So in the last few days it’s cooled down, making us a bit more able to get out and about and still feel human at the end of it. I’m writing this from Phnom Penh towards the end of our time in Cambodia, where it’s been a chilly 32 degrees.
Even by local standards the 39 degrees we encountered in Siem Reap was hot, and inclined to stay near the pool/bar at the hotel. But of course the draw of the Angkor temples was too great and we spent a whack of time being ferried between them on a tuk-tuk (a motorbike with a carriage trailer) which had the added bonus of providing air-cooling as we travelled along, readying us for the temples themselves, each one unique in its spatial character, size and ornamentation. It’s hard to appreciate them at the time, and only a bit later can you try and make sense of the scale and diversity in your own head.
Siem Reap, the base camp for Angkor is busy and crowded with tourists like us, and possibly because of the heat felt quite claustrophobic. To escape we headed out into the countryside to visit a floating village: a bunch of houses, businesses, a school etc, all built on floating rafts which sit on a nearby river. Honestly the experience was a bit strange, where it seemed the people of the village didn’t have a say in the decision about tourists coming to visit their place. Nor did it seem any of the fares we paid filter down to them, so we just felt like a couple of gawkers intruding on their privacy (and poverty).
Leaving Siem Reap, we spent couple of days at Sihanoukville on the beach, before heading further east to Kampot, a small town famous for its crumbling relics of French colonial architecture and pepper production. Risking a repeat of the floating village experience, we signed up for a countryside tour of the various sights and activities which surround Kampot. This turned out to be a far better experience, taking in a salt farm, a 9th Century temple built in a cave and a pepper farm with a stop for lunch at Kep, a sleepy fishing town.
We’re due to head off today to see the infamous Tuol Sleng Prison where the Khmer Rouge tortured and slaughtered so many of their compatriots, and the Killing Fields where the bodies were dumped in mass graves…so we might be looking to join in the festivities of Khmer New year tonight as a way of resetting our humanity meters!
