~Trip Updates~

It's 13th March 2006 today…. Had been back from Siem Reap for about 5days now. Was busy at work and busy wid life and hadn't had any time to jot down experiences that I had gained during my current trip to Cambodia. Further changes had need to be incorporated into the system I handled at work. Phew!!! Hopefully I can finish and hand in a satisfactory system before I go on leave again for the 2nd time in this month. Wil be going to KL soon ~16th March~ to attend one of my best friend's big day – karhooi's wedding day!

Once i reached KL, we go for karaoke session at Sunway RedBox til 0300 am…. hahaha…. these "kaki-k" frens of mine!!! Though we have a flight to catch the very next morn, we still go on wid our karaoke plan! Juz like how it used to be during uni days karaoke-ing wid them! LUV u guys! The room we had tat nite was so big… it must be the biggest room at RedBox Sunway cox it can accomodate about 30persons! They run out of room so let us used the superior rooms…. having a big, big projector screen. Wah… 4 of us in tat big room…. we jumped, danced, run here n there as we like!

3rd March – Reached Siem Reap Airport and the weather was HOT! When we were about to land in Siem Reap, the view from above and from in the airplane, it was such a pitiful sight to behold. The land was flat and dry, and obviously it's a land for farming but it's so much different from Msia. In our country we have lusciously green fields, but the fields there were brown and dry. Perhaps it's too hot there… in KL, when u are about to land from an aircraft, you can see lots of skyscrapers and big buildings and at the areas nearby KLIA, you can see lots of green 'kelapa sawit' plantations. And if in Kuching, you can see even more greeneries…. big, wide, green rainforest and wid curving, broad, big rivers…. It just made our land seems to be so much richer!
We only saw a few wooden shacks and I was wondering about the amount of buildings they haf there in Siem Reap. But I guess since it is the airport, perhaps any bigger buildings would have been situated further away from it. The local time there was about 1 hour later than our local time, so a scheduled 2 hours 05 mins flight which departed at 1000, and we arrived at 1105.
We boarded a van which drove us to a budget hotel, which we inspected and bargained for a reasonable price ~ USD8 per nite pax. Then we headed off for the Old Market for our lunch, which was quite a disappointing welcoming meal… the beef fried rice I ordered came out to be a rather soggy texture fried rice. Maybe it's the style there, and the taste was something which I had never come across for any fried ricessssssssss in Msia.

After easing our tummies, the first targeted location was Tonle Sap. I remembered this name in my Geography book… describing it as a Great Lake and an unique geographical wonder. People live there, and transform it into a floating village… the FLOATING VILLAGE of TONLE SAP… something that's really different and unique. The so-called lake is really wide and big, and if I hadn't been told that it's actually a lake, I would have described it as a sea. Practically, you can't see any of the banks when you are in the middle of the lake. I saw tourists cruising on long boats, like us, and the villagers of the floating village carrying out their daily life in their floating houses. They have groceries stores, church, boat fixing workshops, school, and even basketball court, just like a normal village except that all these are floating on water and in the middle of a great big lake. Children just jumped off the front porch of their floating shacks and into the waters for a dive or a swim. Long boats' drivers skilfully made their way through the lake as if driving cars on land. Floating village of Tonle Sap… something that I'll always remember as it's the very fist time I view something like this which was totally out of any pictures I have in my mind. Living in Msia is really so much better… and I'm really way much luckier if compared to them…

After the journey to Tonle Sap, the next stop is to some temple to view the sunset. All along the way to this temple (i had forgotten the name, i think only hiewming can remember) we went through lots of wooden houses. These are the living places of the locals, rundown and simple-built, which only consist of one big space being surrounded by four-sided walls…. no rooms divided and no furnitures and no electrical appliances. Old folks sitting on the front door, looking worried and children running outside on the dusty roads. Most of the locals rested on hammocks, which they hung on 2 tall piece of wood…. i guess they can't afford to buy any bed or is it because it's much more comfortable and cooler?
To watch the sunset, we climbed uphill in order to reach the temple. Lots of ppl made their way uphill to the temple too and practically the hill was covered with people and big elephants making their way through the jungle by the side of the uphill route, carrying people to the temple above. A fare of USD15 is charged for one ride on the elephant, which can carry about 5adults on it's back. That's too expensive for us, so we climbed all the way to the top of the hill to reach the temple. Once we reached the top of the hill, we still need to climb the steep steps of the tall temple in order to reach the top of the temple. I was so scared as the steps were really steep and small. Clung to any rocks which can assist and ease my climbing, and wid shaky limbs, i braced myself to climb the steps of the temples. Really wonder how those ancient ppl who used to be in this civilisation before can climb up these steep steps. Are they blessed wid much more agile limbs??? So much climbing were wasted as we couldn't really view the sunset that day, which was shadowed by the clouds. We can only view the beautiful colours of the sky as the sun was about to set.
So much exercise made us feel even hungrier than we are and we made our ways to a restaurant for our dinner. On our way to the restaurant, they stopped by the roadside to by BUGS as snacks! Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh………………………. they tore off it's wings and bug legs…. and chomp chomp… i swear i felt sick! Local food of Cambodia…..

Dinner was much better tat day. At least we don't have to eat bugs!

4thMarch – Got ready b4 0530 and departed b4 dawn to view sunrise at Angkor Wat.    Nice view but I was tired. Try uphill climbing and still wake up early. Breakfast and more hard activities to go. We jungle trekked 1.5km into a so-call jungle to see a so-call waterfall which only have a small shower of water. Sigh…. under the hot sun and 1.5km to see a few drop of water, and some rocks carving and another 1.5km out…. not on normal, tar road… mind u all… but jungle treks, rocks and more uphill climbing as well… it's not really a nature walk. Bako National Park is 100x better than that if it's for a nature walk. Waterfall….. back in Msia we'll have more water for our waterfalls definitely. Wah…. lack of sleep and excessive excercising of our muscles and limbs…
I guess I'm juz not an art lover and can never be an archeologist, as I juz don't seem to be as attracted as the others there at what I saw. Yes, I understand the carvings were handmade, and tat these ancient ppl were considered amazing as they are able to carve these statues of their gods… be it Hindu gods or Buddha gods… but I really cant express that look of amusement on my face. Some of the tourists were gasping at the so-called river (almost drying up and the flow of the water were like the running of a drain water)… and I wondered if I'm qualifiy for an art-nerd. Sigh!

More temples to visit at 1200 noon… under the scorching sun… headache and migraine, i guess from dehydration. I guess if you really cant appreciate all these ancient stuffs, it's much more torturing then enjoying. After a round at wat was supposed to be one of the most beautiful temples there… wat's the name… Banteay Srei????…. I sat down to rest at a less scorching place with yunnyi n lowtuck. The back of my ankles were blistered and part of my skin peeled off from the jungle trek session i had tat morn in inappropriate shoes. If i had known I would have to jungle trek, mount climb in order to reach some of the temples here, i'd have came in my sport shoes… though i guess my shoes will have to be replaced once i come back to Kuching or else the whole sole would have flew off the next time i go for my modern-dancing class!

After lunch, I really decided to give up on Cambodia. No more temples and no trying to amuse myself wid rock-statues and carvings of things i do not understand… yunnyi and I decided to make a trip to Angkor Wat… a place where all tourists would choose to go in Siem Reap. After Angkor Wat, and if we can get tickets back to KL, we would rather spend our money in KL for a more relaxing vacation. It's not cheap… food and transport fees over there in Siem Reap. We needed RM1k for all the ordinary food we ate, and the fees to pay for all the so not attractive statues! Even the fees we had to pay in order to visit some of the temples there were already USD40 for 3 days. I'm not an archeologist or a photographer… I really dont need 3 days there to see more or less similar temples, carvings, statues and ruins!
So yunnyi and I made our way to Angkor Wat then… juz the 2 of us without the rest. We rested about an hour b4 we can make our way around Angkor Wat. At least Angkor Wat is so much more beautiful compared to the rest. It's really like an ancient kingdom… built tall, high, big and magnificent! We took snapshots of ourselves… made our way here and there…
One of the most meaningful thing we did that day was to climb up the very steep steps of the Angkor Wat, to reach the top level of the Angkor Wat temples. Lots of other tourists were making their way up the steps as well and we decided to go up to see what's there. Old folks…. aged aunties and uncles, little kids…. all try to go up the steps. yunnyi and i really tot for a long time if or not to go up the steps. Our limbs were so tired from yesterday's climbing n tat day's trekking, we were scared we'd give up halfway up the steps. And the biggest problem of all…. how are we going to GET DOWN and BACK TO SOLID EARTH GROUND????
We saw tat there's a handrail designated purposely to help ppl to get down from one of the exit of the temples. Knowing there's a handrail which we can cling on to when we are on our way down, made us finally climbed up the steps of the very tall temples!!!
I admit I was really very scared, and I can feel my limbs shaking…. height phobia… wat if I fell…. right from the very top steps??? I think I'd have died or even worse paralysed… thinking about tat my limbs really shook…. and I climbed up before yunnyi…. really slowly and carefully, looking all the way up for rocks, stones, jutting edges that I can hold on to. When i was about to reach the top, I have to overcome some of the more difficult steps in order to hurl myself over the entrance of the temples… I stood there, with legs shaking as I was so scared I would slipped, or my shoes slipped and rocketed down to the ground below, or I would not have enough energy to hurl myself over the last few steps, or I'd lost my balance…. I really stood there on top of the stairs telling yunnyi I was scared. As I was in front of her, she couldn't proceed wid her climb too if i stopped in my tracks and she was shouting at me to move on…. i know she's scared too tat i stopped mid-way… on top of the stairs, facing all the ppl who looked so tiny below us…. was really shaking! An Indian lady still sat there, blocking my way…. asking water from me, as I was carrying a mineral water bottle then!
yunnyi… u r so much better because you do not need to hold on to the water bottle!!!!
Finally I climbed through the entrance of the temple… feel so proud of myself! I really feel satisfied but am still very scared. Tat was among the best thing we did tat day, climbing the steps of Angkor Wat. There's a great Buddha statue there in the top temple, and ppl were kneeling and praying and offering joss sticks to it. I juz looked at it, and walked past by. Do you really fulfill wishes ppl made???

When it was time to go down, we queued at the exit tat had the handrail. Found it so much easier to make my way down then up… but tat's the opposite case for yunnyi. When i reached the ground, she was still halfway up the middle stairways. We really haf a meaningful tat day! At least all the way from Msia not for a waste at the Angkor Wat!

5th, 6th March – No more temples visiting!!! On both days, we slept til 1230 and went for lunch, massage and shopping and back to our room to rest. 2 hrs of massage per day – 1hr of foot massage and 1hr of body massage – this is vacation!!! Though the massage made part of my body ache, especially the sole of my feet… and part of my body bruised, it's a nice experience for me. I guess I'm juz too 'tofu' for these massage thing maybe, though they really don't feel pain as the Khmer massage is soft massage unlike Thai and Jap massage, which are hard massage. We tried the Tuk-Tuk ride too… USD1 to Old Market from our hotel.
A tuk-tuk driver even offered yunnyi n me one more free ride around that area when we reached our hotel. When we say no, he offered to bring us to Angkor Wat for sunset view for free! Wah… for free… thanks but really no thank-you… we'd been to Angkor Wat and the roads were so dusty. All the way on tuk-tuk to Angkor Wat, we feared we'll tuk back in dust!
At nite time, we go pubbing at the Bar Street. Alcohol and cocktails are cheap! Had a few drinks and nice chats wid the locals there. At least a better trip these 2 days… relax, nice western n local food, and alcohol!!!