[Cambodia] Chapter XXVI: In which N and party travel by remorque

After our brief sojourn in Singapore, we flew to Siem Reap, Cambodia, first and foremost in order to visit the world-famous Angkor temples of the great Khmer empire, or rather a selection of those, as there are so many.

The primary means of public transport in Siem Reap is the remorque (also known locally as a tuk-tuk, although it differs greatly from

tuk-tuks elsewhere), which is a two-wheeled four-person trailer attached to a regular motorcycle (see photo below). We were picked by one from the airport and we used the same tuk-tuk and driver (Mr. Cho) to visit Angkor, like many others opting to begin with the sunrise at Angkor Wat and then touring other temples in a semi-improvised circuit (5 am to 2 pm).

The Angkor temples are a perfect example of the Khmer's architectural ingenuity, for as early as the twelfth century they had the foresight to build monumental temples large enough to --- barely --- accommodate thousands of tourists some nine centuries later, not to mention filling those temples with appropriate photo opportunities in front of which almost every tourist feels compelled to pose for a photograph.

Where in Madagascar we had at times to share furry lemurs or mighty baobabs with a dozen or two other tourists, here we had to share stone elephants and partly eroded reliefs with a thousand or two, and N's attempts to secure human-free photographs were accordingly all the more difficult.

We ended up staying in Siem Reap a bit longer than we had initially intended, because once there, we quickly learned that one of Cambodia's major holidays, the Bon Om Touk water festival celebrating the unique phenomenon of the Tonlé Sap river reversing its flow, was just around the corner (2-4 November). This could prove to be a mixed blessing. On the one hand it would be a special opportunity to experience large-scale local festivities, especially if we managed to reach Phnom Penh in time (namely, earlier than we had expected), for the festival is at its grandest there. On the other hand, many services are closed during the holiday, and we had planned to use those very same dates to apply for a visa to Vietnam.

So we adapted. We stayed a couple of days more in Siem Reap and obtained our Vietnamese visa there; we decided to shorten our stay in our next destination (Battambang) to a bare minimum; and we began to make arrangements to get to Phnom Penh in time for the festival.

Whether we succeed in doing that will have to wait for future chapters.

Accommodations:
- Kingfisher Angkor Hotel, Siem Reap (5 nights; the rooms were very nice, but the hotel seemed a bit too keen to overcharge us for other things)

Photo captions: (a-f) Siem Reap; (g-u) Angkor Wat; (v-w) South Gate of Angkor Thom; (x-cc) Bayon; (dd-ii) Preah Khan; (jj-mm) Neak Pean; (nn-pp) East Mebon; (qq-vv) Ta Prohm; (ww-yy) Baphuon; (zz-aaa) Terrace of the Leper King; (bbb-ccc) temple monkeys