Once again my wifi dongle has defected

I am very unimpressed with the wifi adapters.

This is the second time in six months that mine has died on me, making
them a very expensive way of keeping in touch using a laptop and I am
beginning to regret not spending a few extra dollars to get a laptop
with one pre-installed.

I have got a few photos and details to post, but with the wifi down
and all the local internet places not wanting me to use my own laptop
it is kinda hard to send them.

Every day I am amazed at how cheap something are and then a short time
later how expensive other things can be.

The new hotel I moved into only cost US $23 dollars a night but they
want to charge me US $5 per hour to use their internet, even though
there is a 24 hour internet place 4 doors down on the same road where
an hour is less than US $1.

Its insane logic, plus why should a internet cafe have a separate
price for locals and tourists to use their computers ... is it like a
tourist will use twice the electicity or something, I mean come on ...
whats the crack here!

A couple of days in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

The last few days have been a mixture of routine and general day to day living mixed with a few instances of great fun and enjoyment.

Cambodias capital, Phnom Penh, is a bustling busy oriental city with all I have come to expect from months of travelling around, and it never ceases to amaze and confound my efforts on encapsulating in it written form.

Tuk-tuks and motos are everywhere, calling out to you from the very moment you step outside your hostel or hotel to the moment you return, some politely smiling or waving to you while others are more irritating as they pull at you, block your path or even follow you shouting loudly as if by raising their voice you might suddenly change your mind and decide to use them.

However if you find yourself even a couple of streets away from the main tourist avenues you may find it impossible to find one in either travelling along the road or even sitting motionless on the sidewalk.

A city full of massage parlours, beauty salons and spa's where prices start from as low as $5 for an hour and go up to as high US $30 that I have seen, though I expect if you try checking into a high prices hotel their inroom massage service might be even higher.

There are only a few cinemas left in the city, each with only a couple of screens and their last show beginning around 6:30pm.

The messed up mixture of using both local currency and the US dollar notes pretty much everywhere has reached such a level where you sometimes pay using dollars for the main amount and riels for the balance or receive your change the notes of both currency. This not only means that in no time at all you find yourself with a bulging wallet, or purse, filled with notes of both amounts but also no real idea of how much in total you have. The good news however is that seem to have done away with coins altogether, which means that even a full wallet does not start digging deep into the bottom of your jacket or jeans pocket.

While there are plenty of stalls and markets where you can get either khmer or chinese food, the larger restaurants often have a variety or both mixed with a few Continental and America suggestions mainly for the tourists.

I did have a couple of episodes of iffy bowel movements, but I put that down to eating cold rice from a stall where it had been sitting all day followed by a few drinks chilled with less than pure ice, but after just a couple of meals of more familiar choices my body got its act together and things got back to normal.

The heat and humidity of Cambodia is such that a shower, a covered tuk tuk while out and about and accomodation with air conditioning is never far from my mind.

Three days ago to escape the heat me and E' went to visit the local water park, which was just a few miles outside of the centre of town. The place was a few signs of age, needing a bit of paintwork and showing spots of rust here and there but the main areas were ok and the price was affordable for the majority of the locals. With seperate kids pools, inflatable ring river around the outside, a three in one water flume area and a main pool there were plenty of places to go and just get wet without climibing over anyone else.

Because of the heat there was plenty of umbrellas and thatched roofing over the walkway areas and a sort of mesh cargo net that was slung over the main pool to let light through but no enough direct to prevent anyone getting sunburned. E' and I splashed around for about an hour in the main pool before we headed over to try the water flumes and once the water jets started to work again we had a whale of a time til it was time to go.

Maybe because I am heavier, or more water dynamic I'm not sure, but even giving E' a count of 5 I still somehow managed to crash into her midway down the flume so that by the time we spashed down into the pool at the base we were always is a heap of sprawling arms and legs. I found that going superman style I could avoid a big faceful of water at the end but going down face up was much faster.

Sadly the park closed around 5pm, so we had to get out, though to our credit we were the very last ones out of the pool, and in the hot evening air we dried up very rapidly. Once outside there was a bit of a mini fun fare just setting up, but it only had a few mechanical rides, a couple of hoop the can games but plenty of throw the dart at the balloon games. Only thing was, that the darts were very light, you were much further away than normal and so you really had to throw it hard to get it to reeach the balloons.

It seemed easy enough, as the balloons were packed tightly between each other with only thin strips of wooden battoning between each row and yet I managed to stick the darts into the battoning more often than a balloon in all three games that I played. At one point I thought that I had done enough til I was told that even one miss was enough to lose that game and unlike parks in the UK or US, you dont save up tokens to buy a prize it is a all or nothing kind of thing, so one miss and you may as well start again.

The next night we had a plan to visit the local puppet theatre stage, with the guide book offering drums, puppets, dance and a circus so plenty to keep us amused, however when we arrived and got our seats it turned out that these events were not held on the same night or weekend and that this particular weekend was a drums event. Slightly deflated I took my seat at the back with E' wondering how fun drums could be for an hour, but pretty soon I got into it and it was not a dissapointment.

Set over 10 acts, there were plenty of jokes ( in khmer ) that the audience roared at, dancers, acrobats with monkey masks acting like wild beasts first discovering drums make noise and songs, each act seperate and distinctive. During the half time interval we got to look at the puppet workshop area and I would have willingly bought a dvd of a puppet show if they had one, but all that was on offer were small puppets themselves, but not having anywhere safe to store them I decided against it.

The second half was no less entertaining that the first half and for the cost of a few dollars entrance it was well worth going to see and made a different evening activity than just sitting in a hotel or propping up a bar with a beer or cocktail.

A day spend wandering around Phnom Penh

I spent the first few hours of today catching up with sorting out the hundreds of photos that I had taken over the last few days, not to mention writing the blog entries of at least three days.

Around lunchtime I met up with my friend E' who suggested that we could grab a bite to eat before going to the National Museum and Royal Palace. I had already read in the guide book that some of these places are a little overstrict when it comes to clothes, so bare shoulders and skirts of shorts which were considered inappropriate meant that the owner would be barred from entry.

Flip flops and baseball caps were equally banned and when we were lining up for the queue to enter I saw at least six tourists turned away, four in disgust as they had already paid their entry only to then have their entry barred by the security but of course the tickets were non-refundable.

I saw the little market stall standing next to the the entrance but it did not do any trade today as the rejected tourists were far too angry to think about paying US $10 for a t-shirt to let them get in, and I whole heartedly agree or would have except for the fact that postered all over the ticket booth are large signs in english, including visual images,g statin what items of clothing were forbidden.

Anyway the National museum was the first visit and here we enjoyed a few minutes peace and quiet while I sat drinking a refreshing can and E' fed the fishes. We also went around the museum and took a few photos but there wasnt much in terms of information about the displays, mostly only very basic reference labels like "round serving tray", as if nobody would have guessed that already.

It was here that I learned that the Buddhist religion was going soft in its old age, as the monks were quite openly acting like any other tourists, wearing shoes, chatting to staff and visitors and even taking photographs of each other in front of interesting pieces, and it reminded me of the time back in Singpaore when I took a photo of a monk withdrawing money from an ATM machine.

The Palace was bigger and more impressive, especially the beautiful gardens, however the flowers were all chosen for their look and not their smell as even with all those petals and blossoms I barely caught any perfume or aroma of the lush vegetation that surrounded me, which was almost a sin.

The Silver Pagoda which was so called because of its silver tiled floor was hard to spot as despite being sign posted, you had to read the tourist blurb to know that it was so called because of its floor and in recent times they had taken to covering the floor with rugs and carpets so there was few visible floor tiles left to see and if you was not paying attention you could easily have missed them.

I declined from writing a wish on the lucky wishing tree,and it was a good job too as although it had become something of a cult status with tourists lining up to write on it, up above the tree was a sign written only in Cambodian, saying please do not write on the tree! However my reason for not signing the tree was that I am well aware of what wishing can get and that an incomplete wish fulfilled can be more harmful than no wish at all.

After the two big attractions for the day I remembered that my next two countries on my route, being Vietnam and China, both needed Visa's that were not possible to obtain from the border ( except perhaps with huge bribes and a few hours for them to process them for you ) so I asked E' if we could pop by a tourist place and sort them out, which after a trip to a photographics store to get some acceptable passport sized photos we did and for around US $86 and a delay of 7 days I could get them both done here.

For a few moments I considered if it would not be better to wait til I reached Vietnam before obtaining the visa or China as then I need not stay over a week in Phnom Penh, but then I rationalled that it was better and more convenient to do them both now, while I remembered and while the tourist place was almost next door to my guest house. Although it might work out better to have waited til I reached Ho Chi Minh City it could also have wasted a lot of my time there trying to find a place that did entry visa's that I could trust leaving my passport with and for a price I was willing to pay.

With this out the way I came back to the guest house for a short rest before meeting up once again with E' so that we could go to get something to eat western style, which we eventually agreed on Pizza. I chose a mix between a hawaiian and a sea food special only I was unprepared for them to replace the tomatoe base for thousand island dressing and the finished pizza just didnt taste right in my mouth, and as E' struggled to have 2 pieces of a medium size pizza I think she probably agreed.

Following a brief tour of the shopping complex we bought a few DVD's to watch over the next week or so and then after being unable to get a tuk tuk driver to understand that we wanted to go to a disco club we got bored and instead I dropped E' back near her place and then I went back to the guest house to rest up for the remainder of the night and to think about what to do for the next week.

Another bus journey to forget in Siem Reap, Cambodia

The coach journey started off slowly as the driver and crew waited for at least half an hour for more passengers to board and all the while with the bus stationery it meant that the air conditioning wasn't working either and it was starting to get awfully hot inside, especially as I was wearing long sleeves and jeans with this being the only way I can ever fit everything into my rucksack.

I had expected the English speaking coach ticket salesman to board as well, but he finally waved us off and we were gone, around 2pm and without me knowing exactly what time we would be arriving in Phnom Penh.

The coach went past village after village and each of them looked poorer that the one before, yet whenever we came across a temple they were always prefectly constructed and probably cost more to build and maintain that the entire rest of the village put together. In this fact they shared a lot with Thailand and yet out here in the sticks there were no tourists, as the towns were too small to be on any map and too recent to be considered historical, so why they bother all for their faith when their families and children are starving and risking catching disease on a daily basis is beyond me.

The coach stopped twice on the route and the restaurants nearby were the very dirty greasy spoon variety and as I had left in a rush I had not bought any good food for the trip so eventually hunger drover me to join them for some rice and undefined meat. This turned out to be a mistake as not only was it cold but it disagreed with me internally as I was to find out tomorrow afternoon.

My friend called me once on the road to ask for a time and location for my arrival, but as noone else on the coach spoke any English I was unable to give her any, but I kept her up to date periodically with text messages saying when I passed any major landmarks.

Dusk came and still we were on the road, which did not bode well, as I had hoped to get back during daylight but ni the end it was 8pm when we finally stopped and unloaded. The station was a darkand unwelcoming place and so I ventrued back towards the main road where I then called my friend for a pickup and ride back to the guest house where she works.

I really think that I should have looked before I sat down, as soon I had red ants crawling all over my shoes and jeans, biting me and looking down I only then realised I must have been literally on top of an entrace to an underground nest. Shaking them off in the light of the nearby shop front was no easy task but thankfully I was not bite any more and then my friend arrived offering a ride and a familiar face.

The guest house where she worked was not too far away and although the did not have internet or wifi, which was a pain for me, they did at least have a warm, comfortable and clean room which was all that I could ask for at such short notice.

Once we arrived I stopped long enough only for me to drop off my rucksack and have a quick shower before we were off to a restaurant which she strongly recommended as a great place to eat. We then made arrangements to meet up the following lunchtime, after her half day work as a receptionist and then she got the tuk tuk driver to drop her off before taking me back to the guest house.

I was a little tired but thought that I had enough energy left to just try and see what the local area had in the terms of bars and clubs, however without a map I did not feel confortable going too far and after walking up and down the main road for ten minutes without seing anything open worth a second glance I gave up and went back to catch a good nights sleep before the morning.

A few photos taken in the baking Ankor Wat morning sun

Although I got an early night it and set my alarm for around 4:45am it required a knock on my door by the hostel receptionist telling me that my tuktuk driver was waiting for me downstairs to finally get me out of bed.

Not that I wasn't prepared once I was awake, my battery was recharged, entry ticket already purchased and as dawn wasn't for almost another hour I had high hopes of getting some amazing shots of the dawn overlooking the central Ankor Wat temple before coach loads of tourists arrived and turned it into a circus. I left my hostel with high hopes but upon arrival this deflated down to no hope as the road was already pretty busy and there must have been well over a hundred tourists already there, milling about and clambering for the best position.

Determined not to be too disheartened I set about taking some scenic shots and did my best in the pre dawn dakness to get around and find at least one spot that hadn't already been staked out with a clear view.

My efforts were rewarded in that although the entry side of the main temple was already cram packed the reverse side was not too bad, and here was the best chance of getting an shots of early morning sunlight hitting the right angles.

I had mistakenly told me tuk tuk driver that I would only be about an hour, which was a rediculously short space of time to visit the central Ankor Wat complex as there are at lesat three large temples in the area and I barely got to experience the main one before I headed on back. This was even more a faux pax as the driver did not want to stop or go back over a place we had already been to once we departed and so a half day tour that should have finished at 3pm ended up being finished before midday.

The next few temples that he took me to was pretty much the same thing, tourists everywhere and it was only with extreme patience, timing and good angles that I got any photos without a head or body appearing into view right when I least wanted any.

I stopped mid morning for a snack and as fortune would have it I bumped into a woman that looked familiar and upon flicking back through my photos I realised that I had taken one of her in the back ground while I was in the foreground. I chanced to strike up a conversation and was happy that was not only half British, thus spoke perfect English, but was friendly and so while we had our seperate breakfasts we chatted away merily for about half an hour.

It turns out that she originally worked for UNESCO but like so many people who have tried volunteer or charity work, she soon became disallusioned when she realised how much was milked by the system and the top bosses, so she quit and now works in setting up luxury hotels for rich tourists in some far out places like, Siem Reap.

After parting company I headed on back to my tuk tuk driver to the next temple, which was all about elephants and yet a litle way off were some great gateway towers all lined up that had almost not a single tourist near them, which made no sense at all as they were very beautiful in their own right especially when reflected in one of the many pools that were in the area.

I don't think that I saw all the temples that were meant to be on the tour, and I was a bit miffed that I had paid for a tour and all I was getting was about 6 mini tuk tuk rides and for the most part I was paying the driver to sit around and wait, which was unncecessary as there always plenty of other tuk tuks around and even a bit of haggling could have seriously reduced my travelling expenses.

After a brief stop at a temple that was impressively high, and had very challenging steps leading up to it, we finally made it to the "Tomb Raider" temple, so called because of the Iconic encrouchment of nature that was so visually spectacular in the film. There were plenty of examples of where nature had defeated structure but here especially the tourists were out in force and wherever you looked you could see them all jumping, climbing or hanging off of part of the temple, all in search of an amusing or genuine photo opportunity.

Once I had got bored of watiing and taken the best shots that I could I moved on and back to my tuk tuk driver. It was a shame as I would have loved to have found a secluded spot and sat for a few minutes in contemplative silence but here that was impossible as there was nowhere secluded or quiet in which to do so.

When I found my tuk tuk driver, which was an effort as he told me to meet him on the other side ot the temple, but of course I had no map and the place was huge and overgrown so I had no idea which exit I came in or left from, but I found him waving at me and then I noticed that there were some paintings of a sight I would have loved to photo, being just the large heads overgrown with moss either side of a river where elephants were crossing.

Of course I didn't expect to get lucky with the elephants but the rest was great stuff, only the tuk tuk driver and the girl selling the painting told me that I had already seen it in one of the earlier temples.

Bemused I said that I certianly didnt recognise anything like that, only to be told that it had been changed and no longer looked like that at all, so what was almost the perfect photo was now impossible to capture.

With this news and the unrelenting heat I felt all templed out, so I told the tuk tuk driver to take me back to the hostel where I would work out what to do next, and when I got back I found that my friend from Phnom Penh had been calling and was eager to meet me.

And so, as I felt that I had seen the temples that interested me most, and I was short of time in gettting back to the UK I made the decision to press on to PP as sooon as possible, which turned out to be in less than a couple of hours as a bus would be leaving shortly if I was that desperate to reach there today.

The experience also humbled me a little, as it was only after I left the young female market seller that I realised she was speaking to me in English good enough for me to understand, but she is also totally fluent in Cambodian, Thai and with a little Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and French enough to complete a sale and all without being able to write a single word, not even her name.

While it is true that she started young and her need for foreign languages is born from a desire to sell, to make money and to live, this only makes it more admirable when you consider that she is a street child, living in a wooden hut and all her learning in done in real time as and when she can get the tourists to talk to her, thus without any structured lessons, college tuition or self help books. Her formal education may be non existent but anyone calling her stupid would be incorrect and ignorant themselves. 

If there had been much else to do in the city I might have booked an early morning bus for tomorrow and headed on out to see what else could be seen, but all the internet and guide books had said was a cultural heritage centre, some blind massage therapists and the main attraction being Ankor Wat, I felt that I was not really missing much and an extra day saved here and there will pay great dividends for if later on I love a place and want to stay longer.

Arranging it with the hostel I paid another US $10 dollar for a bus fair to Phnom Penh, with dollars I had grabbed from the ATM just moments before, and then headed on out on a bus that I hoped was right as the number wasn't the same and neither did anyone speak any English, yet my tuk tuk driver assured me it was the right one.

Pre-dawn and first light Photos at Ankor Wat, Cambodia