good stuff mark - bring on part 3

Starting a collection of toothpicks? You can get them in Phnom Penh at the markets, no need to go on a quest to Anlong Veang...

BC

Well, its not an uninteresting read, it's a good piece of insight into some local stuff and as the collection grows this will become more so. However, there's not always a call to post a reply. But on this occasion...

I am also intrigued by why you have started collecting pieces of timber from random places... graves and people's houses? Whats wrong with new forest wood?

Oh well,as an old carpenter I probably have a thing about wood-non tradesmen wouldnt understand.
A piece of wood off pols grave marker means a lot to me as,as does a piece of timber off ta moks house and the blackened roofing nail from the preah vihear market that the thais rocketed and burnt to the ground-any of you people know about this?
I remember when ta mok seized people off the train to snooky way back when including one australian.I rang his parents and reassured them,I was wrong.
Ta mok had them murdered most horribly.
Ahh the memories.

For me the trip was both more and less adventure than I expected. I didn't expect to have the fleeting thought that a giant bovine blob of meat coming through the windshield would be the last image I would see, nor did I expect to cause the death of such a large creature. And I won't for a while, stop wondering what would have happened if we had been seriously injured in that remote corner of the country. But it's the mishaps and suprises, not the best laid plans, that make a trip memorable. I knew as soon as I realized we had survived the crash unhurt, that something good would come of it.

But I was disappointed by the wide paved roads in the north. I had hoped the journey would be more like those I have made overland in Burma, requiring a local co-pilot to hang out the passenger side window, watching the bends and reading the ruts in the road, shouting at bicyclists, goats, ox carts and pedestrians; meanwhile apprising the driver of where he can make time by passing in spurts, where the red dirt is reasonably flat and packed. Also, except for the ubiquitious cows, the signs of human and animal life were fewer than I expected, and the villages less populated. Water seems not to be in abundant supply, when we needed some for the radiator I had to ask around.

We drove the stretch north of Kampong Thom in the harsh afternoon sun, when much of life goes to sleep and the light has a hardness to it, but it was morning when we returned, and the difference was dramatic. A good argument I've since decided, for stopping for a leisurely lunch followed by a swim or a siesta, on any road trip meant to be scenic.

There are few road signs on the way to Preah Vihear. Once when we stopped to ask directions, the man looked first west, then south, east, and finally north while contemplating in which direction the town might be found, as if they were all viable options and it was simply a matter of choosing one. I thanked him and got back in the car before he reached a decision.

Someone has taken the trouble to plant and maintain some flowers at the place where Pol Pot was cremated, a simple non descriptive plot. I wonder what life form he could have come back as?

I had read that the former KR soldier who has preserved some comrade hero's wooden leg, intends to build a museum for it in Anglong Veng, in hopes of attracting some of the throngs of tourists that, he must be convinced, will soon start flocking to Preah Vihear. My earnest explanations of my wish to meet this enterprising man, were always accepted in good faith. Only once was I asked "why", by a man who assumed I was interested in some sort of business collaboration. No one found any irony in the story, which was exactly as I expected.

Before heading north we stayed at a guesthouse in Siem Reap where 20 something tourists (dare I say travelers?) packed the internet room at all hours of the day and evening. I wondered how they had time to see Angor Wat with all the staying-in-touch they were doing. In the future when the internet has reached every corner of the globe, everyone will be a journalist of sorts, and no one, a traveler.

When I got back to Phnom Penh I bought a marvelous book at Monument, by the journalist Tiziano Terzani, which was recommended by one of our traveling companions, and which helped me put my sense of despair in context. "A Fortune Teller Told Me" is about Terzani's year spent traveling overland through much of Asia, meeting fortune tellers everywhere he went. But what the book is really about is how the soul of Asia has been lost to modernity in the name of progress and development. I recommend it.

what is all this drivel?

I'm not sure which drivel you mean, but I need to correct something that ML wrote in Part One of his account of this trip, that 4 of us made to Preah Vihear.

The travel writer from a famous publication that ML refers to, who advised me before we went, did not tell me we would be able to sail through east on Rt. 66 easily. In fact his description of the rutted road we would encounter after the ancient bridges was spot on. You might extend my apologies to your esteemed colleague, Andy, if any offense was taken.

Martin

the drivel was the original posting(...i don't know why I commented on it really...I travelled to those areas recently and its almost like we were on different planets.
as for my colleague, he doesn't give a rats arse for what certain ill-informed people say about his work, he's a professional, he knows it and the knockers know diddly squat about how these things come together. but hey, he's a big boy now, he can defend himself.

It's a big area and I''m sure you saw and experienced things we didn't, as would anyone. How else would so many guide book publishers stay in business? Not to mention the best descriptive travel writers.

So far this thread has had 150 reads. I'm sure at least as many would be interested in reading an account of your trip, Andy. I know I would be. Why don't you post one?

Drivel?
Best compliment so far, andy.
Always,yawn... read your blog... yawn... you must be longing for the day that you hit a cow so you have something interesting.... yawn... to write about.
As for those other gurus like the fireman and the lonely planet guy..
I have followed the firemans book before and he always got us lost,turning right when we should have turned left.Did he ever find the bloody fire?
No wonder he ended up in cambodia where the khmers are always confused.
Martin told me before we set off that the LP guy assured him that road 66 was navigable,my info from a week previously was that it was not a road at all anymore.
As it turned out the road was a huge series of holes that would literally swallow a car,even a moto would struggle.
Oh well more drivel, but i have to say that i have driven more of cambodia than anyone else that i know but I look forward to people like andy posting ...yawn..about their ....yawn travels.
I am just a broken down old building worker who enjoys getting out in the sticks with no vested interest in the tourist trade and travelling with interesting people-dont bother applying for the next adventure...yawn..andy.

Owch...well Mark and Martin, I wish you well on future travels into the sticks. If you are so inclined, you can read my travel stories with photos from all around Cambodia on my Blog and website. Nothing beats better than getting out into the countryside in my opinion (alongwith from visiting Angkor).
I've still to post my most recent visit to Banteay Chhmar, but the Anlong Veng, Preah Vihear and along the Mekong River stories have been posted over the last couple of months. Search and you will find.
My Blog is at: http://andybrouwer.co.uk/blog/
and my website with years of travelling around Cambodia is at http://andybrouwer.co.uk/
Let me know if you find anything interesting
I would put a post on ExpatAdvisory every time I post new travel-related stories but I wouldn't want to send Mark and everyone to sleep.
Andy
PS. I don't know who the fireman is but if he writes Adventure Cambodia, good luck to him.

Sorry andy i was drunk.
But I did go to your blog last night as i do periodically and searched and found preah vihear but not anglong veng.You have vast knowledge of the temples,I just view them as big building projects,the religious signifigance is lost on me.
The Preah vihear temples that step up the hill are quite impressive,obviously must have been built from the thai side.Carrying all that stone up the steep hill on our side would have been too hard.
Do they know which side they were built from?
Does that give the thai a better claim?
I thought that the view from the top was good but the view from the escarpment at anglong veng is better i think.
I talked to a lot of soldiers on the hill and i was impressed by their new hardware,uniforms and boots.
I only saw one black lexie there and that was right on top of the hill.They seemed to be building a garage for it while we were there.
Using of course the kokei wood,which is being used all over that part of the province for everything in the buildings.$180 a geep in the north and $700 in phnom penh-a geep is a cubic metre so Im told.
The number of new buildings approaching the bottom of the mountain is staggering,all through the bush new buildings-telling the thai that we do occupy this land.
I was told that the timber trade is one of the reasons for the stand off continuing-it certainly suits the army at the moment.
I enjoy the firemans books immensely and always carry them when travelling but i do question his sense of direction.
I will now search your blog for anglong veng.

Andy I looked at your blog and thought parts of it were interesting. I would encourage you to post at EAS when you put up an account of your travels. Even the best guide books can only stay up to date so far.

Can't be bad for your business either.

Great stuff up there,lovely thai restauarant in anglong veng.
The thai owner could have come from city of ghosts or a thai soap opera-I know the thai soapie only too well.
Timber cutter,restauranteur,guest house builder.
AV real khmer,ot mien barang.
la or