OK,
So just in case it wasn't obvious, this blog is officially dead. I've gone home, and am now at Uni in Durham of all places.
I do intend at some point to create another one, about something else, but I'll have to think of that something first.
I'll leave this here for the foreseeable future, but just so's you know.
Love,
Dom.
OK then, I know I've been back a month, but for mum's sake, here's the rest of the Cambodia trip, with some piccies. Then I can retire, smoke port and drink cigars.
Ben and I disembarked from the bus. We'd lost any vestiges of sanity many hours before and were more like walking zombies than ever before (including during sports). However, I still had my bloody mindedness and determination not to be ripped off in full quantities. Since this was the famous scam bus, we were forced to elbow past a number of large unfriendly looking Cambodians in order to escape from the guest house we'd been dropped off at.
"Escape" was only a relative term since we ended up walking into at least 4 random Cambodians with motorbikes and disturbingly rickety wooden seats sticking off the back. To say that these guys were pushy sellers would win the understatement of the millennium award, even next to statements such as "Muse are a good band" or "Fatal disease is rarely fun".
Anyway, we got to a guesthouse and survived the night.
In the morning, we got up at 5.15 in order to make it to Angkor for the sunrise. Our little driver was waiting, as requested, so we hopped on the back of the thing and away we went.
First, we paid a visit to the biggest, grandest, most famous and most ornate of all the temples of Angkor - Angkor Wat itself. Angkor Wat is a huge three-tiered pyramid with five towers rising 65 meters from the ground.
That's a plan of Angkor Wat, we entered from the west and walked all the way to the centre. Climbing up some exceedingly steep stairs on the way. Then we proceeded to explore the walls of the three tiers and took a look at the massive forests surrounding the temple. The plan on the left only shows the inner temple itself, around this is a massive expanse of grass, with a number of pools and smaller ruins. Here's a shot from the end of the middle tier of walls, showing some trees, some grass, some stone structures and a bit of forest peeking over the top. Oh, and that's a hot air balloon in the distance. Not the sun.
OK, so after a few hours here, having toured the bas relieves on the walls (even less fun than it sounds), we hopped on our transport and headed to the Bayon, a far more crumbling ruin on a smaller, though no less amazing scale.
The Bayon is a pretty ruinous ruin. There are 37 towers, and almost all of them feature 4 stone faces, each one facing in one compass direction.
God knows who's actual face it's supposed to be, but hey, if we knew that, we'd know why they wanted him to freak people out for hundreds of years.
The bayon was not our favorite temple, because when we arrived it was distinctly busy and thronging with Chinese tourists. I have nothing against the Chinese, and I don't really want to fall into the cliche of abusing their tourism practices, but they were quite annoying in large numbers. 
Gererally, tourists in large groups were like a plague in the temples, they'd sweep through, drop packets on ancient ruins and generally pay very little attention to their surroundings.
Anyway, we liked it much more once we found some inner courtyards that the tourists had missed. We were hanging around in this sort of area for a long time and didn't see a single other person.
Once we'd finished with the Bayon, we had lunch. It was a bit early for lunch, but heck, we did it anyway. Then, after a suitable pause, headed towards our third temple of the day. The temple of Preah Khan. Yep, sounds like a villain from the Lion King, but hey, it's also a massive temple of Angkor. Built along the same plans as the Angkor Wat, it's the same size and is also made of stone. Here the similarities rather end, since Angkor Wat is very well preserved and mostly intact. On the other hand Preah Khan is a complete ruin - passages are frequently blocked with piles of blocks, the outer walls are falling in, tress sprout from stone domes and it was the most explorable place around.
Originally it served as a Buddhist monastery and school, with over 1000 monks, but now is top of my list of favourite places of worship of all time. St. Paul's Cathedral is dull, (a trait it shares with pretty much any Christian monument). Even the monuments at Ayuttia, north of Bangkok were distinctly dull in comparison.
Something about the way we saw only 3 other people the whole time we were there, and were forced to climb over piles of crumbling masonry, and at every turn was a new sight, an angle over the ruins I'd not seen before. Unfortunately I was so completely enthralled by the whole experience that I completely forgot to take any pictures, except the one below of two trees appearing to mate. Pretty cool, no?
O.K. so once this was completed we headed to our last temple of the day, Ta Prohm, which was a simply incredible sprawling monasteric complex. It's been left partially unrestored, though, to be honest, there were bits of this temple I disliked. Picky? Yes. Frankly, it was too busy, but that's pretty much expected at the more popular temples these days. Also annoying, unlike Preah Khan, all the designated walkways were clearly marked with wooden boarding and the rest of the temple was closed off with signs threatening collapse. 
While this is probably for the best, it meant that much of the appeal (exploration, discovery) of the temples was lost, and although there were a number of amazing views to be had, they were often spoiled by waiting for the queue of people who wanted their photographs taken along side bits of history. I don't really get quite why this is necessary.
Anyway, exploring the Temples of Angkor was the most amazing experience, and one that I would easily trade another two days of my life travelling to do again. I'd like to be there longer, to be better stocked with history and information, and really, to block off the place to other people for the duration.
If you ever, ever visit south-east Asia, go to Siem Reap, go to the Temples of Angkor. If you don't, you've wasted a trip.
Dom.
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P.S. - Since I've been home for ages, and this is the last thing I did, pretty much, I guess this marks the last post on this blog. I'll leave it here for the time being, though, and if I startup a normal one about my incredible exploits, I'll keep you informed.
P.P.S - All the photos are Copyright ME. So there. The plan of Angkor Wat is from www.canbypublications.com, a very good tour guide to Cambodia.
P.P.P.S - Thanks for reading, everyone!
I smile a lot, or at least, I do now. I didn’t really before, but perhaps I heard the old adage that it takes far fewer muscles to smile than to frown. This may be true, but it takes far fewer muscles to frown than to wander around babbling rubbish like that all day, so I shouldn’t listen to it if I was you.
Anyway, Thailand is known for its smiling. Not the country itself, obviously, even Cydonia doesn’t smile (that’s an in joke), I meant the people. So, as I walk along the roads, I smile at people. Even, sometimes, grin.
In England, this is not such a good idea, people give you funny looks from the bridge they’ve just pushed you off. Actually, not so true, they just move to the other side of the road as if you’re advancing along it waving your arms over your head and screeching like one possessed. It’s one way of ensuring permanent solitude. Anyone with any reason to smile walking around in England is either a criminal or a mental patient. It’s an even worse idea in the back streets of, say, New York, where I believe the motto is “Shoot first and seldom bother asking questions.”
So then, as I wonder around, I smile like a demented bag lady in Hyde Park. And usually, people smile back. It’s actually rather nice, you get a warm feeling of having connected, albeit briefly, with another human being. Someone you’ve never met, will never meet again and probably wouldn’t get on with anyway has nevertheless shown you that they too are happy with you standing (walking, skipping, whatever) where you are standing (walking, skipping, whatever) and don’t mind if you keep doing it.
Today I was coming back from town on the Skytrain, smiling away, and I decided in a fit of the utmost senility to walk the distance back home. It was a nice day in Thailand (i.e. overcast. A sunny day kills people and burns their corpses). The distance which seems so short along a busy main road in a taxi suddenly turned out to actually be quite a long way, but no matter, I was committed by this point and suddenly began to find out what “magic patches*” are really all about.
To get to the point of this story then, I was crossing the road on one of the bridges designed for the purpose – this is the only way to do so unless you have an interest in finding out what tarmac tastes like when stained with blood from your severed legs – when I encountered a small boy on his way home from school. Around ten years old I suppose, but I can’t be sure, children go from baby into a middle stage and then become teenagers. Anyway, he was bouncing from railing to railing in the manner of one bored and frustrated with his experience. Here, I thought to myself, is someone I, as a teacher (of sorts, shut up) should help and support.
As I walked by, then, I gave him a thumbs up, smiled broadly (I may have grinned, for my sins) and possibly even winked. I intended this confusion of body language to communicate support, empathy and the idea that he should just hang in there and wait till he’s old enough to drive (about 2 more years, over here).
The look of utter, unswerving contempt he flashed me was palpable, the air turned away in embarrassment and as he continued bouncing away, I went on my way a broken man.
I shall never smile again.
*For the uninitiated, “Magic Patches” are sweat patches in completely random places over your body where you really wouldn’t expect much sweat. Oh, the joy of hot climates – so good for your vocabulary.
I was delighted to discover a massive number of messages on email and facebook today, so apologies if I don't reply to all of them, but I've been off the Internet for possibly the longest time in my natural born life (well, since I started my addiction anyway).
Ben came out 2 weeks ago, and after the fairly busy last week of term, we decided to go to Cambodia. Well, I decided, he just meekly submitted to my will.
I sortof had to go somewhere out of the country since, as my last message may have suggested to you, I was in a spot of bother. I was, for 3 weeks, an illegal immigrant. I've never been one of them before, and really don't intend to bother again. It's not, at least, it wasn't for me, particularly bad, nothing really happens at all. However, there is a sense of overhanging dread and a tendency to run away from police or dye your hair and wear an eyepatch.
My visa to live in Thailand is of a strange type whereby although I can move across the border freely for a year, I can't actually stay in Thailand for more than 3 months at a time. I can simply walk across, get the papers stamped, and then walk back in and be safe for another three months. You may think this silly.
It is.
So silly, in fact, that I completely forgot about it, particularly since the school has an office called "the Visa office" or just Visa Office for short. Unless you are a far better person than me you too would have assumed you could leave visa stuff up to them to sort out. After all, why else would we have a Visa Office except for Officiating Visas? Heaven knows.
Anyway, the only real thing is that you have to produce 500 baht (about 7 quid) for every day you linger beyond your visa expiry. Since I was 23 days in, I had 12,000 baht to find, or around 200 pounds. Thank god for the Visa Office. Suddenly they revealed their true occupation. Paying fines.
So, Monday the 16th of July came around (my Birthday, incidentally) and Ben and I, against a great deal of advice, to which we will be adding our own, clambered aboard a bus festooned with Whinny the Pooh, bound for the border. We'd bought our tickets from a little random travel agents on Khao San road. I did know about the scam which is apparently famous around Asia and is given pride of place in the Lonely Planet, but for some reason selectively forgot this and got the tickets from there anyway.
Thai roads are great. There aren't really any markings, and police are nonexistent, but they're flat and smooth and actually worthy of being called roads.
Cambodian roads are abysmal. Appalling. Dreadful. Apparently, they are a contender for the worst roads in the entire world, behind the DR of Congo and Nigeria, for Hell's sake. Armed with this interesting but not entirely helpful information, we waited for hours in a line for a Cambodian visa and eventually got through the other side. I was out of Thailand for the first time in 4 months. Only 2 steps out, but still, out. I should point out that the rain was falling down in true tropical style and washing the detritus of the streets away with it (Dust, leaves, bits of wood, tires, motorbikes, small trees, people, etc...).
From here we got on an amphibious bus, at least, I presume it was amphibious, it was submerged in a good 3 feet of water, although the rats were already swimming to safety. Around the corner, we waded through the same water we'd flushed down the toilet half an hour earlier and onto yet another bus, this time with very few amenities such as openable windows (you can't open windows with no glass in them in the first place) or seating space. This was where Ben decided he was 10 feet tall and demanded I be the one to sit over the wheel hub with my knees banging into my ears.
All in all, the bus journey from Bangkok to the nearest city in Cambodia is not a pleasant one. It is also not short. We eventually arrived in our destination, Siem Reap, at 11.30pm, having left home at 5.30 that morning. Indeed.
Siem Reap is home to what can only be described as a wonder of the world, and this was why we sat through a whole day of torture (on my birthday, too) in order to get there... more to come!
the feeling in my dress.
OK, so god knows what that was. I've been absent for quite some time, having been sold into slavery of a particularly immoral kind, locked away only to be sold for my beauty to a balding Thai businessman.
Actually, that was a lie, and not a particularly convincing one at that. I'm fine, haven't been abducted, shot or otherwise violated.
I have been working my arse off to try and get this piano piece working. It'll never be accurate or anything, but it's sort of working now. I've got till Saturday with that one.
I've also had my first few gigs with the staff band, Red Sleeve. We played at a nice pub in town and actually it was really rather fun. I'm just about to get my hands on some photos and videos of the event, so this is a placeholder till they arrive.
In other news, Thailand is pretty much as it ever was, the sun shines, the grass is brown and crusty and the tarmac is melting.
Dom
Hey there all,
Well, no updates for a while, but with good reason. School is proving to be fantastically busy, and is just like any school anywhere, so no special Thai things to mention. Sure, the staff may be different, but as I have mentioned before, this is an International school, so everyone speaks English. With this in mind, it's very hard to experience anything of the country you happen to be living in if you spend your whole time among other English speakers in what could only be described as a very sterile environment.
OK, so I do have one bit of news, I committed virtual suicide by agreeing to play one of the pianos in the two piano reduction of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. You'll know it, it goes "O Fortuna *boom* *boom*" at the start.
It's not easy.
Not at all.
Damn.
Dom
