The border post of Poipet, between Thailand and Cambodia, was a seething mass of people. It was a confusing place with huge handcarts bulging with goods being pushed across by bare chested men, every sinuous bicep straining at the effort. No-man's land was full of cars; trucks; buses; tuk tuks; whole families on motorbikes; gamblers visiting the casino between the two countries; migrant workers clutching sheaths of paperwork, young westerners with huge backpacks; and me clutching the sweaty hands of Alisha and Lucy. As the perspiration trickled down my back, we waited in the slight shade of an archway that was welcoming us to Cambodia, just hoping we were waiting in the right spot. My head was pounding and I felt feverish, it looked liked I had caught Steve's "man-flu" from the previous week. With just our passports in my pocket, nothing else, I scanned the distant gate exiting Thailand....There at last I saw the familiar square outline of the truck. What a relief! The girls jumped up and down to attract Steve's attention.
After the truck's paperwork had been completed to leave Thailand, with quite a bit of confusion as we seem to not have been issued with an important piece of paper when we entered we now had to separate for immigration, as only the driver could go through with the vehicle. They kept on insisting that the girls and I hurry through, as there were supposedly big queues. Unhappy about leaving Steve and the truck, I eventually capitulated after they had drawn us a map telling me where to wait. But we were so rushed though I didn't think to grab some money or go back to the truck for a phone. There was only one way through but still after checking out of one country, I wanted to make sure we could all get though to the next together. We hadn't seen this level of chaos at a border since Central America. To top off the confusion, halfway across no-man's land everything had to switch sides of the road as Cambodia drives on the right and Thailand on the left! At last we got through and realised the vehicular chaos continued on Cambodia's roads, with overladen motorbikes carrying huge sacks of grass or perhaps a couple of live pigs; tiny tractors with huge loads of heavy wooden furniture; trucks; and SUVs all going different speeds on the single lane national highway. I could see that the driving here was going to be "interesting".
Arriving in the town of Siem Reap, all I wanted was to lie down in air-conditioning. Siem Reap is a few kilometres from the amazing UNESCO recognised ancient temples of Angkor Wat. Stretched out over many kilometres, they are all that is left of the mighty Khmer Empire that ruled the region between 802-1432 AD. We had already decided to spend a week in the area checking out some of the less visited temples as well as those at Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. This turned out to be a great plan as it gave us lots of time for us all to get over being poorly and for Lucy to celebrate her 8th birthday.
Lucy will have been travelling for over half her life once we get home and this is her 4th birthday on the road. She has celebrated on the Big Sur in California; watching Jaguars in the Pantanal in Brazil; high up in the mountains of Lesotho and now in Cambodia. To be honest when you are 8, ancient temples are only so interesting up to a point. What you are really interested in on your birthday is toys and cake, so we skipped the sightseeing, relaxed at the hotel while she played with her few new toys, then explored town finding some very fancy birthday cupcakes at a bakery that trains vulnerable young women.
We started our temple exploration at some of the further out sites building up to the more famous ones. Jungles are wet dripping places, earthy smelling and greenly fecund. You can still see the evidence of how the jungle hid the temples for many centuries with huge buttress rooted trees balancing precariously on top of temple roofs and long sinuous roots twisting around green mossy walls, like boa constrictors. Many of the temples have been cleared of the worst of the jungle, keeping the foliage at bay is the task for green-clad workers armed only with old fashioned scythes. We explored the maze of tall stupas, tumbled down walkways covered in mosses and lichens; exquisitely carved prayer halls and dark tunnels smelling of the heady mixture of incense and bats. There was a beautiful gem in almost every corner, just begging to be photographed. The girls had studied the different carvings of creatures from Hindu and Buddhist mythology earlier in school. So while Steve and I played "Indiana Jones" imagining ourselves hacking our way through the jungle, the girls called out: Apsara - heavenly nymph; Rishi - Hindu holy man, seven headed Naga snake; Kala - temple guardian who ate his own body ..... Bingo!
Not wanting to be thought of as "soft" hotel dwellers for too long we moved back to the truck for a few nights. The accommodating Tourist Police on the road out to the temple allow overlanders to park at their station, to discourage people from staying outside the temples. Unfortunately we were too tall to fit under their entry gate, "Don't worry," they said just park outside in the disused ticket office lay-by. Perfect we though, it might be a carpark but it was quiet and the concrete underneath was solid. There had been lots of torrential monsoon-type deluges during our time in Siem Reap and the ground was sodden, we had seen several vehicles stuck in up to their axles in mud, so we were keen to stay on the tar. So we sat smugly inside that night listening to the frogs sing and the rain thundering down, enjoying the slight dip in temperature.
After one of the rainstorms when we were parked at the hotel.
It was just after 4.30am when we heard the first roar of an overworked tuk tuk engine, whizzing past a metre from the back of the truck's open windows. Like the sound of the annoying mosquito, I only partially gained consciousness rolled over and went back to sleep. Then the noise came again and again and again until I couldn't ignore it anymore, just what was going on outside. Looking out we realised that although the ticket office was no longer being used, every single vehicle visiting the temples had to pass through the lay-by to get their ticket checked. Maybe not such a great parking spot after all. Sod it, if you can't beat them- join them, was the decision. So up we got to drive the 5km to Angkor Wat to hopefully see the sunrise over the magnificent rooftop. Although the road was quiet by Cambodian standards and dead straight, driving in the pitch black was a challenge. Tuk tuks without lights whizzed in and out of potholes; we nearly ran into the back of a tractor and crazy backpackers doing stupid things on motorbikes and bikes. My least favourite was when we came across 4 bicycles holding onto the back of a motorbike taking up the whole of the road, none of which had any lights. It's no wonder there is a huge international hospital, as well as the local ones in Siem Reap.
Once safely at Angkor, having successfully not killed anyone else or ourselves on the road, we headed into the temple complex to watch sunrise. A pinnacle of many people's trip to South-East Asia, watching the soft morning glow of the sun rising above the spires of Angkor as the myriad of colours are reflected in the symmetrical pools is magical. Or not in this case. The rainy seasons omnipresent clouds meant that we watched a very grey looking Angkor Wat, slowly get lighter before it started drizzling. Oh well, there is always tomorrow. Off we set early again and three days after that - still no luck. We moved into a hotel for the intervening night, just so we could all have a lie in.
Using the camera's maximum "sunset" setting for sunrise over Angkor Wat.
Despite our damp slight disappointment of the mornings, we loved the beauty of the main temple of Angkor Wat. The outside chambers are covered in exquisitely complex carved frescos, telling of epic battles and stories. The temples inside gradually get higher and higher and now you can climb up inside the highest spire to look out on the green paddy fields and jungle around you. It's a magical place. We went back a few times during the days to explore the further corners of the world's largest religious building.
Ta Prohm's fame comes from the atmospheric beauty of its overgrown ruins. Muscular roots of jungle trees cover the crumbling towers, it's hard to tell if the trees are slowly strangling the temples or actually holding them up. The lush ferns, dripping mosses and mint green lichens all stood out on the black rain soaked stones. As we darted our from between cover it was hard to tell whether we were dripping with the regular precipitation or constant perspiration.
Of all the temples, my absolute favourite is Bayon inside the magnificent walled city of Angkor Thom. Just entering one of the cities four gates with its 54 demons and 54 gods having a tug of war with a seven-headed Naga snake on either side of the moat's bridge then passing under the gate covered with 4 huge faces, gave me shivers of excitement. We took a tuk tuk early one morning into the 10 kilometre square city, after one of our grey sunrise attempts, as the truck is far too big to get under the gate houses. We climbed quickly up to the top of the temple to admire the 216 smiling faces of Bodisattva Avalokiteshvara and had the place almost to ourselves. It was almost mind bending to workout all the massive faces on the 54 gothic towers. Which way to look? What to photograph? How to take it all in? Amazing! As it got busier we made our way down to the outer galleries to admire the 1.2km of beautiful bas-relief carvings showing life in the 12th century Khmer Empire.
We spent the rest of the morning exploring the smaller temples of Angkor Thom, enjoying those falling apart choked in the jungle as much as the magnificent Terraces of the Elephants and the Leper King.
We really enjoyed taking our time to visit Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples, they really live up to the hype written about them. They truly are one of the "modern seven wonders of the world". Taking it slowly gave us a chance to appreciate them and avoid becoming "templed-out". We interspersed our cultural temple explorations with the delights of Siem Reap. Whilst it is a touristy town it's quite a fun place to be with lots of things to do and restaurants, which we enjoyed in the aptly named Pub Street.
Having left Siem Reap after a lovely week we were heading along the road to the appropriately named Battambang. There was a tractor in front of me and as there was a car coming quickly on the other side, I braked to slow down as there was not room to pass. Unfortunately the driver of the delivery truck behind me did not see it this way, he saw me braking as an opportunity to pass me and in my mirror I could see him swing out to pass. Of course on swinging out, he immediately saw the car coming the other way so swung back in. The problem was he had not started to brake, so by the time he pulled in he could not avoid running into the back of us.
The bump did not feel that bad but when I pulled out to inspect the damage I could see the cab of his truck was wrecked. Fortunately no one was hurt. There was also damage to our truck and whilst it did not look that significant on the surface it was going to be a problem. Our rear light was smashed and the wheel carrier had been pushed into the camper body. More seriously the truck had pushed our rear window frame in cracking the box, it was amazing the window had not broke.
I was really annoyed but it was important to stay calm. First the police arrived, then the traffic police and finally the tourist police. They started marking things out and taking statements although they were not interested in my side of the story, they didn't even want to see any of my documents. Despite it been pretty clear whose fault it was I could see this been turned into the fault of the foreigner. Supposedly I had not be indicating to overtake, which was true as I was not planning on overtaking as I would have hit an oncoming car. After two hours the next step was going to be to all drive back to town for a full report and then for the vehicles to be impounded for up to a month until it could be determined who was at fault. We did not want this to happen so I suggested to the owner of the truck company that we each deal with our own repairs. In the end I ended up paying him some money but nowhere near the cost of his repairs just to be on our way. It was a farce.
Fortunately in Battambang we were meeting Amy and Will who had driven to Cambodia from the UK in their Land Rover. It was good to meet some fellow Overlanders after so long and to have a good chat, a few drinks and forget about the accident.
Battambang is famous for its bamboo railway so we all caught a tuk tuk out to this unique railway. Each "bamboo train" consists of a wooden frame that rest on two bogies with an engine attached. It's all pretty basic and was originally used to transport rice. We all climbed aboard to watch the sun set over the rice fields. It was a lot of fun and I am sure complied fully with health and safety regulations! As we were watching the sunset another "train" came along. No problem our driver just lifted the wooden platform and the bogies off the track to allow it to pass.
Continuing South East the next day we arrived at the small town of Kompong Chhang which rests on the banks of the Tonle Sap river. From here we were able to get a small boat out to see the floating villages. Whilst it felt a bit strange been paddled around people's houses it was not a very touristy experience. It was early evening and people were going on with everyday life, cooking, relaxing in a hammock, kids playing and watching tv all suspended above the river.
When we returned we had hoped we might be able to camp in the car park but it was a hive of activity. With it been very wet at the moment we are reluctant to go off hard surfaces as we have seen numerous trucks bogged in the mud but it was too busy to spend the night there. Reluctantly we headed out, as it was getting dark we really needed to find somewhere quickly, the roads are bad enough in the light without driving in the dark. Fortunately less than a kilometre away, Gilly spotted a hotel with a large car park out the back. We pulled in thinking we could pay to camp in the car park. I asked the helpful lady how much and she said $7. I thought this was a bit expensive but realised she had misunderstood when she led me off to see a room. The room had two double beds, a bathroom with hot water a fan and fast wifi and was very clean. It didn't seem worth trying to find out how much camping might be.
From there it was a long drive down to Otres Beach near Sihanoukville. We pulled into the dirt road by the beach to watch the sunset and decided it was a nice place to camp for the night. However we had been procrastinating long enough and really needed to repair the truck so the next day we checked into a hotel with good hard standing parking and a lovely swimming pool to try and get sorted.
Unfortunately we procrastinated too long and during a heavy rain storm we realised the back of the truck now leaked and our mattress was soaked. The hotel was very helpful in letting us dry everything in their laundry room and we managed to rig up a tarp to stop any more water getting in, we should have done this earlier. We needed a more permanent fix though.
I eventually found a Russian father and son who had a boat building business nearby. They came out to inspect the damage. They said they could do a professional repair but it would take some time and as our window frame is quite specific I was not sure about this. So in the end we agreed on a bodge job. I headed to their workshop where they sealed all the cracks with silicon. It does not look pretty but so far seems to be keeping the rain out and we have had quite a bit of rain to test it. We can no longer use the back window though so it will need to be professionally repaired when we finish the trip. The most fun was pulling the frame holding the spare wheel back out of the rear of the camper body. Initially we attached a tow rope to a tractor and I drove the truck forward. The only affect of this was to pull the tractor. Then we got another lorry that was parked outside and attached the tow rope to his tow bar. With both lorries performing a tug of war we pulled the rack straight.
The only thing I could not fix was the light. I have found a replacement but it is in Bangkok so now we need to work out a way to get it to us.
In between sorting out the truck we spent a pleasant week by the beach. After our colds and the accident we needed a bit of downtime to recharge and regroup for the rest of the journey. Once the truck was "fixed" we felt a lot better. In between the rain storms we enjoyed the wonderful pool as well as walks along the beach and eating out a lot. The 50 cent beers also helped.
On our last night at the beach we caught up with Will and Amy again. They had driven the other way around the Tonle Sap lake. It was a lovely evening sharing stories and it made a real change to have some adult company with similar interests. Time flew by and before we knew it, it was 11pm, certainly time to leave. The only problem was that it was absolutely throwing it down with rain. In amongst the puddles we found a wet tuk tuk driver who reluctantly agreed to ferry us back to our hotel. This time our negotiating position for bargaining the fare was not strong so we just paid the reasonable sum he asked.
Hopefully the rest at the beach has done us good and we are all set to continue the journey ahead as I don't think the driving and the roads will be getting any better. 
