Same same - but different

First of all: HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OF YOU!! May 2012 bring only great things, new experiences, loads of love and friendship to you all! And of course travels ;)

I was celebrating New Years Eve in Bangkok together with my CS-host, some other CSers and of course with Alice - a friend back from Austria who is at the moment also travelling through South-East-Asia and with whom I gonna spend the next month in Burma - wohoooo. But now I gonna talk neither about Thailand nor about Burma - now everything is gonna be about Cambodia... same same - but different ;)

Many backpackers travel quickly through Cambodia on their way from Thailand to Vietnam or the vice versa visiting only Phnom Penh and Angkor Wat. Most of those staying longer would make short visits to Sihanoukville or Battambang. Everything else on the map seems unimportant and not interesting to them.

Me too, I admit not having spent as much time as I could or should have in this interesting country. But at least I tried to visit other parts then the ones mentionned above besides the must-sees (Angkor Wat and the sights about the time under the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh)...

Phnom Penh

Arriving in the early night in Phnom Penh I immediately felt the difference to Vietnam: not only was the traffic much less of a hassle than in Saigon (those having been to Phnom Penh before Saigon thought that it was really hassling there... well, wait till you see Saigon :D) but also the people were much more smiling than Vietnamese... This very subjective first impression was further confirmed by later own ones, and those of people I talked to :)

I stayed a few nights in Phnom Penh, meeting up with Alice, who was also there just at the same time. With her I not only went to the Khmer Rouge sights I wrote about 2 weeks ago, but we also to the various markets in the town. And we have been to a home warming party of some expats I got to know through CS...
You guessed it - English teachers :)

Call me naive or romantic, but I found it kind of shocking that only thanks to the fact that they are white and know how to speak English they can afford an amazing flat like the one we were - or lets say it even more generally: a great and easy life - whereas the average Cambodian population lives in small places in dirty neighborhoods earning not even 10% of what these Westerners earn...

Kratie

After Phnom Penh I headed North instead of heading South to the beaches around Sihanoukville like most other backpackers.

Kratie was my first (out of two) stops in the area. And even though there are still far less tourists in Phnom Penh than nearly anywhere else in Vietnam, I felt relieved to flee the "lady tuk-tuk?" shouts of the tuk-tuk-drivers in the capital city.
Kratie is a small town on the Mekong river - right in the middle of nowhere - and that's exactly what I was looking for!! For three days I didn't do anything but relaxing, reading a lot, riding a bike along the Mekong river or jogging and walking through the neighborhoods.

Cambodians are really nice and welcoming people in general. But what I experienced there was simply amazing: I was walking through the huts, in which people on the countryside are living, and I couldn't walk any meter without children shouting "hello!! hello!" happily in my direction and Cambodians smiling to me when I was passing their hut. You end up walking around with a big smile on your face for the whole day and feeling completely happy doing so. I was so impressed seeing these people, who have nearly no belongings and in many cases not even running water nor electricity, being so happy with their lifes. And - again call me naiv or romantic - I was sad knowing that this happiness will disappear the more Western lifestyle will be spreading around the country and infiltrating even the smallest village on the countryside...

Ban Lung in Ratanakiri

The mini-bus ride to Ban Lung was definitely an adventure! I thought that it's gonna be faster and more comfortable than the big bus I had taken from Phnom Penh to Kratie, where I had been freezed by the aircon and tortured with khmer karaoke TV (the Cambodians love it!). Well - mistake! faster: yes; more comfortable: NO!

In the small minibus - designed for around 18 persons - were 26 persons with loads of luggage, squeezed together like sardines in a can. We always had our knees up as on the floor below our seats were huge bags of rice or animal food.
Well, I guess the face of the guy next to me says more than 1000 words...

In this very minibus I met a guy from Israel with whom I spent a few days in the amazing Ratanakiri province! This province attracts not only far less but also completely different travellers than the typical SEA-backpacker: adventure travellers, as you can go trekking in the huge Virachey Natural Reserve, or swimming in a crater lake or below great water falls. As we didn't spend enough time in the region we only did the latter two, skipping the trekking...

We were relaxing at the crater lake for the entire first afternoon and at the waterfalls on the second, having fun with Or's underwater camera (why the f** do I look sooo stupid on underwater photos??) and finally ending up drinking with the Cambodian men having a picnic next to us...





I can definitely confirm what I had read in some travel book or blog about Cambodia:

Drinking has only one aim for Cambodians: to get pissed as fast as possible...

I am so happy having decided to go to this region. I really enjoyed the countryside and the warmth of the people in this area! And if anybody is heading to Cambodia: go there as well and take more time than I did and go trekking in the jungles!  

Angkor

After Ratanakiri I went back to Phnom Penh and then straight to Siem Reap, the town next to the historcal capital of Angkor, where the world famous temples of Angkor Wat and others are located.

Knowing that I am quickly saturated with buildings and sights I only went to Angkor twice: first to see the temples below sunset and on the next morning biking there at 5am before sunrise. I then spent the entire day there, walking through the temples and biking between them... I can't tell you how dead I was by the end of that day!

But it was soooo worth it! Angkor Wat, the most famous of the temples is really impressive! But even more than this temple I loved the Ta Prohm temple, where nature shows its force: sprung trees are literally embracing the old temple and growing out of the building and beneath the stones!

Just makes me think of the little prince:


"Sometimes," he added, "there is no harm in putting off a piece of work until another day. But when it is a matter of baobabs, that always means a catastrophe. I knew a planet that was inhabited by a lazy man. He neglected three little bushes..."

And the third of the three really famous temples in Angkor - Bayon - with its over 200 heads of Lokesvara was also one of my favourites.

Beside these three I of course also visited many other temples in this vast area that I would never have been able to visit entirely in one day...








Only when leaving Cambodia and arriving in Bangkok I realised even more what I liked so much about this country. Bangkok is a huge modern city in a country that is far more developed than it's neighbors. And coming to this modern city I saw even more how long the way for Cambodia still is to reach this level. In this city full of cars I couldn't imagine entire families squeezed on one single scooter like it was the case in Cambodia. And even if I didn't manage to make a photo of such a typical Cambodian family trip by myself (there are enough such pics on the web: check this link) - I took this one of my Isreali friend, me and our driver on a scooter in Ban Lung while driving on a road in Ban Lung...

You can find more impressions about Cambodia in my gallery, which I managed to put together really fast this time, he?! So I again have to say good bye to a country:

លាហើយព្រះរាជាណាចក្រកម្ពុជា

BTW: As I will leave for Burma tomorrow for one month and won't have neither internet nor mobile phone connection I am now saying a short goodbye to the world I know ;) So, next story will very likely not be online before February!!