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• Kuala Lumpur

• Phnom Penh

• National Museum & Khmer silk weaving

• Fried tarantulas & centuries-old temples

• Tonle Sap Lake, stilt houses, and a scam in Siem Reap

• Big Three of Angkor- Angkor Wat, Bayon, Ta Prohm

• Male genitalia and land mines

• Chaotic border crossing

• Train ride to Bangkok

• At a resort recovering from the 2004 tsunami

• Early food reviews

• Relics of a tsunami

• Thai cooking class

• James Bond island

• A lazy last day at Khao Lak

• Nai Yang Beach & back to KL

• Staying in a kampung house

• Lunching @ Menara KL

• Last day

Kompong Thom, Central Cambodia, 3 May

Ten years ago, the road from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor was said to be virtually impassable.  So, by now, I thought it would be vastly improved, especially in view of all the tourist traffic.  Well, it's probably better than it was, but it's still a goat track, with only a few sections  tar-sealed , and even they are potholed..  To be fair, there were a few kilometres of a divided highway, with the rest of the few hundred kilometres still be built, mainly by labourers with only a little help from basic machinery.

It's so rough in parts that it's a hazard to the vehicles which travel on it.  We saw one crippled bus with its front suspension collapsed, and its passengers standing forlornly by the side of the road.

Today's 170km to our overnight stop in Kompong Thom took more than four hours, with only one break. This stop was so we could sample the local delicacies in Skun, aka "Spider Town".  On offer at the markets were fried tarantulas, crickets, cockroaches etc.  Our driver loves them.  So Dave shouted him a couple at 50c each - way overpriced, but that's tourist dollars for you.  The driver didn't hesitate. Chomp, chomp and they were gone.

We really are in rural Cambodia, travelling through villages and past rice paddies - mostly dry at this time of year.  For regional architecture enthusiasts, there were many, many opportunities for photos of the traditional Khmer houses, high up on their stilts.  I haven't yet worked out if the higher the stilts, the higher the status, but I think that's a good supposition.

The other photo opportunities beloved by us tourists are the totally and inappropriately overloaded motorbikes, with their cargo of whole families or goods for building sites (see bottom of page).

Our temples for today were at Sambor Prei Kuk, billed as Cambodia's most impressive group of pre-Angkor monuments.  Actually, the road from Kompong Thom to Sambor Prei Kuk was the best of the drive - smooth bitumen.  I think we were the only tourists at the time in thequiet archeology park, which encompasses more than 100 brick temples, dating from the 6th and 7th century, scattered throughout the forest (right). 

Sambor Prei Kuk is  little bit off the track for most tourists who quite reasonably concentrate on the Phnom Penh-Siem Reap/Angkor route, especially at this time of the year, when it's generally considered too hot for Europeans to visit Cambodia.  It's the end of the dry season here, and the locals are waiting anxiously for the rains to arrive. I could be selfish and say I hope the rains hold off for the next few days until we leave.

Next: onto Tonle Sap and Siem Reap