Flight

Nobody knows that actually I dislike flying. The only time I enjoyed flying was army days, when I carried a parachute at my back. My reason is simple. I hate the feeling of entrusting my life to somebody whom I do not know. If you are on a ship, and the ship sink, you still can jump into the sea and save your own life. An air crash is different. No matter how blessed you are, how strong, how fit you are, if uncle pilot lost money in the stock market and decided to settle his outstanding bill during the flight, bye-bye, there you go.

Unfortunately, by land or by sea can't bring us very far. If you like to travel, you gotto fly.

19th January 2011, morning 0630, my wife and I arrived Singapore Changi International Airport Terminal 2. Our flight is Silkair (Oh shit! I hope this time round we don't get somebody who trade shares to fly the plane) MI612. Departure time is 0850, destination is Siem Reap, flight duration is 2 hours 15 minutes, arrival time is 1005 Cambodia time.

my dear wife

fully equiped

tigress fear no tiger

I'm.... sooooo scared.....

colouring on recycled paper

my masterpiece

let's see who is prettier...

of course this is the prettiest!

I... I don't want to take
airplane...

save a few pieces of paper so as to spend on electricity.
Penny wise, Pound foolish.

lovely couple

can we have something better than this?

2 hours and 15 minutes has passed, we landed safely at Siem Reap International Airport. I was not hit by my claustrophobia, the plane wasn't fly by a pilot who lost money in the stock market. Our journey begins...

Luggage

In order to save on our work leave, we did not take any additional off day pre and post trip. Packing of luggage was kind of rush too. Still, long before our departure, I'd planned in mind on what to bring and what not to bring. A few items that I brought along turned out to be very useful. You may want to consider these if you plan a trip to Cambodia.

Item 1: Mosquito Repellant Pad
Travelling to tropical countries, especially while visiting the rural places, mosquito can be a real pain in the ass. Since army days, I'd been so used to the ointment type or spray type of insect repellant. This is the first time I tried out the sticky pad type. My reason is because the spray type of insect repellant can only last 3 - 4 hours, after that we need to spray again. Meaning we probably have to carry the spray can with us wherever we go. The sticky pad type is good. Just stick a piece to your clothes (we sticked to our bags) and the effect can last for 2 - 3 days. If you are worry about the effectiveness, stick one more piece, anyway they are dirt cheap.

Item 2: Sunblock Lotion
When I first told my wife I wanted to bring a tube of high SPF sunblock, she thought I was pulling her leg. 28 degree Celsius, what a wonderful termperature, not cold and not too hot. In fact one can sleep comfortably under a tree when the outdoor temperature is 28 degree Celsius. Yes, under a tree, but definitely not under the sun. Even if the outdoor temperature is 20 degree Celsius, few hours under the sun can cook you into a roasted chicken. How can we do without this?

Item 3: Hydration Pack
I purchased the hydration backpack to train for my Marathon Run. It turned out that I did not participate in any run after the purchase. Never expect the first usage to be a tour trip. After my NPC treatment, my salivary gland is slightly damaged, so I'm now just like a goldfish in a fish tank. Other than sleeping, I need to drink every half hour. If I receive no water for 2 hours, then I'll look exactly like a goldfish that received no water for 2 hours., except that I probably smell better. My wife said, "Why the trouble? Can't we buy those bottled distilled water?" I told her while visiting Angkor Wat, she'll wish to have a few more hands, not to hold the water bottles, but to prevent herself from falling off the buildings. When you are in fear, you forgot about thirst.

Before we go to bed, my wife told me that she's very excited. This is the facial expression that I did to her:

Guess what I meant by doing this facial expression.

Map

A good map is important if one would like to move around on his own. Even if you have no intention to move around on your own in Angkor Wat, a map at least gives you a rough idea of how big are the temples, and the distance between them. A good Angkor Wat map could be found in Canby Publications, a publishing company based in Cambodia who specialises in printing travelling brochures, traveller's map etc. Visit their website for more maps and information on Cambodia. The following map of Angkor Wat was directly linked from their website. It was the only map of Angkor Wat I carried with me throughout the trip.

Preparation

My first preparation for this trip was done unintentionally. While browsing for books at a China website (you know how expensive it is to buy books in Singapore), I came across 'Cambodia' by Lonely Planet, Chinese version, selling at around USD6. It's dirt cheap compared to the English version selling in Singapore (easily USD30). At that time I bought it merely because it's cheap. The impulsive act had turned out to be rewarding.

After my pilgrimage trip to India, I learnt a lesson: be well prepared before the trip. During my trip to India, especially the later part, we visited so many ancient ruins that, now I browse the photos we took, I couldn't even call out the name of the place, they all look identical to me. I wouldn't consider that as a wasted trip, afterall, the places that we went really worth visiting. Reading the itinerary for Cambodia, if I'm going without any read up, the outcome would probably be the same, if not worse. We'll be visiting more than 20 temples. Better still, I don't even know how to pronounce their names.

I spent close to a month read up the History of Cambodia, study all the temples in Angkor Wat, search for beautiful photos of all these ancient temples. Before I came to realise, my enthusiastic became stronger than that I had for India. I concluded that I made the right decision in choosing Cambodia as my travel destination.

Khmer is the main ethnic group of Cambodia.

Red Khmer referred to the ruling Communist Party in 1970s. It was the biggest catastrophe Cambodia had gone through.

Vietnam was not a big bully, she liberated Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge.

Cambodia has got a nice name given by China Yuan Dynasty: Chenla. During Yuan Dynasty, China sent an envoy team to Chenla. One of the envoy Zhou Da-Guan, wrote a book that described the gloriousness of the Chenla Kingdom which impressed even the Yuan Emperor. Too bad, the Yuan Emperor did not get to visit Chenla, but we do.

The name 'Angkor Wat' carries multiple meanings. It is actually the name of the biggest temple in Siem Reap, in fact biggest religion building in the world. Because it is so big and so prominent, the name 'Angkor Wat' is being used to address all the temples in the Angkor region. So, today when you go to Angkor Wat, you don't just visit the one big temple by the name of Angkor Wat, you visit the rest of smaller temples too.

Most of the temples in Angkor Wat are Hindu temples, a handful of them are Mahayana Buddhism temples and a mixture of both. Other than Buddha, Avalokitesvara was commonly worshiped at that time. It is a myth how the Mahayana Buddhism got into Cambodia (as we know, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, even the modern Cambodia, practise Theravada Buddhism).

Some people claimed that Angkor Wat is one of the new 7 Wonders. Nope, it's not. It was nominated into top 20, but it did not make it to top 7.

Since most of the temples belong to Hinduism, it would be good to have some knowledge of Hinduism in order to admire the beautiful bas-reliefs in Angkor Wat which would be the major activity while visiting the temples. If you cannot appreciate the bas-reliefs, then your trip would probably end up like my India trip.

After a month of read up and preparation, I became so familiar with all the temples that I just need to close my eyes, and I'm there. I could imagine what I'll see in each temple (seen too many beautiful pictures online), I could even read out the names without much effort (though I wasn't sure if I pronounced it correctly).

Decision

Among all the countries that I wished to visit, Cambodia is definitely not at the top of the queue.

I first heard of this country at the age of 5. At that time, radio stations were broadcasting all the activities carried out by the Red Khmer and the war between Vietnam and Cambodia. One thing funny about war, the winner always seems to be a bigger bully. At the age of 5, I thought of Vietnam as a bigger bully, they defeated even the Americans.

Angor Wat was another weird name that left me very deep impression. Probably because it sounds like "Uncle Wat", and you know, in Cantonese, 'Wat' carries the meaning of "accuse". So this uncle is very good in accusing people.

After we'd been to China and India, we fell deeply in love with ancient civilisation. Some people travel to see beautiful nature sceneries but we got addicted to all the ancient rocks, ruins and historical artefacts. In year 2010, we planned a trip to Egypt, but the plan fell out due to all the big incidents took place around me. In the beginning of the year, I was diagnosed with stage 3 NPC (Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma, or Nose Cancer in layman term). The 6 months of treatment almost got me killed. Just when I started to resume my normal life, my dad passed away with terminal stage stomach cancer. The pain of losing the loved one is unbearable. Still, life need to move on. Avoiding seems to be quite a good solution for this, but the more we suppress our emotions, the more depress we became.

In order to get this out, and also to reward my wife as my care-giver during my treatment, I started to plan for a trip despite my unstable conditions. Egypt seems to be far too challenging for me, be it distance, climate or the itinerary. During the treatment, I was hit by Claustrophobia. I had problem even sitting in a car, so really no confident to fly long distance. Then I started to consider South Korea, Borobudur of Indonesia, and finally I locked the target at Cambodia. It's not far from Singapore, just a 2-hour flight, the weather is nice in January, cost is acceptable, we don't need more than a week for the trip, and most importantly, it matched the criteria of 'ancient civilisation'.

We spent some time looking for a nice package, and finally we settled down with one offer by X tour agency '6D5N Modern & Ancient Cambodia'.

Introduction

I'm setting up this blog as an English translation of http://chenla.blogspot.com. A blog which I did to share about my wonderful trip to Cambodia. You can expect a lot of nice pictures (to me), and happy memories (of mine) here. So please be patient with the loading as the pictures that I uploaded were pretty high in resolution. I'm backdating the posting dates and times to the actual date and time of the trip, hopefully will give you a real feel of what we gone through in Cambodia.

If you are planning for a tour but don't know where to go, I hope after reading this blog you'll try Cambodia. If you are already thinking about going Cambodia, I hope this blog can gives you some photography tips (I'm using a point and shoot camera, you should be able to take better pictures than me!), and some activities suggestions to your trip. If you just happened to pop in, I hope that my silly humour will keep you entertain.

Whatever it is and whoever you are, happy browsing.