Siem Reap - the Temples of Ankor

26th May, 2007.

I would say this country is about 100 years behind NZ in terms of infrastructure. We are in Siem Reap and there seems to be a lot of foreign investment—there are hotels everywhere. These foreigners use a ready supply of manual labour here. I was stunned to see human lawn mowers cutting the grass outside a major temple in the middle of the day.They used long machetes and were stooped over; four of them cutting something the size of jade stadium.

The trip to Siem Reap was memorable only in terms of the number of times my head hit the car ceiling. The government seems in no hurry to improve the main road. According to our Lonely Planet, an undisclosed airline is paying the government.

Most things are very cheap here. You can easily pig out on less than $5US. Although the currency is the Riel, everyone uses US dollars. The pain is when you get change. I have several thousand Riel in pocket which equates to about 70 cents.

We went out last night and got promptly plastered at a 24 hour happy hour. Ben and Sam are sleeping it off. I of course am far to macho be exploring the inside of my eyelids. Speaking of which, all around Siam Reap are beggars and victims of land mines. It really does put a dampener on your meal when eating outside when a middle aged Cambodian comes up to try and sell you a book and he is missing both fore-arms. Apparently he picked up a land mine as a child: ka-boom. No more arms.

According to the land mine museum that I visited yesterday, there were about 4 to 6 million mines laid or aerial scattered from 1975 onwards.

When visiting temples there is always an area for sellers outside where they push water/food/clothing sellers. As soon as you get out of the tuk tuk : “hey Mister uwe wan cod drink?” or “Sir, sir uwe buy from me t-shirt.” or “Buy flute from me, only $1! Ok, ok, I wait for uwe wen uwe get back (from visiting the temple).”

They use young children about (8 - 10 years old) that tractor beam in your wallet with their puppy eyes. Sam and I have given very small donations of annoying Reil to them, but we have no need for postcards and flutes.

You can see many of the sellers are on the bones of their butts. As their is no government help, they do it tough. Us New Zealanders have nothing to cry about when you compare these poor chumps.

I am completely ‘Templed out.' I have seen about 10 or so now in Cambodia, and unfortunately I don’t seem to get to blown away now when we “go to yet another temple.” Yeah, sure there was one in particular i liked—it was the same one they used in the movie Tomb Raider. The jungle has retaken the temple so trees have have intertwined with the buildings, pretty neat.

Visiting one temple we had an ‘illegal’ tour guide show us around. At the end of the tour the guide spun around and said, “that will be 2000 baht ($100NZ). Help me out, I need the money to be a registered guide.”

Sam, Ben, and I were thinking giving him only $3US (the standard tip we work by). Then he became a little surly. I got a bit annoyed and started walking. I was watching the trees and bushes for his mates to jump out and mug us. I was of course over reacting. Nothing happened.