Category: Asia

Quoting my newfound friend Trent from San Francisco, “Cambodia was a shitshow.”

Angkor Wat and the nearby temples were astonishing. The rest, the little bit that I saw, they can keep.

I had some fun here, don’t misunderstand. I shot a rocket launcher. I learned some new recipes. I even met some marvelous people from other countries. When all was said and done, though, I was happy to leave.

Some quick and lasting memories?

Visual:

The sight of so much trash piled up everywhere. The streets were kept somewhat debris-free. That is not to say that they were clean, but when you looked behind any of the houses, it was like a garbage dump.

Auditory:

The sound of the M40 exploding next to my head. Unbelievable.

Tactile:

The feeling of aged belief. Touching the thousands of carvings all over the temples of Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm, and the surrounding areas. The reliefs carved into the rock and the cold stone coupled with tree roots as we climbed from one ruined chamber to another. The detail and devotion etched into those millions of pounds of stone one scratch at a time. That stuff sticks with you.

Olfactory:

Kefir Limes. Kefir is a terrible milk drink that my darling friend Eda loves! In Cambodia, there are some bumpy ridged limes called kefir limes that spray this mist of lime into the air when you squeeze them. It’s delicious!

Gustatory:

Tarantula. More than any of the good food I ate at Frizz (which was really the only good food I ate in Cambodia), I will remember the crunch of the tarantulas and the slight raw feeling in my mouth and throat from all the coarse hairs covering the exoskeleton of these critters.

I am glad I came to Cambodia. Angkor Wat and the other temples are the stuff of legends. The country has soooo much more to offer than I had time or inclination to sample, so please don’t my limited time there discourage you from going. Maybe one day, someone’s stories from Cambodia will be positive enough to encourage me to return there. For now, though, I’m not making any return plans.

Added Bonus: most comic thing I have done in Asia: Traded my shoes for a tour.

This crazy sonofagun was our tuk-tuk driver to the floating forest. He was our translator all day and a complete and total 3-wheeled nutjob. At the end of a full day of his madness, I traded him my 2-sizes-too-small shoes to him for the cost of his tour guide services (such as they were). The shoes were still at least 4 sizes too big for him, but he was the happiest Cambodian I have ever seen.

Phnom Penh. A city whose name brings up images of the killing fields and the torture chambers of S21.

I found it to be comparatively nice.

You can read almost anything I would tell you about the city online. So I’ll give you a couple cool clues I dug up while surfing the city and hopefully it will ease your time here, should you decide to visit.

First off, you can get a tuk-tuk ride anywhere for half the offered price is you are willing to haggle.

Cooking classes, well worth it, are $20 for a full day at Frizz. Don’t trust me? Go swing by there one night for dinner. Best food I ate in Cambodia, hands down.

The prices you can find online for the Phnom Penh Shooting Range are wrong. Most of the guns are double what you find online. If you are slick, you can may be able to get up to a 20% discount, but it requires some fast talk. More details here…

The riverbank makes for some great jogging early in the morning. Have at it.

Khmer coffee is pretty unique tasting. I loved it. Try it.

Rondeng is no secret, but they do serve tarantulas if you are up for it. More details and a short video coming up.

All in all, from traffic to firearms, cuisine to smiles, Phnom Penh was an engaging city. Not a bad place to kill a few days.

Think of the loudest bang you have ever heard.

Now, multiply that sound by ten.

Now, place that sound next to your ear.

Now make a tree explode.

That was the high point of my day.

The Phnom Penh Shooting Range is all over the web, though they don’t have their own web page. If you are anywhere in the city, the shooting range is pretty easy to get to. The shooting range has a wide selection of guns, many of which you can buy at 7-11 in America.

Just kidding.

I own guns. I know what they are capable of and treat them with respect.

I don’t own any grenades or rocket launchers. These I was very interested in checking out!

If you climb into any tuk-tuk in the city and tell them to take you to the shooting range, you are about 20 minutes or less from this:

If this is your sort of thing, you may also want to ask about the grenade and rocket range outside the city on a military base. That’s exactly what I did.

First off, if you are traveling South East asia, there are cheaper shooting ranges. Most of the prices people quoted online were about 1/2 of the actual price it cost when I got there. After a cursory glance at the gun wall I told my host, a middle aged paratrooper with a balding pate, to take me to the big guns; the Rocket Range.

We pulled up in the desert, on what appeared to be the back 9 of a military base and met with a midget at a padlocked building. The midget loaded a guitar case and some big looking guns into the back of the truck and we drove a bit further into the brush. We all got out and the midget started carrying guns out of the back of the truck along with the guitar case; El Mariachi.

After the guy from the range slid a large tube out of the guitar case, the midget loaded a strange conical device into one end and stood there; posing.

After a minute the midget handed me the tube; the M40. I got some brief directions from the paratrooper, and then this happened.

It’s not the sort of thing you see in movies. Those you can always see coming, with you Santa’s beard plume of smoke out the back and a rudolph nose. This one still felt like Christmas, though.

I’ve already told you how loud it was, but other than the noise, it was surprisingly tame; No huge recoil, no giant jetwash. I thought it was going to be difficult to hold on to, or that the tube would be super hot after it fired; it was nothing like that.

It was a once in a lifetime shot, though, as it was expensive enough that I won’t be looking to do it again any time soon. The shot itself was $350; much more than the $200 I heard it was. For the record, they offered to set up a cow for me to shoot at for $500, which I flatly refused. Everyone knows Cambodians can’t make a good hamburger.

Wrap Up:

Jump in any tuk-tuk or taxi in Phnom Penh and say shooting range. It’s about a 20 minute ride.

It’s not cheap. They have raised prices, so any prices you find online in blogs may be only 50% of the actual price. The big one is $350 at time of writing.

Chu Chi shooting range in Vietnam is much cheaper for machine guns if you are in the area, though no other range has the rockets and grenades.

The rocket range is another 40 minutes one-way from the gun range. Plan accordingly with your day.

You can’t officially buy a cow, chicken, goat, or water buffalo to shoot. However, money talks in Cambodia.

American dollars. American music. American citizens. How is this Asia again?

Upon my arrival at the border to Cambodia, I was given a number of lectures on how to change money and how to spend Thai Baht and US Dollars. Most of it was in order to aid our guide in his money making scheme at the Thailand-Cambodia border, but some of it was useful; like the statement that you can indeed spend both the aforementioned currencies everywhere in Cambodia along with the local currency; Riel.

Upon my arrival in Siem Reap, I noticed the place was filled with Americans and all the prices were in USD the music was American Top 40 minus Casey Kasem. It was a little strange.

After a day of necessary downtime from the night in Bangkok with my Irish friend, Justin, I was ready to attack the Temples.

Angkor Wat is a relatively well known temple. That is to say it is the World’s largest religious site. It is also the only thing that many people know about Cambodia. In recent years, Cambodia has added the Killing Fields to their short list of “accomplishments.”

For roughly 900 years, Angkor Wat has been a symbol of Cambodia and the Khmer people. More recently, movies such as Tomb Raider have popularized some of the areas. This week, I finally got around to checking it out.

Now, THIS is Asia.

The scale and intricacy of the temples was like nothing I have seen. By way of comparison, Tikal was much taller, Machu Pichu was more difficult to access, and Copan was nearly as intricate. Angkor Wat was expansive, highly intricate, easily accessible and had as rich and convoluted a history as any religious site I have seen. There was always something new to gawk at.

Perhaps that’s why I lost my guide.

Sometime shortly after entering Angkor Wat I lost sight of the band of Americans I met up with in the early morning and our guide. This wasn’t the first time it had happened; By, our guide, had made a practice of wandering off all day, and though his English was good, his accent was just too difficult for me to hang with, so I wasn’t understanding most of what he said anyway.

For much of the main complex of Angkor Wat itself, I was on my own and just wandering around. I got some quiet time occasionally, was accosted my ladies selling water and children selling baubles, and generally had a good time checking out the scenery.

Finally, thanks to some colorful clothing, I just happened to notice my crew near a pond and meet up with them.

The guide was less than concerned with me and my whereabouts. When I returned, I learned that two other people had gone missing as well during our circuit. That’s 50% of our group of 6. I didn’t feel so bad for getting lost.

The history of the temples in this area is a mix of multiple religions, Muslims, different branches of Buddhism, and Hinduism. There are large empty sections where one conquering group simply scratched the walls clean of old religious symbols. The timeline is traceable though, and you get a clear picture of the history of the temples as you go.

One thing that really struck me about the Angkor Wat specifically is what might be a refugee camp that has sprung up around the main entrance. Locals, complete with pets and children, have set up shop here in an attempt to get any and all tourist dollars possible. It’s like another town.

All in all, if you are a history or temple buff, this place is for you. Machu Pichu will still stand out in my mind as the greatest old city I have ever visited, but Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples are certainly impressive to see. If you are in the area, look it up.

Wrap Up:

Guides and transportation are inexpensive. The 6 of us paid less than $9 each for a full day of English guide, tuk-tuk and drinking water.

You can book any standard or custom trip through any hostel or hotel in town. The hostels will probably cost you less for the trip.

Locals prefer dollars. Even the ATMs don’t give riel. Riel only seems to be given as change to USD. $1 US is about 4000 riel at time of writing.

Have fun, ask questions, feel free to catch a tuk-tuk ride to the temples and just hang out with another tour going through, no one seems to mind.

I am in a tourist bubble.

From the border to Siem Reap, I am aware that nothing is authentic. It is made as it is to be comfortable and easy for me to spend my money with the locals.

Food is more expensive here than in Thailand, which is odd considering the disparate states of stability of the currencies.

The people are nice here, but there is sort of an unspoken shield of customer service that encases all interactions. I think I have yet to actually “touch” someone.

Siem Reap appears only to employ people who serve tourists. This is not surprising as the proximity to Angkor Wat makes any business that does not cater to the foreign tourists somewhat less profitable than those that do.

I’m surrounded by American dollars, American citizens, and American Music. The feeling is rather surreal.

Not everyone is an American, though. I’ve spent the last several hours speaking Japanese and Spanish with a couple of other tourists here, Toshi and Gabriel, just for practice. It’s a nice change.

Soon, I’ll be jungle hopping and checking out the rougher side of things, but for right now, at least… I feel a little displaced.