Not since the churning of the milky sea have the gods had such a remarkable place to live. Kate and I left Bangkok for Cambodia and arrived in Siam reap, a god awful tourist town right next door to one of the worlds great temple sights. It was here that the ancient Angkorians created an entire mini universe to house all their gods and let me tell you the Hindus don't muck around when it comes to gods. ( My last count had them at over 30 million).
There are more face towers, five headed horses, monkey armies, and flying dragons than you can poke a serpent stick at.
In fact, Angkor wat is the worlds largest religious monument. The amazing thing for me is that Angkor wat only rated 4th on the list of amazing temples in the area with Angkor Thom, Preah Khan and Ta Prohm being more amazing in my opinion of course.
The temples around Angkor date from around the 9th century, achieving a peak around the 13th century and then practically deserted by the 17th century. The only buildings to survive in the area are the religious monuements as these were built out of stone whilst the cities and houses for the people were made of wood. Once the Angkorians had moved on or actually were defeated by the Siamese, the trees moved in. Little birds would build nests in the crevasses and the seeds would sprout in little holes sending roots downwards which in time would grow to take over these buildings. Scientists call this indianjonesing.
Ancient Angkor, was of course a cheery place as long as you were not a sinner. The damned as they were called could have fallen down a trapdoor to hell, all 32 of them, for a slow roasting. Alternatively should you find yourself a little too close to the wife of a scholar you could be thrown into a lake of slimy pus for all eternity.
But how did they build these magneficent temples? I hear you ask. Well the official version is that Vishnu after confounding the demon king and defeating the forces of evil, transformed himself into a giant and whilst riding a flying turtle took posession of the heavens and the Earth. Not even the nine headed nagas appearing as giant disembodied monkey heads could stop him. Gotta hand it to the guy.
For our grand Angkor tour, we hired a Moto -remorque, a sort of moped chariot and were driven around by our friend Nabot. Like a couple of nineteenth century english colonialists we sipped cold drinks as we were whisked from temple sight to temple sight where we pondered the natives from up high.
All in all 2 days of temple doing, and we could have even done more, had it not been for the intense heat here in Cambodia is averaging about 38 celcius and also for the fact that Siam reap really is one of the most depressing places ever. Unless of course dealing with starving, armless and legless mine victims whilst eating international cuisine in trendy minmalist restaurants is your thing.
With no public transport in Phnom Penh, a range of interesting modes of moving have popped up in this crazy city. In fact there is never any problem going anywhere you want. Just step into hotel reception and before you can take a further step the guy at reception asks if you need a tuk tuk. Step outside and you'll be greeted by at least 8 guys all shouting motorbike at the same time. By the time you walk to your restaurant for brekky, you'll have been propositioned a least 35 times. Perhaps the most popular is the lift on the back of the moped. 
This gets very interesting when you're balancing a backpack on your back, holding onto your daypack in front and hoping the guy doesnt pull out too quickly, which of course he does. The limit for passengers is 6 although we did see some people breaking this rule. One of the fun things about the moped is the mid traffic conversation, conducted at high speed. 
Up next is the Moto remorque. This is like a cruising loungechair and has to be the most advanced form of transport I have come across. With a warm breeze in your hair you can casually chat to your companion in the opposite chair. 
The ubiquitous cycle pedicab also has an interesting design accessory being that you the passenger get to ride out front, usually staring the ongoing traffic down in the process. U turns here consist of making a turn directly into oncoming traffic whose responsibility it is too swerve. 
The great thing about these pedicabs is the drivers who speak no english and have absolutely no idea where they are going. They are also newcomers to reading maps. Their strategy seems to be to agree to everything the foreigner says and get him into your pedicab and start cycling. Should you fail to give directions they will just continue cycling in whatever direction they started and behave as if they've just landed in Phnom Penh from Mars. 
Of course should any of these methods of transport prove unsatisfactory, hop on a truck, car, bicycle or horse, all of which the going rate seems to be about 1 dollar.
What mother would leave a 3 month old baby in the hands of a 5 year old boy? The answer is a desperate one and there seems to be plenty of those around here in Phnom Penh. Despite travel in Africa and Asia, I've never seen behaviour and hopelessness like this anywhere. At the same time you have Expats sucking down beers and bragging that they have more prostitutes than drug dealers in their mobile phone address books. Life is cheap here.
The ruthless hunt for intellectuals and enemies of the regime along with each individual's struggle for physical survival created a society devoid of any moral conscience. Cambodia has only emerged from this dark period in the last 10 years and most of the people have known very little of what living in a normal world is all aboutThe level of corruption here is staggering and even if you have a good education and speak English it is virtually impossible to get ahead unless you have a wad of US dollars or you have connections in the police or the Cambodian Peoples Party. The rich are getting extremely rich and the poor remain very poor. The Government still seems to believe it's perfectly legitimate to arrest anyone criticizing it and with the huge amounts of western aid being poured in, very little seems to be be filtering down to the poor people who need it. Landmines still remain a tragedy. More than 40,000 cambodians have suffered amputations due to landmines since 1979. ( thats pretty much 40 victims a week for 20 years). Although the Khmer Rouge was responsible for laying most of the mines it's interesting to know that the United States and China supplied most of these silent killers. As a backpacker it's a challenging place to visit. We enter their world and spend in a week enough to put someone through their entire university education. 
In Siam Reap tourists jet in from Paris and New York spending 3000 US a night on some accommodation stepping over legless land mine victims in the process. The fact that Bar st looks like something out of a wallpaper magazine or Vanity fair advertisement is enough to make you sick. But then again tourism brings money. It's just that's it's so in your face here. Maybe we need to clone Angelina Jolie and send a million of them over here to Cambodia. 
There are more face towers, five headed horses, monkey armies, and flying dragons than you can poke a serpent stick at. 
In fact, Angkor wat is the worlds largest religious monument. The amazing thing for me is that Angkor wat only rated 4th on the list of amazing temples in the area with Angkor Thom, Preah Khan and Ta Prohm being more amazing in my opinion of course. 
The temples around Angkor date from around the 9th century, achieving a peak around the 13th century and then practically deserted by the 17th century. The only buildings to survive in the area are the religious monuements as these were built out of stone whilst the cities and houses for the people were made of wood. Once the Angkorians had moved on or actually were defeated by the Siamese, the trees moved in. Little birds would build nests in the crevasses and the seeds would sprout in little holes sending roots downwards which in time would grow to take over these buildings. Scientists call this indianjonesing. 
Ancient Angkor, was of course a cheery place as long as you were not a sinner. The damned as they were called could have fallen down a trapdoor to hell, all 32 of them, for a slow roasting. Alternatively should you find yourself a little too close to the wife of a scholar you could be thrown into a lake of slimy pus for all eternity. 
But how did they build these magneficent temples? I hear you ask. Well the official version is that Vishnu after confounding the demon king and defeating the forces of evil, transformed himself into a giant and whilst riding a flying turtle took posession of the heavens and the Earth. Not even the nine headed nagas appearing as giant disembodied monkey heads could stop him. Gotta hand it to the guy. 
For our grand Angkor tour, we hired a Moto -remorque, a sort of moped chariot and were driven around by our friend Nabot. Like a couple of nineteenth century english colonialists we sipped cold drinks as we were whisked from temple sight to temple sight where we pondered the natives from up high. 
All in all 2 days of temple doing, and we could have even done more, had it not been for the intense heat here in Cambodia is averaging about 38 celcius and also for the fact that Siam reap really is one of the most depressing places ever. Unless of course dealing with starving, armless and legless mine victims whilst eating international cuisine in trendy minmalist restaurants is your thing. 
One day in Bangkok and the world's your oyster. From watching a monk sweep the temple
from up and coming Aussie Jamie Oliver types
or maybe something to dye your hair with
So what is this strange buddhist connection between the monks, the tourists and these unchained 170 kilogram top of the food chain beasts? 
The tiger temple was started in the late nineties when one of the monks came across a couple of baby cubs called storm and lightning and hand reared these cute little blighters into the cuddly teddy bears they are now. From then on the tourists and the tigers have been increasing and they are now raising money to build a huge enclosure for the tigers. So are the Tigers drugged? I hear you ask. Apparently not and towards the end of the day with their pacing back and forth, they looked very awake to me. 
We arrived with Kates sister and nephews and after signing our lives away, were greeted by a sign proudly proclaiming Dangerous but kindly. Before we knew it, a Tiger minder ( perhaps the strangest job in Asia) grabbed our hand and led us over to a wide variety of very large, well Tigers actually. So there we are patting the most dangerous of all the cat species with these tiger minders taking our photos. 
There definitely appears to be something very zen going on here, either that or the tigers are pounded into submission when they return to their cages at night. The tigers are the more submissive, and the Monks use both hands to pat them down and let them know whats going on. If a particular tiger gets too unruly he is sprayed with water or maybe even chained up... heaven forbid. A smiling Monk encourages us tourists to enter the enclosure as many times as we want. In the next breath though he does shout...they attack you they not chained up to one tourist who tried to get a better photo op by climbing a hill. Most of the time we spent behind a red cord at least 10 metres away from the tigers but for some reason that flimsy red cord made us feel a lot more safer. When we decided to venture the other side of the cord the minders would grab our hand and lead us over to the tigers where we could pat their backs, put their huge heads in our laps or even sit on them should we have wished. ( the latter option was usually only for children of which quite a few accepted) 
All in all we spent a wonderful couple of hours doing something we could only dream of doing back in Australia. check out www.tigertemple.org 
Kate's uncle returned to Australia about 6 stone and blind in one eye and he was one of the lucky buggers. 18 hour work days, chiselling nails into solid rock, barefoot in torrential monsoon rain and only 2 bowls of rice a day. The only people exempt from work were the really really sick. Every morning doctors did a stool test and if you had 80% blood in your faeces then you didnt have to work that day. Any less and it was too bad. Of course if you didnt work you didn't get paid which meant you didnt eat. All this togethor with fierce beatings by the Japanese and Korean guards. Despite this many pow's kept their spirits up singing songs, and teasing the Japanese guards in English with various nicknames. It's remarkable today that some of the Pows still return for memorial services and more bowls of rice. 
Unsure whether to clap or sit quietly we sat and watched whilst trying not to giggle. After she lit her incense and plunged into the pool, she prayed, turned over a couple of times and basically floated. We were riveted to our seats. Best 5 minutes religious entertainment ever. 
Dressed in full military regalia , sunglasses, pith helmet and sandals and socks Mr Thailand takes you on a right royal ride thru the Khao San district and it's a journey like no other. Jan the Swedish hitman and myself had a couple of beers and hopped on our carriage as we were peddled thru the streets giving the hippies, travellers, freaks and hard men the right royal wave, handkerchief included. The result was the funniest 40 minutes I have ever spent with no less than 2000 people returning our wave. No less than 20 people took our picture, kids were dancing in the street as we glided past and thai girls giggled pretty much the whole length of our motorcade. Only the Israelis failed to see the humour of us being in our carriage with fairy lights, Thai disco tunes and pink balloons. The remarkable thing about this ride of superstardom was that it only cost 2 dollars. 4o minutes of sheer unadulterted hanky waving. (the Israelis probably thought we were ripped off) . 
Mr Thailand has totally stumbled on the next big thing and if only we could combine the franchise of Handsome Sandwiches with Mr Thailand we will all be on a winner. Thank you Mr Thailand for make me happy.
