As our trip continues East we reach the Kingdom of Cambodia. At the border with Thailand one can already tell that change is coming. Cambodia is exceptional. On our way to Siem Riep I started noticing a few things, the most obvious is poverty. Infrastructure is precarious and Sorry Villages are everywhere. The locals are skinny, short, sun scorched skin and usually boasting a big friendly smile. Laughter is rather common. And that surprised me.
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| The real Cambodia. |
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| Butcher. No ice or soap anywhere near. |
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| Lotus farm. You can eat the seeds as snacks. They are supposed to be sweet. |
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| Alligator farm. These bad boys are worth a lot of money. |
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| The base of the continent: rice! |
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| Biking trough the county side. |
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| More than just a warning, a life philosophy around here. |
Siem Riep is an aberration. The good kind, mind you. A Westerner can find almost anything it misses. The temples of Ankor Wat, Ankor Thon and etc are as magnificent as expected. I struggled to imagine how the temples would look like on their glorious days. There's simply no frame of reference in my mind. When I went to Rome a few years ago, I could imagine myself fighting with Russell Crow on the arena of the Colosseum while thousands of people cheer for blood as a vicious tiger is about to join the show. Hollywood creates a lot of good content for a few selected civilizations, even fantasy (Thank you Peter Jackson), some times over and over again ( Hercules again?!) instead of trying new things. I'm pretty sure the ancient Khmer empire is full of amazing material for movies, series, games, books and what have you. I hope somebody make it happen and we have something fresh.
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| Marvelous temples |
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| Protectors of sacred temples: Lion & Naga |
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| Angkor Wat sunrise |
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| Honeymooning? |
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| This tree need stones to grow big |
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| Apsaras everywhere. Symbols of party! |
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| The coldest Strangling Ficus of the forest |
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| Selfie with the stoner face! |
The Chinese Tourist Horde was there, celebrating their New Year. They have money, are hungry, are thirsty, armed with selfie sticks, taking pictures with their tablets, swarming over everything, their buses crowd parking lots and clog small streets. They are unstoppable and I'm afraid they'll take over the world before I'm ready.
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| Happy Chinese New Year! Goat! |
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| They kind of become the attraction |
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| Where do all these picture go? |
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| Goats decoration on a Christmas-like tree |
Thankfully the Horde was not in Battambang, a quite little town in the west but with two truly unique experiences: the bamboo train and the bat cave. The former is an one hour tourist trap. But it's loud, shaky and fast: one of my definitions of fun! The latter is a nature show off, millions of bats flying out of their nest in search of food. It takes more than one hour for all the bats to fly out and as they cluster in the sky you start to wonder if you're seeing the Black Smoke of Lost. Pro tip: climb up to the giant Buddha face on the rock for a perfect view and no bat pee.
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| Riding the baboo train is awesome! |
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| Fast, shaky and loud: fun! |
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| Huge Naga sculpture |
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| Made out of recovered guns and firearms |
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| Bats, millions of hungry bats |
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| Buddha statue overlooking the valley |
