cong a.k.a jordana site of me and updates (will change soon)

Cambodia is 1 hour behind us. But my watch was not synchronised throughout the trip. The feeling of clawing back an additional hour for a holiday trip just seemed so worthwhile, if only the plane did not stop by Danang, Vietnam! So I actually travelled to 2 countries to be exact!

Siem Reap Airport was rather barren. Other than the confusing queues to immigration and transit, the procedures through the customs were swift. We met our tour guide after a short walk out. For the ease of my parents, we had requested for a Mandarin-speaking guide, whom, in the end, spoke majority in Cantonese!

To our delight, we were the only people for that group. So it turned out to be a private tour for the rest of the trip! No waiting for others, no sharing of food with others. From transportation to food to explanations, we would be the only personnels catered! Glee!

A lunch buffet greeted us immediately after departure from airport. I should not have taken that much from the SilkAir meal if I had known! My worse regret was not having the ice-cream, nowhere available in the subsequent buffets we gonna have. Yes, there were more buffets in the coming days! We were brought back to our hotel by the mini van after our lunch for some rest before embarking on our first stop, a boat ride through Tonle Sap Lake.

A rough ride to Tonle Sap Lake exposed us to both the rich and the poor. Huge mansions could stand tall on one side of the road, while rough compromises they called "roof" with poor sanitations could exist by the shore of canals and streams on the other side. Harsh reality it might seem. But it is no wonder there is always a tinge of envy, no matter how minute, for city dwellers like us, on the carefree life they lead.

Prior to boarding the boat, and as we would soon find out in subsequent arrival or departure of certain tourism spots, hordes of dishevelled locals, nevermind the age, would cluster around us for donations. Part of the reason my Dad was so eager to change his USD into the local currency was to give out donations he sees prompt along the way. The problem, we knew long ago, was that such actions only invited more begging.

The boat ride was rather monotonous. What were interesting are the settlements peppered around the lake. They are literally living on a river without much proper sanitations and accomodational structures. The kids could not care less. Naked and bare-footed, they roll, they swim, they chase within the mud and in the water. Could one’s wealth buy that? They are not worse than any of us in fact, for they are kicking and alive, YET happy. Who is the winner?

Skiing along the lake brought us to a "kelong-stop", which frankly speaking I am totally clueless about the existence of that stop and the reason for it. Alligators (or crocodiles, I could not tell the difference) are bred there, maybe as a source of food. But what I know was that the snack we had during the stop over was rather unforgettable! Steamed (presumbly) mini-prawns, or shrimps! Simply delicious! Fresh and sweet. The aromatic juice of the invertebrates sucked together with the special dressing of sort seemingly unique to Cambodia made our day. The dressing’s sharp zing of saltiness and soury bit was sealing perfectly with the seafood flavour of the shrimps.

Nothing special on the way back to boarding of our mini van, except the local kids brought to us shocks of our day. Every individual one of us had our face captured, in the most candid manner, and imprinted onto ceramic saucer plates, with decorative motifs around the photo. Served as a momento, it cost USD3 each. Only my Dad bought his. Brilliance of candids, they are definitely masters in their own rights. I am kinda shell-shocked.

Dinner was too early for the day, so we were brought to a local night market for some light shopping. Understandably, there is always a reason why it was called "night market". People normally would not schedule a night market shopping on a time they already deemed is too early for dinner. Instead of experiencing the bustle of such markets, we had a rather quiet moment to our own. So unique.

Dinner was great. All meals were fantastic throughout the trip. My family thought they were quite oily. I am fine with it. Gigantic servings, we could not finish, we were guilty.

First day was so relax and free. I could not help but compare it to the hectic schedule I had to follow on my Western Australia trip. However, this pace should be suiting my parents quite well. And so the tour guide suggested to us to have some massaging to while away the early night, as well as to prepare our body for the next day taxing timetables of visit to the Ang Kor Wat. I am more tense to hear his suggestion. My slip-disc had given me some of the worse experience and pain I could hardly forget up till my current living meter. The thought of such untimely relapse due to possible "unprofessional" (assumptions) pressings and knucklings on my back was just so unimaginable. Suddenly, family pressure, instead of peer pressure, was something I felt for the first time. As I did not wish to strip away the enjoyment for my family, I agreed to it, ONLY to have it done to my feet.

The parlour (I hope that’s the correct/healthy word) is one of the biggest and "cleanest" in Siem Reap, at least that was what the tour guide told us. They greeted us like VVIPs upon entering and led us to a dim, but huge room, with each individual sections divided with curtains. Males and females are separated only by the curtains. It was a requirement to change into a bathing suit of sort which I did not follow for my feet were the only massagable areas.

In summary, the feeling was good, albeit some postures and massaging techniques were interesting appalling.

Breakfast for 2nd day was simple but good. We had a well-rested night throughout, probably due to the massage, as we start the day fresh visiting a wonder of the world. One of the highlights of the trip, Ang Kor Wat was much eagerly anticipated by all of us.

Ang Kor Wat is astonishingly considered more of an archaelogical site than monument, as we were told, because up till now this wonderful ancient kingdom of temples and cities are still deep in the forest or someway in the ground to be discovered. With that in mind, imagine the extensiveness of the full complete structure if the current, surfaced relics are considered humongous, understandably with visiting pass of up to a week (or a month) for sale.

Sculptures, carvings, statues. All made of stones. Extreme engineering, exemplarary feat, extraordinary architecture… Although I did not bring my photographic sense of sight to this trip (just wanna enjoy holidays with family), the pictures, however mediocre some may be, should still be enough to illustrate the grandeur than sometimes meaningless adjectives.

The whole of 2nd day was nothing but Ang Kor Wat. Maybe to my 2 sisters it might have a little extra. They bought a hat each, to their delight, at one stop-over break at some local roadside stalls. The itinerary ended with a view of the sunset in Siem Reap. What was initially thought to be an excuisite orange yolk setting behind the backdrop of the the famous Ang Kor "skyline" was nothing more than a normal sunset over a generic bird’s eye view of Siem Reap plains. But to count our blessings, the weather had been fantastic for the whole day. Still, the hardwork of trekking up the hill and climbing some steep elevated stone steps to catch something Changi Beach could offer was not comforting, especially for my parents.

Dinner was another buffet! Delicious. Period. The bitter part before the meal was when I realised the ISO setting I was shooting for my Fuji Velvia 100 slides was 1600! Terribly sunken. I specially bought Velvia to test out the rich colour saturation, especially so applicable on days like that when the sky was deep hue of blue with awesome landscapes. And I made this schoolboy (not that I am not a schoolboy) noobish mistake. I was switching between Fuji Neopan 1600 B&W and Velvia 100 as and when the situations called. The ISO setting was totally overlooked because of this! 4 stops of difference! All shots taken at Ang Kor Wat with Velvia were underexposed by 4 crazy stops!! And it was not as if I could always spend the time to reshoot again as and when I could. ARGH!!

There were performances of traditional Cambodian dances during dinner. Graceful.

To cap the night off, Spurs lost 1-0 to Wolves. Unbelievable. I did not have a good night sleep. Too much things on my mind. The need to wake up so early the next day for the trip down to Phnom Penh did not help.

More of the photos can be viewed at my facebook album.