Phnom-inal Cambodia (with a tiny bit of Vietnam)

A belated honeymoon with the bride's parents

The genesis of this trip started years ago, as Leo and I sat in a Vietnamese restaurant in Christchurch that does a phở with a broth so good it takes me straight back to Hanoi. I had been to Vietnam a few years ago and hoped Leo would be as enamoured of the culture and sights as I was. Eventually, we would decide on Cambodia and Vietnam for our honeymoon, the December after our April 2020 wedding.

We did not get married in April 2020.

We did not travel internationally in December 2020 either.

We consider ourselves very lucky to travel in December 2022, even if wearing a mask in 32° and 92% humidity is a trifle taxing. Travel during a pandemic, even on its tail end (hopefully) has thrown numerous unseen challenges our way. Not least that the price of everything has skyrocketed to the point of nearly being prohibitive. We found the saving scheme a monumental task, and thank goodness we had chosen the destinations we did. I imagine a European or American trip would have been out of our reach.

Covid also meant options were more limited, and if we wanted to continue with the plan of a riverboat from Siem Reap to Ho Chi Minh we would have to go on a more expensive ship. The more budget-friendly ones either weren't operating with reduced tourist numbers or were so budget friendly as to be alarming. 

So, we gritted our teeth, upped the automatic payment into our savings account, and booked a swankier boat. We showed a few pictures of the fancy Indochine II to my parents, and just like that, they booked a cabin too.

As with any exciting plans, the departure date never seemed to get any closer, but suddenly, the school year wrapped up and departure loomed. We had dropped the cats at their hotel the night before, so the day of we got up early to watch Argentina use the penalty shootout to secure the Men's Football World Cup - the overtime finishing perilously close to the pickup time for the taxi.

As my parents were joining us for the Cambodia leg of the trip, they had to fit in with our plans - including joining us in the cheap seats at the back of the plane. Having recently flown business class to Europe, this was a hard time for Linda, and we are all very proud of her for making it through the flights.

Singapore Flying Visit

We had a 20-hour stopover in Singapore, so we crashed in a capsule hotel in a flash shopping mall by the airport. 'The Jewel' is a complex next to Changi Airport - a big bird's nest of a building with airconditioned tunnels connecting to each terminal. It serves as a shopping mall, but to call it that seems a little inadequate. Every culture's cuisine seems represented in high-quality restaurants, there are several forms of entertainment and two hotels. When we emerged from ours at 6 am, the mall was not yet open and we had a coffee overlooking the closed shops and silent, dry fountain. Every level has forests of trees (some more than 10m tall) and the centre of the complex is the 'Rain Vortex' - a 7-storey high cascade of water that touts itself as the world’s tallest indoor waterfall. If you ever find yourself with a few hours to spare on a stopover, it is well worth the duck through customs.

I managed a decent sleep in our tiny room, despite the time difference, and then we caught a taxi down to Marina Bay for a quick, sweaty wander before we needed to head back to the airport. It was great to have my parents with us to give some context to the city, even if it has changed a lot since they lived there. 

I saw even a few things that I remembered - the Merlion's elegant tail, a stunning Hindu temple, and classic house designs. Unfortunately, almost everything was still closed, most places opening after 10 am, but it was still nice to get a sense of Singapore. 

Living in New Zealand we are generally deprived of tropical fruit, especially at manageable price points, and upon seeing a fruit stall, I promptly and happily made my first purchase of the trip. I was dripping in Singapore sweat and beyond excited to demolish a cold delicious mango. Under a bridge celebrating 50 years of independence, I bit into the fruit, and my darling husband documented my face as I tasted the unripe lie of the mango that had a gentle aftertaste of chemicals.

From downtown, we hailed a taxi and returned to the glittering mall with enough time to freshen up before the airport, and our short afternoon hop over to Cambodia.

Siem Reap

Landing in Siem Reap, we were transferred to our hotel; a spacious elephant-themed complex that we seemed to have exclusive use of. The absence of many other guests was explained by our guide the next day - the biggest tourist market for the area comes from China, currently closed due to Covid. The signs of reduced numbers were prevalent throughout our time in the former capital city and the country - infrastructure for queues was present but not needed, tuk-tuk drivers lounged in hammocks waiting for fares, and restaurants were sparsely populated. Unlike at home, the staff numbers did not seem reduced; often servers outnumbered patrons.

After checking in, we secured a tuk-tuk ride to a locally owned restaurant and settled into the unfamiliar bustling atmosphere.

Angkor Wat

The next morning we had a 4 am alarm set to ensure we made it to Angkor Wat before the sun did. Once in position, we stood and watched the magnificent temple emerge from the darkness.

The crowd - a fraction of what was seen pre-covid.

A 'wat' is a Buddhist temple, and the Cambodians are so proud of Angkor that it is on the flag, but Khmer King Suryavarman II (reigned 1113–c. 1150) originally built it as a Hindu site. The 400 acres encompass the world’s largest religious structure. The sandstone edifice was the epicentre of the largest and most prosperous empires of Southeast Asia.

The details of Angkor's construction are inscribed on the walls - 35 years, 5,000,000 tonnes of sandstone, 300,000 labourers and 6,000 elephants. The stone came from a quarry 50km away, and nearly every exposed centimetre was applied with detail. Alongside decorative carvings are incredible bas-relief sculptures representing Hindu gods, ancient Khmer scenes, and pictorial retellings of classical Sanskrit epic poems.

When the Khmer fell to the Cham (modern Vietnam) in 1177, so too did the prevailing Hindu religion, giving way swiftly to Buddhism. New temples like Angkor Thom (stay tuned) were dedicated to Buddhist ideals, and old temples were converted. In Angkor, Vishnu was moved into a nondescript corner, and Buddha now occupies the throne on the top level.

In the 15th century, Angkor was all but abandoned and fell into serious disrepair, until the French "rediscovered" the site and its small contingent of indigenous monks while establishing Cambodia as a colony in 1863. Some restoration was attempted but the ongoing turbulence of political unrest in the area saw no useful inroads into preserving the temple until 1992 when Angkor was designated a UNESCO World Heritage and added to the list of 'World Heritage in Danger'. Money began to flood in, particularly from other Buddhist countries. 

While we visited, work on the 250m sandstone causeway that spans the encircling moat was in the late stages of its restoration, meaning we accessed the complex on a bridge of floating plastic boxes. Evidence of other projects could be seen in every area of the park.

Levels are important in temples, and levels mean stairs. Lots of them.

Listening to the stories depicted on the walls.

Stairs.

The elite top level - one we were lucky to see as it was closed from the following day for religious rites. Which was up yet more stairs - the steepest yet.

By the time the sun was high in the sky, we had fully explored the ancient city and it was time for breakfast and a bit of time out at the hotel. It was to be a big temple day, so we embraced the downtime before we were collected at midday to see other notable relics of history.

Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm (built 1186 and known initially as Rajavihara) is a temple that the Cambodian jungle has assiduously reclaimed. An original inscription notes that 80,000 people were required to maintain the original temple and grounds, so it is not surprising that the trees moved in swiftly when the people left. Kapok and strangler fig trees have integrated into the temple stones, now all but holding the mortar-less bricks together. The forest is now diligently held at bay through reconstruction efforts, which do not include removing the established arboreal invaders.

A couple of additional notes - Ta Prohm featured heavily in Tomb Raider, but more importantly one of the original carvings is totally of a stegosaurus.

Angkor Thom

Angkor Thom was the last capital of the Khmer Empire. It is a massive 360-acre fortified square of land with a dense 7.5m high outer wall and a 100m wide moat. Entry gates stand 23m high and are lavishly carved with Buddhist imagery. Both the gates and the faces adorning them pay homage to the four cardinal directions. Access is via causeways with railings made of stone demons and gods playing tug-of-war with a mythical snake and then through a 'corbel arch', a defining characteristic of Khmer architecture. Established late twelfth century by King Jayavarman VII, the last temple was completed in 1295 and, in its heyday, had a population of up to 150,000. 

Hiding from the sun.

The Bayon is Angkor Thom's state temple, and its towers replicate the faces of the city gates. The 54 towers display 216 serenely smiling faces of Avalokiteshvara - the embodiment of the compassion of Buddha and the walls have 1.2km of bas-reliefs incorporating more than 11,000 figures. Also, monkeys live there!

It took us several hours to explore the ancient city grounds and the various buildings inside. Our guide took the time to walk us through some of the storytelling carvings, which was an exceptional way to learn about the history of the area. As the sun dipped low, along with our energy, we headed to Bakheng Hill for our last stop of the day.

Phnom Bakheng 

Phnom Bakheng is the highest of the four hills in the area, each of which features a temple built by King Yasovarman I 2 centuries before Angkor Wat. You can watch the sunset from the top while taking in views of Siem Reap, Angkor Wat nestled in the jungle, and a glimpse of the giant Tonle Sap lake. The plinths were cluttered; everyone had made the steep pilgrimage to see the sun go down on the temples they had explored throughout the day.

As the view turned orange, we were treated to the most incredible sky, but it was only a precursor to the sunset theatre that Cambodia would regale us with over the next week.

The next morning, we were collected by a local tuk-tuk driver called Panya, a friend of a colleague. He took Leo and I to his house and the breakfast stall run by his wife. I finally had my hands on some proper local cuisine and the noodle soup was delicious.

Panya listened to my brief exceptionally well, taking us fully off the beaten track into rural Cambodia. We visited a local school, and appreciated seeing a slice of the countryside.

The school buildings on the left.

The classrooms.

After our morning in some of the poorest areas of a poor country, we checked out of our hotel and went to the Sofitel for the transfer to the boat. The sudden five-star luxury and the $15 long black was an abrupt - and not completely welcome - pace change.

After an hour longer wait than advertised we boarded a bus for the 20-minute drive. After about 5 minutes I had surmised that almost everyone else was French, and after about 40 minutes we surmised we were not on a bus for a short transfer. It was fascinatingly hard to get the details of what was happening, but eventually, the French-speaking guide conveyed to us that the lake was too shallow for the boat to cross and we had a 5-hour drive to the bottom of the lake to meet it there. Wholly unprepared for the long-distance trip, I spent most of the journey trying to pep-talk myself out of my rampant disappointment that we would not see any part of the lake.

Tonlé Sap Lake

The Tonlé Sap lake is a singular and magnificent body of water and was one of the aspects of the boat trip I was most anticipating. As the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, it is designated as a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO for having one of the world's most diverse and productive ecosystems. Approximately 1.2 million people live on the banks or on the water and industriously collect about 60% of Cambodia's annual freshwater catch which accounts for the majority of the country's protein intake. The basin that cradles the lake is formed from the collapse of the Indian/Eurasian plate boundary and can swell to 16,000 square kilometres in the monsoon.

But the coolest part of the lake is that in the dry season, its level dwindles so significantly that it reverses the flow of its main contributing river. The Tonle Sap river is the only waterway in the world that flows into the lake in the dry season but disgorges out in the wet.

However, due to climate change and hydroelectric developments far upstream in China, this lake that is so fundamental to Cambodia has dwindled by 56.5% from when records were first taken in 1962.

As such, the big boat we were about to board could not cross to the top, despite us being at the tail end of the wet season. While understandable, this was upsetting. Not just for the lost vistas of our trip but the broader ramifications of the shrunken lake and millions of people who depend on its bounty. It is the most concrete example of climate change I have been exposed to.

Cruising down the Tonlé Sap and Mekong Rivers

We boarded the Indochine II late at night, ushered directly into a welcome dinner while our luggage was sorted and distributed.

It was an exceptional delight to wake up to the sun rising over the river and to watch the banks slide by as we had breakfast.

Each day we got off the boat for excursions. One of our first was a visit to Kampong Chhnang Province to a palm sugar farm.

An uncommon and slightly alarming vehicle we only saw a couple of times.

Collection of the palm fruit.

The farm house.

The sleeping hut.

Boiling the palm fruit juice to create the wet sugar.

Returning to the boat, we enjoyed another exceptional sunset.

You can see our washing drying on our balcony (middle level, at the back, on the left).

The next morning was a traditional oxcart ride to our first modern working pagoda.

Gastronomic Whinge

The food on the boat was of exceptional quality and always beautifully cooked and presented. Despite this, it was a part of our trip that I really struggled with. Western food dominated the menus - local food was hard to come by and often toned down to ensure it was palatable to everyone. Evening meals were two-hour-long affairs that started at 7:30, during which we were always seated with the other four English speakers on the boat. While lovely people, my introverted tendencies meant that I found these social dinners a pretty daunting exercise after a couple of evenings.

New bridges, all of one design, started popping up as we approached the capital. Upstream there are none at all - just the odd decrepit ferry.

We docked at the capital of Phnom Penh on Christmas Day. It was a little challenging to get off the boat at the dock as the river level was exceptionally low. We exited via our balcony onto a steel service ramp and climbed up to the wharf proper.

We got the lay of the city with a tuk-tuk ride - the mele of the entire boat zooming around in a haphazard convoy was thrilling and fun.

Royal Palace of Cambodia, and the House of Norodom

The next morning, we headed to the Royal Palace of Cambodia. The palace complex has served as the royal residence since King Norodom The Original designated Phnom Penh as the capital in the 1860s. The current ruler Norodom Sihamoni is little more than a beloved figurehead and might be the last monarch. He is in his seventies and disinterested in a traditional marriage or heirs. 

The previous King, Norodom Sihanouk, was the catalyst of the royal family losing its political power. His history is a fascinating one to look at, and the bias of the differing accounts alone is intriguing. While the Cambodians (including our local guides) talk favourably of the royal family, and flattering public depictions of Sihanouk are common; my research paints a vastly different picture. 

The facts that stand out most for me are that Sihanouk worked closely with any external power that bolstered his own, often at the expense of the well-being and lives of his people. His choice to ingratiate himself with the United States and let them bomb Cambodian land by the Vietnam border gave the Khmer Rouge the biggest foothold before their coup. 

He established a continuing positive relationship with North Korea. In 1974, the DPRK built a palace for Sihanouk close to Pyongyang called Changsuwon Palace for his exiled government and later helped him reseat himself on the Cambodian throne. Their mutual embassies currently assist in the political education of most of Cambodia's current leaders, almost all of whom are previous commanders of the Khmer Rouge genocide.

When the current King dies, a panel of these leaders will decide to crown a male descendent of Sihanouk or abolish the monarchy. Based on the positive propaganda generated by the monarchy for the "unitary dominant-party parliamentary elective constitutional" (read: dictatorial communist) government I will be very surprised if the crown is retired.

Mandatory modest attire and masks.

We also visited the National Museum of Cambodia situated in a stunning building. Check out the elephant-hedge-situation!

Next was the huge central market - constructed by the French in an Art Deco style. Here we enjoyed glancing quickly at the $50 Hublots, Piagets, and Rolexes. Don't look too hard or the pressure to buy is applied with devastating force. Next, we bought bracelets to holiday-ify our image, and then headed to the food section and tried silkworms, crickets and even a tarantula (leg). 

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum

Content Warning

A must-see, valuable, and harrowing stop is Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Formerly a school, it was used as 'Security Prison 21' - a Khmer Rouge torture and execution centre used from 1975 to 1979. During this period the Khmer Rouge killed more than a quarter of the Cambodian people, either through dedicated genocide or excessive neglect and exploitation. 

Over 20,000 people were imprisoned, tortured, and ultimately killed at this facility; 21 of 196 such places. Despite ongoing restoration and daily cleaning over the last 44 years, the floors are still stained with blood. Incredibly, three survivors - inmates at the time the regime fell - attend the museum each day. They revisit the site to fight the ongoing lack of justice for the victims of the Khmer Rouge (only three of the Khmer Rouge leaders have ever been convicted) and because this is the only way they can make money. The current government sees no reason to offer them any financial support or compensation.

It is a horrific place with a sinister history and is a formidable place to visit.

Norng Chan Phal was 8 when he was rescued from Tuol Sleng.

Female cells on the upper levels.

Male cells on the lower levels.

Internal doors were created for added security.

A restrain bed with ankle cuffs and a toilet box.

After the museum, it took us a few hours to process and recover from the experience, and then we undocked and left Phnom Penh behind as the sun set. It was as if Cambodia knew that we needed a pick-me-up as it delivered the most sensational of all the sensational skies yet.

The Mekong River

South of the capital, we merged from the Tonlé Sap onto the Mekong River and headed towards the Vietnam border. The river is the world's largest inland fishery. It accounts for up to 25% of the global freshwater catch and provides for tens of millions of people. The famous waterway trickles out of the Tibetan plateau and travels 4,350km through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam into the South China Sea. Immediately the views from our balcony got more industrial and far busier, and we spent the next few days flitting on and off the boat to see the little stops and sights that Mighty Mekong had to offer.

Transfer boats that got us from the Indochine II to the bank.

Orchids at a pagoda.

Ducks farmed on rice fields in Châu Đốc during the off-season for the crop.

The town entrance to Tân Châu.

A fish farm floating by Tân Châu.

Silt being extracted from the river floor.

Noodle soup with our first views of Vietnam sliding by.

Cao Dai (or Caodaism) is a new syncretic, monotheistic religious movement founded in the city of Tây Ninh, southern Vietnam in 1926. It has taken aspects of Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism, and Confucianism. It is practiced within these exceptionally bright and welcoming pagodas that are just a joy to be inside.

In Sa Dec we visited the house of Huynh Thuy Le - recognised as a national relic site in 2009. The original owners were a wealthy Chinese family that owned one of the two Mercedes cars in the whole country in the 1920s. The son (35) seduced Marguerite Duras - a French schoolgirl (15) who went on to write the internationally acclaimed autobiographical novel L’Amant (The Lover) about the experience. Travel guides tout it as the site of a "passionate love affair" which is a gross misinterpretation of the actual facts. Leo and I read the book before the trip and the subject matter made for a challenging read reminiscent of Lolita.

The Sa Dec market is a pivotal point for distributing Meokong produce to other places.

The market can be accessed on land or from the water.

Exploring smaller canals that branch off the main river.

A quiet time with the sun before dinner.

Chợ Gạo Canal

One of the other water-based highlights of the cruise for me was the Chợ Gạo Canal. Connecting the Mekong to Ho Chi Minh City, most ships disgorge their passengers at My Tho and drive the 2+ hours to the city. The Indochine II was purpose-built in 2019 to travel both the lake and canal easier than its older counterparts, including the Indochine I. 

The 28.5km long canal is the only inland waterway that can accommodate large commercial boats, including some petite cargoships, and up to 1,500 pass through it daily. The route means riverboats avoid emerging onto the dangerous coast to traverse from the delta to go up the Saigon River and is a welcome relic of French colonial rule.

Passing down this long narrow waterway was a fantastic and engaging way to spend our last day sailing on the boat.

Ho Chi Minh City

Formerly known as, and locally still called Saigon.

Ho Chi Minh hoving into the distance.

Docking right in the centre of downtown, we were given the option of skiving out of dinner on the boat and exploring HCMC on our own. Despite a "funny tummy", and a setting sun I was out of there almost before the gangplank was down, and attempting to cross 6 lanes at rush hour.

Ho Chi Minh City has about 8.4 million people and 7.3 million motorbikes. There are around 25 motorbikes for every car. According to the World Health Organisation, Vietnam's traffic fatality rates are the second-highest in South East Asia. These were facts I knew, but disregarded, in my quest to have only one dinner companion and only local food.

Unsurprisingly, the area close to the international port could be cleaner, better maintained, and more welcoming. We were overwhelmed and hungry. Despite a traffic warden taking pity on us and ushering us across to slightly quieter streets, we failed to find somewhere we were confident to eat dinner. The sheer number of motorbikes using the rickety footpaths as an overtaking lane was pretty distracting. So instead we began to retreat to the boat, and I faceplanted into the concrete, removing skin from my elbows and knees and removing glass and pixels from my phone.

We did find the cats a souvenir though!

Củ Chi tunnels

The next morning was the long drive to Củ Chi. The immense network of connecting tunnels is part of an even more extensive network that spiders under most of Vietnam. The Viet Cong used the tunnels as communication and supply routes, hospitals, food and weapon caches and living quarters to significant effect. The Củ Chi area was the stage of the Tết Offensive in 1968. The underground guerilla approach was instrumental in the resistance of US forces during the war from 1955 to 1975. Pleasingly, the Vietnamese refer to this war as the "American War" - an about-face from how it is spoken about elsewhere.

A tunnel entrance.

Inside a larger tunnel. Most were only high enough to crawl in.

The next morning, we said goodbye to my parents and they flew home (still in economy!) to New Zealand. We visited a few more sights of the city with our cruise guide before farewelling the boat and our river view for a hotel that looked out onto another hotel.

Pink slips record donations to the pagoda in Chinese characters to honour the gift.

Down an unassuming alley and up 6 stories was one of the most impressive pagodas yet.

The wall is lined with thousands of tiny little golden buddhas in their own nooks.

As we said goodbye to the lovely staff and our fellow passengers on the boat, and since Linda and Grant had departed, it felt as though the holiday was concluding, but in reality, we had nearly a whole country ahead of us. Stay tuned for Part Two, when we travel north through Vietnam!