Thailand into Cambodia
(Originally posted October 2016)
Day 0 – Chicago, United States to Bangkok, Thailand
My lovely folks dropped me off at the O’Hare airport. Ironically the departing gate next to mine was destined for Guadalajara. The first flight from Chicago to Shanghai was the longest leg, fourteen hours. I felt a little restless but enjoyed some movies and finished reading a book. I completed “First They Killed My Father” by Loung Ung about her experience under the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. I found this book vital to my understanding of the country and its people.
I had a three-hour layover in Shanghai, China on the way. China doesn’t require a visa for travelers passing through for less than 72 hours. Next, I took a comparatively quick four-hour flight to Bangkok, Thailand. Everything went smoothly with immigration and baggage. Exiting security, I grabbed some cash in the form of Thai Baht and found my awaiting shuttle. I arrived at the hotel at 3:30 am, local time and wide-awake.
Day 1 – Bangkok, Thailand
The day’s activities were determined, in part, to beat the jetlag. Early in the morning, I connected with Will and we went out to explore the city before our group trip officially began. We toured around the city in a tuk tuk with a goofy but informative driver named Jack. He took us to several Buddhist shrines with a few detours to tailor shops so we could fake being customers and he could get a petrol coupon.
Our main stop was Wat Pho, one of Bangkok’s oldest temples. As this was our first Buddhist temple of our journey, the exquisite buildings and stupas blew us away. Built in the 16th century, it holds a 46-meter long statue of the Reclining Buddha and we even caught a procession of adolescents performing music and bringing alms to the monks.
That evening our group gathered one and two at a time in the hotel lobby. We met our CEO, or guide, Joey, that would be coordinating our lives for the next month. Our group consisted of eighteen travelers, ages eighteen to thirty-two, from the U.S., England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, the Netherlands and Norway. We shared our first meal together; mostly of pad Thai noodles, before turning in for the night.
Day 2 – Bangkok, Thailand to Siem Reap, Cambodia
With an early morning hotel breakfast, we loaded into our first bus ride together towards Cambodia. A few hours in we pulled over at the consulate of the Kingdom of Cambodia for our visas and again into a dusty market area around the border crossing. We tossed our bags in a rickshaw and walked through the two immigration buildings, one leaving Thailand, the other entering Cambodia. The sidewalks were lined with women with babies and people with disabilities, hoping for a few coins as people more fortunate passed them by. Quickly I observed the differential of wealth and opportunity from one side of the border to the other.
Arriving in Siem Reap, we dropped our bags at the hotel and had a few minutes to recover from the drive before jumping into tuk tuks to visiting Pila’s house. G-adventures sponsors a series of local homestays during the trip. The idea is to support a local family and community and for travelers to have a brief experience in residential life in various regions. Pila’s house was one of my favorites. Pila and her teenage English students welcomed us to the house and then walked us around their community. They took us down paths winding around the rice paddies and between houses. She explained their way of life and about the education opportunities that the kids have because of the G-adventures English program. 
We wandered around until the sun went down, as loudspeakers were blasting an announcement around the village. As we got closer, we found out that the announcer was presiding over a wedding. Pila got herself an instant invite, as she’s well known in the community and pulled a few of us into the ceremony with her. Awkwardly, we hovered by the door as the grandmother insistently patted the ground where she wanted the three of us to sit. With a few words of English, the groom welcomed us and the bride smiled. We listen to the speaker’s words and the couple’s responses. Plates of offerings for their future included all sorts of foods, sweets and beverages. What a special moment to be allowed to share in their celebration.
Back at Pila’s house, she introduced us to the Khmer cuisine. Seated on pillows in a large circle under the covered shelter, she passed plate after plate of delicious food. We feasted on amok, a coconut chicken steamed in banana leaves; curry with rice; fried noodles and veggies with pork; and rambutans for dessert. I could eat a thousand of those little jelly fruits with their funny-looking, hairy rind. After the feast and some guitar playing with the kids, we packed back into tuk tuks to the hotel, ready for an early wake up tomorrow.
Day 3 – Siem Reap, Cambodia
We woke at 4:30 am to get tickets and drive to the Angkor Wat temple complex. The whole complex was much larger than I anticipated. Just the moat around the main temple is over two miles long. At first we just roamed around the outside of the principal temple, many waiting for the perfect shot of the sunrise coming over the towers. I veered off and went inside the temple, catching some pictures of the temple without so many people around. After the sunrise, we returned to the hotel for breakfast and a quick rest.
We returned to Angkor Wat with our guide, Sony, to learn more about the complex. Now, we’re almost fully awake. Sony explained that the temple was built in the 12th century for King Suryavarman II. Angkor Wat has undergone restoration from damage of natural encroachment of the jungle and damage from war and theft, particularly during the Khmer Rouge era. We also visited the Bayon temple, built in the late 12th or early 13th century for King Jayavarman VII. It’s distinctive for the smiling Buddha faces on the towers. The last temple we visited was Ta Prohm, commonly known for its scenery in the movie “Tomb Raider.” This site has experienced very little restoration and visitors can see the effects of nature on the manmade structure with massive trees growing out, around, and over the temple.
Next up for this on-the-go day, we left for a quad biking adventure. Being the only person that hadn’t ridden a quad bike previously, I was assigned a guide. Boney rode with me for the afternoon, taking over on the city streets and highway crossing while encouraging me to push the accelerator more and more in the rural areas. On our quad ride we rode on dirt roads through country villages, surrounded by rice paddies, water buffalo and kids playing in the flooded ditches. By the end of the ride, I was doing all the driving on my own on the way back into the city and I felt much more comfortable on the quad bike. It wasn’t something I had thought about doing before the trip, but I’m glad I stepped outside my comfort zone to try a new activity.
In the evening a few of us attended the Phare Circus in Siem Reap. I was fascinated by the performers expressive movements, gravity-defying acrobatics and storytelling without words. The theatrical group wove a story of colonization, power and manipulation while performing stunts to the traditional music. The Phare Circus is a unique social program as well, using most of their profits to fund art programs for children in poverty. After the show we tuk tuk-ed to meet up with the group for a late dinner, karaoke and then dancing the night away at the backpacker bar.
Day 4 – Siem Reap, Cambodia to Phnom Penh, Cambodia
On the road by 8:00, most of this day was spent soaking in the landscapes on the highway. The highway was long, straight and flat. There aren’t any lines on the road, so passing vehicles just tap the horn as they go. The speed varies greatly with buses, a few cars, many motorbikes, tuk tuks and bicycles, so passing is frequent. Uniformed children were on their way to and from school, walking, riding bikes or piling onto motorbikes, some coasting on bikes while holding onto motorbikes. Young children played in the yards or splashed in the ditches.
The highway cut through seemingly endless rice paddies with a smattering of residences or small towns along the sides. Villages that were hidden further back had an elegant archway over the dirt road leading away from the highway. Along the road, rice farmers laid out big blue tarps to dry the grains of rice before selling or saving their harvest. White sheets of plastic hang on sticks along the edges of the paddies. Farmers use the plastic sheets with a light to attract crickets. When they hit the plastic, they fall into the water tub below and drown, providing some extra nourishment or income for the family.
Along the way we stopped at a rest stop for a break. This rest stop is also a market for all sorts of snacks: scorpions, spiders, mealworms, grasshoppers and slugs. At each break, there is a report back about the type of toilets, western or eastern. Some ladies in the group are opposed to the squat toilets typical in the region.
After nine hours we arrived in the capital city of Phnom Penh. The city was bustling with motorbike traffic, especially compared to the quiet countryside. In the evening we walked along the Mekong River and passed stalls cooking street food. Our group met for dinner and drinks. Sweet and sour pork, followed by an ice cream stop.
Day 5 – Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Most of this day focused on the horrors of the Cambodian genocide. From 1975 – 1979, the Khmer Rouge devastated the country of Cambodia. During this era a quarter of Cambodia’s eight million people were executed for being enemies of the new government or died of starvation and disease. Anyone connected to the previous government, professionals and intellectuals, and those of other ethnicities were tortured and killed.
Our first stop of the morning was to the Choeung Ek, one of the Killing Fields nearest to Phnom Penh. The site contains many mass graves, including ones of women and children and of insubordinate soldiers. Of the 20,000 people executed at this site, almost 9,000 have been exhumed. The remaining bodies remain in shallow mass graves. As visitors to the site, we observed areas that bones and clothing have continued to surface over the years of rainfall. The unearthed bones are held in a large stupa, containing over five thousand skulls, along with other bones and clothing of the killed. I felt most affected by the clothing; both in the memorial and sticking out of the dirt as to me it showed such a human side of the victims.
Next we traveled to the Tuol Sleung or S-21 Prison. The Khmer Rouge converted the former high school into a detention and torture center. Thousands of prisoners passed through this prison, tortured to give information about their families and other considered traitors before taken to Choeung Ek for execution. When the Vietnamese army liberated Cambodia and the prison in 1979, only twelve survivors remained, a few children and certain prisoners whose specialized skills spared their lives. Two of these gentlemen are still alive today, continuing to visit the prison daily and share their story with visitors. Their strength and dedication installed in us the importance of remembering and discussing these atrocities and others around the world in hopes of avoiding repeating the travesties.
The rest of our afternoon we relaxed with lunch overlooking the Mekong River, strolling around the National Palace and the Silver Pagoda, playing in the pool and later eating out pizza and ice cream.
Day 6 – Phnom Penh, Cambodia to Sihanoukville, Cambodia
We loaded up the bus and headed in the direction of the beach, stopping along the way for pineapple and toilets. The inevitable question at each stop, “what style of toilets?” is enough to keep some of the group holding off to the next stop. We arrived early afternoon in Sihanoukville, part port town, part beach town and stopover for backpackers.
We lunched at a beach restaurant on the beach overlooking the Gulf of Thailand. I ordered pineapple and beef fried rice and it was actually served in a halved pineapple. In the afternoon we laid out on the beach, a little unkempt with trash and sticks in the sand. This day was about relaxing, so after the beach we went to a spa for an hour-long relaxing massage.
That night we dined at the beach restaurant that had a nightly barbeque special. We enjoyed some drinks and dancing before walking back to the hotel.
Day 7 – Sihanoukville, Cambodia
Our morning started with a trip to the Kbal Chhay Waterfall, out of town down a dusty dirt road. On the ride, the rain started and by the time we arrived at the falls we were in a full downpour. Soaking wet, we walked and climbed around to enjoy the views until the rain let up. The rushing water provides families and visitors with a scenic picnic spot that includes platforms and hammock for groups. Because of the rain, we mostly had the place to ourselves.
