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| Talk,
Thomas Garland,
13 January 1999 | |
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It's not too late to cancel that holiday in Spain and head for Cambodia instead. Until a couple of years ago the odds of returning home in bits and in a bag were a little too high for comfort, but the situation has improved and it's now time to go before armies of travelling mouth breathers (that of course does not include you my dear readers) turn up, and they will. Ten years of tourism in Vietnam has all ready left its mark, need I mention Thailand. Meanwhile Cambodia is still recovering from very serious trauma and the Khmer Rouge remain a lingering problem, only recently keeping much of the country off limits, but what is left to see will blow your mind.
The first pleasant surprise is that unlike its fellow crypto commie neighbours there is little in the way of bureaucratic rip-offs, apart from the occasional bribe paid to a policeman. Visas are available quickly and cheaply and you won’t have to pay tourist prices on the trains, there don't seem to be any trains. Instead one tends to travel around packed in pick-ups on some of the world's worst roads. I turned up at the border in a Saigon taxi and continued on to Phnom Penh in an old Mercedez Benz through a haunted landscape of paddy fields, temples and palms to the unexpected sound of Tom Waits. The grenade launcher and AK47 on the back seat were fortunately not needed.
Phnom Penh looks and probably smells like a town that had once been gutted and left for dead, which of course it was. Like in Vietnam the U.S. dollar rules, a bundle of one dollar bills should get you anything and I mean anything, where else can you blow up a cow with a self propelled grenade. Guns of course are a big attraction and most travellers seem tempted to have a go, what the hell, their parents probably think they're in Laos. However one must not neglect a visit to the killing fields, the surrounding countryside being littered with clothing, bone fragments and teeth (please don't take them home as souvenirs), a poignant reminder of Cambodia's trip into insanity, a past seemingly forgotten by a people too gentle to bear a grudge.
Your options beyond the capital are limited, most board the cranky old Soviet rocket boats and cross the country to Siem Reap enjoying fine views and endless repeats of the much loved "Mortal Kombat". Siem Reap is'nt much, little more than a gateway to the lost city of Angkor. Now you may have seen the pyramids of Giza, the Taj Mayal or even Blackpool tower, well the temples at Angkor shit on them all. I have'nt got the time or the place to attempt to describe the place, all 500 km2 of it, but don't miss the temple of Ta Prohm, you will have seen it in "The jungle book". Anyway, take my advice, get there before the deluxe air conditioned buses beat you to it.
There used to be only one way out and that was back to Phnom Penh, but since last year it's been possible to ride a pick-up across to Thailand, though no guide books and certainly no embassies will recommend that drive through bandit country. The road, or what is left of it, is the cheapest an fastest way to Bangkok and so is very tempting. Pulled through seas of red mud by tractors, I shat myself most of the way. Having reached the Thai border, I boarded my deluxe air-conditioned bus and realised then why I'd liked Cambodia so much, it just had that edge.
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