stone temple pilots

07.06.2008 Kratie To Sen Monorom
outside seats!

Ruth and I decide to venture into the ‘wild east’, a world of tribal villages, waterfalls, elephants and, little did we know, bad, bad roads
:)

We end up on the top of a pick-up (“outside” tickets!) for six hours, inching our way through a foot or more deep mud, before we were implored by the driver to get into the back seat ( because we could have easily slid off the top on that muddy road).
The pick-up, precariously balancing about a 1000 pounds of fish and about a 100 dozen eggs and 4 grown adults from the west (considerably larger frames than the average Cambodian) out on an adventure, slid sideways on the hills, barely moving at times. And then it got stuck and in an effort to get out of the mud, something snapped (I was told, the axle).

So there we were, in the midst of a wildlife sanctuary, miles away from the nearest village, crouched uncomfortably in the back seat in the pouring rain, with our driver and his assistant sitting under a tarp by the pick-up waiting- for I’m not sure what.
Meanwhile, other cars, SUVs, pick-ups went by- occasionally got stuck in the mud, and then, with a little push by our driver and assistant, accelerated uphill.

After an hour and a half of waiting for a miracle while, jokingly, taking stock of our supplies of food, water and flashlights, we decide to hitch a ride to a village in either direction- whatever came first.
After being refused by three fancy SUV owners (we were covered in mud), we finally made our way back to where we came from in the back of what seemed like an antique US Army jeep driven by two Cambodian policemen. Certainly the perfect vehicle for this kind of terrain- It cruised through uphills, downhills, mud, and everything else.

A few hours later, I lay on a mattress, something I didn’t think we would have for the night, cocooned in the luxury of my silk sleep sheet.

A brief stop in Phnom Penh and then we are off to soak the sun on the beaches of Cambodia at Sihanoukhville and that was some serious sun! For two days, I lay on the beach- reading, sleeping, getting $5 massages, and just relaxing.

Turns out we really needed that time off. The next stop was Angkor Wat.

Everyone mentions how amazing it is, but no one mentions how exhausted you are at the end of every day at Angkor Wat. I suppose, the beauty of the temples overshadows the fatigue you feel at the end of every day.

Six of the seven days we are in Siam Reap, we go to take in the splendor and perfection of the temples. There’s no rush better than cycling on the streets in Cambodia in rain water, sometimes a foot deep, amidst crazy mixed traffic (than maybe perhaps cycling in India ;) motos, cars, tuktuks, buses- all honking for attention.
When I wasn’t cycling to the tunes on my iPod, I was reading up on Angkor Wat, hanging out on Bar Street watching Apsara dances at a café with free wi-fi, or getting ready for an early next day.

Another dream fulfilled, early tomorrow morning, I am headed to Vietnam – a step closer to another dream (there are so many, after all) kickboxing at Shaolin Temple in China!