Sprained ankles, sweaty days and Siem Reap

I left Cambodia this morning, after a ten day visit that started in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital city, and ended in Siem Reap, with a brief stop in Battambang in the middle. I arrived with a sprained ankle, not exactly an ideal situation, but considering that it’s not often we get to choose what hand we are dealt, I had to make do with what life had thrown at me. My injured ankle affected my plans to an extent, in that I had to be careful where I was walking and for how long, but in the most part, I was able to continue as normal. I couldn’t ride bicycles, which is something I probably wouldn’t have done anyway, I was unable to walk long distances, which, in the heat of March in Cambodia, would probably have been dangerous and ended with heat stroke or worse, but I could climb stairs (slowly), explore temples, wander around museums and historical sites, everything I would have done under normal circumstances.

If I had to describe my time in Cambodia in two words or less I would say short. Too short. I spent two and a half days in the capital, one and a half days in Cambodia’s second largest town, the sleepy Battambang, and the rest of the time in Siem Reap, gateway to the famous Angkor archaeological site. Most of my time was spent in cities, and in retrospect, I would probably have divided my time differently, and maybe headed down to the coast, and spent more time in the villages, instead of spending five whole days in Siem Reap, of which many hours were spent hiding from the heat in my heavily air conditioned room watching marathons of Sex and the City, New Girl and Glee, and laughing at the censoring of specific words, and combinations of words, and the blurring of certain partially revealed parts of the female anatomy. While many things can be said in retrospect, I do have to say that even though I would have liked to see more of rural Cambodia, being in Siem Reap for so long probably wasn’t such a bad thing, as it gave me time to let my ankle rest a bit, and to start to heal.

Cambodia can be intense. While the horror of the genocide and Pol Pot’s atrocities in the mid to late seventies aren’t actually taught in schools yet (one of the reasons being that the current government is essentially still made up of former Khmer Rouge members and sympathizers), there are plenty of reminders all over the country, with areas previously used as killing fields, killing caves, and detention centres, being turned into museums, and memorials. In Phnom Penh, a standard day for most tourists will include a visit to the killing fields of Choeung Ek, found just outside the city, followed by a trip to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a former school, used by the Khmer Rouge as a detention and torture centre. Many visitors to Battambang will be taken to the killing caves, a place where Pol Pot’s henchman threw over three thousand people to their deaths, and the killing fields, both now memorial spots with numerous temples adjacent to the sites. Those who don’t make it to Phnom Penh or Battambang will go to similar sites located throughout the country as, unfortunately, there is no shortage of sites.

While there are numerous other things to do in Cambodia besides visiting the horrendous sites of the genocide, these visits are the things that stand out the most, especially after being there for such a relatively short period of time. You see many maimed and disfigured people on the streets of Cambodia, many the result of atrocities during the war, or as a consequence of the many unexploded bombs that littered the country in the years after the Vietnam War, as they still do in Laos and Vietnam. In Nepal and India, many of the disfigurations that you see on the streets are caused by third-world country diseases, malnutrition and lack of adequate health care in poor areas, to name just a few causes. In South East Asia, while the health issues found in other parts of Asia are also to blame, it is highly likely that the disfigurations that you see are direct consequences of wars and their aftermath, the direct effects of mankind and its cruelty.

That being said, my experiences in Cambodia weren’t limited to learning about the atrocities that occurred there. Cambodians are incredibly friendly, with the “Buy from me”, “Tuk-tuk lay-dee?” and “Come my shop”s thrown at me at all times of the day mostly being said (repeatedly) in ways that were less annoying and more amusing than in other places. Bartering with the Khmer people was fun, and even though I always came away with the suspicion that they were getting the better deal (I’m sure they were), we always had a laugh, which at the end of the day, is really what counts. The Khmer food, while less distinctive that Vietnamese food, was delicious, and I loved the Amok, one of the national dishes, with all its coconut flavours.

In Cambodia I spent time with both old friends and new, with old friends being those dating back as far as my time in Thailand and Laos, and as close as my last few days in Vietnam, and with new friends I’d met on buses and on the street. By this stage of my trip, I was no longer surprised to randomly run into people I had met before, as I’d already seen it happen so often, but it was still a great feeling to arrive in a new city and for it to feel less foreign because I knew I wasn’t there all alone. In Siem Reap I finally met up with a new-old friend, one of my fellow 52framers, Anna, who I had been in contact with throughout the last few months, and who I finally got to meet in person. She took me around the temples, introduced me to other ex-pats, advised me on great places to eat (gelato lab, AMAZING), and made me feel so incredibly welcome. I spent my entire time in Cambodia with these old and new friends, making it as far as my flight to Bangkok, flying with a friend I’d met two months ago on my first day in Thailand, definitely a great way to end my time in Asia.

A highlight of my week and a half in Cambodia was my visit to Battambang, the only period of time I spent outside the main cities. With my friend Marcus, another “old” friend from the days of the Mekong Delta trip in Vietnam a mere two weeks ago (less than a week at that stage), we spent a full day driving around the countryside with our incredibly knowledgeable tuk-tuk driver Nani, who took us to anywhere and everywhere of interest, both touristy and not. We rode the bamboo train, ate sticky-rice cooked in bamboo, and saw the incredible sight of over twelve million bats flying out of their cave and into the sunset, climbing up into a relatively unknown viewpoint to view the exodus from up-close. It was torture on my poor ankle, but totally worth the climb, although the smell of millions of bats in close proximity is one that I won’t easily forget. The countryside around Battambang is beautiful and the waving children everywhere brought a smile to my face each time, as I raised my hand to wave back at every child.

I can’t write a post about Cambodia without mentioning Angkor, the huge complex of old temples and structures a few kilometres from Siem Reap that is the most well-known of all the sites in Cambodia. Millions of tourist flock there each year to see its impressive structures and to photograph Angkor Wat at sunrise. I spent two days at the temples, one with Anna, and another day with other friends from Vietnam. Two days barely scratched the surface, but with the intense heat and humidity, that had us sweating buckets from the minute we walked out of our air-conditioned rooms in the morning until the time we went to bed, it was difficult to spend too much time out there. Add the hordes of tourists to the equation, and two days was definitely enough to be out in the heat. The temples are incredible though, and I’m so glad to have had the chance to see them, although my two days was almost cut short when I cleverly managed to lose my three-day ticket, preventing me from entering one of the temple grounds. Luckily my ticket was found and returned to me by one of the guards at the Jungle Temple, one of the most famous temples, known for being featured in the film “Tomb Raider”. The Junngle temple is an incredible example of the temples of Angkor slowly being reclaimed by the forest around them, with huge tree trunks and tree roots invading the open spaces, a beautiful site to see.

I’m currently sitting in the airport in Bangkok waiting to catch my flight to Hong Kong and then onto Melbourne, where I’ll be starting my six-week Australia adventure. Sitting in the food court, with western chain restaurants all around me, I’m already missing the simplicity that is Cambodia and most of the places I’ve travelled in since I left Israel five months ago, what seems like a lifetime ago. There’s a lot about this area of the world that is so special and unique, and even though it is changing to accommodate both progress and the influx of tourists, there are many places that still retain the charm and authenticity that make them so memorable. I’ve loved the last five month I have spent in Asia and am sad to close this chapter.

Australia will be a totally different experience, and it both scares and excites me. I’m scared to re-enter civilization and to have to re-learn how to make polite dinner conversation after so many months of mainly interacting with fellow travellers. I’m scared to have to go back to wearing normal clothes after months of elephant pants, especially since my jeans, the only relatively normal piece of clothing that I have in my backpack, don’t exactly fit me anymore. I’m both scared and excited to go back to the place that I once called home and to encounter it as the person I am today, someone so different to the girl who said goodbye way back in 2001, and who last visited over seven years ago. I’m excited to re-discover the city I grew up in, and to travel to parts of the country that I never managed to see in all the years I lived there. I’m ecstatic to be going to a place when I can finally control the food I’m eating, and where people know what the word “gluten” means.

I’m looking forward to the challenges that the next few weeks will hold for me, and I know that my time in Oz will be as good as I am anticipating. I’m looking forward to seeing people I haven’t seen in years, and people who have known me since I was born (or close to it). I’m looking forward to some home cooked meals, and to spending Pesach with people I love. Most of all I am excited to be landing and almost immediately heading to the MCG for the first game of the AFL season, Carlton vs Richmond. Go Blue Baggers, show ‘em what you’ve got!”