Boat Trip to Battambang

We decided to take the scenic route rather than the cheap and quick route to our third stop in Cambodia, Battambang. We bought our boat ticket through our hotel for $18 and woke up at 5:30 am Friday to catch our boat at 7:00 am. The boats were a little different than we had immagined, but, no matter, we hopped in and took off for Battambang.

First thing first, we headed into Lake Tonle Sap, the largest body of water in Cambodia. Here you can see a floating village in the distance, but we weren't close enough to see much of anything and we started to get bored quickly. We started to wonder if we made the wrong choice in choosing to take the boat rather than the bus...



But, finally after about an hour, we got to the other side of the lake and got into the next river to take us to Battambang. Now we started seeing the floating villages up close. They were really amazing. Truely villages on the water, we saw all sorts of storefronts like clothing stores, convienience stores and boat repair shops all on little house boats floating. People going about their everyday lives stopped to take a look at the tourists going down the river, probably as curious about our lives as we were about theirs.



About two hours into our journey, we hit this patch of weeds. While the rest of the river was clear of these nasty buggers, here they had been allowed free reign of the river and every motor boat passing though was getting caught up on the weeds. The motor-less boats, on the other hand, sailed right through with no troubles at all. We were stuck in this muck for about 1/2 an hour, getting the propeller going again to go 10 feet to get it stuck once more. The locals just looked on curiously, but didn't seem interested in helping. This must be their daily entertainment. No TVs, just boats full of tourists stuck in the weeds.

Finally we were free and we left the weeds behind us as we started again to head up the river. One thing is for certain here. There are a lot of kids around and they all look pretty happy. Whether they were playing in the river or waving excitedly to us as we passed I saw more smiles here than I ever see at my hagwon. I think I was starting to forget what happy children looked like, so I took lots of pictures of them to remember.



It made me feel happy to wave back to them too. It made me remember when I was a kid and I used to wave to people in other cars on the highway and see if they would wave back to me.

After about 5 hours on the river it was time for our lunch break. And about time too, there was a toilet on the boat, but nothing I was willing to venture. Of course, as soon as the two boats docked there was a mad rush of women for the toilet. The line was so long that the boyfriend convinced me to eat lunch first.


This was lunch. I wish I could tell you what it was that I ate, but I cant. And I have a feeling I don't want to know what I ate. But, I was hungry, so I just ate it.

The line finally grew a little shorter for the bathrooms so I got in line and finally made it to the "bathroom" to find this. Yes, this is a hole in the floor that goes straight into the river. Because, of course, we were on a restaurant boat, even if it didn't feel like it.

We arrived in Battambang after 8 hours of traveling, 1 hour longer than expected. Do I suggest it? Well, if you've got lots of time to spare, definitely. If you're in a rush, probably not. It is a really long ride, and even longer if problems arise. But, if you've got lots of time, it's a beautiful ride with plenty of interesting sights along the way.

Day Two in Angkor Archaeological Park

So on day 1 we saw most of well known spots, but day 2 it was time to go a little further and see a bit more of what Angkor has to offer.


We started our day with a traditional rice porridge at an outdoor restaurant with a few locals and a woman cooking the soup over a fire. An excellent $0.50 spent.

Then we headed first to Pre Rup, and interesting place, but nothing extraordinary.


From there we took the long drive to Banteay Srey. Banteay Srey is a beautiful, well restored temple about 35 km north of the main park. It's a temple to Shiva (Hindu god) and has some beautiful, intricate carvings.


We spent a while here because, not only has the temple been restored, but they've made a very modern, well made information area where you can learn more about the history of the temple. I wish every temple had nice information areas like this so I could have learned more about the history of these places.

On our way back to the main park, we made a stop at the land mine museum which lays about half way between the main park and Banteay Srey. I didn't take any photos here to save battery but it was definitely a good stop and very educational.

From there we went back to the main complex to East Mebon, which I liked because of these elephants.

On we went to Neak Prean and then to Preah Khan, which is another big temple.

Preah Khan is considered another must see by my guide book. It's another huge complex, but much of it still lays in ruins. We saw some men working on one building, but if they're going to reconstruct everything, it might take many years.
There's lots of cool carvings, and here we caught a photo of an awesome moth too.

This huge tree is somehow supported by the wall. No idea how..

Finally, we finished here at about 4:30 and slowly made it back to our tuk-tuk. We knew the next stop was to watch the sunset, but seeing as how the sun wouldn't set for an hour and a half, we had too much time to spare. We got back in the tuk-tuk and after driving back through Angkor Thom, we came across these guys.

Some monkeys had come out of the jungle to say hello. The vendors were on it right away, trying to sell us bananas to feed the monkeys. While I'm all for observing wildlife, I am always disgusted by those who feed them. We saw people getting bitten by wild monkeys in Bali to get the bananas they were holding. Not to mention that they should be hunting for their own food, not relying on humans to feed them. Anyway, the boyfriend was quite excited to see monkeys so unexpectedly. He has a strange fascination with animals that I can't quite figure out.

That took up a few minutes of our time but we still had more time to kill. After getting to Phnom Bakheng, the mountain temple viewing area for the sunset we found some meat on sticks grilling on a barbeque. 5 for a dollar sounded good to us and we chowed down. After that we started the assent to the top of Phenom Bakheng. It's a short 15 minute hike to the top, and then a literal climb up to the top of the temple. The stairs are narrow and steep, making it a difficult climb up and a precarious climb down.


I'm not sure how well you can see here, but the boyfriend is practically climbing up the steps they are so steep.


The sunset wasn't too impressive because of the clouds. This was as good as it got, and then it went behind the clouds making for a rather unspectacular finish to our day.

This concludes my Angkor chapter of my trip to Cambodia. Yes, we did it in two days. Was it enough time? I think I saw enough temples. The only reason to spend more time is if you choose to go by bicycle or see the temples at a more relaxed pace. I didn't take the tour of the floating village, but I didn't need to as you'll see in the next segment of my adventure, I took a boat from Siem Reap to Battambang, a smaller, much less touristy city.

For price references, my Day 1 trip cost $12 total, plus a tip for the driver, Day 2 was $15 total plus tip. Day two was more expencive because of the long drive up to Bantaey Srey. I think it was worth it though. Our hotel was $8 per person/ per night and well worth it.

Day One in Angkor Archaeological Park (Angkor Wat)

Our hotel in Siem Reap, Golden Temple Villa (which I def recommend), had several day trips arranged for low prices. The tour for Day One included Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm, and Banteay Kdei, not to mention a few other smaller temples in between those. This was called the "small tour" though it seemed to include the biggest sights. I guess it was called the small tour because it was less driving than the next day.

We woke up at 4:30 to leave at 5:00 to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat.


Once the sun came up, we started making the trek inside Angkor Wat. I didn't really realize before going to Cambodia, that when people talk about Angkor Wat, they mean all the many temples in Angkor Archaeological Park, but, really, Angkor Wat is only one (very big) temple within the park. It's probably one of, if not the best restored of the temples, but I didn't really feel it was the most impressive or interesting.



After going here, we ate breakfast at a nice little restaurant in front of Angkor Wat with our tuk-tuk driver. He was a nice young guy named How, who told us a little bit about himself. His family lives in the country and has a farm with cows and buffalo, he lives in Siem Reap and rents his tuk-tuk because his was stolen. Sounds like a hard life, being a tuk-tuk driver, but one upside is free food for tuk-tuk drivers at all the restaurants in Angkor Wat to attract them with their customers to their restaurants.

Next he took us to Angkor Thom, which is comprised of several different stops within the walls of the complex.




Here is the South Gate. It's quite famous for the faces carved into the rock. I heard that there was some dissagreement as to who's face it was in the rock. Some archologists say it's the king's head, while others say it is Buddha's face. Either way, it's pretty impressive.

The first temple within Angkor Thom is Bayon. Here, just like the South Gate, you'll see many many towers with these same faces on them.




From there we walked over to Baphuon, which you can walk up to, but due to construction you can't climb.

Then we climbed up Phimeanakas, which was a rather steep climb!

After this we headed out of Angkor Thom and on towards Ta Prohm, but we made a few stops on the way...

We stopped here at Thommanom, and Chau Say Thevoda across the street. Just small tempples where we spent about 10 minutes. Then to Ta Keo, which is one of the tallest temples, though unfinished because it has no carvings.

On to Ta Prohm, one of the most popular temples in Angkor for two reasons. First, for the trees which have made a home within the ruined temple and secondly because Tomb Raider was filmed here.


Yea, Ta Prohm was definitely high ranking on my list of cool temples...


A quick stop at Bantay Kdei and Prasat Kravan finished our day one adventure into Angkor Archaeological Park. That night we did some shopping in the markets in Siem Reap and caught a free Apsara dance at a restaurant called Temple Balcony.


Very beautiful dancing, but we were tired from waking up at 4:30 am so we only watched for about 20 minutes before we headed back to our hotel for a 3$ massage and bedtime.

Killing Fields and the Genocide Museum: Phnom Penh

The Killing Fields are located about 30 minutes from the center of Phnom Penh by Tuk-Tuk. This was one of many execution sites used by the Khmer Rouge. I'm warning you now this post might be a little gruesome for some folks, so please, if you don't want to see these things, than stop reading now rather than leaving me posts about how unnecessary these photos are.

The first stop here is a memorial stupa containing the skulls and clothing of people who were killed here at this site. Other killing fields around the country have similar, though perhaps smaller stupas with skulls or bones of the victims.


After seeing the stupa, you can walk behind and see the places where they discovered remains of the 17,000 people who were assassinated here.


Not only did they assassinate men and women and children, they even killed babies, using this tree to beat them against to kill them.

To keep with the same depressing theme of the Khmer Rouge regime, we asked our tuk-tuk driver to take us to the Genocide Museum next. This Museum was originally a high school which was converted into a prison by the Khmer Rouge. You can see where people where tortured and imprisoned here.

You can sort of imagine what a school must have looked like here, but then the stark metal bed changes the scene dramatically..

The Khmer Rouge documented every prisoner that entered by taking a photo and writing a quick biography. You can see here, there are young women and old women, they didn't seem to discriminate. The photos went on for rooms and rooms.


In these classrooms, they built small brick confinement areas. You can see that they knocked holes through he walls and connected every room on the floor.

In a third building there is a great exhibition with interviews from real soldiers from the Khmer Rouge who worked in the prison. They were all very young, most under 20 at the time, and most did it in fear of becoming one of the prisoners if they refused to do as they were told by their commanders.

Don't worry, my posts about Cambodia will be happier from now on.