Part Nine: The Travel Diary of South-east Asia

 The Travel Diary of South-east Asia

Here continues the series for anyone who is interested about my travels two years ago. I spent three months in South-east Asia. Though true to the actual handwritten diary in terms of events which I recorded on my trip day-to-day, I have changed the names and where possible gone into more detail for each day with the luxury of having a laptop this time around! For part eight click here. Part nine concerns Siem Reap in Cambodia.

6th of February 2019 - Bangkok, Thailand > Siem Reap, Cambodia

After a modest breakfast and lunch alongside the last 50 pages of my book, I was actually picked up personally by the coach at the door of my hostel. The proprietor must have something to do with the coach company. It was another long journey, but I’d learnt to grin and bear it all by now, and so I watched inconsequential things on my phone and listened to my downloaded playlist, soft folk pickings of John Martyn and Laura Marling as we rode from the smog to the countryside, and the countryside to the borderline.
    The border was, predictably, carnage. And this is where our guide came into his own. He went around collecting our passports, which by the way was a huge leap of faith to give him, and disappeared to process our entry and travel visa to Cambodia. Nonetheless, we still had to leave the coach and wait in some random place for it all to be processed. I looked toward the border, and saw people who had to negotiate everything themselves, and it looked arduous as well as slightly scary. I’m sure it would have been fine, but if I can avoid talking to guards who are holding machine-guns, I pretty much always will.
    There was a palpable tension in the group though, and the heat didn’t help. It was scorching and the time ticked dreadfully by. After 30 minutes, with us all taking in turns to come out with panicked outbursts, our saviour returned and escorted us through the men with guns and beady-eyed border control men at their desks to return to our coach on the other side. I was in Cambodia, and after a couple of hours of nondescript countryside whizzing by with me playing Harvest - Neil Young twice in its entirety, I was in Siem Reap.
    There was an immediate allure I found resonating with me towards this city as soon as I stepped off the bus. We were standing in the centre of a city, and yet it felt nothing like one. A mixture of dust roads and gravelled ones met each other whilst a kaleidoscope of markets, pubs, hostels and whatever else seemed to somehow fit in. We were also assaulted by tuk-tuk drivers, who all said that this lift to our hostel was free. I avoided them at first, but a man with a gentle face and an approach that was not abrasive and forceful had me reconsider. He was very kind, and took my bag whilst hotspotting me to help me find my hostel name on my emails. He also spoke impeccable English, and understood exactly where I needed to go, driving me 100 metres around a roundabout and at the foot of pub street to my hostel.
    I understood why it was free now, as Samphy took his time to show me a sheet on costings to hire him as transport to the temples. 30 dollars was basically what he was asking me for. I should have bartered, but I didn’t, so I think I may have been robbed here by the nicest man in the world. He said he’d see me tomorrow at 8am, and I headed into the hostel to get to my room, which was an all female one. I asked if this was definitely right about 3 or 4 times to the guy who ran reception, and he said it was. I unpacked my bag to glares from my fellow dorm-dwellers, and afterwards explained the situation. They were more unhappy at the hostel rather than me fortunately, and just hoped it would be corrected tomorrow.
    I headed out and walked around this crazy city for a while people-watching. The tourism element to the surroundings was just as paramount to the city as all the places in Thailand, and yet it had such a different feel. It looked a bit more impoverished, and yet the locals looked a hell of a lot more happy. It didn’t feel like a facade for me when people smiled at me as I walked by like it did in Thailand at times, and the dust roads with all the various buildings that lined them gave it a feel of the wild wild west.
    One other thing impossible to miss was how cheap it was, and how confusing the money was. I was absolutely starving, and decided to take a spot at a random restaurant whose outdoor seating area was literally just on the dusty road. I ordered a large bottle of beer, mixed vegetable rice and an egg baguette, just because I knew I could manage it, and it came to the grand total of $3! Insane value, and the food was so nice. My change came back to me in both Cambodian and US currency. Cambodia was coinless, and because of the crazy inflation still affecting their cash, 1000 riel is actually 25 cents. It’s weird but I guess not too hard when you think about it. After a little more mooching around and getting a feel of the place, I retired to my bed and now I write this in deep worry - I really hope I don’t snore, or I fear the women will turn against me!

7th of February 2019 - Siem Reap, Cambodia

Samphy picked me up and the noise of a tuk-tuk at the top of its revs invaded my eardrums as we got to the Angkor Wat visitors centre, where I found out that I’d have to pay an additional $37 to see them all!
    Nonetheless, the temples were staggering. The sheer scale and detail is hard to comprehend as you survey huge wall carvings that show wars and gods and everything in between. How were these monumental temples erected. I sat on the grass looking at it for a distance at one point thinking about it for about half an hour. How far have we actually come when humans were still able to do something like this 800 years or so ago?
    What I found even more incredible was just how big the area was. I visited maybe 5 or 6 different areas and I still had probably only actually explored less than half of it. The only downside was how busy it was and I imagine how busy it always is. Aside from that moment of reflection, I spent a large part of the day being told to get out of peoples pictures and walking in constantly constrained walkways through and around the different temples. Samphy was very kind, and I was glad to have him with me to chat to throughout the day. He also brought a cool box with lots of bottles of water which I couldn’t thank him enough for, and afterwards he showed me where to get a sim with internet for my phone, which amazingly came to like $4 or something like that. He asked if I wanted to go out with him in the evening to some of the local bars outside of the city and I said yes immediately.
    I returned to my hostel and the all ladies dorm to find that the owner had finally figured out I shouldn’t be there and had shifted me to a male room. Samphy would pick me up at 7 and so I just killed a bit of time reading and wondering whether this was a bit dodgy. It wasn’t going to be conducive to panic, so I thought logically and decided to leave all valuables in the dorm and just take out $50.
    But obviously I had nothing to panic about at all. Samphy came and got me dressed up smart in a shirt and jeans and drove me outside the city limits, where everything lost its pretence and streetlights became few and far between. After 15 minutes and the bumpiest ride ever we arrived at an open planned bar where ice buckets full of beer awaited us. Upon sitting down Samphy beckoned some of the bar staff over to our booth out in the cool air to join us. He clearly knew them all, and despite the two women speaking no English Samphy included me as much as he could, translating the jokes they all made and translating the tales and aspects of my life I talked about. Food arrived, and it was clearly some form of local delicacy, a fish based stewy kind of thing. It tasted pretty good, but pretty much all the bones were kept in it, which resulted in an overall unpleasurable and guilt ridden experience.
    After this some of Samphy’s friends arrived and more of the same happened as I got steadily more drunk. I tried and failed to remember any of the names, and at one point got up and did karaoke. I seem to remember it going well anyhow, and we drank more as the night grew ever cooler. The friends left and the women eventually had to actually do some work, and I sobered up in the midst of mine and Samphy’s conversation.
    I asked him how he had learnt to speak such impeccable English and he said out of necessity. From the age of 12 and in the wake of his parents divorcing, Samphy had had to provide for his three younger brothers and his mother. For someone with no education, taxi driving seemed to be the best way. Incredibly, through talking to other drivers and the many tourists he’d ferried, he had managed to learn and master the English language incredibly. It was still not much for him though. He spoke of how what he earnt simply bought him food and kept him ticking over. He was grateful for tourism and described the government as corrupt and holding no social mobility for him or his family.
    I felt such an aching hearing his story. I can’t even really describe my thoughts. I realise how lucky I am to be born in the UK, and how the hardships I’ve experienced are like a grain of sand on the beach of Samphy’s life, purely because of geography! I spoke intently as to what an honor it was to meet him and spend time with him, and he reciprocated. He showed me some videos of his village and I smiled for the duration of them. His brothers and the various children of the village laughed and joked, tripping each other up and nutmegging the adults with a football, sharing food and dancing to music which I don’t have the knowledge to categorise. They were a hell of a lot happier than back home though. That much I gathered.
    From then on though it’s all a bit of a blur. That was the sobering conversation, and after it the night was timeless and blurred, with laughter and beers and Samphy the only echoes that pierced my memory from the night. I imagine Samphy must have driven me back but I really can't remember that, all I know is I’m in my boxers in my bunk bed and I’ve checked my wallet to find I’d spent $40 and have a ticket to a tour of the floating villages which I need to get ready for right now. I wonder if they sell paracetamol here…

8th of February 2019 - Siem Reap, Cambodia

Eventually got up and went down to the common room, where I bumped into someone who had booked on for the same sunset tour of the floating villages in 2 hours time. Her name was Mariana and she was full of life, so much so that I could barely keep up with our conversation. She said she knew a place to get the best ice coffee and lunch, so I went with her fairly nonplussed (I do blame last night's session) and went about the usual conversations you have with other travelers.
    Mariana was 33 and was solo traveling much like myself. She came from Mallorca, and was experiencing Asia after working for years in Australia, as so many do it seems. We grabbed a noodle soup and an iced coffee in an indoor marketplace, where the aromas and colours soothed my mind. The place was bustling, but we found a table that was in a fairly subdued area. I desperately tried to watch all the locals going about their day, paying attention to all their idiosyncrasies and niche details, whilst simultaneously trying to keep up with mine and Mariana’s conversation. It was difficult, but I retained a fair bit of what she said. She was getting ready to go back home, and her only ambition was to buy a place that was near the beach. She talked vehemently of coffee, and how this was all she tried to find wherever she went. A place was good for Mariana if she had the purest and strongest coffee. I had to agree that this was superb coffee, maybe close to the one in George Town. Anyway, these two aspects of her personality - beach and coffee lover - were perfectly represented in her lively manner and bronze flawless skin, which looked like it had never spent a day indoors.
    The conversation went on at breakneck speed and I’m not even really sure I said more than 5 sentences. Before I knew it, we were on the bus and on our way to the first floating village - which contained no water. Our guide informed us that we were in a dry season, and that from May time we might expect to see a substantial amount of water here.
    What a remarkable place though. A red dusty road was lined either side by wooden houses on stilts, and everywhere you looked mischievous children ran in and out of the beams smiling at us. One boy ran up to our group and asked two guys to swing him, performing a perfect somersault in the air as they did. As we carried on we were greeted by more smiles and a baby on a bamboo seat being swung gently by their Mother in the beams to soothe it’s crying. There were a million things to keep your eyes on and we all bought things from them before making it to a filthy shallow river which we were to get a boat from to the next floating village.
    The longboat arrived eventually and I got on with Mariana tentatively. I could literally feel the boat's rudder thumping against the riverbed and prayed for deeper waters in a state of anxiety, much to the amusement of Mariana. Eventually my prayers were answered and we hit the ocean, where we could see a small hub of wooden structures in the distance. Upon arriving at them the allure was pretty much lost. Undoubtedly it was an astonishing thing to witness, but there were no real remnants of its history and the fishing community it once was at this small area. Everything now was just for tourists.
    Me and Mariana had another coffee together, and she treated this one with utter contempt. Luckily though her mood wasn’t sullied, and we went together to a rowboat trip that was being recommended by our guide. Basically one of the locals would row two people through the nearby mango forest and another floating village and then circle back.
    This was unforgettable. The small woman who took us also had with her a young daughter of about 3 or 4 who was absolutely adorable. Mariana played with her and hugged her, and the sun shed its last bit of life for the day through the reeds and onto the two-tone green waters. The child's infectious laughter, the dusk light and the minute sound of the boat gliding through the water and reeds was such a gentle and mesmerising combination of sensory details, and it felt like meditation as I received it all. Completely pensive and reflective, I was annoyingly brought out of it so as to take a picture of Mariana with the young girl. Soon after, we moved through the third village that day, which was much like the first except it really was floating on the water.
    Children playfully ran around the decking much like before and Mother’s tried to keep them under control. We then finally rowed back to base, and caught the final sinking motion of the sun, leaving behind the most fantastic of red skies that could have blended with the dust of the first village perfectly. What a day.
    Me and Mariana talked ardently all the way back to Siem Reap about the experience, and then headed out to pub street, where she introduced me to a few people she’d met at the hostel, and we got fairly smashed. The last thing I remember was trying to give advice to Mariana about a screenplay she wanted to write for a series of short films about the seven deadly sins. It did sound interesting, basically it would be interpretive dancing with speech at the beginning and end. But anyway, what the fuck did I know? I’d done one screenplay at university and all of a sudden I was Charlie Kauffman or something. So yeah great night, but soon after that I believe we all headed back to the hostel - and I still haven’t found out if there’s any paracetamol here...

For part ten click here