So, after a few hours by speed boat I reached Phnom Penh and got there in touch with the younger history of Cambodia when visiting the Killing Fields and the Genocide museum. It's hard to explain what had happend in the years of the Khmer Rouge doctrine... it must have been terrible. Almost every Cambodian family had to suffer losses...
Angkor Wat!!! Wow! I was so looking forward to this place! After seven hours by bus from Phnom Penh you're in the middle of the eighth wonder of the world. And I think I can say it right now, it's probably the highlight of my Vietnam trip (Ooops... ;-))...
Angkor, as I experienced it:
- Temples! Lots of them! I always mixed up the names, but finally I managed to visit a whole bunch of them, at least all the major and big ones. :-)
- Beautiful! The temples where amazing beautiful! Angkor Wat itself with awsome stone carvings, others with wonderful big stone heads, others utterly subsumed by the jungle giving the ultimate Indiana Jones feeling....
- Touristy! :-( That's the bad part of it all, the whole site looked more like a big Theme Park and not like a historical site anymore... This at first dissapointed me so that I couldn't enjoy the experince that much in the beginning...
- Beng Mealea! For god sake I found this temple off the beaten track. 65km away from Angkor, almost unvisited by tourists, huge and in the middle of the jungle! Jippiiieee! :-D :-D That's what I was looking for!!!
- Siem Reap, the town beside Angkor, turns at night to a party zone, and you can get seriously drunk there... ;-)
- Hot! It was so hot and humid, I was sweating like crazy...
- ATMs just give US-Dollar!?!?! Everything is paid and quoted in US-Dollar, they barely accept their own currency...!
Now, if you like, you can follow me to the temples again....see you there!! :-)
Rainer
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