Lie in for once! Then set off at 12 for airport – fly Vietnam Air to Vientiane – ok flight. Arrive Vientiane at 3 pm – go touring straight away with Wah Bain. First stop -Wat Sisaket…
Wat Sisaket
…then across the road to Hor Phra Kaeo.
Janie and Wah Bain stop for a quick jar at Hor Phra Kaeo
Then on to see That Luang after closing time!
That Luang after hours – see also headline photo. Amazing what a few Kip can achieve.
Attempt to see monument Anousaveri ( vertical runway) also, but they won’t play after hours – so go on to Tong Khan Kham – evening market – very attractive.
…and so colourful too.
Go out to dinner to eccentric Le Vendôme Restaurant in our hotel’s green London taxi.
Had gratinated crab, duck with cashews and braised Barbary duck and apple tart with a good bottle of wine under $30 before tip!
…followed by the somewhat surreal dinner that evening, with the Phnom Penh agency dude who was sure we needed some TLC after our off piste touring, which we didn’t…
Left early for Sihanoukville – four hour drive. Stop off on way to refresh/make offerings to Pich Nil who blesses the journeys along that road.
Blessed be the travellers at Pich Nil, between Phnom Penh & Sihanoukville
Lunch of chicken soup at Seaside Hotel. Then lovely afternoon the beach. I get chatted up by lots of pretty girls as usual. Daisy fends them off.
Seaside Hotel above, Ged & les girls below
While there was something a bit sleepy-seedy about Sihanoukville back then, it hadn’t even faintly started its boom as a casino and high rise seaside city, nor its even more recent bust as a scam and crime town.
Early evening at La Feulle restaurant where we tried chicken curry, Khmer sweet-and-sour pork and mixed veg and rice. I’m shattered so we have an early night had a good sleep.
…but as is often our wont, we had a mind to change the itinerary a bit once we got to Cambodia. After all, that’s what independent travel is all about.
We loved our time looking around the Siem Reap/Angkor sites, but two days of doing that was enough for us. Meanwhile, I had read one or two articles before we left home about sites reasonably near Siem Reap that were just starting to open up for tourism post war. We fancied exploring one or two of those.
It is normally quite easy to make such arrangements. I am very understanding that such changes are in effect requests for additional touring and I expect to pay the going rate for such additional tours.
On 5th and 6th February, I explained all that to our guide, Khouch, encouraging him to call his head office and make arrangements for us to visit some more remote sites on 7th February. Khouch was most reluctant. He seemed to think it reflected badly on him or on the itinerary that had been prepared for us in advance.
At one point, I even had to ask him to let me speak with his boss myself, directly, to explain how extremely satisfied we were and how much more extremely satisfied we would be if they would take quite a lot of money from me and arrange a more remote touring day for 7th.
Our photos for those first few days are in this album – click here, the first 58 being Siem Reap/Angkor 5th and 6th February, the rest being that amazing off piste touring day on 7th.
We set off later than intended, as Khouch had some difficulty getting the tickets/permits required for the trip. We also made very slow progress along the “road” (see photo above), with driver Guon (Janie called him “Goon”) managing 3 to 5 kph because he was so fearful of punctures.
Phnom Kulen Waterfall
Phnom Kulen was, as I describe it in my log:
…a bit of a local circus with a reclining Buddha & a monk & some large stones. We go on to the waterfall where locals eat and swim…
To some extent we were in search of lingas, but needed to go on to Kbal Spean to see those. There we had to hire a local guide. The local guides are all retired/reformed Khmer Rouge geezers, who don’t speak English but that’s OK because at least Khouch can earn his corn translating for us.
Janie with our local guide at Kbal Spean
The translation is quite important. Not because we needed to be told what lingas look like, but we did need to be told to stick strictly to the path because no-one has yet got around to clearing landmines from the undergrowth either side of the path.
“If you want a pee, wait until we get back or if necessary pee on the path, but don’t wander into the bushes to have a pee anywhere around here”, translated Khouch, most usefully.
In short, off piste is only a good idea up to a point.
A safe space to see the lingas
The Khmer chaps had cleared some tracks through to see the splendid lingas, which Janie can be seen (above) observing with great interest.
Then on to Banteay Srei, a really beautiful old temple well worth exploring:
A wonderful ruined temple but all Janie cares about is feet
We let Khouch and Goun know that we were very happy, but somehow it seems that doubts remained at the agency about our unusual request.
Aftermath – Dinner 10 February in Ponlok Restaurant
For our last night in Cambodia, in Phnom Penh 10 February, we had arranged to eat at Ponlok restaurant, now defunct but described by Conde Nast Traveller as:
PONLOK RESTAURANT
319-323 Sisowath Quay, Phnom Penh (00 855 23 212 025). For upmarket Khmer cuisine, this is one of the best places around…
I got a call from the agency saying that the manager of the agency wanted to meet us there. He was an Englishman who seemed to have been taken from central casting of a Somerset Maugham TV series. He insisted on treating us to our feast and wanted to make absolutely sure that we were happy, because we had changed our itinerary in Siem Reap and our guide was concerned that we might not be satisfied customers.
I explained that we had no complaint at all, other than mild irritation at the difficulty we had persuading Khouch that our request for flexibility was built on satisfaction rather than dissatisfaction. The manager explained that more or less all of the guides were very nervous and quite incapable of making decisions. This was probably because they were all relatively young and had all had severely traumatic childhoods. Understandable.
Hello, Mr Frog
Ponlok Restaurant along riverfront – tried soup, frogs legs in ginger, marinated pork, chicken in Cambodian spice & morning glory. Stuffed. Stuffed. We enjoyed the walk back.
The other thing Janie and I remember about this meal was the noisy, dripping air conditioning unit above us, which made us feel very nervous and decreasingly hungry, while the manager chap talked for England and Cambodia at far greater length than was necessary. We’d have been happier to have paid for our own dinner and to have dined in peace, but there you go.
…lunch at Sampheap Restaurant. Tried chicken curry and coconut, fish soup (sour) water convulvus, grilled fish and rice.
Then home for siesta before setting off for “grand circuit” temples.
Drove past Prasat Kravan and on past Banteay Kdei and Srah Srang before stopping at Pre Rup.
Angles on Pre Rup
Also stopped to glance around East Mebon.
East Mebon (…North Mebon, West Mebon, Ealing Broadway…I’m getting lost again!)
Ignored Tra Som but took in Preah Neak Poan and Preah Khan.
Preah Neak PoanPreah Khan – stunning.
Did the mandatory Phnom Bakheng routine at sunset – Daisy going all the way to the top of the temple. Ged staying at the top of the mountain but not the temple.
Everybody who was anybody does Phnom Bakheng at sunset
Went round afterwards to sort out currency and try to get “passes” for tomorrow’s adventure – no joy.
The tale of our setting up of the 7 February adventure is rather strange one, but it says much about the prevailing issues and culture in Cambodia still in 2001.
Janie and I had identified, from a magazine article, a fascinating-looking day trip out of Siem Reap, which looked far more interesting to us than “yet another day looking at temples”. We discussed it with our Steppes East agent, who had alerted the local agent that we might want to do that, depending on the extent to which we were “templed out” after our first couple of days. Some people feel the need to take it easy the first two days and are grateful for more time around Siem Reap itself.
I knew that I would need to pay a supplement locally if we chose the extra excursion, of course.
Our local guide, Khouch, seemed almost distraught at the suggestion that he call his office in Phnom Penh and arrange the trip for us. He explained that it was somewhat off piste, so we would need to engage a local qualified guide when we got there. We knew that. Khouch explained that such journeys were hard on the vehicle, so the price for the extra road journey would be high. We knew that.
It became clear to us that, in Khouch’s mind, our request to vary the itinerary was a form of complaint about the arrangements we had pre-made, which it absolutely wasn’t. We had considered varying the arrangements in advance and been advised to vary them when we got to Cambodia for practical reasons.
We virtually had to drag him to the phone to call the office and have me agree to the “staggering” day trip fee (I think it was $150 or something like that for the two of us) with Khouch’s boss.
We got there in the end, but even at the end of our trip the head of the agency came to see us because he had been alerted by Khouch that we were unhappy about something…which we weren’t.
The agency head explained to us that young men like Khouch, who had been brought up in the time of terror, are very reluctant to take initiative and are very nervous that they might fall foul of authority, even in benign circumstances like ours.
I mean, could I possibly come across as THAT scary?
