Siem Reap - Koh Tao - Kuala Lumpur - Borneo

By the time I have finished exploring the Angkor complex I still have a week until I am due to meet Alex for our flight from Kuala Lumpur to Kota Kinabalu, on Malaysian Borneo. I consider exploring more of Cambodia, but I decide that I could do with a few days of relaxing on Koh Tao before I start travelling again. I feel slightly guilty about shirking my travelling duties in favour of waking up in the same place three nights running, but not for too long.

After only a few short bus rides, one ferry and a few hours in Bangkok inbetween, I arrive on Koh Tao just 28 hours after I left Siem Reap in Cambodia. Alex has finished her dive masters and spends the last few days on the island getting in as much free diving as she can. I only dive a few times (I have to pay) and spend most of my time sunbathing, sleeping in, reading and eating. Tough I know, but despite having wanted a break I'm bored after a couple of days and eager to start travelling again.

Our fight to Borneo leaves from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. To get there we have to take a night ferry (very narrow matresses on the floor of is probably a fishing boat in its spare time) from Koh Tao to the main land , two cramped mini buses to get to Penang in Malaysia and from Penang a coach to Kuala Lumpur. We arrive at two in the morning - two days after we left Koh Tao. I genuinely hadn't anticipated so much actual travelling when I decided to go 'travelling'.

Kuala Lumpur reminds me of an ant farm - there are pavements and walk ways and fly overs and bridges and train tracks everywhere, on every level, in every direction and all along them file people, trains and cars as fast as they can go.

Because we will be back in a few weeks to get our visas for Myanmar we don't do any sight seeing in KL (although I do glimpse the Petronas Towers between buildings). Instead we spend our day in Kuala Lumpur repacking our bags, throwing worn out clothes away, stocking up on toiletries and, most excitingly, booking various permits for diving and climbing on Borneo - mountains, jungles, orangutans, snorkelling, river boats; I can't wait! 

Angkor Wat

There is so much to say about Angkor Wat, the largest religious building in the world and just part of a huge temple complex which has put Cambodia on the map (who in turn put it on the flag) as the temple capital of Asia... and there are a lot of temples in Asia.

The Big Three are Angkor Wat, Bayon and Ta Phrom, but there are hundreds of other temples which are mediocre only in comparison. Any where else in the world they would be considered the main attraction (except perhaps if they were placed next to Macchu Picchu or the Pyramids). As magnificent as they are, the temples are only ruins of the capital of the ancient Khmer empire known as Angkor (hence Angkor Wat, 'wat' meaning temple), which had a population of one million when London was a town of fifty thousand. While the houses, public buildings and palaces of Angkor were constructed of wood, the right to live in stone structures was reserved for the gods.

There is so much to say in fact - descriptions, history and my experiences of individual temples - that I can't do it. Like the Taj Mahal I feel that nothing I say will do justice to he buildings themselves. So I'm going to stop here and leave you with a LOAD of pictures taken over my three day exploration of the complex. 

Above: Angkor Wat (unfortunatley covered in scaffolding)

Above: Crowds gathering to watch sunrise at Angkor Wat

Above: Hot air balloon over the gates of Angkor Wat

Above: Bayon - my favorite temple (Angkor Wat was actually a bit of a let down, maybe due to the scaffolding, the crowds and the lack of a magnificent sun-rise)

Above: Ta Phrom, aka Tomb Raider Temple

Above: More temples! 

Battambang's Bamboo Train

My guide book descrubes Battambang (what a great name!) as an 'elegant riverside town'. Its not. Its dusty and grey and my room only costs me a dollar fifty. However, it does have a bamboo railway, making a trip to the town worth while.

On a disused train track a bamboo platform is placed on two pairs of wheels and run by a small motor stuck on the back. The tracks are so bent I'm surprised the whole thing isn't derailed. When I look down the line I can see huge wobbles where the two rails become significantly further apart from each other and then closer together again. When two cars meet, the one with the lowest number of passengers is dismantled (the passengers having gotten off) and laid on the side of the track while the other car passes. Then it is put back together, wheels placed on the tracks first and then the bamboo platform on top, and everyone carries on.

 It goes quite quickly, 15km/hr apparently, and the tall hedges which block the Cambodian country side from view but create an exciting tunnel effect rush past and whip my legs whenever the car hits a bump and veers to one side, which happens a lot. After about 20 minutes we stop at a small village, which consists mostly of t-shirt shops and cold drink stands. I have a look around, although there really isn't much to see (the point is the ride itslef, not where it goes), before our platform is turned around and we head back to Battambang. On other parts of the line, bamboo trains are still used by locals for transportation of rice, animals and themsevles between rural villages.

 At a loss to the town's only tourist attraction, the bamboo train is due to be discontinued at the end of the month in order to prepare the tracks for a passenger train between Popiet and Phnom Penh. I don't know much about trains (if only I knew someone who did!), but I'm pretty sure that the only way an actual train could run on those tracks is if they pulled them up and started again.

Phnom Penh & The Cambodian Genocide

After two days in Saigon I get another awful night bus across the border into Cambodia. I spend just one night in the capital, Phnom Penh (pronounced Nom Pen), where I visit it's two main 'attractions'.

The first is called Toul Sleng and is a school turned prision turned museum. In 1960s a Cambodian Communist going by the name of Pol Pot returned to his country after studying in Paris, with ideas of turning Cambodia into an agricultural commnist collective. In 1968 he became the dictator of a party called the Khmer Rouge.

His armies forced thoses who lived in cities to reloacte to rural villages and work on collective farms - around two million people all together. Thousands died due to the Khmer rouge's insistence that the country became self sufficient, leading to the lack of food and medicine. Because parents were 'tainted by capitalism', families were separated and children were trained as soilders. Anyone suspected of engaging in 'free market activities' was taken to Toul Sleng, a former school, to be tortured and coerced in to naming their families as traitors too. Intellectuals, city dwellers, anyone with glasses or who spoke a second language was targeted.

An estimated 17, 000 prisoners went through Toul Sleng, their pictures shown in the museum (the Khmer Rouge were meticulous record keepers), but there were only twelve known survivors. Pol Pot was known to say that it was better to kill an innocent person, than let a guilty person live. The rooms used as prisons in Toul Sleng still have chalk boards and the garden still has exercise equipment, which was later used by the Khmer Rouge in their torture of prisoners.

 The second 'attraction' in Phnom Penh is called 'Choeung Ek'. After their (false) admissions of collaboration with the CIA, KGB or Vietnamese against the Khmer Rouge regime, prisoners were taken out of the city to 'the killing fields', where they were beaten to death due to a lack of bullets and burried in mass graves.

When I visit it is pouring with rain, which seems appropriate. The centre piece of the sight is a huge memorial stupa, containing skulls of the thousands of people killed here. When the rain stops the field is very calm and almost beautiful, which is very surreal whilst listening to the stories on the audio guide and walking past mass graves and former holding cells.

I don't want to go into too much detail because there is so much which is so horrible, although there is much more to tell - more informtion can, of course, be found online. I also haven't taken any pictures as neither site really felt like a photo opportunity. I put off writing this post for a while, in fact I thought about not writing it at all, but like walking around the graves and taking loads of photos that seemed insensitive. I wanted to at least briefly mention the two sites I visited in Phnom Penh, as, despite happening so recently, it is not taught in schools or remembered in the way in which other genocides are.

After four year of rule and the death of 25% of all Cambodians, the Khmer Rouge were removed from power by the invading Vietnamese, but survived into the 1990s as a resistance party, holding seats in the UN until 1982. Although some high up officals were tried some still live today, hiding in the countryside. Pol Pot died in 1998 with out ever having gone to trail. Today people on the streets on Phnom Penh sell books detailing personal stories from the time of the Khmer Rouge. 

Saigon & The Cu Chi Tunnels

Saigon is a big, noisy, hectic city - barely distinguishable from Bangkok, Vientianne or Hanoi. I say for a couple of nights to arrange my bus to Phnom Penh in Cambodia and to visit the near by Cu Chi tunnels.

 The 200 kilometers of tunnels were developed in the 1960's when American invaded Vietnam. Communist resistance fighters, the Viet Cong, built the tunnels to use as a base for their guerilla warfare, the site also gave them control of large areas of land just outside of Saigon - a strategically important city and the end of the Ho Chi Minh trail which brought supplies from the north. From here they controlled supplies going in and out of Saigon and ran the resistance, as well as protecting villagers from the invading Americans.

 Entrances were well hidden and tiny - several members of my group can't fit more than their legs through. The Viet Vong came out only at night to forage and engage in warefare. Lack of weapons lead them to develop basic bamboo traps - pits filled with spikes and pincer systems. Bullets were precious and the Viet Congmade use of snipers, rather than engage in open attacks. Hidden in their tunnles and familiar jungle, the Americans found it almost impossible to find and fight the Viet Cong.

Living conditions in the tunnels were awful. At any one time 50% of the population (villagers - men women and children - as well as soilders) would have malaria, the second cause of death after battle wounds. There was littlefood, water, light or air and lots of poisonous snake and scorpions. And of course they were cramped. Tourists are allowed to go through small sections which have been made safe, and some widened. I go through the shortest possible section and it is horrible. I have to crawl on my knees, pushing my backpack in front of me. The confined space is made worse by the people in front of me stopping, and the people behind me shouting to keep going. Although I dont go this far, I am told that further on the tunnel opens out into a small room, which could have been an office, armoury, kitchen or living area.

After repeated unsuccessful ground attacks on the tunnel system, the Americans resorted to bombing the site, leaving huge craters and destroying many, but not all tunnels. They also sprayed the defoliant Agent Orange to clear the landscape of the jungle which was vital to the Viet Cong's guerilla warfare. Still the Americans failed to properly infiltrate the tunnels. Understandably most were too afraid to go down them, as the tunnels themselves were also booby trapped. The preferred method of dealing with them was to throw grenades or flood with gas, hot water or tar. However the complex lay out of the tunnels meant that this was not always very effective.

By 1969 the Cu Chi area, an endless source of frustration to the Americans, was so bombed it was almost useless to the Viet Minh. However by this time they had played their part; prolonging the war, increasing costs and casulties to the US and becoming the head quarters for the Tet Offensive in 1968, a major turning point in the war. 

Hoi An - Statistics, Suits, Ice-cream and Snorkelling

Over the past 4 months and 3 weeks I have slept in 82 different beds (thats an average of 4.5 a week). 10 of these beds have been on trains and 9 'beds' have been on buses*. I'm beginning to get slightly fed up, not helped recently by the fact that Vietnamese people are very rude compared to British standard. I know we have fairly high standards, but I am fed up of being pushed around, metaphorically and physically.

Whilst I have been scammed and ripped off in every country I've been to so far, in Vietnam it is so organised, and there are so many tourists its unavoidable. You pay the extra 100,000d because its a 'special bus' or you don't go, another tourist will pay the bribe and take the seat instead. On the pavements or in resturants, people try to physically move me, grabbing me by the shoulders, to get me out of the way. I have not yet tried this on other people to get them out of my way - I'm very English and give them a significant look instead. A bus driver will think nothing of pushing me and other passengers into our seats or slapping my feet so that I take off my shoes.

After the most recent two buses I've had enough. Thankfully those bues bring me to Hoi An, the perfect place to chill out for a bit, and spend 3 nights in the same bed. I decide that in Hoi An I am going to do whatever I want. If I don't feel like eating Vietnamese, I wont. If I want to spend the day on the beach instead of looking at temples then that's what I will do. I turns out that doing 'exactly what I want' involves eating a lot of pasta and home made ice cream (reading the book 'Eat Pray Love' at the moment may have something to do with this). I don't eat any Vietnamese food for 4 four days and I dont so much as glance at a temple.

The thing to do in Hoi An is to get tailor made clothes. There are 200 different tailors shops in Hoi An making mostly suits but also dresses, swimming costumes, jeans, shirts, anything. In preparation for all those job interviews im going to have when I get home, I get fitted for a trouser suit and a smart dress. I spend an hour choosing syle, fabric, linings and buttons, and over all have three fittings to make sure they're perfect. Its all done in just 2 days and the whole lot costs me $130.

I spend a day at the beach, renting a bicycle and risking the roads. Where as home it is the job of the person joining the main road to wait and look for a space, in Vietnam it is the job of the driver already on the main road to look out for people joining, who don't give even the slightest glance to the oncoming traffic. I spend a few hours on the beach swimming and sun-bathing (and getting slightly burnt, even though it is overcast), before heading back to town for a burger and more icecream.

As five o'clock approaches I settle down outside a bar with a passion fruit mojito and was as the streets of Hoi An transform. In the evenings the old town is pedestrianised, fairy lights are turned on, lanterns are hung from trees and classical music is played from loud speakers. People promenade up and down the river, stopping in little resturants for drinks, dinner and ice cream. It probably sounds like a little town in France/Spain/Italy, and it looks like it too.

On my final day in Hoi An I go on a snorkelling trip with Charlotte, who arrived the evening before having spent a few nights in the town of Hue, which I skipped in order to have a few relaxing days. Most other people on our boat are trying scuba diving, but I'm glad I didn't fork out as we see just as much snorkelling. After pottering around two dive sites and some sun bathing on the boat we stop for a sea food lunch on one of the near by islands, and afer lunch we have an hour or so on the beach. The water is the clearest, cleanest water I have swam in so far, it is deep and refreshing and the perfect temperature, where as the water on Koh Tao beach is uncomfortably warm and mucky as a result.

We get back to the main land just in time for me to pick up my rucksack and head to the bus station for my 12 hour bus to the town of Nha Trang, half way between Hoi An and Saigon. I don't, however, have time for a shower, which is fairly unpleasant, but I'm still cleaner than some of the backpackers I have seen recently.

* All together I have taken 15 trains and 33 buses (15 of 'tourist' and 18 public s. I have also taken 3 boats, 5 shared jeeps/mini buses and 3 planes.