Siem Reap, Angkor and way too many pictures

Sealed roads all the way to and through Siem Reap. Huge hotels, restaurants, tourist-only souvenir markets, neon lights and bars. The difference between the pot-holed dirt roads and wooden shacks of ten years ago was shocking, even if I had read about it prior.



The instant digital photo ticketing system, regular ticket checks throughout the Angkor area, restaurants and hordes of tourists was another shock that being forewarned did nothing to lessen.

Renting motorbikes is now forbidden throughout Siem Reap, and the tuk tuk drivers have a pricing system that reflects the cost of the police bribes/licenses required to operate. We did manage to rent a motorbike for one day at a ridiculous rate, with the admonition that parking anywhere near the regular tuk tuk routes could net us a $300 fine from the police. The one transport improvement from my previous visit is that the new roads make cycling around all the major temples an easy ride even on old bone-shakers.

For the first day of our three day ticket we set off well before dawn and skipped the mass of people waiting at the designated sunrise picture spot to snatch a quiet hour in Angkor Wat, only slightly marred by restoration work.

Phnom Bakheng was deserted, seemingly out of favour with the tuk tuk hordes, perhaps because of the steep hilltop climb. Another crane and more restoration work. My fond memory of catching an off-duty elephant and handler by this temple and begging a free bareback ride seems like a laughably impossible scenario these days.

By the time we got to Angkor Thom and the Bayon the place was swarming. So many guides giving broken explanations in a dozen languages. More cranes, too. Best view from outside.

Preah Pithu is a nice spot that seems to have escaped the horde's notice.

Hoping to get a look at the West Baray we cycled out of Angkor Thom and inadvertently picked up two boys on bicycles who wanted to 'practice their English' and later nag us for money. The conversation was interesting though. One boy had no money, poor English and lived with his grandmother since his parents were dead or absent. The other boy's parents owned a cow. He was obviously better off and more interested in conversation than money. "Do you have a cow?" wins the best straight line of the year award eleven months early.

Elephant Terrace and some place that's far too big to be ignored, but about which I have no recollection. Too many world-class sights in too small an area/too short a time.

Ta Prohm, or the 'jungle temple', has had its heart, soul and atmosphere torn out and replaced with fencing, construction, wooden walkways, 'no entry', 'tourist flow' signs and photo platforms. My last visit to the Angkor area was less about the grand temples and more about the atmosphere of exploration and discovery. Wandering around a deserted broken-down temple, getting lost in dead-ends, hidden nooks and crannies, imagining how it must have felt to have re-discovered the ancient ruins all those years ago. Ta Prohm has become a model example of how to destroy that atmosphere and replace it with a stale, generic, 'walk this way' 'queue for photo shoot here' experience. Safe, controlled and extremely dull. Nice photos though.

Siem Reap's development does mean that western food, hotels and amenities are easily available for anyone that wants them. Bread and croissant better than anything I've had in seven years of Japan was a welcome surprise. The excellent Korean barbecue with unlimited side dishes we had one night was another. We generally tried to keep our costs down by eating 'Cambodian', but since the Cambodian food is either priced in dollars and adapted to suit foreigners, or priced in Riel with a tendency to congealed blood, guts, bits and bones, we mostly went for the former. The 'genuine' food was generally only served in limited time windows and/or only available to take away in vinyl bags. One such take-out we tried smelt so much like congealed vomit we had to bin it. We did have one success, with a pineapple fish soup, curry with wibbly bits and a 'salad' that was almost pure ginger. We kept coming back at the wrong times of day to try a second sample of the stall's cooking though.

For the second day of our three-day ticket we rented an off-road bike and went a little further afield.

Banteay Srei

Banteay Samre

Phnom Bok. After a long climb I found a lone guy chopping wood, who offered me tea and guided me around, despite not speaking a word of English.

Chau Srei Vibol was tricky to find. We stopped at a deserted T-junction well out of town. While we were peering at a map and wondering whether or not to back-track, a guy on a scooter pulled up by us and offered to take us there - back the way we came about 5km. Turns out he taught at a school by the ruins, and wanted us to teach English for awhile in exchange for the directions.

Was he on a break? Cruising for foreigners? (we hadn't seen any for hours) At least the request seemed innocent enough.

All the kids playing in the dusty yard ran into the classroom as we approached, one of three rooms in the concrete block building. The teacher was young, about 24, with only a year of English school and a few months of university behind him. The kids ranged from 15 to 18 and for many of them this was their first English lesson. A few young monks sidled in later. The lesson was 'When/How do you go to school?', but when we went round for one-on-one introductions everyone stumbled on 'how old are you?' so we mostly just stuck to names and handshakes. Everyone seemed happiest just having us field questions, translated by the teacher, about us and our travels. Lots of giggling when marriage and kids inevitably came up. We're still exchanging e-mails, addressed to 'my brother and sister', signed off with 'love' and packed full of questions from the kids.

Preah Ko

Bakong

On the third (non-consecutive) day of our ticket we finally found the Angkor experience I'd been looking for. By cycling straight past the two main draws of Angkor Wat and the Bayon we managed to get to Preah Khan by dawn, well before anyone else arrived. Big enough to get lost in, broken enough to have rubble piles to clamber over and hidden secrets to uncover, deserted and quiet enough to explore at our leisure.

We visited Angkor Wat one last time to say goodbye, and on the top tier we saw a lot of tourists asking to have their pictures taken with a group of monks. In a surprise role-reversal, five monks individually asked to have their pictures taken with Hozumi.