I’ve got a list of excuses as to why I haven’t written recently including:
- I prefer not to write on my phone.
- There is a shortage of libraries in Southeast Asia with public computers.
- Since buying a motorbike in Vietnam, I haven’t had extended periods of downtime on bus trips to write.
Realistically, I just haven’t made blogging a priority. Today I located the local public library in Vientiane with the intention of writing this post, but they didn’t have public computers so they sent me to the Institut Français just down the road. The institute is a French language and cultural center with COMPUTERS, but they made it clear to me that these computers were for students only. So here I am writing from a local internet cafe that I’m sharing with a few guys around my age who are either sleeping or playing Fifa online.
I’m not exactly sure what my last update in Vietnam included, but on my final day in the country I purchased a Honda Wave scooter from a fellow American backpacer for $175. I departed from Ho Chi Minh City around midday and made my way to the border crossing. A bit of confusion at the border but overall the visa process was fairly simple.
As soon as I crossed into Cambodia, the environment turned into a scene straight out of Mad Max (or so I’ve been led to believe since I haven’t seen the films). Potholes larger than the stretches of rideable pavement kept me on edge as I darted in and out of the dense, free-for-all traffic attempting my best to avoid diesel exhaust and plumes of dust that nearly eliminated all visibility. Tremendous luxury hotels and casinos that seemed incompatible with the post-apocalyptic border town lined the streets and simply added to the comical chaos.
Eventually the traffic broke and the road conditions gradually improved as I found myself approaching Svay Rieng, a small town that served as my halfway point to Phnom Penh.
The following day I made my way to the capital of Cambodia, a city that I’ve heard virtually nothing good about. But as I drove through the congested city streets, I found that I enjoyed the blend of old, worn-out concrete buildings mixed with futuristic Chinese real estate development.
I contracted a bit of traveler’s tummy on my first full day in Phnom Penh and spent most of the day sweating it out in the hostel and feeling mildly uncomfortable. The following day I visited the Tuol Sleng Geonicide Museum (S-21), a former high school converted to a prison during the Cambodian geonicide in the 1970s. The site now serves as a museum that does an incredible job at explaining the rise of the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot and the attoricities they committed, which is unsurprisingly an event I only had the faintest knowledge of prior to visiting Cambodia.
After finishing at the museum, I began my trip south to Kampot along the worst roads I’ve seen to date. I regret not taking photos of the crater sized potholes, walls of dust, and general savagery of this ride, but all of my attention was directed on surviving this drive. So maybe I’m being a bit hyperbolic, but when a 3 hour ride turns into a 5 hour ride you can’t blame my remembering brain for taking artistic license with some of the details. I eventually skidded into Arcadia Backpackers Hostel and Waterpark late in the afternoon and launched myself off the waterslide before showering and sleeping.
The following morning I enjoyed more of the waterpark offerings, including a blob, russian swing, and DIY zipline that had a tendency to leave riders with rope burn. Later in the day a group of us assembled to check out the Bokor National Park, an experience interesting enough to justify it’s own essay. Coming Soon…ish.
Two days was all I needed at the waterpark to get my fill. After a bit of breakfast, I headed north on the same hellish road I took into Kampot in search of the farm I’d be volunteering at for the next week while waiting for my Swiss friend, Belinda to arrive in Cambodia.
After doing a bit of extra driving and borrowing a gas station attendants phone to call my workaway host, my escort arrived by motorbike and guided me down country roads to the farm that would have been impossible to find without him.
My days were bookmarked with watering rows of cabbage transplants, beans, peanut seeds, and a mix of tropical fruits. The first few days of watering involved filling five gallon buckets in a hydroponic fish pond that was under construction, and walking anywhere from 100 to 20 meters to splash water onto plants. Two of us with two buckets each could finish the watering in about 5 trips, but as we added more rows of plants and lowered the water level in the pond we knew we couldn’t keep doing this. Thankfully a few sections of PVC was all it took to turn our pump into a functional hose.
Besides transplanting seedlings, my midday activities included raking leaves to cover the exposed soil, harvesting young trees and palm fronds to construct shade structures for the young plants, and most importantly taking breaks in hammocks to gorge myself on a seemlingly endless supply of delicious mangos that at points were literally falling into my lap.
Adjusting to life on the farm took some time considering I was transitioning from traveling for the past few weeks with a group of nine friends, but just as I was getting into a nice rythm on the farm, Belinda arrived in Kampot.
I wasn’t particularly sad to leave and join Belinda at the eco resort paradise she’d been staying at, but I knew I’d miss the unlimited fresh mangos. My first night at the resort was great. Delicious food and fun conversation. However, the following day I spent 90% of my time sleeping, 5% running to the bathroom, and the remaining 5% feeling weak. So while I didn’t get to fully enjoy the resort, I was grateful to being soaking up the restorative energy here as opposed to being on my deathbed at the waterpark party hostel.
The next day I was not fully recovered, but I felt good enough to make the trip to Otres Village with Belinda. We rode through mud and rain, but my previous trip framed this one as a fun and filty trek. It helped to have someone to share the ride with.
Otres was a peculiar town. The highlights included piles of garbage along the streets, knee deep puddles that covered the length and width of the streets, and a sex toy vending machine. The only reason we stayed here was to serve as a launch point for our trip to Koh Rong Sanloem.
The boat ride to Koh Rong Sanloem began at a disorganized ferry pier where ships blasted electronic music, including a Jingle Bells remix that I couldn’t resist dancing to as I laughed at the dreamlike reality of Christmas edm music in May on the other side of the planet. Just over an hour after our scheduled departure time, Belinda and I boarded a double-decker ferry that shuttled us to a tropical, white sand island. Upon arriving we set out on a 35 minute hike through the jungle to reach the sunset side of the island where we spent the next two days relaxing, sweating, and swimming.
I can only spend so much time laying around on the beach so I was happy to depart after two days. From here we headed north to Battambang with a stopover in Phnom Penh.
Battambang is a small city that seemed to be working hard to turn itself into a backpacker destination in the next few years. One of the city’s major attractions is a handful of art galleries ranging from traditional watercolors to humantarian global photography. My favorite was the contemporary art gallery, Romcheik 5 artspace, a workshop turned gallery that is shared by four artists who were exiled from Thailand as children and forced to work before an NGO intervened.
In addition to touring galleries, a group from the hostel I stayed at took a ride on the bamboo train through the countryside of Battambang. The “train” was a belt driven bamboo platform that needed to be disassembled each time we encountered an oncoming train. Initially I wasn’t keen to see the train, but in hindsight I enjoyed the handmade and resourceful feeling of the ride. After the train, we visited the bat cave, an attraction for tourists and locals where each night around 5:30 a wall of thousands of bats stream in and out of their cliffside home to feed for the night.
Three days in Battambang was more than enough time to take in the sights and still have a few hours to laze around before departing for Siem Reap, home to the temples of Angkor.
The city of Siem Reap is a well developed tourist hub with endless food and shopping options to fill your time when you’re not wandering through temples that predate the 12th century. While it’s not my first choice at home, I made my way to a Starbucks for the third time in two months to get a glass of cold brew, something I’ve been unable to find anywhere else during my trip.
The most frequently recommended one day itinerary for touring the temple complex begins with a 4:30-5 AM arrival to catch the sunrise over Angkor Wat. I needed to catch up on some sleep before comfortably waking up this early, so I spent a day or two walking along the central canal in town, exploring the market and museum, and visiting the L’artisan Angkor.
L’artisan Angkor is an educational art center and social enterprise for Cambodian children from rural areas where they are taught traditional wood and stone carving, fabric weaving, jewlery making, and a variety of other skills. I toured the facility, watching young adults chisel away at blocks of wood and soapstone to create small Buddaha statues and other souvenirs that seemed to be available in an endless supply around the country. In addition to mass produced keepsakes, there were a few high end commision items on display and an exhibition on some of the temple restoration work that the craftsmen were carrying out in the temple complex. And of course the tour ended in a high end gift shop.
On the morning of our temple visit, Belinda and I left the hostel on my motorbike since her headlight was too dim to drive safely in the predawn darkness. After picking up our $37 entry tickets from a secondary location, we made our way to the most well known temple, Angkor Wat, with a crowd of other tourists. The sunrise itself was not breathtaking, but the wisdom of getting an early start was a great way to beat the hot midday temperatures. After several hours of wandering through temple corridors and climbing stone steps, we headed back to the hostel for a nap before returning that evening to visit one last temple in the final minutes before closing.
At this point my one month visa was approaching its end date so I needed to make my way out of Cambodia and into Laos. The trip to Laos was too long to do in a single day, so I stayed in the town of Preah Vihear and made a day trip to the Temple of Preah Vihear, located on the Cambodia-Thailand border at the top of a massive cliff. The ride up was so steep that at points I had to get off my scooter and push. While the temple was not as undiscovered as descriptions led me to believe, I was the only white faced tourist around. As a result I was asked to pose for my first and second celebrity white person photos. One with a Chinese girl and another with a young Buddhist monk.
After another night in the town of Preah Vihear, I began my ride north to Laos. My first destination was the 4,000 Islands.
Dave Tortora 