Farewell to Cambodia

I have over 1000 pictures left of Cambodia, but they will have to wait until I can post the best of them as albums. So, I leave Cambodia reluctantly. The Golden Banana where I stayed for most of the trip was shamefully decadent and an incredible value. Peer Em in the picture served the best European breakfast every morning and I pray that he forgives how badly I've mispelled his name.
A final plug for snake - if you need a driver/guide in Siem Reap Cambodia call him at 855-12-77-44-61 or 855-99-77-73-95. If you see him before I do, I promised him a "Best of the Eagles" CD.
Now I'm in Pakse, a small city in Laos and just during the plane landing I've taken almost 100 pictures. It's beautiful from the air. Can't wait to explore it.

Snake and Panther's Excellent Adventure

Snake was sent to pick me up at the airport. His first words to me, "Hello I'm snake and I will take you to the hotel. They call me snake because they cannot pronounce my real name." Me (being chatty) - "in College my nickname was Puma" Snake - "What's a puma?" I describe a puma. Snake - "Oh you mean a panther?" Me - "close enough!" Snake - "I will call you panther because I cannot remember puma."
After that, the roadtrip began on the marathon temple tour. While we travelled he played Korean hiphop,the Eagles (I kid you not), and a collection of 70s American pop songs that he had, on the car CD player. There was no radio that we could pick up on the trip so we heard each of these about 10 times each. I taught him American words and he taught me Cambodian words and showed me his beautiful country.

First Night on the Road

This is the place where we stayed on the trip. The owners who run the restaurant/ boarding house treated me like visiting royalty. In fact everyone on the trip (outside of the city) would stop and stare wherever I went. Once I give the traditional greeting "sous-ah-day", (put your hands together like praying, bow slightly, and touch your forehead with your finger tips), it makes everyone smile and greet you back.
Everwhere I went the Cambodians I met were extremely gracious and happy. It's amazing to think that they went through the mass extermination of millions of people under Pol Pot in the mid 1970s and yet they are more upbeat than any nation I have visited.
The building in the photo is much more high-end than most of the places to stay or eat along the way, but the basic structure is the same. The front eating area is covered with a roof, but it is completely open on 3 sides. The enclosed area for living/sleeping is in the back.

Baby Water Buffalo

On the way to our next destination we met these water buffalo, freshly covered in mud from a roll in a nearby stream.

There's A Surprise Inside...

While riding on the back of the motorbike up the mountain, I did notice that the huts along the mountain trail were filled with soldiers. At the temple itself soldiers were standing around chatting. And then I noticed all the hidden sniper machine gun nests all over the temple grounds. In this picture everything blue is hiding a machine gun on a tripod. The day before there had been "some problems" between Thailand and Cambodia and the Cambodian army is preparing to defend this border. We were the only tourists at the temple and the soldiers were friendly to us, especially when they found out I was American. (A short thank you prayer was said by me at that point).
Another frightening aspect of touring Cambodia are the land mines still hidden all over the place. There are agencies from all over the world currently in Cambodia working on removing the mines, but this is an ongoing process. In the US, stretches of road will have"This portion of highway sponsored by XYZ Company." In Cambodia, there are areas with signs that say "This area has been cleared of land mines by the Australian/Japanese/etc group." Even so, all of the temples have warnings not to stray from the main area because of potential land mines.

Prasat Preah Vihear - Cambodia

The Temple Within a Temple Within...

Prasat Preah Vihear is like a Russian Doll. Everytime you open one, there is another one inside. The series of stone steps leading up through the 800 meters of stairways and temples actually begins in Thailand. The mountain and temple are at the border and years of fighting over who gets what have ended (so far) with Cambodia owning the temple. There has been a truce of sorts with a market place at the base that is actually in Thailand. It was a zone of understanding where visitors from Cambodia could shop and then return home, without having a visa.
Each level of Temple forms a concentric circle around the mountain so that each time it looks like you have finally reached the last one - only to find there is another temple a long climb ahead.

Bike Ride to the Top-Cambodia

The last part of getting to the top of the mountain to see the Pasat Preah Vihear Temple is 20 minutes on the back of a motor bike. The path is too rocky and steep for a car. The 2 brave guys in the center took us up the mountain for "a hair-raising, 20 minute ride up gradients of up to 35%." (Lonely Planet Guide to Cambodia). They were right!

Free Range Cambodia

After you leave the city of Siem Reap, paved roads disappear and the dirt road becomes a dusty free for all. There are no fences so everything roams freely everywhere. In the 2 days we travelled I saw only a dozen cars but there were 100s of motorbikes, bicycles, water buffalo, ducks, kids, cows, chickens, dogs - all wandering around the streets or sunning themselves in the middle of our lane. In many places the road was a cloud of red dust with holes big enough to hide a volkswagon.
It took over 3 hours to reach our first destination - the ancient temple of Prasat Preah Vihear that sits high atop the Dangkrek Mountains at the highest point in Cambodia.

6 AM - Leaving Siem Reap, Cambodia

Off on our 2 day temple excursion, we passed this lone guy bathing in "The King's Swimming Pool," part of the Seim Reap complex of ancient temples.