Anglina Jolie was here
So we’ve ended up in Cambodia and we’ve been here a couple of nights already. We hired a driver, named Marom, for 3 days and he has been pretty reliable for us thus far. The last two days we’ve requested for him to show up at various times and he always shows up on time. Even when we’re late, he patiently waits with a smile. Tomorrow, he’s supposed to pick up Darren and Becky at 430am so that they can drive out to the mountain to view the sunrise. I would probably go but I don’t feel like spending $20 USD to see the sun rise. I’m sure it’s breathtaking and/or beautiful, but I’ll just watch in Vancouver when I get back and pretend I’m in Siem Reap.
On our first night here, we told our driver that we wanted to eat local food so he drove us to some local restaurant that had a few stray cats and a lot of bugs. The cleanliness of the food was a tad suspect, but I figured that there was a reason why I brought diahhrea medication with me, so we took a chance and had a good meal. It turns out that the food was fine and for me at least, it didn’t upset my stomach too badly. I think everyone else was OK too. If there were any problems, I attributed it to the Maladrone medication we were on to combat Malaria. Anyway, we called all the bugs that joined us for dinner, ‘buddies’. I think Terry got the first buddy. He found it swimming in his orange Fanta. There were lots of other random bugs in landing in our food and although there were quite a few, they were tiny and it didn’t bother us too much. The most disturbing one was
in our morning glory veggie plate. There was a live worm in our dish. Yummers!
The next day, we had hired a local guide to take us to the temple ruins. HIs name was Kahm and his knowledge of English was great, but his pronunciation sucked (picture Terry as a guide.. :) I kid I kid..). Anyway, Kahm was super nice and he really new the history of the temples that we went to as well as the stories and fables of all of the sculptures and etched murals on the walls. I learned a lot about the different religions and the Gods that the people went through in the 12th Century. The temples were amazing and I actually think that Bayon temple, was more impressive and interesting than the tourist favourite, Ankor Wat. Ankor Wat was bigger but way more boring and there were fewer statues and towers to enjoy. It was a gruelling day as we spent hours in about 35 degree temperatures. It was draining and by the end of the day I was tired and grumpy. Our guide was noticably hot and sweaty too as his stench started to permiate through his clothes half way through the day. At the last leg of the tour most of us had stopped listening to him cause he was either too detailed (read, long winded) and/or too stinky to get near. At least for me it was a little too unbearable. Poor Lisa was miserable from the heat. I don’t think you could be more disinterested in the place.
The next day (which was earlier today), everyone was templed out except for Darren, Becky and I. So we got up at 7am again for breakfast and we headed out at 830 with Kahm again. He was wearing a clean shirt so he didn’t stink. Excellent! We headed out to the temple where they filmed scenes for Anglina Jolie’s Tomb Raider, Ta Prohm. On our way to the tmeple I was sleeping in the car and suddenly our driver slammed on the breaks and veered a little bit. I woke up to find out that we were inches away from smoking a cow that had darted out in front of our van. Pretty funny cause the cow was really close to the vehicle and I wonder if he/she knew how close it was to meeting it’s maker. The cow actually looked scared as it ran back to the side of the road. I could have sworn it was looking at us as with fear on it’s face. It would have been a good story to tell if we had killed a cow or if the cow totalled our van. It’s hard to say what would have happened though because we weren’t going particularily fast. Our driver only drives about 20 km/hr due to the shitty roads.
We saw one more temple and it was more of the same. I’m all templed out at this point and I don’t think I’ll be looking at any more temple ruins for a long time. At least not in Cambodia. For lunch, we went to some place called Red Piano. It was one of Anglina’s hangouts when she was filming Tomb Raider. They had the Tomb Raider poster hanging on the wall, as well as a few pictures of Mrs Brad Pitt, including an autographed photo. I wanted to steal the autographed photo cause her trading card autograph goes for hundreds. After lunch, we walked around a bit and there wasn’t anything of interest in the neighbourhood so we headed back to the hotel to chill out. And that’s where I’ve been the last few hours. I took a nap, a shower, and now I’m hanging out in PussyT’’s (aka JimmyT aka James’) room while the girls play cards and da boys take turns on the notebooks.
So that’s it. I’ll try to update again before I head home. Damnnit, this trip is almost over!!! UGH. The horror! I don’t wanna go home. Cya soon and go Canucks!
~Anthony
