Thursday 28 April 2011

Part 22 - Cambodia to Thailand - jungle temples and BKK.

So its been a long time since I put to page my journey. Nearly 3 months I would say and the longer a I leave it the harder it becomes to sit at a screen and compile my thoughts.

Where did I leave you? I guess it was somewhere in south eastern Cambodia, with the dry burning forests, Khmer smiles and the Rouge scars of a recent history now glittered up with a new wave of tourist opportunities. Cambodia hit me hard and I fell in love with the people... however I didn’t stay long, in fact it was just about 3 weeks after arriving that I found myself crossing the border to Thailand where I am now, almost 3 months later.
I spent about 5 days at the Nature Lodge in South East Cambodia slightly disgruntled at what I found there...I was feeling short of money and looking for the familiar sensation of roots culture and hippies I left behind so many months before in Europe...but here again I found myself in backpacker world where everyone had “done” this country or that and was “doing” Asia before “doing” India and had already “done” China...a terminology I’ve noticed slipping from my own mouth in the past which when I think about it makes me feel a bit cheap and dirty, as if my experience of a country could be likened to that of a quick shag... The time to settle down somewhere and rekindle my bright spirit and love for travel was fast approaching I could feel...I had hoped Nature Lodge might have been that place but I was wrong, so onward I went. I discovered a friend of mine from Brighton days was currently in Siam Reap with his girlfriend and her baby so leaving the land of $5 a day push bike rentals (which compared to the $1 a day id seen everywhere else I found quite steep) I boarded a little bus back towards the Mekong and past, up to Siam Reap... now so may months later I barely remember this journey, I’m sure I befriended someone or another which made the hours go past a lot quicker but soon enough I landed in Seam Reap and found my familiar friends from the Apple Lands.
We spent the next few days in Seam Reap, swimming in the hotels swimming pool with the baby and walking the city streets past the bars and night clubs drinking our fruit smoothies by night, a luxury. We took a day trip out one day to Angkor Watt in the glaring heat of the day we rode with out friendly tuktuk driver around the ancient temples. The admition to the site was $20 and I’d previously decided that as I’m ‘suddenly’ on a minimum budget (I think by this point I was down to a couple of hundred pounds left) it was out of my price range. However I’d mentioned to my dad that I wouldn’t go and he said “what!? Hell I’ll give you $20 to go, you must!” (...in actuality he contacted me and gifted me with 500 pounds upon hearing that I was getting to a point where I was considering even going home because of my lack of funds. Wow what a gift (or a great way to keep me away longer haha), and full of gratitude I promised myself I wouldn’t waist it away. ...in fact I’ve done pretty well and still have it 3 months later but how that happened is later on in the story, and also completely laced with gratitude and thanks.)
So! Angkor Watt. Wow... what a magic land, despite my slight pain in my heart at paying $20 for one day (I must point out the pain in my heart would not have existed if the money was going to the Khmer people, however I had heard from a few sources that it had been bought out by an oil company so all profits to this ancient sacred site would go straight towards a money guzzling corporation... to finish my original mention of the price this was the main reason why I had considering not going at all.) I could not deny it was well worth the trip. These ancient temples all hand carved and compiled so so many years ago, having survived extreme heat and rains and the onslaught of the Khmer Rouge still stood tall and strong. We saw only 4 of the temples in the one day we had to look around and each of them shone in their own unique way, beautiful carvings of dancing girls and Buddhas, the Hinduism and Buddhism mixed in a big melting pot of stone. However there was only one of them I truly wanted to see. The name of it slips my mind right now but I remember watching Baraka when I was 18, I saw clips of it jumbled in with a million other breath breaking images of our planet and it griped my heart. Here in what was for so many many years thick jungle stood a temple built by man of stone...and as time passed, and man passed, jungle returned. The Nature grew over wall and roof, embracing stone and rock to create a true temple of trunk and tree. Its brings to mind the line from a Dizraeli song “I’d rather one tree than a forest of cathedrals” (Good God, Dizraeli) So today where once man would have come to worship father gods they come to admire mother nature, pupils wide in the low light taking in every single glimpse of her awe inspiring beauty they can... for without her this is just another temple amongst the others...

The next day we boarded a bus to Thailand. The northern boarder of Cambodia and Thailand was currently having a little tantrum with each other over the ownership of a temple and its surrounding land, so while children threw their toys into each others prams risking the lives of innocents the tourist and foreigners took the southern border crossings until it died down. At the border my English friends (Simon and Victoria) were whisked through swiftly out of the heat with the baba and I was not to see them again until southern Thailand as I crossed at a slower pace befriending some people along the way.

Here I was, in Thailand... having not been here since I was 3 years old its was a strange “Coming back to” and “first time here” feeling as I got into a small air conditioned mini bus with 5 others (quite a luxury compared to the rickety mini buses in Cambodia packed full with the back door open and people hanging out sitting on the luggage). I blinked and I was in Bangkok. Koh San road. The noise penetrated my brain, the energy quickened my heart rate, no joke. I felt an excited buzz in me as I bid fare well to the minibus friends and went to change my dollars and buy myself some noodles. Strolling along in the early evening with backpack, guitar and noodles I got the feeling I would see someone I knew here pretty soon amongst the trance music and street stalls and sure enough there they were. Amaya and Joshua, my two walking friends from northern Laos who I had journeyed with up the Nam Ou river to meet Lilly a month before. They had been birthday celebrating in the park today and had neon paint and glitter streaked across their faces. Greeted with smiles and a quick “how’s it been” they were swallowed up again into the crowd within minutes and I turned back alone to digest my noodles and this fast pace place. I had been told about a hostel with dorm beds for 50baht a night (about 1 pound) but not knowing where it was or how to get there I grabbed a tuktuk to take me, a surprising challenge when the place was on the other side of the river and it was rush hour traffic. The tuktuk stopped outside the Overstay; a squat like bar and hostel where I was to make my home for the night. This was on one level a wicked place and on another a complete shock. Reminiscent of The Magpie back on stokes croft in Bristol it had that party squat vibe with paintings and creativity scattered around the place and bunk beds built of doors and scrap wood. In actuality if I had been in the mood for city night partying and there hadn’t have been bed bugs I would have been fine here but the contrast of the quietness of Cambodia to the buzz of Bangkok had drilled a migraine into my head and by the next afternoon I was scrambling to the train station to head south the Koh Phangan where I had heard rumors of other Brightonites hiding out in the tropical climates for the winter. As i was swiftly packing my back to catch the night train down to the south of Thailand i spied a friendly French girl alone on a bunk bed and asked if she’d like to come with me. She said yes pretty much instantly and packed her stuff too. Here was my new Travel buddy, Aurora (actually her name was slightly different but I cant work out how to spell it so the northern lights she shall be).
We were to take a bus to the train station and book tickets onto the overnight train out of big city and head south across Thailand towards the Islands. As we walked along the platform i had a good vibe about this long journey up ahead. We had saved money by not paying for a bed but deciding to take a seated carriage instead. As we stepped into the carriage I saw why my feeling was good. There was one of my Cambodia to Bangkok bus journey friends alongside another south American guy with dreads and a guitar! What a perfect crew for a long train ride, aside from us the carriage was empty and as we shot through the night we leant out the windows of the restaurant cart letting the drunken bustle behind buzz and the rice paddies and my screams were dragged into the past. Later that night I perched at the end of the carriage where there was no door to the outside world and sat with my legs hanging out of the train, palm trees and fields flying past at high speed and my heart was full of ecstasy.. pure joy for being alive. Moments where suddenly the world would disappear and a sheer wall of brush would be flat up against my face rushing past reminding me of the delicacy of life...

....I let all worries be left outside with the night and my heart sailed its way south through Thailand.


I am going to break this up into pieces so I will finish here :)

Love and light to you all from my Jungle Home.

xx