Well, this one anyway!
We're back home now, and have been struggling to get the final blogs online. Good old Blogsy has had the vapours but seems to be OK again. If these few sentences are all you get in your notification email, please go to
www.2inavan.blogspot.co.uk
for lots of stuff about Cambodia.
The best temple of all is Ta Prohm as this is the one with all the trees growing amongst the ruins (its popular name is Tree Temple). The trees are called Sprongs - what a brilliant name - and the temple is being restored very slowly with funds from around the world. Apparently the film "Lara Croft, Tomb Raider" was shot here (no, I haven't seen it either, but I understand it's quite well known in what's termed 'popular culture'... :-).
No apologies for the following plethora of photos ...
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| First sight of the Tree Temple |
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| Musicians mutilated by land mines ... |
So, onto Sat afternoon. We were whisked off to Tonle Sap which is Cambodia's largest lake and promises tourists a 'charming floating island' of villagers living on rafts and fishing. Ha! Our guide told us that the lake's used for washing, bathing and all round sanitation. The river leading to the lake is at this time of year shallow and fetid and a horrible yellow colour; there's a landing place where you can buy souvenirs and gawp at the crocodile farm which is a few sad creatures imprisoned under planks.
The village had a couple of tourist-type shops which sold the (usual??) mix of icons, full crocodile skins, dildoes (photo on request!) and distillates rumoured to be good for all aspects of manhood and pregnant women!! Each bottle contained a snake and a scorpion ...
But the Face of Poverty is this: a child in what looks like a large washing up bowl, floating beside the tourist boats, posing with a snake around her neck, begging for a dollar so you can take her photo. We paid and agonised about whether to post the photo on the blog or not. On balance we decided that if the photo makes you as angry as us about the corrupt and nepotistic government which exploits its own people so shamelessly that scenes such as these are commonplace in Cambodia, then it serves a purpose ...
The Concert at the Children's Hospital
On Sat evening we went to a concert, recommended by our guide who told us how she'd taken her little boy to the hospital when he'd twice contracted dengue fever; they now call him Lucky...
The concert was given by the most amazing and inspiring Swiss doctor who runs the hospital and who's raised millions of dollars to expand this one and to build hospitals in other parts of Cambodia. All treatment is absolutely free in a country where there's no health service unless you can pay. (The average Cambodian income is apparently $1000 pa but this drops to about $240 dollars for the poor in the countryside ... Less than a dollar a day). Part of his fund raising comes from his free concerts where he pays the cello and tells you about the hospitals; you can donate money at the end.
90% of funding comes from private donations. He told us that the USA government (who obviously bear some responsibility for Cambodia's situation) refuses to donate anything because patients don't contribute anything to their treatment. He called it the 'system of absurdity'. I'm still trying to understand the economic ideology here, perhaps someone can enlighten me?
If you're interested, his website is http://www.beatocello.com
While we're on the subject, the other organisation we found out about is 'Pour un sourire d'enfant' (For a child's smile) as the waitresses at our river lodge were sent by this charity to do their work experience at the lodge. The charity funds underprivileged kids to train in different vocations or puts them through school. The website's http://pse.asso.fr
And if you've got a few quid to spare, the websites have a page for donations.....
Postscript, Sunday 31st March
We had a 5 hour wait for our connecting flight at Singapore so decided to do a quick sightseeing tour of the city offered by the airport to while away some time. We learned the following: they've just spent a billion dollars creating some sort of park. Oh, and the USA has kindly invested in the new luxury hotel and casino which boasts the longest elevated swimming pool in the world.
We're now in the Land of Temples and once again find ourselves in a world of extremes. The temples of Angkor are astounding and so very different to anything we've ever seen. We spent the whole of Friday and Sat morning exploring them: Sat afternoon we did something else, but more of that in the next posting. Be prepared, it'll be a rant.
The ruined city of Angkor Thom has a temple at its centre, the Bayon, and is most famous for its towers of the 4 faces.
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| The Royal Barges moored near the entrance to Angkor Thom |
The most famous temple, Angkor Wat, is huge: I think it's best seen from a distance as it lacks the atmosphere of the smaller temples.
It's got an impressive bas relief showing the battles and tribulations of the gods and if pressed I could relate a couple of the major myths, but after hours of the guide telling us about Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma and all their various offspring and avatars, a lot of the info evaporated into the 41 degree heat (yes, FORTY ONE according to our tuk-tuk driver). We were quite taken with the carvings of the dancing girls (the Apsara) so our guide suggested we go to see them in the flesh; we spent the evening in a huge restaurant watching dancing girls and boys.
The best temple of all is Ta Prohm, known popularly as the Tree Temple. We've put more photos of this in the next posting.
Posted with Blogsy