Angkor Awakening

What dreams did you have when you were a little boy?
This may be hard to believe but I've always wanted to go to Cambodia, even as a child. There was one thing that drew me to this country; this country that is war torn, developing, and far away. Angkor Wat. Everybody has either heard of this sacred place regardless of what background you come from. I've always wanted to travel to Cambodia to see this great site myself. I achieved this goal in the first quarter of my life. Being able to experience all this as a young person makes great marks in my life and I hope it will continue to do so.

We arrived in Siem Riep after a 5 hour bus ride from Phnom Penh. There was definitely more leg room in this bus but it didn't compensate for the horrible road conditions and the numerous pot holes that kept us from falling asleep on the bus. After getting a sore but and a sore back we emerged from our cocoon of a bus and were bombarded by Tuktuk drivers. A young man with an honest faced asked us if we needed travel arrangements to our hotel and we said yes and we were able to get 4 tuktuks for the 12 of us as these were smaller tuktuks. We got to our hotel and we checked out the rooms. They werent the greatest but considering how much they cost they were reasonable. We didn't want to settle for something uncomfortable for a good 3 nights so we hunted down for the same company in Phnom Penh and found their location called The Pavillon Indochine and decided to switch hotels next morning. For the rest of the night we just went out for dinner, toured the Old market area and headed home for an early night as we had a long day ahead of us. For dinner we went to a Khmer BBQ buffet which was only 5.95 and we even ordered some special meat. What is special meat? Well we ordered crocodile, snake, ostrich, and Kangaroo. The dinner was excellent and amazingly cheap and we stuffed ourselves silly. We found out our Tuktul driver's name, Tola - which means october in Khmer, and agreed upon a price with him.

The next morning the drivers were there waiting for us at 5 in the morning and drove us to the Pavillon Indochine. We dropped off our things and raced to the Angkor park as we were hoping to watch the sunrise over Angkor Thom. A day pass at Angkor park cost us $20 which is less then a fee to get into an amusement park. Our tuktuk drivers drove to Angkor Thom, which is a city within the park and houses many temples. Our first stop was the temple of Bayon which Tola recommended to us because the sun would rise above the temple towers which were 4 faced buddha heads and each head would arise and face towards the viewer. It was a magnificent site and we spend a good hour and half exploring Bayon. We made our way to Baphuon which was one of the earlier temples on the Angkor Thom site. It was under heavy reconstruction and is also one of the larger temples though not as embellished as Bayon. Baphuon had the largest vertical laying down buddha. We decided that we were all going to go for an elephant ride. Vania and I got on a big one and we named it Flappy at first cause of it's ears. But it was soooo slow that all the other elephants were passing it so we decided to call it Carl cause that sounded like a slow name. Well the elephant ride was fun and after a good 20 minutes we were all knackered and wanted breakfast. We decided to head back to our hotel for a free breakfast and man was it ever a good decision. Though our Tuktuk drivers said that it would cost more fuel we told them that it would be no problem and would pay them more at the end of the day. The breakfast we had was just as amazing as the one on Phnom Penh but with more selections including croissants, omelletes and different juices. After breakfast we laid down for a few minutes to rest up. We headed back to the Angkor park in the afternoon to hit up Te Phrom and of course Angkor Wat. Te Phrom was our first stop and it was quite far away. Do you remember tomb raider? Well this is where they shot the 2nd movie. Te Phrom is one of the oldest temple complexes in the Angkor park and it is very evident by the growth of vegetation over the temples and the rubbles on the ground. Te Phrom was exciting and easy to get lost in and a thunder shower started to emerge halfway into our visit. We spent a good few hours there and went off to lunch at a restaurant in the park. During this time our Tuktuk driver was actually trying to fix his tuktuk and he finally returned after lunch. He took us to Angkor Wat and this was the moment most of us were waiting for.















Angkor Wat is the largest temple in the park and the main attraction. It is the largest sacred religious complex in the world. It houses both hinduistic culture and buddhist culture as the Khmer continue to be buddhist but look to their indic origins. The bridges are adorned with Naga Balustrades. Nagas are snake like creatures with multiple heads who protect the pathway to sacred structures. We made our way through the initial stone path that leads from the mainland past the moat on to the island the temple rests on. We had to battle through many children vying for our sales of postcards and nicknacks. One of the kids knew everything about canada. She asked me where I'm from and told me the capital of Canada (Ottawa) our two languages and our Prime Minister (Stephen Harper). I was very impressed but not enough to buy postcards and I said I might buy some when I returned. We went through the gates of Angkor which was massive in itself. Through the gate we entered into another large area called the terrace where our stone path led to the main central complex. Once we were in the main complex we toured around the outside which were famous for the engravings of various hindu stories of Rama, Hanuman and other characters. We finally entered the center and made a steep climb up. The great topples of the temple loomed above us and it was an impressive sight to behold. We wanted to stay for the sunset but it was only 4 and the sun set would begin around 6. We were tired and dehydrated and though the temples were magnificent to behold we were barely the gods the resided in this sacred ground. We headed back out while two of our group decided to stay to take pictures of the sunset. We battled our way back to our Tuktuks. The girl gave me the poutiest look because I didn't want to buy postcards. We headed back to our hotel and let Tola go because it had been a long day. We gave him $25 for the day and he was very surprised and told us that it was too much! We told him to keep it and that he deserved it for the long day especially with the debacle of his motorbike. He was very thankful and said that it was his birthday and was thankful for the great tip we gave him. We told him that we wanted him to pick us up for dinner tomorrow night and show us to an Apsara Dance Buffet dinner. Little did he know we were intending to treat him out for his birthday.




The next morning we went out to the floating village near the canals of Tonle Sap. Our hotel arranged a mini bus for us to take us out there and included the boat for us as well. The floating village was an amazing site as people lived and earned the living in the water. There were fisheries, pig farms, a power plant of sorts, basketball court, and churches in the water. Most of the people were ethnically vietnamese but mixed in heavily with khmer. We went to a fish and crocodile farm and saw what we ate the night before. We were all very drained from the last few days and just headed back to the hotel for some good pool side relaxing. I booked a massage appointment at four but spent a good time tanning by the pool and swimming. The massage at our hotel was cheap and very good. I passed out every time I had a massage. I would stick my ipod earphones on and float away. It was a shame the massage could not last forever. At 6:30 Tola came to pick us up in his Tuktuk and took us to the buffet. We invited him and he was very surprised. He told us that he had never eaten in a place like this before because it was too expensive. We shared our stories with him and he shared his and he told us that we were very lucky to be in University. He was the provider for his family because his parents had passed away when he was 18. He had a brother and a sister to provide for. He said he wanted to be a bad boy when he was younger but he strove to work in a good hotel nowadays. He met a swedish guy who told him that he would support his schooling and also gave him 185 USD which helped him get into the Tuktuk business. We were very moved by his stories and switched contact information with him in order to keep in touch and hopefully help him with his dream. We watched the Apsari dance and finished dinner and made our way back to the hotel. He thanked us again and we gave him his pay. It was sad to have him as our driver for the last time but we knew that he would get places with his ambition. We stayed up watching movies and drinking so that we could stay up till 6 for our bus pick up the next morning to Saigon via Phnom Penh. However, the bus never came.

We woke up next morning all packed and ready but our bus never came to pick us up. We called the company and found out that they were not willing to pick us up as we were too far away so we got a minivan to take us to the bus stop. We got to the bus stop and found that the bus had left. We were outraged and beyond belief. My roommate and another one of our group decided to go report this to the police and bring them to the companies' office. Half an hour later my roommate and our friend showed up in a camry with the manager of the Pavillon. The manager ran out apologizing to us saying it was his fault as one of his staff forgot to mention the phone call the bus company made to warn us. He arranged a minibus to take us all the way to Phnom Penh to meet our bus there. We got a large size mercedes people carrier with a speedster of a driver. We felt bad for the manager as we knew he did not make a profit from us during our stay but were very thankful and told him that we would recomment his hotel to anyone that came to cambodia. Our speed demon weaved us around traffic and got us to Phnom Penh an hour early while we were blasting music from our Ipods into a tape connector he had. We got on our bus at Phnom Penh but one of our friend's Visa was mistakenly given a one time entry and had to stay another night in Cambodia. We got on our bus and made our way to Saigon. This was suppose to be a 6 hour bus ride at most but it ended up being almost 8 hours as we arrived in Saigon nearly 10 at night and checked into our hotel. This last little bit of the trip was our only hiccup but I don't think it'd be quite an experience in SE Asia if you didn't have one of these mess ups. We were safe the whole time and though we were all quite fustrated we came out alive, well and in good spirits. The rest of our stay in Saigon is not worth highlighting as it involved alot of shopping, bargaining, and getting offended by sale bitches.

I'm glad you've stayed with me this long on my little journey. Cambodia and Vietnam have been both amazing experiences and the only regret I have is that I only had a glimpse of it. I will be back in Cambodia again for sure and the amazing hospitality of the people there will keep me going back for sure. Thank-you Cambodia for my little awakening and in however many years time may I come to see your country awake again to its former Khmer glory.