Let me tell you something about Cambodia. Perhaps you'd like to hear about our afternoon as celebrities in a floating town. No doubt my description of tasting the best crab ever on an undeveloped tropical island would make you a tad envious. And naturally I am itching to try and convey the sheer scale of the temples at Angkor Wat.Incredibly, we might not have gone to Cambodia at all.
Back in London, I had heard mixed reviews about neighbouring Vietnam. Folks who had been several years ago complained of hassle. People who visited more recently usually loved the country. So before we saw our first conical hats or stepped foot in Hanoi, it seemed safe to assume that Vietnam had improved in the past few years. In fact, Peter and I enjoyed it so much we extended our visa.
Cambodia on the other hand, was universally lauded. Friends and former colleagues in London raved about it, particularly the incredible warmth and friendliness of its people. Amazing considering they endured the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970's and the civil war that followed. However, a few months ago when we started talking with tourists en route, they painted a very different picture.
“You were in Cambodia before here?” I asked a traveller in Vietnam. “What's it like?”
“Well,” She paused, perhaps trying to be diplomatic. “Angkor Wat is amazing.”
That's what everyone says but I still had no idea what the ancient Khmer temples were actually like.
“But what's it like travelling there? What about the food? The people?” I asked.
“It's okay,” She said. “There's a lot of hassle.”
I conjured up images of aggressive vendors, pushy taxi drivers and dishonest hotel employees.
“More than here?” I asked. Although apparently better than it used to be, Vietnam still had a fair amount of overly keen touts, particularly in the south.
“Yeah, it's worse than here.”
I asked a lot of travellers about Cambodia and each time, the same conversation played out. I still knew next to nothing about Angkor Wat and over all was bracing myself for a pretty unpleasant experience.
I didn't know what to think. Were Cambodians spectacularly friendly or a nation of touts? Places change after all and Vietnam seemed to have changed for the better. What if Cambodia had changed for the worse?
We toyed with the idea of just going to Angkor Wat (they say it's “amazing”). Afterwards, we could hightail it over the border to Thailand where we could easily spend our allotted “Cambodia time” in peace and red curry comfort. Appeased knowing we could always leave early, we decided to give it a try.
One of our first stops was Kampot, a quiet riverside town. The guidebook described ageing colonial architecture and a laid back feel. Consequently, we were certain Kampot would be bursting with tourists, but incredibly there weren't many at all. We were the only foreigners at the market where we bought noodle soup, a set of dominoes and a hipster baseball cap for me. The hat reads, “Hollywood American Berkeley 1986 X-Men” with a picture of James Bond. Peter unstitched the “X-Men”. One too many conflicting messages we thought.
We took a daytrip to Bokor Hill, a former French Colonial Hill Station, perched at the top of a national park. It has been abandoned for years and the old hotel and casino are now covered in bright orange moss, their battered cement staircases falling to pieces from exposure. While I was pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the peeling paint, I was even more delighted with the honesty of our tour guide.
Our guide Viet, told us Bokor Hill has been sold to a petroleum company who has shelled out US$20m to pave the road and plans to develop the site into a luxury tourist resort at a total cost of US$2b. A staggering amount in a country where the average monthly income is just US$30.
Viet shared his concerns about the impact on the park's wildlife. Later he told us what life was like under the Khmer Rouge. Being a few years younger than us, he had not lived through it himself, but like all Cambodians, his family was personally affected by the brutal regime. It's an incredibly sensitive subject and since we never would have broached it ourselves, we were grateful that Viet brought it up.
A few days later in the seaside town of Kep, Peter and I hired a couple of motos (motorbike taxis) to the pier. From there we caught a boat to Koh Ton Say, Rabbit Island. My moto driver was a young Cambodian called David. As we drove he chatted about his wife and daughter.“I work seven days a week,” he told me. It's always humbling learning how hard people work when we are merely travelling for a full year. Lately I've felt shy telling local people how long we're away for. When someone doesn't even have a weekend, it seems pretty unfair to be “on holiday” for months on end.
I mentioned how friendly I found Khmer people. David told me about driving a grumpy tourist earlier that day. “He wouldn't talk to me or even smile.”
I laughed, “You work seven days a week! He's on holiday and he won't even smile?”
David agreed it made no sense. Perhaps the travellers I spoke with in Vietnam had been like this, so anxious about being scammed that they were suspicious of friendly locals.
Rabbit Island was a gem, rustic and tropical. We'd never been anywhere like this before and were giddy at our good luck. Jaded travellers in Thailand talk about how much better the islands used to be “back in the day”. Well this is the day for Rabbit Island.
There are no pizza places showing pirated blockbusters, no coconut shell handicrafts for sale, no internet cafes and no beach bar karaoke. Rabbit Island is home to a handful of fishermen. Its one “developed” beach only has a few basic wooden bungalows and a couple of family run seafood cafes. Basic is the word of the day. Generators provide electricity in the evening and it's lights out at 10pm. During the day, cows and goats wander freely between the palm trees. Of course a total lack of luxuries does come at a price. With no fan, our room was a bit damp and there were a lot of insects on the island. However, there was good snorkeling right off the beach. The succulent fresh crab soup was one of my best meals of our trip so far. When I relaxed in a hammock, curious cows disturbed me from my reading.
Tourists who fly in just to see Angkor Wat miss out on all of this.
A week later, on massive Tonle Sap lake, a little motorboat puttered us around the floating town of Kompong Luong. Houses, cafes, schools and even mobile phone shops, bobbed on boats and rafts. The residents were Vietnamese and Khmer. The guidebook warned they are wary of strangers, so we certainly weren't expecting the endless waves and “hello's” from every child we passed. Some even blew us kisses. I felt like a celebrity on a parade float, waving to the excited throngs. We know from the official visitors' log, the town only receives about 14 tourists a month. So while not properly “off-the-beaten-track”, it is not on most people's itineraries.
We finished up with Siem Reap and the vast collection of ancient temple ruins known collectively as Angkor Wat. This is Cambodia's chief attraction and the Khmers are understandably proud of the awe inspiring temples.
Imagine a sprawling area of 400 square kilometers, dotted with 1,000 year-old stone structures. Angkor Wat itself, the name given to the largest temple, is covered in ornate stone carvings and is framed by a vast moat. But this is just one temple and the entire Angkor Wat complex collectively has literally dozens. Some have been swallowed up by the jungle with immense trees growing up through the stones. There are diminutive temples with detailed carvings depicting religious fables. Others are huge, pyramids with steep steps you can climb to each level. Some are in good condition and others can only be described as ruins. You can spend days visiting temple after temple and will have only seen just a smattering of what Angkor Wat has to offer.
I felt similarly about Cambodia itself. For most visitors, Angkor Wat is the star attraction and the rest of the country and the Khmer people themselves are perhaps viewed as obstacles. So where do the stories of relentless hassle come from? Probably from Angkor Wat itself. Many of the temples were crawling with tourists and also as can be expected, a number of locals keen to make some easy money. “Cold drink, ma'am?” The little boy selling bamboo flutes didn't want to take no for an answer and a pushy girl really wanted to sell me a scarf. Thankfully they're not allowed inside the ruins. And I suppose I was appreciative to have an endless supply of water and fresh pineapple to hand, even at inflated Angkor Wat prices.
Travellers' holy grail, or so they say, is the quest for truly off-the-beaten-track places. Some hillside village where the kids have never seen a westerner before and you stay with locals, because there is no guesthouse. (Of course there's probably nothing to do in these remote villages, but never mind.) Although part of me aspires to find these sleepy farming communities too, this was not our Cambodia experience. We simply sought out some less obvious places. Our three weeks in the country were no different than what you could do on a long holiday. The problem seems to be that too many many tourists only see Angkor Wat. The ruins are remarkable and while I certainly recommend going all the way to Cambodia to see them, it seems a shame to not take the time to see other parts of the country as well. We chose a few slightly out of the way places, responded to friendly people with friendliness and were richly rewarded.
- Penang, Malaysia
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