Moving On

Time came to leave India after 7 years, it's been a fantastic home to us but the wanderlust hit in again. Lots of changes have taken place in the life of me and the man but here we are in Battambang, Cambodia, time to dust down the blog and make a fresh start.

Vintage bus still plying its trade in the streets of Battambang.

Updates and info on life in Cambodia's sleepiest city coming your way soon.

Phnom Penh

We made a quick visit to Phnom Penh at the end of the summer break simply because we had a few days spare and hadn't been there for over two years. The broad walkways along riverside are now fully completed and make for a pleasant strolling area despite the current threat of brick attacks which started to be reported during our time there.

Having seen most of the usual attractions, rifle range excluded, it was an excuse to do a little browsing, a little cafe time, eat some pretty good food, hit the second hand bookshops and settle in for the remainder of the break with a cool drink.

Hello Tuk Tuks

Since Tuk Tuks, rather than taxis, are the main form of privately operated public transport in Siem Reap it makes sense to differentiate your vehicle. That way you're memorable, eye catching and easily spotted. One or two differentiated themselves so well I felt the need to share.

First the Red Bull Tuk Tuk or Bad Bull to further distinguish it. It's also advertised as a Luxury Vehicle, which indeed it is, it has a cooler on the back full of what? Red Bull for the hangover or Beer to create it maybe. Either way I suspect the market segment for this one is most likely to be Brit Boys Abroad.

Here's a closer look at how "bad" this bull is complete with a warning not to "do it two time a day"

It could be two bulls "doing it" or one and a very muscular cow.

For the movie going public and families with small bored children there's the Batman Tuk Tuk

I like the attention to detail on the Batmobile, even the helmet and motorbike are branded.

Finally, for the Korean and Japanese tourist girls what could be more perfect than this?

For the Hell0 Kitty obsessives out there, and I know you come here regularly looking at other Helly Kitty S#!% I've found and posted, here's another picture with more pink details.

Siem Reap, 2010

I'm just back from a visit to the Temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. I'm officially all templed out. We took Tuk Tuks for bum numbing periods and saw sunsets and sunrises and all the hours in between, did the Small Tour, the Grand Tour and the Back-of-bloody-beyond tour. Climbed over, under and through things and got sore knees from that and sore shoulders and necks from the cameras and other "necessities" we carried with us.

It's going to be quite a job to pick through the hundreds of pictures taken, there're bound to be a few decent ones between them, but in the meantime, here's a few:

One of the large stone elephants at Mebon



Also at Mebon, stone balancing seems to be all the rage.



Intricate carving seen at a temple the name of which temporarily slips my mind - I'll need to look it up



The south entrance to Bayon at sunrise



The same entrance with local brushmakers heading out to work



A yellow flower in honour of Tet, I'll be out taking pictures of the Tet floral displays tomorrow so expect lots more yellow.

The man took pictures this time too, apparently it's marginally less boring than just waiting for me to take them, and so his first real contribution to this blog might appear very soon.

Cambodia, light tourism

Following the rather serious last post I felt the need to return to what this is all about; pictures of things I like.

Here's an elephant. Who doesn't like elephants? This one works at a local park taking people for short rides, some time after 3pm she has a wander down the main riverside road stopping off for snacks.



The first time I saw her I made two assumptions, first that her mahout was getting money from people for posing with the elephant for pictures, he wasn't, he just wandered along beside her. Second I guessed she was getting fruit trimmings, wrong again, she got nicely arranged trays of fresh fruit including whole sliced pineapples. She looks in very good condition, it can't be too bad a life.

A tree decorated for Valentine's Day from the kind people at Coca Cola. I love you, may your teeth rot.





This dog knows it looks silly.



It looked even more long suffering the day before in a pink frilly blouse.

Barber Surgeon



The face mask, while adding a nice hygienic touch, was necessary, this is a very busy road just over the wall from the local crematorium.

An ox cart hauling pottery kitchen goods, a nice touch of the countryside in the city.



Meaty snacks:



I'm guessing cockroach but to my shame I didn't try them, a Cambodian girl told me that spiders tasted better anyway and they didn't have any on this stall.

Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Dark Tourism

We bussed down to Phnom Penh on what felt like the bumpiest bus in the world but it took less than five hours so it wasn't too bad.

Siem Reap had been very laid back and easy to like, Phnom Penh is more abrasive and certainly wears it's seedier side closer to the surface. There are lots of beggars and children selling things on the street, I know some people find this difficult to cope with. I formulated a coping mechanism where I gave money to people with disabilities because there's no social security to speak of and avoided giving money to children. I, perhaps wrongly, believe that giving children money keeps them on the streets and saw some of the organisation of begging and hawking with older children and adults "taking care" of the money. Someone had advised me to offer food to children which seemed like a good cop out position for me to adopt.

However, seedy and impoverished as it is, it's fun place to be, people are generally very good natured and saying "No" with a smile worked most of the time.

It's impossible to visit Cambodia without facing up to the atrocities of the Pol Pot era and with that in mind we visited Tuol Sleng or S21 prison. The torture centre where an estimated 17,000 were processed and eventually executed in order to extract confessions or biographies from them proving their position as enemies of the cause. Some of these enemies were children and babies.

It's with no apology that I'm posting these disturbing images and I deliberately avoided some of the more harrowing shots available.

On initial viewing the building is just like so many other schools of the same era, many buildings exactly like this are still in use today. The normality of it is possibly the most shocking aspect.

How to be a good torture victim.


Detailed records were kept and photographs taken of each suspect as they arrived.




These are displayed in two rooms, they make difficult viewing as so many portaits seem to gaze directly into your eyes.



Sngle cells filled the upper floors, tiny and the only furnishing being a chain or a hasp to hold shackles.



I couldn't find anyone who could tell me whether this was scratched on the wall during or after Toul Sleng's use as a torture and genocide centre but it seemed so incongruous I had to include it.

Barbed wire was strung over windows and walkways to stop victims throwing themselves to their deaths, surely a better proposition than remaining alive in this Hell of a place.



In a cage in a corner I saw these concrete busts of Pol Pot, presumably they're displayed in such a manner to limit understandable vandalism.



Visit if you can.

Cambodia, Angkor Wat, Siem Reap

Cambodia was a very interesting destination, we flew in from Singapore cheaper than we could do from HCMC, Vietnam Airlines has the monopoly on flights from here and charge accordingly.

Unfortunately I was a bit unwell during this visit and it showed in the number and quality of photographs I took. There were so many other things I wish I'd captured but I suspect I'll be back at some time.

Meanwhile, some pictures of Angkor Wat which was the reason for going to Siem Reap:

We hired a Tuk Tuk for one and a half days and headed out at about 4pm to get our tickets for the following day, this also gives you access to the temple complex in the evening so the plan was to head to a high spot and see the sunset.



And see the sunset we did along with half the visitor population of Siem Reap it seemed. The steps up are very steep and narrow, I enjoyed watching people negotiate them in heels.

We headed out again early the next morning and started at the Angkor Wat complex. It was fairly quiet at this time of day.



People were going about their everyday business and it felt quite tranquil



Also the resident primates were about.



Although I caught this one in repose they're packed full of attitude and will steal anything they can pry from your grip.

From there we went to Bayon:



The entrance causeway is flanked by these imposing demons, the other side has more benign figures of Buddha but I liked these, they reminded me of a New Zealand tug of war team.

The Bayon complex was my favourite, I enjoyed the massive structures and giant smiles. If I were to go again I'd go first thing in the morning or last thing at night as the light changes.



From here we went to Ta Prohm, the temple complex taken over by the jungle, it was awe inspiring and nicely shaded in the heat of the day.



As always there are more pictures on the flickr account if you're not satiated yet but fewer than normal as my lack of photographic skills were horribly exposed on this visit.

It's very busy, there are touts and hawkers everywhere, it's hell on the knees climbing the steep steps but despite all this if you're in this part of the world it would be a sin to miss out on it.