Angkor Wat, Khmer cooking and an incident involving police, a boat and a machine gun

Well it's certainly been an eventful few days since leaving Battambang. We're now in Siem Reap, most famous for its proximity to Angkor Wat and the ancient temples in the area. It's a fabulous town, very happening, lots of tourists and very Western downtown area with pubs & restaurants coming out your ears. It's definitely more expensive than the places I've been so far, and local/street food is harder to find. I think I'm putting weight back on here :( But it's so nice to have mum travelling with me and to be living in relative luxury for a while!

This latest chapter of the adventure starts with a 6am wakeup in Battambang to catch our 7am boat departure. The Stung Sangker river would take us across Cambodia to the Tonle Sap and a floating village on the outskirts of Siem Reap. The water levels are so low since it hasn't been raining, the boat trip took 9 hours. It's a beautiful trip through floating villages and countryside. Only about 20 people on the boat so not too crowded.

The trouble begins around lunchtime. We were passing through a floating village when suddenly we heard a shout and saw that there was a guy clinging to the side of our boat. When we looekd back, we saw bits of wood floating in the water, turns out we'd run him over and destroyed his little boat/raft thing. Luckily he was sitting on the back or he'd have been mince meat. The drivers looked a bit panicked, didn't quite know what to do, we dropped the guy off at one of the houses and carried on, didn't think much more of it. But mum spotted the guy getting out his cell phone to make a call...

Sure enough, several hours later we were crossing the Tonle Sap (Cambodia's largest lake, which at this time was literally only ankle deep, another sign of the missing rains this year) and we hear a powerful boat coming up to us. A policeman carrying an AK47 jumps out onto our boat, followed by the guy and his entire family (even granny). After much shouting and pointing, the engine is turned off and they all sit down for a powwow. More shouting and pointing ensues, none of which any of us tourists could understand of course. We played a few games of cards instead. After about an hour, the poor guy who'd been driving got up to open a storage box and pulled out a pretty good-quality-looking sleeping bag. A trade, perhaps? In lieu of money to pay for the destroyed boat? Nope, after that he went out the back to get a clean pair of undies and a change of clothes, and was taken away by the policeman and angry mob. We can only imagine where he is now.

Here are some pictures of the boat trip (sorry, didn't take any of the policeman or the mob for obvious reasons)




So we arrived in Siem Reap later that evening, checked into our guesthouse and hit the town. The following day we did a Khmer cooking class and learned to make banana flower salad, mango salad, amok curry and mango sticky rice. Of course we got to eat it all!


The cooking class wasn't as thorough as the one in Chiang Mai; it was shorter but still lots of fun. Khmer food in general is quite mild; they don't like their food spicy and they use a lot of coconut cream so most dishes are sweet & creamy.

The next day I decided it was time to get mum up before the crack of dawn to see the sun rise at Angkor Wat. It was a difficult 3:30am wakeup but we were in place by 5am and watched the whole magical experience from our front-row seats.


That day we did the main circuit: Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Bayon, Ta Prohm (tomb Raider temple). I'll post another series of photos of the temples next time, but here's a taster for now.

The bayon

Fat ass monkey

The south gate into Angkor Thom

Apsaras (heavenly dancers)
Ta Prohm
Ta Prohm (Tomb Raider filmed here)
The Bayon

The Bayon

Tomorrow I start my month at Green Gecko project. Mum is coming along for the first 2 days before she flies home. It's going to be really hard to say goodbye but I'm so thankful that she's been able to come and travel with me for a while :) I'll be in good hands with my new gecko family so hopefully I won't feel too lonely.

Until next time,

Love
May Lee