Kingdom of Cambodia

“. .life is short and the world is wide"

 -Simon Raven-

The trip to Cambodia was a nightmare.

After another sleepless night in Bangkok we got up early, eager to get on the bus.

And so we waited, and waited.... And waited.

But there were no bus.

We tried, we tried so hard, to make the local guy understand that we had paid for our two seats to Cambodia. The locals just smiled back at us. It was like talking to a wall. But after a lot of hand guestering, frustration, and bodylanguage they gave up and placed us on a bus. The conditions was shocking, you would not believe the bus would even start. There were flies everywhere, it was so warm I was sliding off my plastic seat, and there were litteraly no space for your legs. It was half the space they offer you on the Ryanair flights.

A few miles from the boarder, a very helpfull man offered us his help to get our visas, naive, and new to the game as we were, we thanked him and gave him our money.

Bad idea.

Half of what we paid went straight in to his pocket. But we were tired of all the hassle and lies, and didn’t have any more energy left to argue. When they say it’s ‘no problem’, be aware, it usually is ‘big problem’.

At the boarder the bus driver waved goodbye and we were on our own. Lonley Planet wisely suggested that we would get a taxi from there, because the busses are not very safe. So we did. We teamed up with one Russian and one French, and hit the road.

Taxi for three hours, tuk-tuk for two.

For the first time I felt like a real backpacker.

Many, many hours later we arrived in Siem Riep.

We were both pretty scared, it was like entering a new world. Everything was so different, and all the men were wearing scarfs around their faces.

It looked like a scene from an old western movie.

But it is one of the most friendly people I have ever met. And I soon learned that the scarfs, was a protection for all the sand and dust whirling around in the street. The difference between rich and poor were remarkable. On one side of the road it’s a five star hotel, and outside the gate kids are sitting in the road covered in dust.

When we walked the streets of the little town it felt like we had travelled back in time. The kids were running around with no shoes, and just a little piece of clothing covering their bodies. There were markeds, music, and food stalls everywhere.

Siem Riep is known for their temples called Ankor Wat. After days of an unhealthy lifestyle we figured it was time to be sporty, rented bikes for the day, and made our way out to these amazing ruins, on a dusty road, surroanded by wild forrest and not to mention the wild-life. The scenery was stunning!

And the temples were abseloutly beautiful.

After a few hours though, the heat was crawling up our skin, and we were templed-out.

We spent the next few days strolling around in the city, eating delicious food, becoming more and more comfortable with the new culture and our new lifestyle,  meeting great people, among them two swedish girls who we were going to meet several times over the next few months. It was so warm we were close to melting point, and we were longing for some lazy days at the coast. But before we would see a glimps of the sea, we headed to the capital, Phnom Phen.