Cambodia Day 7 : An Experience That Lasts a Lifetime 

We had breakfast at the coffee shop just across our guest house at 6:30 am - half-boiled eggs, delicious fried mee hoon and coffee again. Today, we will be visiting a site that would never be found in any tourist guidebook nor would it be in the list of places to visit. This will be our last place before we fly back home this afternoon.

We stopped by the city and bought two big bags of bread to take with us. The streets were already buzzling with morning activities and monks can be seen moving from shop to shop getting donations from shop-owners. When we reached our destination, smoke and stench greeted us as we alighted from our van.

Steung Meanchey Municipal Waste Dump (yes, it is a dump site, for those of you who can't believe we actually visited one) is located in southern Phnom Penh, more than 30 minutes away from where we stayed. This dump site covers 100 acres and about 2,000 people live and work here, of which 600 of them are children. Thanks to KK's friend for recommending this place for photography, we got to witness and experience this ourselves.

There was an article written about this dump site which said an adult rubbish picker earned an average of 4,000 to 5,000 riels (US$1.00 to US$1.25) a day and children earned half as much. They built makeshift huts to live in the landfill and had to pay rentals to the landowners, as the lands were privately owned. Some children attended school but most did not, as the adults needed them to help contribute to the family income.

The dump site was filled with very thick smoke, which prevented us from seeing clearly. I did not see many makeshift huts, perhaps they were located on the other side of the hill. But I did see many children, some playing, some eating while others were picking rubbish. There were food stalls in the dump site - fruits, ice-kacang and noodles, and the people just ate there, surrounded by garbage. It was a sad sight for again this reminded us of the many privileges we have waiting for us at home.

As each garbage truck approached, the adults would get ready, eagerly await for the truck to unload. Then, they would move in to grab as much as they could find. That's their way of earning a living.

We gave away the bread we brought with us. Little hands and big hands that reached out were black with dirt but the owners didn't seem to mind at all. Not being able to withstand the situation any longer, Cat and I were one of the first ones to leave the site, just couldn't take any more photos there.

We waited for everyone to finish and headed back to the city. With extra time to kill, we stopped by the Russian market to look at souvenirs. We returned to our guest house, did our final packing, showered and checked out for good, then off to the airport.

The soles of my favourite Reebok shoes (heartache) gave way and I decided to leave them behind, wearing my slippers to fly home...haha...

I hope you guys have enjoyed reading this as this was a truly experiential week for me - the many ancient sites of a once lost kingdom, floating village, dump site, new friends, ample supply of photography tips. As someone mentioned somewhere, "imagination is more important than knowledge", I'll be bold enough to add "it is also the experience that counts".

A tribute to:

• Uncle Lee, our almost 70-year old veteran photographer who managed to climb the steep hill of Phnom Bakheng and withstand our craziness
• KK, for planning this entire trip, from doing reservations for our air-tickets to providing us useful information to coordinating until the last day, our sincere gratitude
• Lillian, for being able to carry that very heavy camera bag with all the lenses wherever you go, we kept wondering how you deal with that weight
• Bernard, Irene and Cat for providing all the fun throughout the trip
• My hubby, for bringing me...*muacks*...heh heh...

Hey guys, next trip...Beijing.

(Photograph courtesy of KK Tan)

Cambodia Day 6 : Tonle Sap Lake 

This was the first time we got to sleep-in a little and woke up at 6:00 am (haha...later...) as compared to the last four days. Of all people, I think our driver must have been the most thankful one having to wake up at a more decent hour, after having to cope with us wackos since we invaded his country on the 12th. Our communication with him was limited to very basic English words and lots of hand movements but we were quite sure he thought we came from a land where sunrise and sunset never existed. He must be thinking...What a bunch of nuts! 

We had a yummy breakfast which we ordered last night, a variety of omelettes, bread and the pancakes which Cat and Irene ordered were really good - banana and pineapple. 

We left for Tonle Sap Lake at 7:15 am. Today was a different experience altogether, different from the last few days of the Angkor empire. Here we saw the daily lives of the Cambodian people as we passed through village after village on the way to Tonle Sap Lake, as poor as can be - simple, worn-down wooden huts, no electricity or piped water, hot and dust everywhere. It reminded us of how privileged we are to have brick houses, lots of clean water to waste, plenty of electricity to supply the many appliances at home.

We made a stop at Kompong Phluk, located just before the jetty. It was a fishing village where boats were coming in at that time, bringing in their catch. Villagers were busy sorting out fish, weighing and transporting their catch to where I could only guess, the local markets.

Children running around, mothers carrying their babies, little pink piggies in cages, children and adults gambling with make-shift dice - we managed to capture the daily activities of this fishing village and its villagers but the smell was rather unbearable for some of us. Irene, don't complain, it's not as bad as the dump site!

We reached the jetty eventually and got on to our boat, which cost us US$50 per hour. Immediately, our cameras went to work. Homes on this floating village ranged from barges to rafts to covered fishing boats. The villagers use small rowboats to get about and the younger ones to school. There was a school (Chong Khneas Elementary School), some shops, restaurants and a Catholic church, all built on barges. Hmmm... I wonder if the floating school changes its location occasionally.

As our boat drew nearer to a floating restaurant, we were "attacked" by little "pirates". These are young boys rowing around in plastic or metal basins with a piece of wood as an oar. They grabbed on to our boat as they did with any other boats that passed by (with tourists) and asked for money - 1 dollar. 

At the floating restaurant, one could get refreshments and souvenirs. We tried some boiled small prawns sold in plates, and had a cold drink each. At 11:00 am we returned to Siem Reap's local market for an early lunch. There we did our last-minute souvenir shopping. Yes, Bernard, I remembered to mention your girlfriend, Ah Ling. We bought many things from her shop - bags, Cambodian shirts, wood carvings, shawls.

We returned to our guest house to shower, pack-up and check out. At 2:00 pm, we loaded our van and left for Phnom Penh. Back to the road where we came from, the view was again filled with never-ending paddy fields, horse carts and bullock carts, skinny buffalos working, skinny cows grazing whatever grass that was left due to the dry season, motor-carts carrying slaughtered pigs or chickens, road signs with name of places written on it but struck across with a red line (didn't understand what that's about).

Understanding our obsession for sunsets, our good driver stopped us at a nice location by the side of the road to witness another magnificent sunset. He took peeks at our pictures and joined us in taking some sunset shots with the mobile phone camera. PSPJ, you have a potential Cambodian member!

Our driver drove us to a local restaurant to have dinner. He gave us a thumb's-up sign, indicating good food. We were on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, about another hour's drive away and it was already getting dark. We continued our journey with our bellies filled and finally reached Spring Guest House, the place where we stayed when we first arrived. 

After checking-in, we wanted to do a little tour (too early to sleep) and look for a place to hang out. Unfortunately, our tired driver had already happily gone home. We decided to be a little adventurous and did some walking. We didn't know the directions and the map board was confusing, but we continued walking. Uncle Lee was worried about his camera bag left at the reception, so he headed back to the guest house with KK and Bernard. Oops, not a good idea continuing our journey with five girls and just one guy. We hardly saw anyone walking on the streets, and some guys were hanging around and looked like they were up to no good. Ok, everyone, balik! We found a coffee-shop that was still open and had drinks there until they closed.

Cambodia Day 5: Final Day at the Kingdom of Angkor

Yup, it's our final day at the Angkor empire, our passes will expire after today. We woke up at 4:30 am for our last sunrise session and we had decided to spend it at Angkor Wat again. There was more mist/fog than the first day and it was less crowded with tourists. We walked through the darkness in Angkor Wat for the second time, with my dear hubby limping a little from yesterday's sprain.

We finished around 8:00 am and went for breakfast. Uncle Lee dropped his glasses on the ground and they broke, so we went back to the hotel to get his spare. While waiting for Uncle Lee, we discovered that our guest house served food and drinks, and cheap too! Hahaha...we thought we were smart... looking around everywhere but our guest house for cheaper meals.

Our next destination, Ta Prohm, the site where Tomb Raider movie was shot. Ta Prohm is an abandoned temple that was discovered in the midst of the jungle. Surrounded by endless groups of tourists, there lies piles of ancient ruins with gigantic tree roots covering from roof to the grounds of the temple. Amongst the heaps of stones seen in the courtyards and around the galleries of the temple, one still finds beautifully sculpted devatas on the wall panels.

It was quite difficult to photograph the many tree-covering sites without wanting any tourists to appear in our photographs. This place was really packed with tourists who came in bus loads, led by tour guides who explained historical events in different languages, I heard English, Korean, Japanese and Mandarin. The heat that afternoon was rather unbearable, the light-coloured gigantic trees reflected more light and made the place crazy hot.

We returned to our guest house for lunch, took a short rest and recharged our batteries. All I remembered was that it took ages to serve drinks (the fruit shakes were good though) and lunch for all eight of us, cutting into our nap time.

We left the guest house at 4:00 pm, dropped KK off at the balloon field and headed for Tammanon. Unfortunately, we never got there because we had a little "detour". Our driver returned to pick his "sir" up and drove us to Ta Keo for our sunset shots. Not all of us climbed up to the top, except KK.

Ta Keo looked like an enormous stone monument with barely any carvings on its walls, come to think of it, I don't remember seeing any. History has it that the temple was struck by lightning which was interpreted as bad omen and therefore abandoned uncompleted. The steps were the usual very steep and narrow ones, we climbed up half way (the sunset scenery wasn't that fantastic anyway) while Uncle Lee decided to stay on ground. You didn't miss much, Uncle Lee!

Dinner wasn't as good as the two previous nights as we decided to try out a different shop, but it was cheap, so nothing much to complain about. After dinner, we went to Angkor Market which sold liquor and cigarettes cheap, much cheaper than duty-free shops at the airport. With so frequent use of this word "cheap", it wasn't a surprise that our driver learnt a new vocab - "cheap-cheap".

We returned to our guest house and had fruit shakes, and also ordered breakfast for the next morning. Oh and the banana shake was so delicious...

Cambodia Day 4: Power-packed Day 

5:00 am on a Sunday morning, a new day, a new sunrise - same sun, different place.

Srah Srang, which is located opposite Banteay Kdei, was built on a artificial lake in the 10th century and remodeled at the end of 12th century by Jayavarman VII. It was said to be used for ceremonies and royal baths. Well, we didn't find more than a handful of tourists watching sunrise here as compared to the crowd in Angkor Wat. There were many young pedlars who kept pestering us to buy their coffee and wares since the time we arrived. We also managed to spend a few minutes outside Banteay Kdei before adjourning for breakfast.

Our driver took us to a local place to have cheap but good breakfast - Cambodian pao, beef noodle soup, fried noodles, really yummy! And then, off to Banteay Srei, a 37km drive according to our driver. We made a little detour when we passed by Pre Rup, While some of us had to use the toilets, the rest of us took the opportunity to capture some Pre Rup shots.

Banteay Srei - an exquisite temple covered with beautiful, fine carvings on every inch of its walls and intricate figurines. It is classified as the "finest example of classical Khmer art". We could see many ropes being put up to keep tourists from standing too near the 1000-year old carvings. It is such a beautiful place for photography but the heat prevented us from staying too long. A few of us went shopping at some stalls outside the temple while the rest chose to cool-off by having iced coconut. Thank God for coconuts and ice! 

Then we left for a quick tour to Preah Khan, our last stop before a late lunch. We didn't spend much time at Preah Khan, only about 20 minutes (must be our record time in one place!) as we wanted to reserve our afternoon for Angkor Thom. Lunch was steamed white rice and stir-fried pineapple with pork, quite good actually, for all of us except Uncle Lee who had stir-fried beef and steamed rice.

Angkor Thom has five huge gates that led to the city - North, South, East, West and Victory Gate on the east. During our stay, we travelled between the South and Victory gates frequently. The main attractions at Angkor Thom are the Elephants' Terrace which we walked on, the Terrace of the Leper King (which we saw but did not walk on), Phimeanakas and Baphuon temples which we only took pictures from outside. But we did stand on the large open space, the terrace of the palace where the king used to check on his troops before they left for battles.

Located inside Angkor Thom, Bayon is a Buddhist temple that has 54 towers with carved faces on four sides and many bas-reliefs carved on its walls. Most of us climbed up the towers to get better angles of these carved faces, like the ones we saw in books and on website. On the way down those narrow steps, my hubby sprained his ankle. It was swollen after that, and prevented him from walking much more than he would have.

We made a 15-minute stop by the South Gate to take some evening shots. Then we headed out to the Angkor Balloon field as KK wanted to purchase his ticket for a hot-air balloon ride the next day. While we were there, we maximised our time by taking sunset shots, beautiful magenta skies. Photographers, never a moment to lose!

We headed back to the same stall for dinner and returned to our guest house like a bunch of farmers who had been working out in the fields all day.

Cambodia Day 3: Angkor Wat - from sunrise to sunset 

My mobilephone alarm rang at 4:30am... and I suppose I sleep-walked to the bathroom without hitting the wall or bathroom door thankfully. Then we went downstairs to meet the rest and got our poor driver up at 5:00am. Without time for breakfast, we headed to Angkor Wat to witness the legendary sunrise which we read so much about.  The roads were dark and when we made our footsteps into the historical Angkor Wat, it was still dark and we had to use torchlights to find our way. My biggest fear at that time was walking into the moat. We found a place before a lotus pond, which seemed to be the most popular spot for photo-taking and set up our equipment to catch the first light of the day appearing behind Angkor Wat. 

It was beautiful beyond description, the tranquil, peaceful and majestic feeling... even the air smelt different... something that can't be explained enough, something that one just has to witness it live! I could hardly believe I am in Angkor Wat, one of the most talked-about lost and found empire of Kampuchea or Kemboja, as known in my history books during my school days.

We spent 4 hours photographing all the angles of this historical site, the bas reliefs, figures of the famous Apsara and monks. Especially monks, I remembered some of us getting all excited whenever monks appear because they tend to "beautify" photographs with their striking orange garment against the earthy historical backdrop.

We finally sat down to have coconuts, our first source of food for the day. At a little after 11:00 am, we left to get some proper food at a local market place. Fried rice was like food made in heaven because we were so hungry and exhausted. After shopping around a little, we returned to our guest house for a three-hour rest (after Cat's "bargain" with KK).

At 4:00pm, we returned to Angkor Wat to catch more photographs of the place at evening light though ideally, dawn and dusk would have been perfect but we didn't have enough time for that. We spent more than an hour there which meant we just couldn't get enough pictures of that majestic place. 

We were so late for the sunset shoot at Pre Rup. When we reached Pre Rup, we only caught the last of lights there. We went back to the same local place in Siem Reap for dinner (we had dinner at the same place for three consecutive days, I think we were just too tired to find another place to eat). After dinner, we went shopping for souvenirs at a place called Center Market and then returned to our guest house and had the usual chit-chat session. 3 days down, only 4 more to go...

Cambodia Day 2: The Road to Siem Reap Breakfast was at 5:30 am at the coffee shop across the street - fried mee hoon with the hottest cili padi, some slightly over-cooked half-boiled eggs and that wonderful Cambodian coffee which we had last night. 

Siem Reap, here we come! 

After spending 30 minutes on the road, we couldn't resist making an impromptu decision to stop over to take some photographs. It was the perfect weather with the perfect "lighting"(something I learned from photographers) just after sunrise. The point of this trip was also to take more photographs that is off-the-beaten-track. We stopped by a bridge and had a full view of a river, village and Cambodians going about their daily activities beneath the bridge. Being not widely awake (zzzzz....blurrr), I guess I didn't take that many photographs. The stop took half an hour before we unwillingly piled into the van to continue our journey. 

We passed by endless hectares of paddy fields and flat land again. The people on the outskirts lived in wooden huts, some in better shape than others. The only brick buildings we saw were temples and schools. Along the road, there were plenty of bullock carts, horse or pony carts, motor carts and trucks packed high with people and goods... a scene that is totally different from our traffic congestion back home. 

We made another half-hour stop along the way at a local market place. Our driver was a little annoyed as we arrived in Siem Reap an hour late at 1:00pm, he was tired and hungry. Our driver took us to lunch at a local Cambodian eatery frequented by tourists. The price was not cheap, 3 US dollars for a plate of noodles or fried rice which would have cost of half the price. Well, we are on a tight budget, reserving our money for more sight-seeing and good bargains :-) 

We checked-in at Bun Nath Guest House, a nice, clean place where we stayed for the next 4 nights. After an hour's rest, we left to do a little sight-seeing around town. Our driver took us to Angkor Shopping Centre which sold gem stones and souvenirs at cut-throat prices. With nothing affordable to buy, we ended up taking pictures of the surrounding area. 

At a little after 4:00pm, we left the place to make our very first step into the ancient city of Angkor. We were told that we could get free entrances after 5:00pm. After purchasing passes for the next 3 days, we felt our adrenalin pumping as we drove through the checkpoint to Angkor. The road leading to Angkor Wat was serenely lined with trees on both sides and you could see many locals having picnics by the moat overlooking the Angkor Wat. What a sight!

Our first sunset stop - Phnom Bakheng, situated up a hill, a difficult climb for those who do not include the word "exercise" into their vocabulary. And when we thought climbing up the hill was difficult, the climb up the steps to the peak was worse. Each step was only about 4-5 inches, just enough space to place your foot sideways and some steps were about a foot high. My hubby and I (and I can say most of us except for KK who seemed to be the fittest) reached the peak panting heavily, with wobbly knees and legs that felt like they weighed a few tons. The peak was crowded with tourists, some taking photographs and the rest just enjoying the view of the sun that was setting. It's a different atmosphere... so many people, in a small space, watching the sunset together. I guess most of us don't even watch the sunrise or set at home, we are either too busy working or going around with our daily routines. So this is the best sunrise and sunset trip (for 5 continuous days!) I've ever experienced, and I'm sure most of us in the group felt the same. We even got our driver influenced into this later on.

We were one of the last few to leave the peak. The remnants of light in the sky was more beautiful than earlier on when the sun was setting. Going down the steps proved to be tougher, we had to use our torch lights to find our footing. Safely on ground, we proceeded to have dinner at a local stall, where the food was cheap and good. We returned to the hotel with some drinks and junk food, showered then sat on the balcony to chit-chat. Our journey continues...

Cambodia Day 1: Phnom Penh The day has finally arrived! Yes, we are going on an expedition to see the famous ancient city of Angkor. Apart from Cat and Irene, I’ve never met the other half of the group but I’m sure they are equally as excited as my hubby and I, maybe even more. We met Cat at the ERL station in Bandar Tasik Selatan and travelled the cheapest way possible by ERL to KLIA. “Cheapest” meant we couldn't do direct, had to get down at the next station to purchase tickets again at a stop-over before KLIA. 

We reached KLIA at 1.00 pm, checked-in and later met up with the rest of the group at McDonald’s. After that, it was down to one last bite of fast food before leaving for Cambodia, a land unknown to most of us except for one or two episodes of Travel Discovery and whatever information and photographs we saw from travel sites and blogs. 

With the exception of Cat and I, our little adventure group was made out of avid photographers from the Photographic Society of PJ. There were 8 of us on this 7-day photography expedition enroute to Angkor Wat. For Cat, I guess it was like an instant, hands-on photography lessons for 7 days. For me, I did plenty of brushing up on the skill and technicalities, as well as the remember-to-clean-lens as often as possible because of the dusty environment. I’ve never cleaned my camera lens as many times in the past week in Cambodia as I did in the last two years of using digital cameras...haha... 

We touched down in Phnom Penh at about 4:00pm local time. KK’s friend, Henry and our driver, Hai, was already waiting for us at the airport. We squeezed into the van with our luggages to our accommodation, Spring Guest House. Through the 15-minute ride from airport to hotel, we got our very first glimpse of Pnomh Penh and its people: endless acres of rice fields and flat land, traffic coming from all directions - bicycles, carts, trishaws, motorbikes carrying 3 or 4 people each (no helmets required), trucks and carts laden with goods piled as high as possibly could, trucks with more than 20 people riding on it, motorbikes pulling carts with goods and people on it, cars without registration plates, petrol sold on the streets directly from petrol drums or filled into re-used softdrink bottles. 

We had a splendid dinner by local standards at Restaurant 123, a Chinese restaurant which Henry recommended. After dinner, our driver took us for a tour around the city. We couldn't get down to take pictures, so we had to be contented to the view from our van. We passed by some "happening" places by the riverside and also on Sisowath Road. We returned to our hotel and went to have drinks at a coffee shop opposite the hotel. Coffee was irresistibly wonderful and of course kept me awake until 4:00am. We also pre-ordered our breakfast for the next morning as we wanted to start our journey early. Our journey continues...