Yes I know. I am slightly off schedule with this one. But I have been travelling too much recently and it was hard to catch up. The first chapter of my tale I was able to write after being back from Egypt, just before going to Germany, then to France, to Germany again and again. And now I am once more in Egypt since a week and it seems I need a quite Cairo weekend to be able to get together my notes on this one. It is a tale of anguish and heroism, of stupidity and failure, but also of frogs, snakes and monkeys. Well actually no monkeys, but it always sounds good to mention them.

Where should I start? I believe one could make the argument, that I should start where I have left my story the last time: “The next morning I met up with my brother and eventually after a lengthy breakfast we got on our way to Cambodia. But as they say, that is another story…” That means, after a night on the train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, we went back to the train station and got the train to the Cambodian border. It was a trip without too much excitement, if one discounts the odd Singaporean traveller who hidden behind large sun glasses rambled on and on about his opinion of Thailand and the other countries in the region – most of which were not too positive. In the early evening we arrived in Aranyapratet, the Thai border town. From here we took a Tuktuk to the border, where we were welcomed by not so friendly, bribe extorting Cambodian officials. Forcing people to pay an express fee seems to be rather common on this border point, where the only alternative is to wait until the officials give up on a bribe, which might be hours later. Finally we arrived in Poi Pet from where we got a ride to Sisophon, the first stop of our trip.

According to the Lonely Planet map Sisophon is a village with merely two roads. The actual town is quite a bit larger as we realised on the next day, but accuracy has never been a strength of Lonely Planet maps. We found a hotel and something to eat and then made the good decision to have a beer somewhere else. The restaurant we found is owned by Cambodian who used to live in Thailand as a refugee during the war. He helped us on the next day to get a taxi to Banteay Chmar and later to get a shared car to Siam Rep. Banteay Chmar which is about 40 kilometres north of Sisophon is an old Khmer temple, which is rarely visited by foreigners. The central part is more or less overgrown by plants. The outer gallery is completely adorned with bas relief, which I think are among the most impressive I have seen in Cambodia. Close to Banteay Chmar is a second site called Banteay Top (see last picture), which consists of a small number of buildings and the remainders of a tower.

As mentioned, from here we travelled on to Siam Rep, the heartland of the Cambodian tourist industry. Siam Rep, which was only a village when the war had ended in Cambodia, has exploded. An uncountable number of restaurants, tourist shops and hotels cater now for the masses which are visiting Ankhor Wat every single day (according to the Cambodian tourism ministry over a million tourists visited Ankhor in 2008). In result, Siam Rep is a tourist heaven without any flair or character, which we were happy to leave quickly. Because of our plan to travel a number of outer temples, which we knew would not be so easy to get to, we decided to spend only one day visiting Ankhor itself. Thankfully my brother has been there a couple of times and was able to create his personal tour of highlights. Walking through the ruins we observed how the Absara, which is the government authority responsible for all historical sites in Siam Rep province, removed a tree close to one of the temples. It was truly stunning to see how much care they took, to cut down the tree piece by piece, to ensure nothing would be harmed in any way. After lots of destruction and looting during the war, Ankhor Wat finally seems to be in good hands. On the evening we went to a restaurant for Cambodian specialities. Most looks similar to Thai food with a few exceptions, including fried frogs and toads. Even mustering all my courage I did not manage to get myself to try the toad, which I tend to regret now.

From Siam Rep we took a pick-up travelling northwards. Around mid-day we arrived in Koh Ker. The city was briefly capital of the Khmer empire in the 10th century. This is the site of an old Khmer pyramid. On top of the pyramid used to stand a giant lingam, which at least in this period probably symbolised a phallus, but researchers are not really unified on this issue. From the pyramid onwards is a street where every hundred meters is another small temple with a small lingam (see last picture). It seems Jayavarman IV, the builder of Koh Ker, had a bit of a personality issue. But not only is Koh Ker the site of a massive symbol of potency (a pyramid which used to be crowned by a phallus symbol), but behind the pyramid there is also a hill. Here we met a French archeologist, working very concentratedly on documenting earth layers in a small cut out trench. The hill as he explained to us, is according to local belief the grave of a white elephant, which had given his daughter a bride to king Jayavarman IV. However the king did not fulfil his part of the deal, which I sadly can’t remember and therefore the white elephant returned to ask for his daughter. The two of them fought a war in which the white elephant died and he was buried in exactly this hill. So much for the myth. The archeologists however belief that it might be the grave of king Jayavarman IV himself. They have by now established by looking at the layers of earth, that the hill is truly artificial. Next year they plan to return to find out if there is a hidden chamber in the hill. If this would be the case, this would be a sensation, as it would be the first grave of a Khmer king, ever discovered. Nevertheless, archeology aside, the locals belief that a spirit of a white elephant lives in the hill and of course spirits are considered very important in this region. Therefore they placed two ghost houses (see pictures) solely devoted to the spirit of the white elephant at the site to appease him with the archeological works conducted on his hill.

On the same day we travelled on to a village between Koh Ker and Tbeng Meanchay, which if I remember correctly, was called Kulen. Here we met a Cambodian engineer who is working with a Chinese firm, which is building new road from Koh Ker to Tbeng Meanchay and then up north towards Prasat Preah Vihear. He was complaining how the Chinese contractors tried to implement the road simply according to plan with no attention to the surrounding area and potential floods and similar things. He further explained that it was very difficult for him, because he has to deal with his Chinese counterpart through a translator, because he does not speak Chinese and his counterpart nothing but Chinese. But truth to be told, we travelled on far stretches of partially and completely finished road and when this road will be finally completed, I am sure it will come as a great relief to the local population. On the next day we tried to travel to Prasat Preah Vihear. It must have been during one of these trips when our car run over a large snake. The car stopped immediately and one of the passengers went over and hit the snake a couple of times on the ground. Then he brought it back with him on to the back of the pick up – for dinner as he explained to us. It was rather disturbing to travel with a most likely dead snake which was nevertheless still moving around all the time, due to the bumps of the road, half hidden under the luggage. Prasat Preah Vihear is a temple on the Thai Cambodian border, which is protected as UNESCO world heritage. Sadly the two governments disagreed for a long time whose temple it actually is and had a number of petty wars on the border. By now the UN has decided that the temple belongs to the Cambodians, but nevertheless there remain a couple of areas around the temple, which are unclear. When we had left Thailand we saw in the newspaper that a number of soldiers had been killed close by the temple in a shoot-out. However we assumed the fighting would end quickly, as it had done so many times before. We managed to get all the way to Choam Ksant. There we tried to hire a motor bike to take us to Prasat Preah Vihear, but for some reason the locals seemed less enthusiastic about this idea. The drivers started to make frantic phone calls and finally told us, that the road to the temple was blocked, because once again Thai and Cambodian troops were fighting. Without any hope to see the temple the next day we left and travelled back to Tbeng Meanchay to stay there for the night.

The trip from Tbeng Meanchay to Ta Seng was divided in two parts. The first part was a pick up ride on the road towards Kompong Thom. It is an especially sandy, dusty road, but also a rather scenic road with many hills and dives. When we got off we were as dirty as you can get (see first two pictures). From there it is a rather challenging ride on the back of a motorbike through the forest, crossing a river and other obstacles. When we finally arrived in Ta Seng, I was happy to rest for a while. Ta Seng is a lovely small Cambodian village. If you try to imagine a picturesque version of rural Cambodia, this is it. Of course, once the rain season comes it is far from picturesque, but a life of scarcity, as the village is more or less cut off the outer world. In the town there is no real restaurant, nor used there to be a real hostel until very recently. Locals are friendly, but of course they are also aware of their negotiating power. Whatever you need, they are the only ones who can get it for you. You have no choice. Very close to Ta Seng is Prasat Preah Khan, which used to be the second biggest city of the Khmer empire. On the first day we walked to Preah Khan and instantly found the first temple. However from there we tried to find any of the others which belong to the site and got quite lost in the rice fields (see second last image). On the second day we decided to rent a motorbike and hire a driver to take us around. Prasat Preah Khan consists of a city, its wall measures one by one kilometre and is totally in tact; a number of temples hidden in the forest on the far side; and three temples on each end and the middle of a former three kilometre long water reservoir which has now disappeared. It is one of the least visited and most impressive sights of Cambodia, I believe.

Being the second biggest city, Prasat Preah Khan was connected with an ancient Khmer road to Ankhor Wat. The bridges of this road are still in tact and the largest one (see second and third picture) is still stable enough to carry cars. The only way to travel this way, is on the back of a motorbike. It is a trip which takes multiple hours and is rather tiring. But seeing the landscape and bridges, some of them deeply hidden in the jungle, is truly rewarding. On the way one can see the pressure for land. Every once in a while we passed smaller and smaller villages, which have been founded only a couple of years ago, by people trying to find new lands for cultivation. The road passes Bang Mealea which is a site usually visited as a day trip from Siam Rep. There we made our last stop before returning to Siam Rep. We climbed for the remainder of the day through the ruins until we were totally exhausted. In Siam Rep we only quickly went for dinner and every step was painful. Finally we went to sleep and on the next day we got on the way back to Bangkok. On the bus to the border we met two young Cambodian monks (see last picture), studying in Bangkok, with whom we ended up travelling all the way back.

When we arrived in Bangkok, we were quickly taken back from the Khmer past into the Thai presence, as we arrived in a town in the middle of a revolution. But again, this is another story…