Cambodian petrol stations come in the most unlikely disguises. And for the brand conscious drivers you can get one or two litres Johnnie Walker Black Label petrol bottles for refuelling. Keep on driving!
Check out my pictures from Siem Reap, Cambodia, here: http://easteatswest.typepad.com/photos/siem_reap_cambodia_2/index.html
Picture: This used to be the Siem Reap court and is now a hotel and retail development in the making.
In development aid the support of the government can make a big difference. For example in Vietnam the government supports and funds activities for Agent Orange victims, in Cambodia in contrast NGO are left on their own. The government does not provide any funds. This has to do with how governments work and corrupt they are. Here are two examples:
In Cambodia government employees are lowly paid and rely on bribes. And the more lucrative a government position is the more sought after such jobs are. This leads to the result that one has to give money to his superior in order to get and keep his position. The governor of Siem Reap, according to well-informed sources, recently transformed his house in the heart of Siem Reap into a hotel. The money from the hotel he now “invests” into a big, juicy present to his boss and voila, he is allowed to keep his lucrative job.
Another example of corruption can be seen in cases where the government supports the construction of schools. A budget is allocated to the project and construction companies with the help of officials start to import subsided building materials. But not only materials for the school are imported but far more. The surplus material is then is sold off locally to other projects. This is Cambodian style development aid.
Picture: The Cambodian Orphanage run by KADO in Siem Reap.
Running an aid organization in very poor Cambodia
For more information about the Sangkheum Orphanage in Siem Reap, go here: http://www.sangkheum.org/main.html
What are those two dogs up to? I would like to point out that the smaller dogs rear legs are suspended in mid-air. If you have a guess, drop a comment below...
Picture: Preah Khan Entrance at 5.30pm - me and the temple, alone. Priceless!
The Khmer Kings built the many temples nowadays making up the Angkor Park between the 10th until the 14th century. Soon after the Khmer Empire went into decline and the Cambodians simply forgot the temples in the jungle. Not until much later when French explorers discovered the over-grown temples of Angkor in the jungle and started freeing them from trees and scrubs. Today the Angkor temples are the most breath-taking monuments in the whole of South-East Asia together with Pagan and Borobudur. And they are a major source of income for Cambodia as tourists flock in thousands to Angkor. It is therefore hard to imagine how the French explorers felt when they saw the temples for the first time. But there is a way to experience the Angkor temples without flocks of tourists and noisy guides. As the temples “close” at 5.30pm, meaning the guards go home, and all tourists will have left to Bakheng Mountain to see the sunset, the temples become empty and the animals living in the jungle starting their nocturnal concert. Sunset is around 6.30pm so you have one hour to explore the temples all by yourself. When I went for example to my favorite temple, Preah Khan, I was the only person present and I got an idea how the first explorers must have felt: overwhelmed by the immense, towering structures surrounded by jungle. As Angkor Wat remains busy I recommend that you visit the temples of Preah Khan or Ta Prohm where you will also get the jungle feeling. And the beauty of the story is that you do not even need a ticket to get into the temples anymore!
Picture: Inside Preah Khan, alone and thoroughly mystified.
Silk has for a long-time been the fabric of choice for royals and noblemen. It spawned a trade that connected the East with the West as royals developed a craving for this luxurious material. There is only another material as prestigious as silk, Kashmir, produced from the hair of a specific goat that lives in the Himalayas. Silk has been produced in many countries from China to Japan and Thailand and Cambodia used to have a flourishing silk industry. But it got all destroyed in years of war. Nowadays a former cooperation between the EU, the French Government and Cambodia, called Artisans d’Angkor, is working hard to rebuild the Cambodian silk-industry. About half an hour outside of Siem Reap one can find its National Silk Farm where Artisans d’Angkor are experimenting with different Mulberry Trees, the leaves which then are fed to the silk-worm. Artisans d’Angkor, no a co-operation between the Cambodian with over 1’000 staff a wide range of amazing silk products. Again and again I am amazed by the combination of traditional Khmer patterns and wide array of products from scarves to pillow-cases to clothes. All products and all silk are locally hand-made by Cambodians. The products are then sold in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh to tourists. Buying products from Artisans d’Angkor directly supports the local workers and helps to restore a formerly grand industry to its initial glory. Check out their website here: http://www.artisansdangkor.com/index.php
After dark on the way back from Preah Khan Temple my driver got a flat tire on our 125cc Honda Dream motorbike. Luckily we were close to Angkor Wat and he quickly found an apparently vacated shop. After calling a man appeared from the dark and immediately started to work on the flat tire. In only 20 minutes the tire was fixed and we got charged a modest 50 cent. Once again I was amazed by the resourcefulness of the Cambodians, even in the middle of the jungle.
What a wonderful Lotus Flower I found near Siem Reap!
Picture: The lounge of Hotel de la Paix in Siem Reap
Siem Reap can feel at times shabby, unfriendly and dusty and besides Angkor there only seem to be endless hotel-monstrosities with name-variations of Angkor. After a day of hard sightseeing and climbing many temples in the burning sun the little Cambodian city might get you and a nice place to relax and replenish is essential. But do not despair; here are my tips where to stay and where to eat in Siem Reap:
Picture: My friend Soley, me and an (atypical) beer-girl having Cambodian BBQ.
With Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut being trendy places to dine out for many Asians, it is refreshing to see that Siem Reap lacks so far such establishments (and no McDonald’s either) as besides eating roadside, the traditional way of dining-out is still preserved in Cambodia. Recently I was invited to experience with Cambodian friends a night-out at a local restaurant and experience what sets the Cambodian dining-experience apart: entertainment. We drove to a spacious open-air restaurant, surrounded by little huts, for a more private dining experience, which was located on the outskirts of Siem Reap and boasted, very essential, a huge car-park for the prestigious new cars of the guests. We were then welcomed by lovely ladies dressed in night-gowns who ushered us to our table. Immediately we were surrounded by “beer girls” wearing beer brand uniforms ranging from Tiger, Anchor, Asahi to Heineken. The ladies are paid by the bottle they sell so they wasted no time trying to convince us to go with their brand. I quickly settled for my beloved Japanese Asahi beer and the Asahi-girl brought warm beer bottles and poured it into our glasses, adding ice-cubes in order to cool it (the positive effect is that it dilutes the alcohol). Regarding food I opted for a traditional Cambodian BBQ that consisted of a dome-shaped table-grill that gets coated with lots of butter and is heated by hot coal. Than vegetables and beef is barbequed on the grill and served with rice. And being Cambodia one does not have to move a bit as the waitresses pour beer, bring ice-cubes, put the beef on the grill and attend to all other desires one should have (and I mean any…). For example is it not uncommon that customers have beer girls as part-time girlfriends, paying for their accommodation, food and clothes for three months (my friends assured me that you can even get a “rental-contract” for the girls, clarifying the arrangement on paper). Besides maybe a new Toyota truck a girlfriend adds to the prestige of any Cambodian man. So besides beer, food and female company Cambodian restaurants also offer further entertainment: music. The restaurant featured a big stage where a one-man band and half-a-dozen female and male singers were singing songs. Let me be honest here, I love the Asian lifestyle but two things I am still struggling with: first, Asian desserts, and secondly the Asian taste of music. Especially Khmer music is all about failed relationship, unanswered love, cheating and other miserable, heartbreaking stories and the music exactly matches the dreadful lyrics (the experience does not get better when drunken guests start to sing Karaoke). I asked my Khmer friends why they love to listen to miserable broken-hearted songs and they explained me that the songs remind them of how their wives feel and they feel pity with them, understanding better the feelings of their wives through music. Fair enough, but why women then do have Cambodian women to complain that much in the first place?
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