Adam’s Not Here

Our time in Phnom Penh was fairly quiet. Although it is currently the rainy season, we had had tremendous luck on the trip so far. Every time we arrived somewhere people said that it been raining so much the last while. Yet we rarely encountered more than an hour of rain. This luck seemed to run out in Phnom Penh as it rained much of the two days we were there. So we pretty much limited ourselves to vegging at the guesthouse and making limited excursions walking around the streets. On one of the nights we thought that we would try and go clubbing. However, we found that all the clubs we could find were in hotels. This basically meant that they were full of foreign businessmen and prostitutes. Add cheesy Chinese music to that and our Phnom Penh clubbing experience was over before it began.

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Date: 07/10/2005Views: 671

When celebrating last night, we decided to try our luck again here in Saigon. Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City) has about 12 million people and seems to be quite busy all the time. We went to a place called Apocalypse (Now?) with some English, Irish and Americans that we had met on the bus. We didn’t arrive at the club till just after 11, as one would back home. The club had decent music but wasn’t that busy. It wasn’t dead, but there was definitely a serious lack of buzz. The clientele again seemed to be mostly foreigners and prostitutes. By the time we got some beers and took a seat (no one seemed to be feeling dancing) we had 20 minutes before they turned off the music and started closing up. Yep, show’s over at midnight. Our one conversation with someone (late 30s white guy) went like this:

Guy: You guys been here long?
Us: No, maybe 15 minutes.
Guy: Yeah me too. You know what’s up with the girls here?
Us: No, we’re guessing they’re prostitutes.
Guy: All I want to know is how much and how safe is it.
Us: Uh, I dunno, maybe you should ask them.

So maybe the early close wasn’t such a bad thing.

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Date: 07/15/2005Views: 572

I really like Saigon. The pace is somewhat frenetic, which makes it simultaneously exciting and exhausting. Just walking around the streets for most of the day is really fun, but it takes a lot out of you. And as we had heard, the traffic is insane. It seems like all 12 million people that live here have motorbikes and are all using them at once. I’m not sure if it’s just Saigon, but Vietnam appears to be quite developed. It is around the same level of Thailand and noticeably wealthier than Laos and Cambodia. We’ll see if this holds true as we make our way up the coast and into the north.

So we took the fun route to Cambodia and it actually worked out. Everything we have been doing is on the regular tourist circuit and so there are VIP tourist buses plying the major routes and handling the connections. So far it hadn’t exactly been the romanticized version of roughing it on the roads in SE Asia that I had imagined. This time turned out to be a little more of an adventure. What appeared to be the most direct route from Vientiane (Laos) to Siem Reap (Cambodia) was not offered by any of the travel agencies. So Melissa and I decided to make it on our own with local buses. This ended up being closer to what I had imagined. We had to take 4 buses and several tuk-tuks, and there were no other foreigners along the way. We had to figure out our connections by asking the locals who barely spoke English and pass through towns not on the map or mentioned at all in the guide book.

Crossing into Cambodia you realize what a difference a border makes. Compared to Cambodia, and to a lesser extent, Laos, one really gets an appreciation for how developed and organized things are in Thailand. The border town of Poipet is 150km from Siem Reap, but the bus ride took over 6 hours. Imagine driving on a dirt road and hitting a big pothole. Now imagine going on a dirt road and all four of your tires hitting giant potholes at once. Now imagine that happening for 6 hours straight. Yes, serious air time. On top of that, I had a seat over the rear wheel housing. So I had to bend my legs into a fetal like position which made my knees hit the seat in front of me. It was kind of like being stuffed into a tiny suitcase. After a dinner stop 3 hours in, I decided to finish the journey by climbing onto the bags at the back of the bus. I think it was the best decision I have made this entire trip. Despite all this, the journey was pretty fun, it was dark and raining a lot at first. There was a certain charming ambiance of adventurous discomfort.

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Date: 07/09/2005Views: 649

Siem Reap is certainly an interesting town. The name means ”Thailand Defeated,” so you kind of get an idea about the feeling Cambodians have for their neighbours. This is due largely to the fact that Angkor Wat, the pride of the Cambodian nation, was once occupied by the Thais, who looted many of the artifacts from the temples. A few years ago, a Thai pop star mistakenly referred to Angkor Wat as being part of Thailand, which sparked violent anti-Thai riots in Cambodia. The town itself has plenty of luxury tourist hotels but the majority of its residents seem very poor.

To tour Angkor Wat Melissa and I rented bicycles and made our on way around the complex. At each temple children would run out and try and sell postcards, water, bracelets and such with incredible persistency. We spent the whole day biking around and looking at all the various temples and buildings. Angkor Wat is the name of the main building as well as the entire area. It was built by the Khmer empire (precursors to modern Cambodia) around the 12th century. The place is on a scale unlike anything else I have seen. I (and maybe you) sometimes think about how if someone from a long time ago saw the modern world they would be totally blown away. But seeing this made me think of how awe-inspiring it would have been to have seen this place at the height of its splendour.

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Date: 07/09/2005Views: 745

The way back from Angkor Wat capped an interesting day. We had to ride back in the dark, surrounded by a rush of motorcycles leaving Angor Wat. It was a little intense being surrounded by the chaotic traffic. On the way back we stopped for a free concert at the Children’s hospital. The concert was the director of the hospital playing Bach on the cello. He plays these concerts every week in order to raise money for the hospitals. There is no admission but of course you donate a little money. It was weird coming back from a tiring day around Angkor (we biked over 40km!) through crazy traffic and then finding ourselves in this peaceful concert in a very modern building in the style of the Isabel Bader Theatre back home.

Today we caught a bus down to Phnom Penh. We haven’t had much of a chance to explore yet, but it looks like there is a lot to see around here. I had initially been somewhat apprehensive about coming to Cambodia as we had heard not so great things from other travellers. One guy said he really liked it, but everyone else said it was expensive and stressful. We heard stories about people rushing on to the bus when you arrive and getting in your face about taking a taxi ride or coming to their guesthouse. People here are certainly more into pressure tactics and less willing to take no for an answer, but it is understandable given the poverty here. So far it hasn’t been as bad as I had feared and there have also been a lot of nice, friendly people. So it’s working out.