Preah Vihear, Koh Ker and Northern Borders (Cambodia)

The plan is to visit Preah Vihear temple, its arguably the most disputed temple in Cambodia, surrounded by Thailand and has been the site for a fight between the two country for decades and t go to Koh Ker another temple comlplex similar to Angkor Wat. I am excited as ever, more because everyone is recommending us not to go there and we definitely are going J.

Day1 – 7^th Oct 2010

Got up at 7 and started the journey with Gladston and Yoga. Both of them are regular travelers and love doing anything and everything. Its really fun being with both of them. They carry a slightly different personality, but both of them impress me equally.

I slept as soon as I entered the car and woke up around 10, the journey to Preah Vihear was going to be long and I was ready for it (sleeping that is). Our first and only destination for today is the river of 1000 Lingas and we reach the destination around 2.

Tired by the journey we had lunch and found that the entry is 20$, and it closes by 3. We ended up bribing the guard and entering in 10$. The river was 1.5 Km away and we had a walk cum hike to reach there. The hikes now refresh me a little and finally I was getting something exciting to do. To top it we ended up at a waterfall and we jumped straight in, the bath was just what was required after a walk in the sun. the river and ruins were not grand but it was beautiful indeed.

On the way back we saw a small snake being taken prey by the colony of ants and then after we changed we found a small snake in the bush, it was my first experience to spot a sanke in the wild (couldn’t identify the specie). We moved out from there and reached Preah Vihear district at night.

The drivers wife insisted to order local food and we agreed. When the dinner arrived she explained to us that she had ordered Deer and Wild Boar, this seemed exciting but I knew that I might be sleeping hungry as I might not like it and wont be able to gulp it. The first dish was deer and was as usual cooked with a lot of ‘Tulsi’ and I really don’t like it, so the first experiment had failed. The second dish arrived and the meat was tender and amazing I loved it and we ordered one more of the same dish. It was roasted deer and it tasted amazing. Another dish of wild boar arrived and it was similar to pork but I was more interested in the deer. We went to the hotel and slept nicely.

Day2 -- 8^th Oct 2010

Got up early morning and went for a little walk, saw a stream of river and people catching fish in a unique way, and to my surprise also also saw the fish jumping upstream almost like salmons do, it is something I have always wanted to witness, and it was wonderful to see.

Our next stop was the Preah Vihear temple and we were stopped about 10 Km before that and told that only Moto’s or 4 wheel drives can go there, so we hired a 4 wheel drive for 25$ and start the climb, the climb was really really steep and the Camry would definitely had given up. Soon we were on the top and near the temple.

The first noticeable thing about the place was the difference in the international and the unilateral map shown, which reminded me of the unpleasant history of the place. We move forward and found a lot of army with M80’s (the guns are huge) aimed towards Thailand, but the atmosphere was not tense and we took photographs with the gun J. As we entered the doorsteps we found that the way was going down towards Thailand and we wanted to see how near we can reach Thailand but first we had a temple to explore.

The temple was a typical Angkor architecture and it wasn’t intriguing me much, so we just kept visiting from one ruin to the other reaching the end after around 2 hours of facing the sun. Yoga was looking around when an army guy asked us to join for lunch, we sat there for some time and I start feeling a bit awkward so wanted to go, so Yoga asked us to carry on and we wanted to converse as he always does. So we moved on, reached back to the stairs leading down towards the border and of course we went down for sure.

After reaching down the first thing to find was to see where the border is and how does it look like, I hoped there was no action but was excited nonetheless. We reached a few soldiers with rocket launchers and M80’s, and they pointed that a few feet ahead was the border, there was no fence nothing at all that would separate Cambodia to Thailand. We went a little further and a guard helped us to look at the thai side using the binoculars, this was fun looking at the other side using binoculars.

The soldier took us to a guided tour around the place showing us the trenches laid all over and then he took us around the little village showing us the dispensary, fish farm etc. Then we bring us to another part of the border and we see a bench and 3 men sitting there, to our surprise 2 were thai soldiers and the desk was separating the Cambodia Thai border, and the atmosphere was very pleasant between them. We wished that yoga was there with us as he was missing out on all the fun.

We bid goodbye and moved back through the stairs back to the starting point and found Yoga there, we saw him with a army guy and asked him where he had been and he told us that the army person sent a junior with him to show around d the bunkers and he also visited the Thai border, and came through another route, and we should go there too, and we told him we had already done so as well. We had a plate of noodles there to get some energy back. We visited a nearby pagoda and also another place with thai soldiers, this was astonishing as there were 8 thai soldiers in a place surrounded by Cambodia, and everyone lives in harmony. According to me Cambodia should have asked them to leave or make em evacuate , but all seem to live in harmony J.

We reached back to the car and started our drive back. The driver told us there was a nice waterfall and we would love a dive right now so we agreed, when we reached there it turned out to be a small waterfall filled with people, this was not ideal but we dived in nonetheless, the place was dirty and it was the worse place I had ever been to in Cambodia, but it was surely a local attraction.

We stopped at a place for gas and Yoga started having a beer with the locals and interacting with them. I tried to join in but seriously I cant do it, I cant communicate if I cant convey my point and he does it with ease. Well he got busy with them and since it was getting late, we decide to stay at the same place. The guys asked Yoga to join him for dinner and he agreed. Yoga said it would be fun, and I really wanted to go but I knew I would not be able to converse much and would end up getting bored, so we decided to stay back and Yoga went with the guy.

Rest of us went for dinner and to our surprise we got deer and monitor lizard, I didn’t like the monitor lizard and deer was also not as gud, but I filled my stomach enough. During this time we found that we had an extra day and we could go somewhere else and a lot of plans came to the mind, like the Tri border, battambong etc. In the middle of the dinner Yoga called and he said he was in an army camp and having drinks with the General and a minister had just visited them as well and after the party they are gonna take him to a night jungle trek and tomorrow they will take us to the waterfalls. Since we didn’t have much choice waterfall it was, but as I am I was uneasy as the plan was not fixed.

Day 3 – 9^th Oct 2010

I got up around 6:30 and straight away went to yoga to see his condition and more so know bout the plan. Yoga explained he had had a wild night and we could go to the waterfalls with the army guys. When we went for breakfast the army guy talked to the driver and the driver told us that he wanted to take us to the same waterfall, we were really not interested in the same waterfall and we actually conveyed our point of wanting to visit the triborder, to which the driver and his wife thought of as fools to be wanting to visit that, the tri border was much farther than we got from the map and the road near the end was really bad.

We stopped at a point to know the directions and those guys told us that we cannot take the car there and we needed to take bikes to reach the border and asked 12$ per bike. We decided that amount was a lot and we should give it a try, but soon we found out that we were wrong and the car really cant go, so we called the bike guys and headed to the border. The tri border was inside a jungle trail and reaching their it really didn’t seem like a border, it was monument erected with three sides, one for each country. I found a fighting mantis there, and it was fun to click its photographs as it was always in a fighting mode with the two front legs, it was great to see and I took a lot of its pictures.

Before I forget the Tri border was a great place to reach and an achievement of sorts for me, it being in a jungle is surprising but it was fun. The moto ride across the bit of a jungle was fun as well. From there it was decided we go to the Cambodia – Lao border and try to go to the waterfall there. The road was a bit treacherous and we thought of heading back but the driver was confident of reaching there and we kept moving on. We reached there in the afternoon.

It was a river border so one side was Cambodia and other side was Laos, we rented a boat from there and went to the Lao side, had lunch there and strolled around the area and came back to the shore. It was a fun experience and now I have 8 countries in my list of travel. We started back and after a long drive reached Koh Ker by 7:30.

Koh Ker was a small place and electricity was a privilege, though Yoga insisted on an AC room and we went out searching for one. The place was very dimly lit and we saw some boiled eggs at a place and I wanted to eat em. Soon Gladston also joined us and yoga as usual started communicating with the locals. Gladston opened the top and I could see something black and I got up from my seat straight away and I wasn’t gonna try that. Gladston didn’t seem to like it but he was obligated to eat since he had started it. Yoga came back and took one, he has had it before and he was up for it, actually it was an almost hatched egg and it looked disgusting. I would not try that.

We couldn’t find an AC room and settled in one of the guesthouse present, we freshened up and went for dinner in a near by place, the dinner included deer as well and it was good to eat. The rooms were ok and with the mosquito net it was a comfortable sleep, but Yoga wouldn’t let that happen and he dragged me for a walk outside the hotel, the roads were pitch dark and it was like a jungle there, believe me I was a bit scared as the only thing we had for light was the mobile phone or the flash from my camera. After half an hour I forced both of em to return and we went to sleep peacefully.

Day 4 – 10^th Oct 2010

We got up at around 7 as usual and went for breakfast, had a walk around the place and were ready to visit the temple area, Koh Ker was a huge complex in an area of 9Km * 4Km, but I was least interested in the temples, but the place was very quite not much people, no proper road, seemed like looking at temples in the jungle, we went into few and just looked from the window for others.

In one of the places Gladston wanted to climb up a hanging branch of the tree and challenged others to do it as well, I went ahead in successfully climbing it J .. at least a bit of fun apart from the boring temples. There were also a lot of ant hills present and there was a lot of moisture in the place, I was wishing to see some snakes but could not spot any, we moved on after that back to Phnom Penh.

The driver suggested to visit another temple called Beng Miliea and we agreed as we had enuf time, we reached the temple around 11 and it was in complete ruins, it was a gud site to visit and full of moisture as well, the ruins were covered in moss and the green gave it a great look. I liked it most among the temples that we visited on the trip.

On the way we stopped by the river to have lunch where we can lie down in the hammocks and wait for lunch to arrive it was a refreshing lunch and we continued back to Phnom Penh. It started raining really hard on the rest of the way and we could manage to reach Phnom Penh.