We flew from Saigon to Siem Reap in Cambodia.  The airport was very small and appeared to be brand new.  Alecia and I each gave the immigration officials one passport photo and $20USD.  While we were waiting for our visas I went to the ATM to get some cash.  I was surprised to see that it dispensed US currency.  It had been a long time since I have seen our greenbacks.  I forgot that the money is a little more colorful these days.  The customs officials handed us our visas and we headed into the luggage area.  Alecia’s bag was ready and on our way through customs there was a drop box for the customs forms.  It appeared that checkpoint was closed for the day so we were apparently on the “honor system.”

Every new destination poses it’s challenges when you leave the airport.  There is typically a barrage of people who want to take you in their “taxi.”  The hard part is trying to distinguish who is legitimate and who is not.  Fortunately there was an organized service in the front so we got into a taxi after pre-paying the fare to our hotel.

The first thing I noticed was that the driver sits on the right side of the car and they also drive on the right side of the road.  This seems to be  a combination of British and U.S. driving styles.  Alecia asked the driver if malaria was as big of a problem as we have heard.  The driver gave a chuckle and said “Oh yes!”.  He told us that he sleeps in a mosquito net every night.  I was glad we had multiple tubes of heavy duty repellent, and that we had been taking malaria medication.

The driver asked if we had already booked a tour.  We have learned from our past experiences that this statement is usually followed by some sales pitch.  The driver told us he had an English speaking friend who could show us around the temples.  I was a little hesitant to book with the guy and so we ended up taking his business card and told him we would give him a call if we needed his services.

Our hotel for the night was FCC Angkor.  It was a small boutique hotel that used to be the house of some French government official.  We were checked into the Pamelo room.  It was very nice and did not have any mosquitos lingering around.  I booked a tour of the temples for the next day.

At 6:30 am our breakfast showed up, which was quite a surprise because it was supposed to be there at 7am.  The food on the tray did not look like what we ordered, but it was close enough so we started to eat it.  The hotel staff came later to tell us they have given us somebody else’s breakfast.  Oh well…

We met our guide and driver in the lobby at 8:30.  Our guide introduced himself and said we could call him “David.”  We got into the car and David began to tell us a little recent history of Cambodia.  As many of you know, Cambodia was home to the “Killing Fields.”  According to David the brutal reign of the Khmer Rouge lasted 3 years 8 months and 20 days.  He mentioned that most of the Cambodian intellectual people had been killed during that time.  Only 69 remained.  Most of them had been saved because they pretended to be stupid.  It seems that Pol Pot and his friends wanted to create some sort of communist utopia.  So after they ousted the French they sent all the people to work in the fields.  Money, possessions and education were outlawed.  Everything from pictures to music was banned and destroyed.  Anybody who did not want to go along with this plan was executed.

David said, “When Pol Pot came to trial, all the Cambodian people really wanted to know was “why?”  Why did they have to suffer so much?”

David also told us stories of when he was a child.  They lived near the coast of Cambodia when he was eight years old.  Each day he would go up to the jungle on the mountain and look for old shells and bullets.  He would then take them to the market to sell them for food.  He also mentioned that his father had been killed by a land mine and he has never seen a picture of him because all photos had been destroyed during the rule of Pol Pot.   His mother had been killed by a bomb.

After hearing all of this you would think that this would make a person very bitter and angry but  David seemed to be quite the opposite.  He was very cheery and optimistic about his future and the future of his fellow countrymen.

Land mines are a big problem in Cambodia.  When they were at war with Vietnam, each side placed thousands of land mines throughout the country.  David said as a kid they would play with unexploded bombs/mines.  This continued until one of his friends was killed while they were messing around with one.  As we drove around the country side we saw many signs about fields that have been cleared of mines.  It was a stark reminder how much of  a problem the mines still pose.

Our first destination of the day was the ticket booth for the temples.  We each paid $20USD for one day passes.  After that we headed on over to the most famous of all Cambodian temples, Angkor Wat.  As we got out of the car we were surrounded by little kids selling books and necklaces.  We managed to fend them off and headed toward the temple.  It was a massive site surrounded by a causeway and a moat.  David explained that all temples had  a moat around them.  He also mentioned that the temples have gone from Hindu to Buddhist and back to Hindu over the centuries.  We walked over and saw one of the main “galleries”.  It was incredible.  This massive wall had hand carved images of a big battle between demons and monkeys.  David tried to explain the whole thing, but I got lost trying to keep track of all the Hindu gods and goddesses.

We spent the next hour wandering around the site.  Parts of it were under repair.  It was easy to see how the elements and vandalism have taken their toll on sites like Angkor Wat.  It was rare to see a Buddha statue with a head attached.  Most of them had been cut off and sold for money.

There was another gallery that was being repaired and we were able to see part of it.  The story was about the creation of the world.  Basically there were some demons, monkeys, gods, a huge snake and a mountain.

Out the back side of Angkor Wat we were able to get some good photos and also watch the local monkeys play around.  On our way back I stopped to buy a cold Coke.  The minimal price for any tourist is $1USD because they do not use U.S. coins.

We saw three other temples that day.  Each one was very unique and in various states of repair or disrepair.  One of the coolest ones was the “Tomb Raider” temple.  It had been used to film some scenes in the Tomb Raider movie.  The neat thing about the site was that it was still under repair,  so a lot of the rocks were still covered by huge trees and plants.  It felt like I was in an Indiana Jones moving looking for some lost treasure.

Another temple had a really steep stair case to climb up.  It was much steeper than the temples down in Mexico.

We ate lunch at a local tourist restaurant.  The food was really good.  Outside some kids were selling flutes and wooden boats.  I decided to buy some for a few kids back in Shanghai.  Once I showed interest a few other kids came over.  None of them had shoes, and they were probably between 6 to 10 years old.  I bought two flutes and one wooden boat.  It always breaks my heart to see kids in poverty.

At the last temple of the day we were bombarded by kids selling stuff.  Alecia ended up buying some more gifts.  We really hoped that the money went to putting food in their bellies.  On the way  into the temple, some little kids had made crowns out of leaves and were singing songs for money.

That night we ate dinner at the hotel.  The food was excellent and we managed to avoid any mosquitos.

We had been so happy with our guide David, that we asked him if could take us on another tour the next day.  He picked us up at 8:30 again and drove us to a small temple way out in the country.  The road was very narrow and you could see a lot of the local housing along the way.  Most of the people had hardly any money and lived in very simple homes build on stilts.  In the day time they rest in hammocks underneath the homes.  At night they sleep upstairs.

The temple we saw was very small but was well known for very nice stone carvings.  It was impressive to see all of the detail that was put into it.

The next stop was the biggest lake in Southeast Asia.  It is also probably the most fertile lake in the world.  I read in the Lonely Planet book that 80% of the protein that Cambodian’s eat comes from this lake.  We drove down some dirt roads that had a  lot of potholes.  David explained that the water level changes so much that they have to rebuild the dirt road every year.  It was hard to imagine that the road would be underwater in the rainy season because we were so far from the lake.  All along this road people lived in small shacks on stilts.  Most of the kids had barely any clothes and almost never had shoes.  There were no bathrooms and no running water.  Only a few “clean water” wells were available for use.

David took us down to a boat area where we paid $40 to rent a boat for a couple hours.  As we were getting onto a boat, a young girl came up and took our pictures with a digital camera.  I was not sure what it was all about.  We got on a boat that was made of wood and was long and skinny.  The motor was loud and smokey, and the propeller shaft could be adjusted to different water depths.

As we motored down the river to the lake we were boarded by some kids in a small boat.  They were selling sodas.  After we said we did not want any, they jumped back into their little boat and went off to sell to other tourists.  We passed a floating school on the way out to the lake.  David explained that half the money we pay goes to the school.  We finally made it to the lake.  It was rather impressive because you could not see the other side.  There were also many floating “homes” lined up near the shore.  We went up and down the rows and finally ended up at a floating restaurant/gift shop.  David said he wanted us to see the crocodiles.  As soon as we got off a little girl came up to us with a python draped over her neck.  She kept saying “one dollar”, “one dollar”.  Alecia was a little freaked by the situation.  We made our way over to the crocodile area and took a couple pictures.  On the way back to the car we saw a lot of school kids who were commuting back to their floating homes in small little boats.

When we got out of the boat and back into the car we were approached by the girl that took our pictures.  She had made small decorative plates with our pictures pasted into the middle of them.  I was impressed with her cleverness and said I would like to buy them.  The pictures look funny.

David drove us to the airport where we caught our flight to Denang then Singapore.

Cambodia was an amazing place.  The people were extremely nice and the scenery was outstanding.  I would really like to  go back there some day.

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