Cambodia: Siem Reap and Angkor

Border crossing: scammed!
After reading our guidebooks and doing some Internet research in Bangkok, we decided to go to the train station to check out train schedules and bus schedules to the Cambodia border.  The internet forums all recommended buying tickets piecemeal and avoiding any preplanned itinerary.  The ticket agent told us to go to the information counter, and a woman standing near the counter, positioned to appear official, cleverly intercepted us as we approached.  She discouraged us from considering the train and suggested we sign up for bus trips from Bangkok to the border, and inside Cambodia to Siem Reap, as a package deal.  Completely forgetting our received advice, we accepted.  I really don't know how she convinced us to take the offer but it was wildly overpriced and added no value.
Additionally, the Cambodian agent who met us for the border crossing itself lied to us about the exchange rates and I changed money at a pretty poor rate.  We kept Min's cash in dollars to hedge our bets, which turned out to be a good decision.  Overall, we probably paid about $50 extra for the trip and the money changing.  It could have been worse, and at least now we'll be more wary.

The ruins of Angkor
The ancient Khmer ruins at Angkor and in the surrounding area have been something I've been wanting to see for a long time.  Their history is interesting, involving foreign and civil wars and religious rivalries.  I'm impressed with how well they have survived the elements and vandals.

Visual highlights
Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, and the surrounding temples are beautiful!  Especially in the early morning light, they really glow.

Bicyclists, the central field of Angkor Thom
Canon 10-22@11mm, 1/60, f/9

Rubble at Ta Prohm 
Canon 10-22@22mm, 1/40, f/9, ISO 200

Prasat Preah Ko
Canon 10-22@12mm, 1/40, f/9

Prasat Banteay Samrae
Canon 10-22@15mm, 1/125, f/9

Prasats Suor Prat
Canon 10-22@11mm, 1/50, f/9

Prasats Suor Prat
Canon 10-22@12mm, 1/80, f/9, ISO 200

Baphuon.  I wasn't technically supposed to be there that early, and I got out of the area fast when some workers started peering at me and shouting.
Canon 10-22@10mm, 1/25, f/9

Staying in Siem Reap
Min had been to Siem Reap before and had stayed at a very cheap guesthouse which caters mainly to Japanese long-term travelers. Their rates are still very good and we ended up staying there every night.

Lunch at the guesthouse.  I'm looking more and more like a skinny long-term traveler.

Everywhere sold fresh coconuts, including the guesthouse.

We went to the temples nearly every day by tuk-tuk. Most days we got up before dawn to beat the crowds. Since it's Christmas holiday in many places, this is the busiest time of year at the temples.

Our driver, Visa

When we tried to watch the sunrise at Angkor Wat, everyone else had had the same idea.

"Watch your head"

Reading at the Bayon

Doing my thing at Angkor Wat...

Bayon...

and Angkor Thom... where getting up at 4:30 really paid off one morning.

Other people like to ask me to take pictures for them.

The stone lions were copied and stylized from Chinese and Indian statues since the Khmers didn't have local examples.

Siem Reap
Siem Reap has very low prices, but you have to bargain for most things and make sure you know what you're getting.  Sometimes the quality is a little lacking.

Can you spot the problem? Bread was the only baked good that wasn't typically stale.

What?

People and animals we saw on the way

This poor horse was just hanging out on the field in front of Angkor Wat at dawn.

A boy with cows passing behind the temple at Pre Rup.  Cows were the only beast of burden we saw in use, for pulling farmers'carts.

A monk at Bakong.  I was trying out shooting from the hip from an article, and completely forgot about my shadow.

Kids picking fruit near Bakong

Aside from the beautiful ruins, I've enjoyed staying in Cambodia much less than I did Thailand.  The country's sad history and current political lockdown hang darkly over everything, and many people (especially farmers) seem depressed. We met a young English teacher who's teaching while he finishes high school, and he told us about his plan to go to university and try to become a teacher.  Many aspects of his life, from finding a job and building a career to small things like making a website for his school, have extra friction because of required bribes and complicated laws. He was upbeat about it though, and in other people we've seen that too.

Up next: This is the first post I've finished before we actually left an area, so I can't say definitively what we're doing next!  Our plan is to take a boat across Tonle Sap Lake to Battambang and then bus to Phnom Penh, and then maybe go overland into Laos.

Thailand, part 3: Phetchaburi and Bangkok

Visiting Phetchaburi
We decided to visit Phetchaburi because I wanted to find the resting place of my great-great grandfather, who is buried near a Christian church in town, and we also wanted to see the historic temples in the city.  We caught a ten-hour air-con bus from Phang Nga to Phetchaburi, which was actually pretty pleasant.  It stopped every few hours for a food and restroom break, and the driver wasn't too violent with the steering wheel.

Eating fried bananas and some kind of fried coconut treat while waiting for the bus in Phang Nga

The bus dropped us off along the side of the highway near the city. We took motorcycle taxis into town and found a cheap room which had a duct-taped toilet seat and a shower that was just a pipe with no shower head.  Fun!

0-star bathroom.  At least it didn't produce a sewer smell in the middle of the night like another bathroom we had!

We weren't there to spend time in our room, though, and headed out immediately to the night-market.

Trying a dessert at the night market.  The outside is a wafer shaped like a taco and inside is a dab of something like marshmallow with coconut or sweet potato on it.

The next morning we headed out for early breakfast at a street stall and walked a circuit to see the local temples.

Fish soup for breakfast

Walking out to peek in the library at a wat.  It's built over water to prevent ants and termites from getting in and eating the books. Min almost fell in the water when a bunch of birds flew out the door as she was peering in.

Taking pictures.  Again.

Wat Kamphaeng Laeng, built by the Khmer Empire (Cambodia) in the 13th century, when they occupied Phetchaburi.

Fresh fish at a market, arranged prettily.

These guys guarded the ends of a bridge in town.

After the temples and wats, we went hunting for the church.  We found it, after asking directions of several locals (Christian churches are rare in the town so it wasn't too difficult).

Sipi Mawn Tum Church in Phetchaburi.  A very nice woman at the church named Sakoin even helped us buy flowers for my great-great grandfather's grave.

We didn't want to dally too long in Phetchaburi since we had only 15 days in Thailand, so we headed to the bus station and got a small bus to Bangkok.

Bangkok

We spent a few days in Bangkok resting and preparing for Cambodia.  We planned our border crossing and shopped for travel gear, but mostly we ate. We also checked out the nightlife in the city, and had a very interesting time people-watching from an outdoor bar.

Soup near Bangkok's Chinatown

The duck at this street stall was incredible.  We ate there twice, and would have gone back again if we were in town longer.

Next up: Cambodia border crossing and Angkor.

Thailand, part 2: Phang Nga and Ao Phang Nga National Park

Phang Nga town
The area around the town of Phang Nga has gorgeous limestone hills, some of which form the islands of Ao Phang Nga National Park, and we wanted to see this area at a leisurely pace.  We took a bus from Phuket and found a really cheap room and a local tour guide in the town.

Looks like a prison, but it was clean and had a pretty roof deck.

Posing on the roof

The the town, being fairly rural and not hugely popular with travelers, had shockingly low prices compared to Phuket.

"Only 20 baht?"

Trying to illustrate "drain plug" in a shop.  They didn't carry it.

We arrived in the afternoon and had time to visit a local temple that had a view of the landscape.  The temple had statuary illustrating souls in heaven and in hell; I didn't think it would be appropriate to photograph them but believe me that they were quite convincing.

Climbing up to the view

After seeing the temple grounds we took a motorcycle taxi back to town and found a restaurant at which a lot of families were eating.  It didn't disappoint.

A little bit hair-raising

Delicious!  The food in the Phuket and Phang Nga 

areas was pretty light on salt and spice, letting the

main ingredients speak for themselves.

The next day we met the longtail boat and headed out into the bay.

Leaving the dock

Through a labyrinthine mangrove swamp.  We saw a lot of

crabs and a lizard swimming.

Is that a cave?

Yes we just drove through a cave

The limestone formed strange stalactites

Our guide then took us out into the open waters of the bay, where in every direction we saw gorgeous cliffs and hazy islands.

The bay

Passing Ko Panyi, a town on stilts built out from the cliff

Obligatory picture at "James Bond Island", the set of

Scaramanga's hideout in The Man with the Golden Gun.

We even stopped inside a cave and explored inside.

It was beautiful, one of the highlights of the day.

Lunch on a tiny beach while the captain napped in the boat

Min loves to photograph me taking photographs.  It's very meta.

The technical term for the geology is drowned karstland.  Wherever the water met the rock of a cliff, the waves had undercut the cliff and there were often stalactites hanging.

Staying at Ko Panyi

At the end of the day, the captain dropped us off to spend the night on Ko Panyi, a tiny village built out on stilts from one of the islands in the bay.  The people of the town are Muslim, and they didn't allow dogs or pigs in the village.  There were a lot of cats though.  We stayed in a little bungalow above the water, and we had a few hours to walk around the village and meet people.  The village has been shaped by tourism, but most tourists stop only for a few hours during lunch so we got a different view with most of the souvenir shops and restaurants closed or empty.  We talked with a woman who was fishing off the dock with her young daughter, and we watched some of the men play a game called takraw.  Children flew kites off the docks.

Everyone got around in longtail boats, from big fast ones

to tiny one-person boats.

Looking out from the door of our room.  What a pleasant spot!

People flying kites on the pier

Men playing takraw

The setting was just gorgeous

Canon 10-22@14mm, 120s, f/9, 10-stop ND filter

Sunset

Canon 10-22@22mm, 30s, f/9

The one disappointing event at Ko Panyi village was meeting a woman who had a pet gibbon and offered to let us take a picture with it for ฿50.  The local gibbons are endangered because people catch them as pets, often for attracting tourists, and none live in the wild anymore.  There is a gibbon rehabilitation project nearby in Phuket that tries to prepare gibbons for return to the wild.

Min and I were both sad to leave the village in the morning.  Everyone had been friendly and the community seemed very close.

Heading out to the long-tail boat back to town

Up next: Phetchaburi