Day Eleven – Cambodia

Greetings my little Buddha’s

Today is ‘Temple Tuesday’!!

By force of habit we are now awake around 5.45 waiting for our wake up call at 6.00am!

After breakfast we were collected by Som at 8.00 ish…he was a few minutes late as he clearly had ‘Som’ – thing else to do first!!

First stop Angkor Wat – built in the 12th Century. it is a very large Hindu temple (most of the others are Buddhist temples) but anyone who is Buddhists can now go and make offerings to the various G-ds. Head honcho of Angkor Wat was a G-d called Vishnu – he had ten hands (many hands make light work – and always good to take on a shopping trip!)

It is incredible how is was built and how it has sustained time. Everything had to be done by hand as there was no machinery around in those days and they had to use Elephants to move the huge slabs of sand stone. On the sides of the stone, hand carvings appear and most of the stories are depicted by G-ds and Devils. The stories have been written in ancient Cambodian – the only problem is no one can read them!!

As we were leaving Angkor Wat we were accosted by a bunch of Monkeys, a tribe of Monkeys, a herd of Monkeys????? What is the name for a whole load of Monkeys????
Anyway there they were – hundreds of them. Som, the tour man made a point of telling us that the company were not insured for any contact with animals – so we shouldn’t make nice!!! What did he mean??!!!!! Surely word hadn’t travelled to Cambodia?!!
There was one Monkey who was a Mummy Monkey with her baby hanging on to her tummy When it looked like she was in danger of other Monkeys, she attacked them. Meanwhile, the other Monkeys were working together…one distracts the public and the others take it upon themselves to steal from the ordinary folk watching them. One Monkey stole a womans lunch and brazenly just sat there munching away….. What a cheeky Monkey!!

Our next stop was a temple in Angkor Thom, (Ta Prohm) otherwise known as the Jungle Temple. This was my favourite temple and featured in the Indiana Jones – Temple of Doom film and also the Lara Croft film with the husband stealing Angelina Jolie (I’m a Jennifer Aniston fan!!) This temple is the one in all the guide books with the tree roots intertwined with the Temple walls…..incredible. Based on this one alone, you can see why it is one of the 7 wonders of the world.

Next it was off to Angkor something or other – a much smaller Temple known for its carvings and writings in the stone and the Buddha’s were protected by stone monkeys. However during the earlier VIetnamese wars, the Vietnamese baddies came and chopped off the monkey heads and sold them on the black market, so there are quite a lot of headless Monkeys.

Finally (thank goodness) was the last Temple – The Temple of Indy!! The smiling Buddha – otherwise known as The Bayon Buddha. Built in the 10th Century.

What makes all these Temples unbelievable is how long ago they were built, how intricate the details is on the stones bearing in mind everything was done by hand and how well they have been preserved, naturally.

We have Stone Henge – a few stones plonked together in a circle and we are so proud of them!!!! Makes you wonder!!

After the temples it was off to the Land mine Museum….not so much a museum but a school/home and centre for land mine victims and/or their families who had been blown up in landmine accidents or just missing a foot or two. This was opened and funded to a large extent by a chap called Aki Ra who as a young solider dedicated himself to finding and destroying land mines which were unexploded. Cambodia still have several thousand unexploded landmines (nearer 100,000) and the governments (especially Canada) are dedicated to finding and destroying them safely. I think America sends money, not man power, as it’s probably a little embarrassing for them as they dropped the bombs in the first place!!

After this it was off to the crocodile farm….. They have crocodiles ranging from about 1 year to 8 years old. Did you know crocodiles don’t have tongues???? We named them ‘Dundee’ One – Four!
Once they start getting too big, they are shipped onto somewhere else in Cambodia where they just wait to get old and then they are killed, skinned and made into belts, shoes and bags. Most of them get shipped out to Singapore where there is a big crocodile accessory industry……

The song “Never smile at a Crocodile” sprang to mind, so I did feel the need to sing it to them!! That’ll teach them!

Now we are Templed out!!

Our guide and drive brought us back to the hotel and arranged to collect us tomorrow – again at 8.00am – he has clear instructions – No Temples or Buddha’s!!

Left to our own devises we decided to walk into town to have lunch and a wander around the shops and day market.

I think I was unfair to Blackpool yesterday……I thought it looked bad at night….you want to see it during the daytime!! It’s a shit hole.

Whilst everything is probably cheaper here than in Vietnam, it’s almost like an imposition when you walk into a shop. You are a complete inconvenience. No one wants to serve you or for that matter is the remotest bit interested that you are there!! They should only know the rubbish I am capable of buying!!! The market traders are a little better as they appear to be working for themselves.

Next it was lunch…..we had narrowed it down to two restaurants (both Jessie recommendations) which had to be better than last night. We settled on 8th Street Cafe which had a bit of a Cafe Rouge feel to it (I use that in loose terms!) I was going to try Mong Bean salad but it sounded a bit too ‘special needs’ so I decided on the chicken. You can’t really go too wrong there!!

I also had a cocktail called Kryptonite!! Bit green! It had Vodka, Gin, Rum, Triple Sec (not sure what that is) Tequila, Blue Curacao and topped up with Red Bull. It will either give me super powers or wings!! It tasted a bit like Jelly……and so far I’m not exhibiting symptoms of either.

Whilst having lunch I was watching them change the fish in the fish eating skin tank that Indy went to last night. I thought I was going to throw up – especially when they were being fed what looked like ‘dead skin’ food. It would appear that the fish have a certain longevity….there are two tanks – the front one and the back one. The fish are removed from the back tank and added to the front tank and then what appear to be new fish are put in the back tank. I am hopeful that completes the cycle – only what happens to them after that is a bit of a mystery!! And…….how often does it all happen? Daily, weekly, monthly?? A ponderable!!

Next stop the foot massage shop…..I had a 30 minute foot massage and a manicure including nail varnish for $7….I think I overpaid but I was having a generous moment!! Indy had a manicure, pedicure and foot massage. A first for him on two out of three!!

The local Barbers don’t seem to need any qualifications either (or a shop)…they have a chair set up on the pavement and a mirror tacked up on fence.

Its all very sophisticated here!!

DInner tonight is in the hotel – whilst expensive at $30 per person!!!! (its all relative) it appears to be a fly free zone, clean, and attentive service………….

Cambodia – A bit more of day 11

How rude of me…….
I forgot to finish the email…….must have fallen asleep before I got to the end!!

Dinner was infact very nice and it was a relatively fly free zone as there are small pots of charcoal burning under every table….keeps the flies away but the midges do tend to come out at night….probably not helped much by the fact that we are on a river!! Don’t leave home without the mosquito repellant!! We unfortunately did.

Prior to dinner we were invited to a typically Khmar show…..the band sits on the floor with these kind of make shift instruments and the dancers in beautifully bright costumes do what appear to be very slow ‘pilates’ movements….could be a bit of yoga in there too. Oh….I forgot, they have a singer!!!! The singer goes from sounding like a cat to crescendoing to fox cries at night (( know this as we get foxes in the garden).

Fortunately for us, we were 15 minutes late and only had to endure the show and flies for 30 mins.

All in all – a fun filled tiring day and it all starts again tomorrow at 6.00am!!

On that note….

Manjana Banana

Love

A and Indy
xxxxxx