what colours have you seen today?

Wanderlust Chronicles Five: Siem Reap, Cambodia May 2009

For those who studied high school in the Philippines, think back and remember your Sophomore Asian History Class - and you might remember a place called "Angkor Wat", yes, a remnant of the once grand Khmer empire in modern day Cambodia. Oh yes, this is another I’ve-always-wanted-to-go-to-this-place adventure ticked of my list of places to visit.

1. Amazing Race Moment - Faith slept over at my place because the flight to Siem Reap was at 6 am. And so we had to wake up extra early - like 4 am just to make sure that we had a time allowance to check in and go through immigration. But things don't always go like we plan them right? Net, we were already at the Budget Terminal by 5:25, which was already cutting it close. We tried looking for the Jetstar check in counter, but then realized that Jetstar flights depart from Terminal One. And after much cursing, finger pointing and eventually taking a cab, we arrived in Terminal 1 at 5:32 – hoping that they haven’t closed the check in counters yet. And by the grace of God, they haven’t done so yet. We quickly checked in and went through immigration. After that, I had some SGD exchanged to US Dollars, specifically looking for loose change (singles and fives) as advised by those who’ve been there before. After that, we boarded the plane. It was a two hour plane ride, but I honestly can’t remember it because we headed off to sleepy land after sitting down. zzzZzZZZzzz J

2. Welcome to Cambodia! – After a couple of hours of sleep, we finally landed in Siem Reap International Airport! And by God, it’s one of the most relaxing airports ever! Honestly, it was like a friggin’ SPA! Quite simple, with just two boarding gates, but the design was really reminiscent of the spas that I’ve seen in Thailand. And then I realized how many Pinoys were actually in the plane – we all came from Singapore but I had a feeling that most of them departed from SG because there are no budget flights directly to Cambodia. Anyway, we had someone pick us up from the airport – but if you ask me, it’s still surreal to actually see someone waiting in the airport with a “Mr. Gopal” placard. After that, it was off to the hotel – but the depressing part was that barely 50 meters away from the airport, the surroundings changed to that of a poor, poverty-stricken third world nation. There was only one major highway, and the other roads were dirt roads. It was just so weird because the change was so apparent, so obvious.

3. The US Dollar experience – When I travelled to Thailand and Vietnam, there was a rush when I exchanged by SGDs for their respective currencies. After all, those are just a few benefits of coming from Singapore. But coming to Cambodia was a helluva different experience simply because most of the transactions are in US Dollar (which is why it’s advisable to have USDs in 1s and 5s). It’s not even necessary to exchange your money to Cambodia’s local currency, the Riel, because the USD is accepted everywhere! But the convenient part  is the exchange rate that they have, so 1 USD is roughly 4000 riel. And so 1000 Riel is a quarter USD. Nice di ba? So for example, you buy something worth $1.5, and you hand over $5, you’ll get back $3 and 2000 Riels (roughly $0.5)! Anyway, it actually hurt shopping in USD, paying for tours in USD, paying for food with USD, you get the idea. And it would have been worse if I went there with Philippine pesos. To be honest, it wasn’t really as cheap as I expected it to be, primarily because the life blood of Siem Reap comes from US Dollars brought in by tourists so everything is probably inflated vs. other parts of Cambodia.

4. Gong and the Tuktuk Tour – We ended up hiring a tuktuk for each day that we were there. Cost was roughly $12-15 per day going around the different temples. This was a good deal instead of that  rental car scam that was offered to us for $25-40 USD/day (depending on the distance) by the hotel. Did they think we were born yesterday? Haha Anyway, we thought it was better to just get to know our driver, named Gong and just hire him for three days to tour us around. He was actually quite efficient and took the initiative to actually make additions to the itinerary that we had planned. Amazing because on top of the places we wanted to see (which all came from the Lonely Planet guide book that I have), he’d make other stops on some other places not even mentioned in the guide book. And it was part of the whole package that we paid for – so no incremental charges! J

5. Cambodian Countryside – The temples were near Siem Reap, but they were not walking-distance. Heck, they weren’t even short-tuktuk-drive near. In fact, most of the places had a 1 to 1.5 hour tuktuk drive prerequisite before we even got to see shadows of the temples. And so we’d spend the 1 hour drive sitting on Faith’s famed “kalesa.” Haha, it felt so bourgeois, so old world to actually travel with your very own tuktuk in the countryside. Actually, it was quite reminiscent of the Ilo-Ilo countryside of my childhood, where relatives would live near each other, cows would freely graze the fields and children would play under the sun. Then, I realized that most south East Asian countries looked quite similar. Yes, they are at different levels of development, but at the end of the day, the land and the people are undeniably similar, sharing the same fundamentals. And the way we all live may differ depending on foreign influences, but there are definitely some factors that links us all and ties us all together as South East Asians.

6. The Wonders of Angkor Wat –It’s a temple built in the 12^th century, a religious center and the epitome of the grandeur that is Khmer Architecture. Even back then, I told myself that if ever I had enough money when I grew up, I’d visit it and see the splendor for myself. It took almost 7 years, but there I was, at the very gates of the ruins that until then. I’ve only read about in books. And boy, it was more than I ever expected it could be. I’m not sure if Faith even noticed, but I took a couple of minutes of silence for myself, just to take in all of what was happening. It was that amazing – that I felt humbled and proud at the same time. It felt good being human, knowing that humans, centuries ago, were able to build such an amazing structure without the technologies that we take for granted today. The level of detail was astonishing, the size and scale was breathtaking and the fact that I was there – definitely unbelievable. J

7. The Majesty of Angkor Thom – As mentioned, Angkor Wat is a temple, Angkor Thom was the capital. To put things in perspective, Angkor Thom was a capital of over a million people when London was just a town of 50,000 people. That is how old this capital is.  And if Angkor Wat was the gemstone of the empire, this was the whole friggin’ crown! We spent the whole day touring around Angkor Thom – exploring the halls, the wall carvings – absorbing as much of the place as we could. We even took pictures of the places that looked familiar as it was featured in Angelina Jolie’s Lara Croft: Tomb raider. I can’t put into words as to how much beauty and awe this place has to offer. There’s a reason why they feature this place in their National Flag – and honestly, grab the first chance that you get to go visit this place, you owe it to yourself to see it.

8. Tonle Sap Lake and the Floating Village – What’s amazing about Tonle Sap is that its both a river and a lake. On top of that, it’s the biggest freshwater lake in South East Asia. Yes, that’s how big the lake is.  How big you may ask? It’s big enough to actually have a friggin’ floating village. Nope, its not a touristy excuse of a floating village, it’s an actual floating village, where you can see for yourself how humans can actually live floating in a big-ass puddle. There were floating houses, floating schools, floating shops, there was even a floating basketball court! It was amazing to see how people can actually live in an actual lake. And the amazing part was that there were even floating “yards” filled with plants. So, each big house would have this floating boat with soil, and herbs and stuff growing on it. Amazing talaga! There was even a couple of children (barely 4 or 5) who were riding a boat, and screaming “one dollar” at us. Yes, they spoke no other English, just those two words. It was sad, so we gave them one dollar each, and it was amazing to see how their faces lighted up with joy. For some people, $1 is all they need and all their problems go away. If only things were that simple for me. haha

9. Khmer Cuisine and the famed Happy Pizza Experience – For the most part, Khmer food was very South East Asia – filled with tomatoes, ginger and garlic. To be honest, I found it interesting to actually taste the similarities in South East Asian cuisines. But what was unique about this was that we tried Khmer Barbecue which was a mixture of a steamboat and a barbecue at the same time. There was this pork fat that served as the “oil”, but the unique thing about it was the meats for the barbecue. We had the usual beef, chicken and pork, but on top of that, we had SNAKE and CROCODILE. Amazing right!? The snake tasted like fish, and the crocodile tasted like a mixture of beef and fish. On top of that, we also tried water Crickets – as seen in the Amazing Race! I took off the legs and the head, and downed it with lots of water, but yes, I can say that I’ve tried it. I didn’t like it (see picture of Faith and me below), but heck, it was well worth the first bite. Haha! J But the best part of this food trip was the Happy Pizza Experience – oh yes, the happy happy happy pizza experience. One experience that I’ll never ever forget. Ever.  And now, I stop and move on.

10. Shopping in Old Market & the Pantene Trade Visit – Shopping in the Old Market was surreal. Markets in South East Asia look very similar. Except for the fact that there were dried snakes and weird looking sausages hung from the ceiling. I had this friend who went to Cambodia before (Hi Katy!), and she brought back this really nice fan from Cambodia. And there I saw them, lots and lots of them in old Market, and they came in different colors! J And so I went on a fan shopping spree for friends in the Philippines. J And then of course, I couldn’t help but do a trade visit – to see how well Pantene is being sold. You see, there are no big supermarkets in Cambodia. I think the biggest one that I saw were the shops in the gasoline stations. That was it. So most of the stores there were Cambodian equivalents of sari-sari stores. And what hung there in the shampoo Aisle were Pantene sachets – from the Philippines! J I bought a couple as souvenirs.

And thus ended our trip to Cambodia. We had to take a one day leave, but it was definitely worth it. Grab the first chance you get to go to Angkor and see for yourself the wonders that Man can achieve even with primitive tools.