Cambodia: Of Temples, spiders and birds…

Video of me devouring an entire bird in Cambodia ;-)


Day 10: Sept 13

We reached Phnom Penh at around noon and as we alighted we were surrounded by a swarm of tuk tuk drivers who swooped on anyone that resembled an alien entity. After we managed to extract ourselves from the chaos, we headed to the bus station from where we had a pickup to Siam Reap. The bus to Siam Reap would drop us at our destination at around mid-night and so I headed to the nearest Liquor shop to buy some Cambodian whisky. When I returned Ivan excitedly pointed to a lady selling roasted spiders and asked if I was interested in devouring one. “Goes without saying” I said as I made my way to the lady and bought a couple of roasted spiders. Among EEW’s and Yuck’s from our European co-travellers, we bit into the spiders and frankly speaking it tastes nothing different from dried fish and it’s a good drink accompaniment. Enroute to Siam Reap, our bus halted at a restaurant for dinner where one of the accompaniments to the meal was what appeared to be a small bird that was roasted entirely, including the beak and claws. I couldn’t resist helping myself to one and among more EEW’s and Yuck’s from our European co-travellers, I relished the bird. We reached the Jasmine Lodge at around midnight and arranged for a tuk tuk to take us to Angkor Wat.

Day 11: Sept 14

We were advised to reach the site as early as 4 am to beat the crowd and we did just that. While Ivan got around to setting up the camera on a tri-pod to get that perfect shot, I engaged myself in counting the number of tourists who alighted the steps while gaping at the magnificent structure, clearly not noticing the puddle at the foot of the steps and stepping into it and out of it clumsily. As the count increased, so did my excitement; and I knew that it was going to be a terrific day after all. Angkor Wat needs no description; the magnificence has to be experienced. So were the other temples that we covered during the day i.e. Bayon, Banteay Srei and the Ta Phrom temple. Each temple was unique. At Ta Phrom, Ivan appeared interested in the gigantic trees more than the temple itself. However, by evening after we reached the Jasmine Lodge, we decided we’d had more of temples than we’d asked for in Cambodia and we decided to depart for Thailand the following day. Evening we engaged in a game of pool with other tourists from the hostel and it turned out to be a long night as our bottle of whisky came out.

Day 12: Sept 15

After checking out, we bade farewell to our new-found friends, especially Mr. Kunh, the gentleman who owns and manages the Jasmine Lodge, creating an opportunity for young kids to work there and earn for specifically paying for their own education.

By now, we had crossed borders via air (flight), water (speed boat on the Mekong delta); we had decided to cross the Thailand border via land at Poipet. Even though the visa charge for Thailand is nil, the fact that we had got our visas done from India itself made every border crossing much easier.