With the alarm off at 4:30 this was one of those times when the snooze button probably isn’t a good idea. We get dressed into our temple gear, without showering. We sort of made a group pact the day before that most of us wouldn’t shower and that we’d put up with the resulting stench. Sometimes sleep is just more important.
As it’s early in the morning we make the temples quite quickly, and amazingly there are already folks there selling stuff. Rafaele buys a coffee to get him started. The sunrise over the temple is supposed to be an amazing sight on a good day. We’ll have to take others’ word for it because clouds pretty much obscured the sunrise completely, so the net effect was it just got lighter. Not my favourite use of a 4:30 rise, plus over an hour waiting at the temple for the sun to come up.
With god clearly angry with us we crack on with the temple tour of Angkor Wat, the early morning doing nothing to dampen the details churned out by Vantha. The temple is quite a sight, the main focus being a centre tower surrounded on four corners by four slightly lower towers, and originally there were another set surrounding those, which though still visible are clearly not in the same good shape the others are. The towers form the shape of the lotus flower which apparently looks pretty neat from the air. There are more fantastic carvings depicting tales which Vantha guides us through, and as we go around he enthuses about the engineering feats of not only building the place, but even to the extent of the drainage. Apparently even the practicalities of what to do with the rainy season waters was taken care of all those centuries ago.
After we finish exploring the splendour of Angkor Wat temple we stop for breakfast at a place situated near to Angkor Wat itself. My egg sandwich was smashing and Mrs Tom’s banana pancake was not bad, but what everyone marvelled over was the opportunity for a proper cup of tea, something which we’d all been craving. With proper milk too (opposed to sweetened condensed milk in most places). It was so nice Steven has two cups.
After breakfast we take the 45 minute trip to our last temple, much smaller than the others. It’s special property is it’s red tinted limestone which was used to make it. Unfortunately its small size and the fact we apprear to arrive at the same time as the Japanese world record attempt at number of people in a small temple means things are a little cramped. Nevertheless Mrs Tom, on camera duty for the day, gets a few good snaps of the place and its high points and we set off back to the coach. Temples of Angkor Wat, done. Well not quite, we’ve actually barely scratched the surface, but it’s all the main ones we’re going to see anyway.
On the way back to the hotel we stop at a landmine museum ran by a chap called Aki Ra. He was actually a child soldier for the Khmer Rouge who laid up to 1000 landmines a day whilst working under the oppressive regime. At 14 he defected and joined the Vietnamese army fighting the resistance against Pol Pot, and when they eventually pulled out he joined the Cambodian national liberation (think that’s what it was called). When he was young Aki Ra didn’t understand the horrid implications of what he was doing with the mines, but when he did realise, driven by guilt and a desire to undo his bad deeds, this inspired his defection to the good side and he set about de-mining. With an acute knowledge of mines from his days laying and building them, dismantling them is a piece of cake for him. Sadly though because no proper maps exist of where mines are laid, the job of removing them is not a simple one. Add to that the aerial dropping of mines by the Americans in their conflict with Vietnam and you have a large scale issue. The museum was setup to provide an awareness of the dangers of mines an unexplored bombs, and to bring attention to the cause of de-mining. There are thousands of deactivated landmines in the museum, yet this is a small portion of what Aki Ra has achieved. He has also trained others to carry out his work, including the Cambodian army. There is a worldwide pledge to rid the planet of landmines by a certain date, giving 10 years to complete the project. That date is nearly up, and Cambodia is being granted an extension, such is the scale of the problem here.
Something strikes as not quite right though when viewing the museum exhibits. There was a global movement to end the use of landmines in warfare due to their destructive long term nature, but there is a list of countries who have failed to sign up. Some you might expect, but one big one you’d think would know better. The USA. They are also on a list of countries still actively manufacturing land mines. Come on America, sort it out. Oddly Vietnam has not managed to find its way onto both “good” lists yet, and after all the problems they’ve had you might think they’d be barging to the front to be first to the pen.
Given our early start we were due another nap, one which for us turned into a full 3 hour kip, once we’d gotten back from the temples and the museum. We had planned to get up an hour earlier and clean up and sort some of our stuff out, but sleeping won.
After the mega-kip we had a little boat trip to a floating village in an enormous lake (whose name I’ve forgotten) measuring 140x40km, and home to the largest stock of fresh water fish in the world. After a short bus ride to the boat we board and set off along the river towards to village. There are boats along the way with children playing and dogs and chickens on board too. As the river and the lake water levels rise and fall so dramatically because of the rains in the rainy season, folks who live in the floating village have to move their houses (either proper boats or hours built on rafts) as the lake’s levels levels begin to drain. Throughout the year they are moving from place to place as the levels rise and fall, leading to a rather nomadic lifestyle for the folks of the floating village. As we reach the main part of the village our boat is chased down by a small powered boat with a young boy and presumably his father on board. The little lad jumps across to our boat and tries to sell us drinks from a cold bucket. Pretty much like being invaded by pirates it was. Though rather enterprising, Vantha has warned us it’s not a good idea to buy from them as it encourages this sort of behaviour and so we politely let the lad go back to his own boat where he picks up his snake again – did I mention he had a snake in the boat with him?
Eventually we reach the mid section of the village where there is a small place with information about the it and the practices of the villagers which Vantha talks us through, and we look at a fish farm and a crocodile pen they have at the site for us to look us. Not convinced the crocs get a good deal, I think they are quite likely doomed. Once we’ve looked round and Vantha has talked us through everything we have a quick look around and buy a drink, then it’s back on the boat for the return journey. On the way back Gaynor’s question about what the children do for education is answered – a floating school of course. Mrs Tom tells me there was also a floating church which I never saw. Genius. Once we’ve made our way back to dry land, we disembark the boat and head for the bus. As we’ve come to expect we are ambushed by children trying to sell us postcards and bangles and what have you, but there is a twist this time. Rather resourcefully they are waving little plates at us, the centre of which contains a picture of each of us, a bit like the log flume at the theme park. Incredible, but still not really what anyone wants, and probably not long term helpful for us to buy from them anyway.
After the bus trip back to the hotel we say goodbye to Vantha and our driver of the last two days and get back into the hotel with about an hour to go until our farewell dinner tonight. Though tomorrow still counts as part of the tour it is everyone’s leaving days with flights booked at different times, so no excursions are planned. Darren, Steven and Summer for example all have early morning flights, and Barry and Gaynor fly out at 1pm. That just leaves us, with our extra night booked at the hotel and a 7:30pm flight booked for the following day, the only ones left. Even Rafaele is leaving tomorrow, so we’ll be truly on our own.
Rafaele has booked our final dinner together in a place which appears to be in a small marketplace of nothig but restaurants. It’s called Amok (or Amor, I’m not 100% but given Amok is the national dish I think it’s more likely) and everyone orders their grub. Tonight everything runs very smoothly and we all get what we order very quickly, and everyone is pleased with their food. The longest part of the meal comes when we all want to pay and they try to work out our separate bills. Once that’s out of the way we empty out onto the streets, and all except Rafaele hit the market.
The previous night when in the market we discovered the “fish massage” phenomenon. Rafa had told us that the original place started inside the market and was called Dr Fish, but now there are dozens of the places, all called the same. Basically you dip your feet into a tank filled with loads of small fish and they eat yor feet. They sort of clean them by eating away your dead skin, and in doing so kind of masage them too. Everyone except Gaynor and Barry has a go and the little buggers go crazy for my feet, dozens of them nibbling away. Initially the sensation was of an electric shock as they all started prodding my feet. That sensation then turns to tickling, with most of us giggling away for a minute or two. Eventually you are used to the tickling and settle in to the experience. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a massage, but it’s a pleasant enough experience, and it probably does some good. I need to look up the breed of fish though as nowhere seems to indicate what it is, perhaps we can get a tankful at home.
Once fully eaten up we head off back to a bar called Angkor What? (see what they’ve done there?) where poor Rafa has been holding a table for 8 for over half an hour on his own, and it’s damn busy. It’s also very very loud, and I feel a bit sorry for Gaynor and Barry that we’ve chosen this place for our farewell drinks as it’s clearly not their kind of scene. I have a word with Darren and we decide to pop somewhere quieter so that we can have a good old chat about the trip first, with a view to coming back to this place afterwards as it’s open til 3. Unfortunately it’s a little too much for Gaynor who starts to feel a bit unwell so her and Barry decide to leave earlier, so we follow them out into the street to say our goodbyes. Farewell Barry and Gaynor, it was great travelling with you, thanks for being part of our fantastic experience.
Even with Gaynor and Barry gone we still want somewhere where we can reflect on our trip so we choose a quieter bar at the other end of “pub street” and pull up some chairs there. We discuss our favourite and least favourite parts of the trip, though I don’t really think anyone had any low points, and I also have a chat with Rafa about his past life as a project manager before he set off for India, and finally became a tour guide in South East Asia. Just one drink in this bar is enough for us to spill out our feelings about the trip and be a bit nostalgic, then it was back to Angkor What? to get pretty darn drunk.
There is beer, cocktails and shots consumed, Darren dances on a table, we take stupid pictures, do a lot of silly dancing and generally exactly what you might expect. We have a jolly good time basically. Angkor What? is a bar where there is graffiti covering the entire inside, and most of the outside. Stuff daubed by travellers over the years it’s been open. I manage to find a small unoccupied space right at the top of a pillar and scrawl “Raff’s Dec 2009 crew!!” there to mark our visit. When the place finally closes at 3 we get a tuk tuk back to the hotel, and after taking some more silly pictures with a cyclo that the hotel has sitting next to the lift, we say our goodbyes and hug each other before disappearing to bed. That was the last time we would see each other on the trip.
Farewell Summer, Steven, Darren, and of course our lovely leader Rafaele. It was brilliant travelling with you all, the group experience made it for me. I hope to see everyone from the trip again one day, all of you.
Tired, drunk and a little emotional (me anyway) we plop ourselves down and sleep our final “tour” sleep.