Cambodia 2004 Archives

It comes as a shock to realize that we've been in Thailand for nearly four weeks, and our thirty-day tourist visas are approaching their expiry date. It's time to do what the local expats know as a 'visa run', ducking out of the country and then returning after a graceful interval for a new thirty-day visa.

3 pictures

• 1
• 2

I'd expected Trat to be dark and deserted when we got off the bus at 4 a.m, but the market was brilliant with electric light, the wooden tables covered with produce and household articles. The fruit and vegetables on display were solid-looking and healthy and I was reminded again of the impression of "furious plenty" I'd had when we first returned to Thailand from Laos four years ago. Sometimes even rural Thailand can seem tremendously rich.

3 pictures

• 1
• 2

In the 1920s, the French built a hill station at Bokor, where they could retreat from the constant heat of Cambodia to the cooler climate at the higher elevation. In Bokor's heyday, the two casino-hotels and the church welcomed the elite of French-Cambodian society. Now the buildings are empty shells, daubed with orange moss and still bearing the scars of fierce fighting between Vietnamese forces and Khmer Rouge holdouts in 1979.

3 pictures

• 1
• 2

Or "How I learned to stop worrying, and love the moto-taxi".

I am not comfortable as a motorbike passenger. Something to do with too little control over one's own destiny and too much responsibility for the collective equilibrium. It doesn't help that I'm taller than most Asians, and the driver is apt to forget that farang knees stick out further than those of most of his regular passengers.

3 pictures

• 1
• 2

Photographs from the Royal Palace at Phnom Penh.

3 pictures

• 1
• 2

Photographs from Phnom Penh

3 pictures

• 1
• 2

More photographs from Phnom Penh.

I am sitting here trembling, on the edge of an anxiety attack. I have just spelled Phnom Penh six different ways, and none of them looks right. I am agitated, unfocused, confused. I have to stop doing these terrible drugs.

3 pictures

• 1
• 2

Photographs from Angkor

3 pictures

• 1
• 2

We arrived at the north gate of Preah Khan just as the rain let up. For a few moments, the ruined walls were bathed in a rich golden light and coils of mist arose from the wet ground. We locked our bicycles and admired the damaged balustrade with its rows of headless gods (to the left) and demons (to the right) doing their part in the churning of the sea of milk by tugging vigorously on a rope made out of a naga (naga expressions are difficult to read, but I can only assume that the luckless serpents were feeling some discomfort).

3 pictures

• 1
• 2

Photographs of carvings and bas-reliefs from Angkor