We get up before five o’clock. We spend a whole day being chauffeured from temple to temple in Ankor Wat by tuk-tuk. The ticket office is the first attraction. 5.30am, crowds of people. for Cambodian standards, an entrance fee of $20 is outright madness. Of this, 10% goes to monument conservation, the rest goes to a petro-giant and the Ministry of Finance. At least $200,000 a day is apparently not enough. Restorations are paid for by Japan and France.
Ankor Wat, World Heritage Site. You have to go. I’m there now. The sunrise is beautiful. And the rest is just as I imagined it would be. Nothing new, nothing to discover. Even though Tomb Raider was filmed here. After 12 temples, we drive home again. Our brains are muddy, our feet flat.
Because of the sour stomach, I don’t eat anything for most of the day. In the evening I have the feeling that something is wrong with my pizza. “Cambodia is looking for a superstar” is on the telly. Everything is always the same everywhere. It’s time to leave this country.
The power cuts out. Working in Cambodia is practically impossible. When the internet is up, it’s only at ISDN speed. In return, the Khmer Rouge fleece a whopping $50 a month from the people. I wake up again in the middle of the night with severe cramps. Sleep is out of the question. Something is wrong.
The crossing to Thailand the next day is an absolute horror. The bus is 30 years old and is only held together by paint. Fully occupied, our luggage is piled up 1 metre high in the aisle. The “express” bus also stops every hour at associated cupping restaurants. A mutiny almost breaks out at the second stop.
Cambodia prides itself on having the second worst road network in the world after Zaire. That is about to change. The EU is funding the construction of a new road between Siem Raep and Bangkok. It is currently a 170km construction site. It takes us over five hours to get there. The bus has neither air conditioning nor ventilation. Only windows. Clouds of dust make breathing difficult.
I notice the difference in living standards in Thailand. Here, it takes just five hours to travel 400 kilometres in a fully air-conditioned luxury bus. I arrive at nine, after an hour I have an expensive room. During the night, stomach cramps destroy me for good. 48 hours almost without food. In the morning, my cheeks are tingling, my head is buzzing, I almost fall over. I go to the hospital, they insist on a one-day infusion. Should be good.
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.