On to the next tempel

My first tempel

So we're still talking Angkor Wat, right, the place where I was one week ago. That Sunday, the tuktuk driver took me to see my first tempel. It looked enormously impressive. Back then it did. By now, I've become someting of a tempel-experienced person. Now I can say this tempel had very nice defined sculpture work which hasn't eroded yet. For the rest, it's quite a small one, actually. Kings used to build tempels for themselves, or their father or mother. I suppose this one was built for a mother-in-law.

It was beautiful though, so she must have been a kind lady.

Inside the tempel complex it's mostly quiet and peaceful. When you walk out, you're bombarded by little kids and women selling all kinds of books, postcards and memorabilia that you don't want or need. The kids can be very persistant. One girl followed me around for five minutes trying to get me to buy a bracelet for a dollar. Two bracelets for a dollar. Five bracelets for a dollar! I kept saying 'no, thank you', but that didn't discourage her. And I don't know the answer to the dilemma that giving them money makes them continue doing it, but that not giving them money doesn't really help either. She told me that 'with money I can go to school', which - of course - is a good line that almost made me sway. Instead I made my way back to the tuktuk and we rushed off.

Tuktuk road trip

Upon arrival, we hired this driver with his tuktuk for a day. He took us to Angkor Wat.

Where you going lady?

On my own in Phnom Penh these days. My visa to Vietnam - where I was supposed to travel to yesterday - isn't valid until saturday. I could buy a new one a day later, but it would have been kind of expensive. My travelmate was only prepared to stay behind with me if I covered all the extra costs. I decided Phnom Penh might be just as nice alone - and cheaper, too.

And it's been good these last days: having a fruit shake, watching the people go about their business, having massages... Everywhere I go, the tuktukdrivers ask me: Hey lady, where you going? My answer: 'i'm not sure'.

Had breakfast with a street kid this morning. We wanted to sell me a book, but I already had a book. I told him I could buy him some cookies for a dollar and he decided to have a Coke instead. He sat down across from me at the table like we were together and smiled. Picked up my book, looked through it and told me it was worth seven dollars if he sold it. He asked me how my country was and I told him about the cold and the great football players. When it comes down to it, that's probably all you need to know about Holland, I figured. Italy had great football players too, the boy knew. Yes, but ours are much better, remember that. He sipped his Coke and thought about it. Then he asked me again if I wanted to buy one of his books. I told him no. He didn't really seem to mind. My breakfast arrived and the boy never asked if he could have some of it. He was 10 years old. He looked healthy, but poor. Then he got up, got his box of books to sell, and said 'I go. Bye bye.' And he walked off.

On the road

According to the brochure the road from the border to Siem Reap varied from bad to very bad. First the road was very good, but after a while it changed to very bad. Lots of bumps, detours, kamikaze driver, most travellers probably know the drill...

And 'dusty' get knew meaning to it down here. See the car coming towards us? Look closely. We did....

Crossing the border

When we got to our hotel, it turned out the annual hell's angels meeting was being held there. Hundreds of motorcycles and biker dudes around. And us.

We didn't have time to catch a ride, though, because the next morning we had to leave for the border early.

Crossing the border was quite a literal thing, actually. First you stand in line, show the Thai office your passport, then you walk a few minutes and stand in line for the Cambodian office. When we were let into Cambodia, we walked into a different scene than a few hundred yards back. Where Thailand had an organised marketplace and lots of people going about their business, Cambodia had a lot of waste lying around and a lot of people sitting around watching us. And casinos.
A bus brought us to a tourist depot where you could transfer to cars or buses. A man who accompanied us throughout the border crossing pointed us to our driver and we set off for Siem Reap.

Met de trein naar de grens met Cambodja

Bangkok seems to be a phenomenon in itself, so I guess we haven't really seen Thailand yet. We did see Thai people up close, though. we took a train from Bangkok tot the border with Cambodia, which is officially four hrs, but takes about 7 in the real world. Third class is the only way to go, which means fighting yourself incl. backpack through rows and rows of Thai people who carry lots of stuff themselves.

Paul managed to get us two seats, though. After about one hr of sitting comfortably in our seats, guilt overcame us when we saw to elderly ladies standing and panting and wanting to sleep. One was given a seat on someone else's computer-in-a-box, the other got my seat.

Standing turned out to be much better than sitting. I could see everything that was going on in the train, people eating, listening to music, selling stuff. By the time we arrived at aranyapratet, it was dark outside and we had gotten it into our heads that we were about to be robbed by a Thai man wearing army pants and a gangster hat. He did no such thing, though....

Bangkok, part 2

I made it! I finally managed to get out of the country!

Paul and I are currently in Cambodia, enjoying a cocktail as we speak, but our program is so busy that i can't type a long message. maybe later. in the meantime some pics of our first 2 days in bangkok, which consisted mainly of great food, getting stuck in traffic, having a nice massage, seeing lots of tourists, and seeing lots of the vietnamese embassy....

And then we left on a small train for the border with C, where we spent the last 2 days looking at temples and tuktuks.

We know we are very lucky people, on all counts.

Impressions of Bangkok

First things first

Some people are rolling stones. I am not one of them. This is what I'm leaving behind. Or coming back to. :-)