By Janine Toms

Taking a six-hour bus ride into Cambodia (from Thailand), I found myself literally walking across the border, visitor visa in hand, side stepping the bribery asks from the bus company and border guards.

Leaving the dodgy border crossing behind me, I settled into Siem Reap, a tourist hub in the northwest. Filled with street markets, flashy lights and pubs, its true draw is being the gateway to Angkor Wat, a largely intact Khmer kingdom, and the largest religious monument in the world.

I arrived in Angkor at the ungodly hour of 5 a.m., to see the sunrise while testing my ability to be both awe inspired and starved of sleep.

Walking onto the causeway and over the moat towards this huge intact ancient temple is like walking into a mythical city.

The amount of intricate detail was unreal. To imagine the number of hands at work here. Every piece of stone has ornate etching across it. One of the most common themes were spiritual nymphs dancing across the stone’s surface.

Another sought after site in Angkor’s complex is Ta Prohm AKA Tomb Raider (lead image). Ta Prohm remains much the same as it was found. Throughout it large prehistoric trees have threaded their vast, exposed root systems through the ruins. It’s to the point that you couldn’t remove one without the other. The site’s been deemed an UNESCO World Heritage site, and for good reason.

It was an all-day affair seeing these countless stone structures and well worth the early hour upheaval.

With the temples explored, I jumped on a bus to Phnom Penh. The capital is known for being the grounds of Cambodia’s dark recent past where around 25% of the population was massacred by the Khmer regime. It was a frightening ‘ethnic cleansing’ that happened in the late 1970s, devastating the country. The impact can still be seen today.

Learning about their horrific past, I sought out a more uplifting present-day venture. I visited the King’s palace, and the waterfront, where I jumped a cargo ship across the waterway to a small fishing village. I also paid a visit to a fancy casino, where I signed in as a ‘hostel guest’ for a swim in their rooftop pool.

With the city’s sights seen, I visited a nearby monastery temple for a one-hour meditation session. Inside, guests settled in on floor cushions amongst the monks. It ended as it began, with silence aside from a tone of a bell, indicating the end of the evening, and the end of this instalment.

– Janine Toms’ relentless travels brought her to the East Kootenay for a while, working as a journalist in the Columbia Valley.

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