November_12_2001

Hello everyone,

It feels like a long time since we have sat down to write in on line journal. Maybe that is because we have experience so much in the past 10 days. We wrote a brief letter explaining our troubles with the law, check out the entry dated the 10th of November for all the hyjinks. Bacsically we left Bangkok and took a 12 hour van ride to Siem Reap, Cambodia. This is the town nearest the temples of Ankgor wat. Which is the main reason tourists come to Cambodia. Therefore the whole Ankgor/Siem Reap experience was over the top tourist for us. Our van dropped us off at the Sunrise Guesthouse. They seem to time things just perfectly so you arrive later in the eveing and would rather stay at their location than look for you own. We found out later that if we were to venture off and find our own accomodations we would be "bad tourists". The first day we rented bikes to explore Siem Reap, and it was the most fun we have had on this portion of the trip. We interacted with people, and Brad helped a group of teenagers push a truck out of the mud.

Later that day we rented two moto drivers from our Guesthouse to take us to see the sunset on Ankgor Wat , and buy our tickets for the next 3 days (at $80 the tickets were very expensive). Little did we know that renting these two guys to see the sunset made us "obliged" to rent these guys for the next three days at $6 each per day. With an added $6 to go to the further out temples. This is outragous for this region! We went with them the first day to watch the sunrise over the temples. It was beautiful! Ankgor Wat is the worlds largerst temple with the worlds largest bas-relief panels. It was built in the 9th century and is amazing in it construction and rock carvings. A true wonder of the world. There are 70 monuments spread over 200 square km. The temples, palaces, tombs, moats, and so on was built ove a period of 400 years. The builders and the meaning of the temples is shrouded in a mystery. Much has been determined through the study of the carvings, but acheologist are mostly at loss to explain the why's, how's, and what happen to's of the magnificent structures. In the very early 1900's, French explores found the temples burried in the jungles of Cambodia. They began to unearth the structures and rebuild the damaged temples. Anything that was movable was stolen over the century and many great pieces of ancient Khmere art/sculpture were destroyed. This especially happened during the reign of Pol Pot in the 1970's. Some of the temples have been left how they were found, to give the observer a sense of history, and many others have been full restored with the important atifacts being relocated to museums. We thoroughly enjoyed the temples. Everytime we came to a new one we say "this is my new favorite one!" They are all so unique and intricate. It really moves the soul to be a the quieter sites a sit in awe.

Dealing with the tourist affects is another story. Not matter where you go there are native people pulling at you to buy something. Moto drivers hawk you as soon as you walk out of your room in the morning. The kids sell books and postcards at the temples and will follow you around. Jen bought a book and postcards by 7:30am on the first day. When we told the moto drivers we did not want a ride, but instead wanted to rent bikes, the told us they would not have a job for the day. The guilt trip is hard to deal with for us big hearted suckers. Either we figure out how to manage this or we will be broke or broken hearted very soon.

Read the previous journal entry find out about our being taken to the police station.

After that happened, we had had enough of Siem Reap and reserved a van to Phnom Phen. The dirve was nice since there were only five of us and we could stretch out. The rode was not really road, in fact, the small sections that were paved we usually drove on the dirt next to it because the pot holes were so big. At one point we were stopped because a truck fell through a "bridge", and we waited an hour and a half for it to be fixed, and then twenty minutes later we waited another hour to be pulled through a washout by a tractor. It was actually nice to go slow and view the country side because the other option was to take a fast boat down the river for $25 each. This place is very expensive.

Once in Phnom Phen we got our bearings. The second day we found Narins Guesthouse which is very comfortable for $5 a day. The main thing to see here is the Killing fields and the Tuol Sleng "holocost" museum. We recommend renting the movie "The Killing Fields" to witness the atrocities that occured here in 1975-79 at the hands of Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge.

to second page of journal....