Cambodia (June 2012)

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I went on a 6 days trip to Cambodia, visiting Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. Not there as a photography tour, but rather accompanying my gf and 2 other female friends which resulted in limited time to explore and take photos leisurely.

Shall upload 25 pictures to summarise what I see during my trip, then if got time I will insert more photos.

Gear I use: Canon G1X for general purposes + Canon 500D equipped with a fast prime for portraits (Sigma 85f1.4, Canon 135L) and Samsung S3 (when I am out without any gear)

Hotel that I stayed:
1. Silver River Hotel @ Phnom Penh
A boutique hotel. We booked a suite for USD119 for 2 nights. Consisted of two storeys (1 room per floor) for four people to stay.

2. Tara Angkor Hotel @ Siem Reap
A 4 star hotel, a double room cost S$44.85 per night. It is situated not far from the famous Angkor Wat but it is 30 - 45 minutes walking distance from town.

 

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Food:
1. Cambodia's national dish: Amok
It tastes abit like non - spicy paste with various spices cooked together with your choice of meat. I like this dish very much, though I ate several times at different locations the taste and preparation of the dish differs.

2. French bread with eggplant sauce
Seems to be a french dish, perhaps the culture of french cruisine has been fused with local cruisine since Cambodia was once under France's control.

 

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Places to hang around:
From what I see, there's no proper shopping centres in both Phnom Penh and Cambodia. I think West Mall would be one of the best shopping malls over there. However I saw some upcoming ones in the midst of building. If you want to purchase souviners then you have to head down to their night markets.

You will realise that many stalls are selling the same items. So you may see e.g. 50 stalls, but in reality there are only around 5 different types of stalls. Their culture is somehow similar to Thailand, so some of the souviners available are very similar to the ones you can get at Thailand. E.g. souviners with elephants prints on them.

1. Angkor Night Market @ Siem Reap

If you want cheap beer, pubs and snacks to hang around for the night, there is this Pub Street located in Old Market Area (Siem Reap). It gets crowded at night and tour groups will bring their tourists to this place too. Beer can be as cheap as USD 0.50 per draft.

2. Pub Street @ Siem Reap

 

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Tourists' hotspot: Temple ruins

Most tourists to Cambodia would not miss out visiting temple ruins such as the famous Angkor Wat. The national religion in Cambodia is Buddhism. However in the past there was conflicts between Buddhism and Hinduism. During the transition from Buddhism to Hinduism, many Buddha statues were beheaded which is obvious when you visit Angkor Wat seeing many headless statues.

1. Angkor Wat (Sunrise)

2. Sunrise @ Phnom Penh
I took this photo from my room's toilet window (using 135L). Was lucky to see this beautiful sunrise while I was brushing my teeth facing the window and I was like "wow, quick grab camera" while toothbrush was still in my mouth.

3. South gate into Angkor Wat
Each gate's entrance width is about the size of a Toyota Camry, slightly wider. On top there is a buddha face watching over the gate entrance.

4. Bayon Temple
The famous Bayon Temple which has 54 towers and each tower has 4 different smiling buddha faces looking at NSEW direction.

 

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Cambodia's sad history: Khmer Rouge's Regime

What I find more meaningful than temple ruin was the tragic history of Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge's era. Basically Khmer Rouge's rebels wanted Cambodia to be a place "equal for all", no different classes of people due to academic qualification, jobs, wealth etc. They demolished the money system, killed many people who are of "different status" including doctors, teachers, etc. This has thrown Cambodia back into the stone age and since this occurred in the 20th Century, Cambodia's development has lagged behind other countries who have started to industrialised and building a modern society.

Tuol Sleng Prison (S-21) is converted from a school into a prison cum excecution ground through various torture chambers.

1.

2. A room whereby people died on the bed due to torture (shown on a photo hung on the left)

 

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Fun activities:
Apart from visiting ruins, seeing sad history of Cambodia, one can engage in some fun activities.

1. Quad Bike @ Blazing Trails (Phnom Penh)
half day tour which includes 1 hour visit to Killing Fields and ride around rural areas of Phnom Penh on quad bikes. USD 55 per pax (quite expensive) but thrilling especially if you have not ride a motorcycle before.

2. Horse riding @ The Happy Ranch (Siem Reap)
2 hour horse ride around farms and padi fields. USD 38. Very fun for me since it is the first time I am riding a horse alone and sometimes the horse gallops very fast when it was bored of just walking around.

 

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Lifestyle
1. Transport: There's no public transport system in Cambodia, the main form of transport for tourists is by Tuk Tuk. For locals, majority would travel by motorcycle and the more wealthy people would travel by car. A toyota Camry in Cambodia would cost USD 8 000, cheaper than Singapore but many people there would struggle to come up with that amount of money just for transport. The Tuk Tuks would park somewhere with movement of tourists and wait for someone to engage their service rather than move around looking for customers. The petrol in Cambodia cost around USD 1.40 per litre which is not cheap. Hence many would pump petrol from illegal suppliers whereby they modify the petrol to make it run more mileage at a cheaper price.

2. Traditional living environment
I signed up a tour package around Tonle Sap lake visiting the floating villages by Osmose, which is an organisation set up to help the villagers and also to promote and conserve the ecosystem around the lake. As Cambodia gets flooded during 4th quarter of the year, as high as 3m, villagers living by the lake built their houses floating on the water. This is designed so that depending on the season, the villagers can just pull their floating houses to different parts of lakes by their boats. The richer families would build their houses using wood which are nicely painted, some even have a floating garden with banana trees on them. The poorer ones would use dry leaves, branches etc to build their house.

 

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3. Traditional art & craft
Water hyacinth was introduced to the river and it became a 'pest' of the ecosystem at Tonle Sap due to their rapid growth. The local villagers used the dried stems of water hyacinth to weave into products such as bags, boxes, mats, etc. However with the import of factory made nylon products, this traditional skill of weaving is soon dying. It was fun, having to learn the basics of weaving the dried stems and made a coaster out of it.

4. Farming (land)
People who lived on rural land's main source of income is through farming. They grow rice and rear animals such as the photo here showing a family rearing ducks.

5. Fishing
People who stayed on waters get their main source of income through fishing. In Cambodia, the staple food is rice and fish. Some of them catch fishes and rear them into big fat ones before selling, if I remember correctly is USD 5 per kg. A fish farmer we spoke to rear his fishes for 1 year before selling, allowing him to earn around USD 500. Some will rear crocodiles before selling each of them for few hundred dollars, however rearing a crocodile is a very long process.

 

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Characteristics of Cambodians:
1. Perseverance
This (quite old) lady has lost her fingers yet she is working as a paddler for tourists to visit the village on her paddle boat. This spirit of perseverance is something to be respected.

2.Hard work:
This girl is at most of primary school kid's age yet she is also working as a paddler which is a tedious job.

 

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3. Poverty
Tourists are right about having the impression that Cambodia is poor. It is very common to see small kids begging for money or even sweets as sweets is a luxury item for them.
It is sad that the english words they learn aren't usual conversational words but "Give me a dollar".
Tourists thought they are helping the kids by giving them sweets but I think this is actually spoiling them. An analogy is when you go to parks, there's always a sign that says "Do not feed the wildlife". It's the same reason behind.

4. Carefree
They might be poor but they are having a carefree life compared to people who stay in the first world cities. This is a photo of a student who finished school and decided to go swimming at a stream in the middle of a town.

 

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5. Friendly
The children at the villages are very very friendly. They will come out of their houses and wave to you saying "hello" without having the intention of begging for things. This female teenager is kind enough to pose and smile for me.

6. Grateful
They appreciate deep down in their hearts when we give them simple items such as a pencil and sharpener. Do our kids feel the same?

That's it 25 photos to summarise what I see in Cambodia. I am sure there are lots of things that I have yet to come across (such as monks, etc), would certainly like to revisit this country again.

 

[rcheong1282]

wow, very detail thanks for sharing