Boats, bikes, buses, and bad roads

I am now in Phnom Penh, for the second time. Those playing close attention to these travel logs may now be a little confused as I made no mention of going there a first time. That's OK. The situation *is* confusing. Here is how the mess unfolded.

On the 11th, I bought a ticket for a Phnom Penh bound bus with the expectation that I would get off at Kampong Thom. Neither I, nor the guesthouse I bought the ticket form thought this would be a problem. Tickets specifically for Kampong Thom did not exist.

Next morning, after the usual minor delays, we headed down the road. I noticed that we stopped occasionally to let people off. But these stops were not at well-defined bus stations. Nothing too serious. I just had to watch for signs that refer to Kampong Thom. But I soon discovered another problem: No signs. There was not one Romanized sign for any town on the whole route. Oh, every town had plenty of signs proclaiming the Cambodia People's Party but nothing to identify which town the CPP seemed to want support from.

At lunch, I asked if we were at Kompong Thom. At least, I thought I had conveyed the question successfully. The answer was a finger pointing down the road. I took that to mean that we weren't there yet.

An hour or so down the road, I finally see a marker written with characters I can decipher. It says Kampong Cham. Uh, oh. Kampong Cham is the next town or the next province, not that it makes much difference. At the next stop, I manage to speak to the driver. It turns out that the lunch stop was at Kampong Thom after all. Furthermore, we are already well past Kampong Cham. Next place with readily available transport is Phnom Penh.

Since the overnight in Phnom Penh was inevitable, I opted to re-arrange the schedule a bit. Going to Kratie then Kampong Thom is a little simpler, logistically, than the reverse. So, next morning, I took the overpriced ferry up the Mekong.

The attraction in Kratie is the Irwaddy dolphins upstream. As is usually done, I took a moto to the rapids that afternoon. The dolphins are not hard to find but it is hard to see much. The only surface for a couple of seconds at a time and they are rather far from the viewing site. Locals will take you out in a motorboat to see t hem from the river but I don't think this really helps much. The river is quite wide and the dolphins can pop up most anywhere. I have also read that the boats disturb them. Anyway, I took quite a few photos but most are little more t hand a small black splotch in the water.

Next morning, it was back down the Mekong as far as Kampong Champ and ten up the road to Kampong Thom.

Most tourists travel between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh without stopping in Kampong Thom. At one point, I think there were seven of us. There are two major attractions: Prei Kuk and Preah Kahn. Prei Kuk is a collection of 6th century (pre-Angkor) ruins. It's about 40 minutes by moto on a relatively good road. Well worth it. Good atmospherics and sufficiently different in style from Angkor to be interesting.

Preah Kahn is a tougher call. These Angor era temples are over 100K from Kampong Thom. 67K of "good" road, and 35K of mud puddles ad oversized cow paths. It took more than 4 hours each way on the back of a motorbike. Actually, I think the "good" part was the most painful. In order to make time, the moto drivers drive fast. But there are numerous small bumps and much of the road has been damaged by a tracked vehicle, probably a dozer. My butt is still sore.

The payoff? Not all that much, really. The larger of the two sites is a walled enclosure containing several small and moderate sized temples. It is similar to Angkor Thom both in design and artistic style. But Angkor Thom is much larger and contains several very large temples. The main temple, Preah Kahn is in the Bayon style ad offers little that cannot be seen in the more accessible temples of Angkor.

No visible restoration work has been done and the grounds do not appear to be maintained. This is briefly enchanting but mostly it is annoying. High grass and rubble hinder movement. The place is heavily infested with some form of fire ant. Not as painful as the ones in Borneo but still a nuisance and they are active in the day. The larger of the two sites is also claimed to be mined, though I didn't see any signs.

Then there is the cost factor. $19 for transport and conservator demanded a $10 fee. Prei Kuk was $2. Not really worth it. The presence of two small brick temples amongst sandstone walls and larger sandstone temples was mildly interesting but difficult to capture on film.

There are a couple more temples reachable from Kampong Thom but getting there would involve traveling even further on more bad roads. I took a cramped minibus to Phnom Penh.

I went out to the National Museum yesterday, mostly to see statues and similar things that had been removed from the temples. A bit of a yawn. Seeing artifacts in a museum is about as satisfying as seeing animals in a zoo.

The Royal Palace was the most crowded site I have seen yet, mostly with locals. But it is a little hard to see why. The structures are, at the oldest, late 19th century, don't seem particularly creative, and aren't even spectacular displays of wealth. It is understandable since Cambodia hasn't been all that wealthy in recent times. No doubt, much was lost under the Khmer Rouge as well. Still, it doesn't make for a good show.

Tomorrow I go to Kampot with designs on a visit to the abandoned hill station at Bokor. It is supposed to be quite a surreal place if I can manage the logistics of getting there.

It sounds like the Thai side access to Preah Vahear is still closed. There is supposedly a new road that allows for a 5-hour journey from Siem Reap. But I'm not willing to do that backtrack.

The camera is starting to act up again. Much like it did at Mulu, it doesn't want to turn off.

9 days until doom.