back are still really sore. the girls doing the massages laughed at my toenail polish and asked if i was a ladyboy... hmmmph. still we all had a good laugh and they were good fun.

i started off yesterday by spending about 3 1/2 hours checking out angkor wat. it's huge and absolutely stunning. no words i can write will do it justice so if you're interested in reading about it and seeing some images, check out this link. following angkor wat, i headed off to the ancient walled city of angkor thom. this contains a number of temples, the biggest and most impressive being bayon which has massive carvings of faces looking in all directions - a way for the king to keep an eye on his subjects. these two sites took me a full day to explore and i was very weary by the end. i was also at the point where i thought i'd lose sanity if i had one more woman screech at me "mister, you buy mango", "mr, you buy pineapple", "mister, you buy banana", "mister, you buy cold drink"etc. i know they're only trying to eke out an honest living but seriously, if i want a friggin mango i'll ask for one!!!

today started at my favourite temple of all: ta prohm. it's the temple that was featured in the film 'tomb raider' and has massive trees and roots covering many parts. it was fun wandering around imagining what it must have been like for the people who first came across it in the jungle. a number more temples followed but really, there's not an easy way to describe them all and i'm sure i'd bore everyone if i tried. one thing i really enjoyed was lunch. i stopped at a small eatery and had amok with chicken. amok is a national cambodian dish and simply delicious. i reckon i'll have to learn how to make it as i could definitely go that again.

so that's me so far. i reckon i'll head upstairs for a shower now and then out for some fried noodles and a mango shake from a roadside stall.. great value for $1.75!!! then a cupla beers and time to hit the hay. i've another day of temples tomorrow before catching the night bus to sihanoukville.

cambodia pt1

i've been in cambodia for a few days now and thought it about time i made mention of it here. i arrived in phnom penh on saturday arvo and hopped into a tuk tuk to take me from the airport to my hotel. the traffic here is organised chaos. i thought this was the case in manila but phnom penh really takes the cake. cars, motorbikes and tuk tuks vie for space on the road and basically drive wherever they like. it's nothing to see several motorbikes driving against the flow of the traffic and people just move out of the way. it seems like madness at first but it seems to work very well.

on my first day i visited the former prison of tuol sleng (also known as S-21). prior to the khmer rouge taking over the country in 1975 it had been a high school but was turned into the most notorious place of torture under the regime. many of the people who were tortured and killed were photographed before their ordeal and there's several rooms of photos to take in. i also visited the killing fields were many of the prisoners of S-21 were taken to be killed. to save on bullets, the khmer rouge had them kneel next to a mass grave and bashed their heads in with farming implements. except for the small children. many of these were taken by the feet and had their heads swung into a tree trunk. all in all, they are exceptionally sad places and highlight the brutality of pol pot and his henchmen (and henchwomen). following this i visited the 'russian market' - so called because it was the preferred place for russians to shop in the 1980's. it is the most remarkable market i've ever been to. it's massive and sells nearly everything you can imagine; from food (veg, herbs, raw meat and also meals) to all sorts of nick nacks, clothing, material, motorbike parts, household goods, jewelery, books, cds, dvds and many other things. so that was day one and it was indeed a full one and was concluded with a great massage from the good people at seeing hands. they're a chain of massage places throughout cambodia which train and employ blind people.

day two started with a visit to the silver pagoda which is next to the royal palace. it is called silver as the floor of the pagoda is tiled with squares of silver. it must be the most expensive floor i've ever walked on. i then moseyed over to the national museum and checked out centuries worth of angkor artifacts but i must admit it didn't take long for all the little buddahs to look the same. the afternoon was a fairly quiet affair but did include another massage.. this time for 1 1/2 hours (not bad for $9).

day three was my last full day in phnom penh. i had a moto driver take me out into the countryside onto mekong island where i met a lady named clara and her family. they have a weaving thing (loom?) under their house and weave material to sell in the markets. she was lovely and very welcoming and so i bought one of her products. it was great fun getting out into the villages and riding on the back of a motorbike. of course, being on the back of a bike in the crazy phnom penh traffic took some getting used to but eventually it was more fun than scary. again, the arvo was a fairly quiet affair with a couple of beers at the famed FCC (foreign correspondents club) and another massage. yep, i could easily get used to a life of long, cheap massages. this time my masseuse decided to find every knot in my muscles and knead them fully. it was rather painful but, i guess, necessary.

day four involved and early start as i was to catch the 8.30am bus from phnom penh to battambang. of course, i got there early and, of course, it didn't end up leaving until 9.20am. on arriving in battambang, a tuk tuk driver offered to take me for a drive out to the bamboo train so i could go for a ride on one. for those who don't know, the bamboo train consists of two axles (one attached to what appears to be a lawnmower engine) with the equivalent of a bamboo fencing panel on top. they ride along a small railway which has trains coming in both directions. when two bamboo trains coming from opposite directions meet, discussions are held and in the end, one of the trains is dismantled and taken off the tracks to allow the other to pass. the train is then put back together and the journey continues. needless to say, it was great fun and a very unique experience. by the time i'd finished that, it was nearly dark so i took a quick wander around town before sitting down for tea at the famous 'smokin pot'. the food was great but the three loud obnoxious americans at the table next to me weren't so wonderful. seriously guys, there's no need to swear in such a loud voice in a restaurant and no one really wants to hear about photos of you baring your arse.

so, onto day five: today. the reason for going to battambang, apart from the bamboo train, was to catch the boat to siem reap. i'd read that it is a marvelous journey but it surpassed all expectations. we spent about 5 1/2 hours journeying through narrow passages with bushes rubbing against the boat. we passed numerous floating villages and even stopped at a shop in one. the toilet at the shop was just a drop over the water which makes one wonder how hygienic it is crapping directly into the water your home floats in. of course, they charged like wounded bulls but they have to make a living like the rest of us. there was also much bird life and jumping fish and even a bright orange snake winding its way through the trees. eventually we reached siem reap and a tuk tuk was waiting for me with my name on a card. a quick trip into town followed and finally i rocked up at the lovely guest house i'm now at (with free internet.. yay!!). i've been out and bought my three day pass to the temples and seen my first one which was spectacular. tomorrow i'll be hitting the legendary angkor wat which i'm sure will be mind blowing.

so that's the expurgated version of my cambodian odyssey so far. now it's time for a shower and a cold frothie before hitting the sack.