the first expedition and Angkor

so as im sure everyone knows ive been pretty slack with this thing. I could argue that i have been insanely busy, or that i was sick with some weird disease, but to be honest, i just didnt feel like writing the blog that much.

But I should probably get everything down before i forget it, so here is the abridged version. if you want to hear more about anything in particular post a comment and i'll elaborate.

The first expedition:

Loved seeing the gibbons, hated everything else. Nights are freezing out there, food was awful (pigs guts and foetii, fertilised chicken eggs and fermented fish paste, yum) and washing your own clothes by hand is the most annoying thing ever. i dont think i'll ever look at a washing machine the same way again. Being on an antimalarial called Lariam didnt help, with its wonderful side effects of depression and paranoia. For a while I was convinced that the two guys I work with were plotting against me to get me out of there as quickly as possible. Not everything was bad though, I got to see a gaur (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaur) while sitting in camp one morning (these things are super rare and shy, so far as I know I'm the only expat working for CI in the region to have seen one) and we spent a couple of days looking for signs of tiger. We found a couple of tracks that where big enough to be tiger, but it had rained between when they were laid and when we found them, so we couldn't really get any decent shots of them. Still, nice to know there is a tiger living within a kilometre of where we sleep.


That was about it for the first trip. Had some hassles with money on the way back and by the time I got back to Phnom Penh I was done. I was really contemplating heading home either straight away or sticking out one more trip and heading home in a month. But I spoke to my boss and he told me to take a break, head up to Siem Reap and Angkor and think about it a bit before I made any decisions.

Good thing I listened to him. Headed up to Siem Reap (the tourist town close to Angkor) and spent 5 days there. The place is amazing, Angkor was fantastic. I had this idea that it would be all touristy and you'd have to stick to the path and be surrounded by tour groups talking loudly and taking a million photos. Thankfully for the vast majority of the temples that wasnt the case at all. Granted at the temple of Angkor Wat it is like that and I found it really over-rated compared to the other lesser known temples. But some of these places are amazing. Being the only person in Bayon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayon) for sunrise was awesome, as was climbing the more remote temples and suddenly finding yourself in some secret little room feeling like you just discovered the place.

The nightlife and backpackers of Siem Reap helped loads as well, met a whole bunch of rad english and finnish people, with a few americans thrown in for good measure. Had such an awesome time drinking in Angkor What? (rad uni style bar thats been there forever, and has obscure transformers graffiti) and sneaking around the backpackers hostel trying to discreetly steal palm leaves to make hats out of (we had a hat making competition one night, far more awesome than it sounds). Only problem was that I was slightly poorer than expected and ended up with literally $2 to my name once the trip up to SR was over.