Home » Thailand Cambodia » Thailand and Cambodia 2000 - Part One - Bangkok & Siem Reap

The first thing I do when I move into a new hotel room is to check out the view.

Thailand and Cambodia 2000 - Part One - Bangkok & Siem Reap

Dougburnett
2003-11-22 17:55:13

Displayed times (last time: )

was Sok - and explained that Lin was busy. After that we were off to Banteay Srei. On the way out we talked and immediately I decided I liked him. While his English wasn't much better than Lin's, he was much more open and over the course of the day he told me a lot about his life.

Banteay Srei is about 20 km north of Angkor on a red-dirt road. On the way we passed villages where the houses were built on stilts. They gave me the idea that it must flood here during the rainy season. There were kids and dogs playing under the houses and banana trees all around them. We also passed several small schoolhouses with lines of bikes in the front. It was slow going, as the road was quite rough. I imagine it is nearly impassable when it rains.

When we got to Banteay Srei I found out how popular it was. Although it was still early, some buses were already in the parking lot, along with lots of taxis and motos. The site, which is quite small, was full of tourists. There were almost as many Cambodian tourists as westerners.

The attraction at Banteay Srei are the elaborately carved buildings and walls - they are made of rust-red stone. They were quite striking. As I was taking pictures, the woman next to me who was doing the same, complained about all the people. I guess she wanted pictures of just the buildings. I, on the other hand, thought it grand that there were so many people. There was a small group of monks in their orange robes that brought life to many of my pictures.

After awhile we hopped in the car and drove past the same little villages on our way back to Angkor. By now more buses were on the road, kicking up huge clouds of dust. It was so bad that at times Sok had to turn the A/C off to keep it out of the car. I felt sorry for the travelers who were making the trip on motos: they were eating a lot of dust.

As we drove, Sok told me he made $4 ...