Off to Bangkok
In case anyone saw the news and is concerned, I am perfectly alright. There was an airline crash in southern Thailand but it is nowhere near where I will be, and I am flying on a much larger and established airline.
Today I left early in the morning and rode on the back of a motorbike about 60km outside of Siem Reap to a crumbling temple surrounded and pretty much overgrown with jungle. The ride out through the countryside was beautiful. The grass and trees are impossibly green and the air is fresh as long as you're not behind a pickup truck wheezing its last breath, but that didn't happen thankfully once we got out of town. While wandering the temple I was pretty much alone and only spotted a few other tourists at hour intervals. I've come to realize that crowds of people can really ruin my enjoyment of certain places. I also realized it is not so much the crowds themselves and the lack of space as it is the behavior of people. I mean, these are by and large temples but the sheer volume of people as they shout to their friends to take their picture is very distracting and in my opinion inconsiderate, but what do I know? In addition to beautiful fields of green, we also drove through some villages where people clearly don't have electricity or much of anything. We're sharing the road with naked kids and cows and a remarkable array of carts, modified bikes with attached wagons, and of course other motorbikes. Occasionally a pickup truck drives by loaded with people so much that they are practically falling out of the back. It's quite surreal to me.
At the temple it began to rain, and then pour. This created a really dramatic effect as I wandered around climbing on stone walls and through crumbling temple hallways. It let up rather quickly though I sought refuge in a doorway arch for about 25 minutes to wait out the true downpour, mostly because I had no change of clothes and I feared catching a cold on the moto ride home, but things slowed down and stopped so I headed back and met the driver not long thereafter. I figured I was homefree, but then we must have chased down the storm on the way back because the first 25 minutes of the moto ride it poured, or at least it seemed like it did at about 60km per hour. Thankfully the driver had a spare rain jacket so I was spared my cold and soon enough the sun came out for the rest of the ride. It felt wonderful to be riding in the warm weather down this sunny highway through these fields. It was a good morning.
In the afternoon I paid my second visit to Angkor Wat, the largest and most famous of the temples of Angkor. My first visit was pretty much ruined by the aforementioned tourist hordes, so this time the goal was to hit it at a time when I suspected there would be very few people there. As it turns out, in the late afternoon they all bail to go watch the sunrise with their tripods so I'm happy to report it totally worked out and around 5pm or so as the sunset, I was virtually alone at the top of Angkor Wat and it was a vastly improved experience. I was happy to have some time to truly wander and enjoy the place in quiet. It was a truly great goodbye as today was the third day of my Angkor pass and I'm pretty much ready to move on anyway.
Tomorrow I decided to fly to Bangkok rather than go overland, because the ticket is not that expensive and I'd rather not lose a day to the ride. From what I hear it's about 3-4 hours to the border of Thailand from here depending on the mode of transport, then some time at the border doing immigration, then another 4-5 hours again depending. Either way, it's a full day and bound to be horribly draining as opposed to flying which is less than an hour and I'll be there which sounds very appealing. There's plenty of time yet for long bus and train rides with more interesting scenery then what I suspect I'll see between here and there.
I met a woman today who is volunteering for a month teaching kids at a free school for kids who can't afford to go to the public schools, which apparently you have to pay for. She said it is something like 300 riel a day for the public schools... 1000 riel is 25 cents. I have been trying to learn more about the poverty here and I don't want to just pass through as a tourist and forget what I've seen. It is amazing how many children I've seen working or living in not great conditions without access to basic things like healthcare or education. There are a lot of organizations clearly trying to help, but it seems like the resources are really inadequate. Surely every kid should be able to go to school. With the hundreds of billion dollars we spend in a single year on our military budget, surely it can't be that hard to put some of that money to better use? Of course we all know I am a communist liberal hippie, so again, what do I know?
Ok, the mosquitos are officially eating me alive. I just can't bring myself to smother my body with deet just before going to bed. More from Bangkok...
Today I left early in the morning and rode on the back of a motorbike about 60km outside of Siem Reap to a crumbling temple surrounded and pretty much overgrown with jungle. The ride out through the countryside was beautiful. The grass and trees are impossibly green and the air is fresh as long as you're not behind a pickup truck wheezing its last breath, but that didn't happen thankfully once we got out of town. While wandering the temple I was pretty much alone and only spotted a few other tourists at hour intervals. I've come to realize that crowds of people can really ruin my enjoyment of certain places. I also realized it is not so much the crowds themselves and the lack of space as it is the behavior of people. I mean, these are by and large temples but the sheer volume of people as they shout to their friends to take their picture is very distracting and in my opinion inconsiderate, but what do I know? In addition to beautiful fields of green, we also drove through some villages where people clearly don't have electricity or much of anything. We're sharing the road with naked kids and cows and a remarkable array of carts, modified bikes with attached wagons, and of course other motorbikes. Occasionally a pickup truck drives by loaded with people so much that they are practically falling out of the back. It's quite surreal to me.
At the temple it began to rain, and then pour. This created a really dramatic effect as I wandered around climbing on stone walls and through crumbling temple hallways. It let up rather quickly though I sought refuge in a doorway arch for about 25 minutes to wait out the true downpour, mostly because I had no change of clothes and I feared catching a cold on the moto ride home, but things slowed down and stopped so I headed back and met the driver not long thereafter. I figured I was homefree, but then we must have chased down the storm on the way back because the first 25 minutes of the moto ride it poured, or at least it seemed like it did at about 60km per hour. Thankfully the driver had a spare rain jacket so I was spared my cold and soon enough the sun came out for the rest of the ride. It felt wonderful to be riding in the warm weather down this sunny highway through these fields. It was a good morning.
In the afternoon I paid my second visit to Angkor Wat, the largest and most famous of the temples of Angkor. My first visit was pretty much ruined by the aforementioned tourist hordes, so this time the goal was to hit it at a time when I suspected there would be very few people there. As it turns out, in the late afternoon they all bail to go watch the sunrise with their tripods so I'm happy to report it totally worked out and around 5pm or so as the sunset, I was virtually alone at the top of Angkor Wat and it was a vastly improved experience. I was happy to have some time to truly wander and enjoy the place in quiet. It was a truly great goodbye as today was the third day of my Angkor pass and I'm pretty much ready to move on anyway.
Tomorrow I decided to fly to Bangkok rather than go overland, because the ticket is not that expensive and I'd rather not lose a day to the ride. From what I hear it's about 3-4 hours to the border of Thailand from here depending on the mode of transport, then some time at the border doing immigration, then another 4-5 hours again depending. Either way, it's a full day and bound to be horribly draining as opposed to flying which is less than an hour and I'll be there which sounds very appealing. There's plenty of time yet for long bus and train rides with more interesting scenery then what I suspect I'll see between here and there.
I met a woman today who is volunteering for a month teaching kids at a free school for kids who can't afford to go to the public schools, which apparently you have to pay for. She said it is something like 300 riel a day for the public schools... 1000 riel is 25 cents. I have been trying to learn more about the poverty here and I don't want to just pass through as a tourist and forget what I've seen. It is amazing how many children I've seen working or living in not great conditions without access to basic things like healthcare or education. There are a lot of organizations clearly trying to help, but it seems like the resources are really inadequate. Surely every kid should be able to go to school. With the hundreds of billion dollars we spend in a single year on our military budget, surely it can't be that hard to put some of that money to better use? Of course we all know I am a communist liberal hippie, so again, what do I know?
Ok, the mosquitos are officially eating me alive. I just can't bring myself to smother my body with deet just before going to bed. More from Bangkok...
posted by Dan at 10:11 AM
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