2008-11-06 - Angkor 1 - Getting There

Friday the 31st was a Public Holiday for the King’s Birthday (his actual birthday, not a symbolic date), so I had organised to take the following Monday off too and headed off to Siem Reap / Angkor to do the obligatory tourist thing. Transport on the way up was the expensive ($35 vs $11 for bus) speed boat, but the attraction was that it was about 1 hour quicker than the bus, and you got to see the Tonle Sap river and lake.

Post office dressed up for the King's birthday

The boat was effectively a giant metal tube with windows, and made good progress up the river. You could sit inside or on the roof – thankfully the increasingly annoying French tourists (more on this later) mostly chose the roof to start off with. I headed up there later on too, once it got cloudy and there was less chance of cooking myself.

The boat stopped in a town to pick up a load of cycle tour / charity ride people, and then made its way into the lake. Just as the shores were getting further and further away, the boat lurched and then slowed and started drifting. Turned out the propeller shaft had broken, and we had to wait about 3 hours for a spare boat from Phnom Penh. Fortunately, mobile phones here work even in the middle of a lake in the middle of the countryside. The local fishermen kept passing the boat while checking their nets – I’m sure they thought it was all quite funny – canned barang (foreigners).

The boat

Giant riverside buddha

Fishing the easy way - set up a bunch of rafts across the river, with nets between them

The rafts again

Team paddling their way to Phnom Penh for the water festival in a week - they had a long way to go

On the roof

The spare boat arrived, mysteriously already containing passengers, but it was cloudy so sitting of the roof was fine, and the trip continued. Tonle Sap lake was impressive – it was the end of the wet season so it was big, and apart from the never-ending lumps of floating plants there was no shoreline to be seen in some parts.

On Tonle Sap lake

Boat number 2

Arriving in the Siem Reap “port” on the lake to a wall of touts, many holding signs saying either “x guesthouse welcomes Mr y” or “Tuk Tuk to any guesthouse - $1”. A noteable one was “x guesthouse welcomes Mr Penis” – the guy holding it didn’t have a clue. Found my sign and holder thereof, jumped on the moto and off to the guesthouse – a 12km trip or so. The arrival was meant to be just after lunch, but instead it was already dark, so it was a quick walk into town to look around, get sold some more souvenirs (business was bad that day apparently, so I supposedly got a better deal) and then find a $1.50 / dish restaurant for dinner.

While the town has a street called “Pub Street”, I was well past it, so back to the guesthouse.