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Navigating Cambodia

One thing you quickly realize about Cambodia, is that addresses mean very little here. Yes, streets have names, unfortunately normally two, english and Khmer. Building numbers are basically non existent, and when you ask for your house address, you get a blank stare.

So how then do you find things around Cambodia?

Well, you can like others that i see, pay a local tuck tuck driver to hopefully take you to the right place, walk up and down town in search of what you want, post on Facebook for locals to help (which normally goes like, yes, the small store 5 min from the old market), or you can like me, tech up.

I love gadgets, and used with normal maps and observation, can go a long way. I have 5 different apps for my iPhone and iPad, that lists a host of places that i can search for by name. These applications pull in data from a number of different sources, such as wikipedia, google maps, user uploads, and a number of other sources. This allows one to get exact GPS coordinates on places, and navigate to these places, with the use of the internet GPS in the iPhone and iPad (needs a cell card one).

However, good as the Apple GPS is in these devices, they are not always good enough when moving between buildings, inside market places, and narrow streets with trees or so. This is where i use a little bit of extra help.
Meet Bad Elf, a GPS receiver, that connects to your Apple product via bluetooth, and gives exceptional accuracy. The device is actually intended for pilots, and is rated for up to 60 000ft, and 1000 miles/h. I tested it on the flights, and it compared not to bad with the onboard flight information.

Your Apple product uses the information from the device, and improves your location accuracy considerably. It also allows you to tract back using photos. If I pass a stall or shop on my way to another shop, that has something that interests me, I just take a picture of the item in the stall or a picture of the shop. Later, I use a different application that shows me exactly on a map where each picture was takes, using the GPS coordinates of the picture. This allows me to let the application plan a route to any spot I have been if I later want to go back to it.

So if you want to improve your GPS accuracy on your apple product, (works even with an iPod touch) and turn your apple product into and extreme GPS device, get yourself one of these bad boys. Got mine on Amazon. Note, as far as I know they only work with apple products.

Differances in living conditions in Cambodia

Like all places in the world, there are poor, and there rich. And yes, the difference in living conditions are large. However, the cost in money is not always that large.

To give an example.
This is what $1 a day gets you, a dorm with a shared bathroom.

$5 a day gets a you private room with your own bathroom, a chair and a double bed. ($2.5 if you share)

For $12 a day ($6 if you share), you get your own large room, double bed, own bathroom, and lots of space.

And these prices are in a hotel/backpacker lodge.
For $80 a month, you can rent a room equal to the one above for long term.
So what can $1300 a month get you? A complete hotel with 10 rooms, fully furnished, with kitchen and washery, plus the ability to open a restaurant onsite. Yes, a hotel is currently on the market for $1300 a month.

So what is the average salary for a Cambodia. $50 to $100 (although many of the population lives on less than $1 a day in the countryside), And westerners wonder why they see us as walking banks, when some people here spend over a $1000 a week having fun on their holiday.

So please excuse me as I laugh at you, while you sit still drunk complaining to your friends. That the kids that you gave your iPhone 5 to last night, while drunk, so that they can take a picture of you, ran away with your phone. And then double excuse me, as i lay rolling on the ground in laughter, as you complain about the tuck tuck driver that you flagged down in your drunken state, and asked him to run after the kids, and he ran of with the $100 you gave him. ($1 to $2 is the cost to the ruins bike scooter and about $8 return by tuk tuk if you do not stay all day, about a 20 min drive).

Visiting the Angkor wat temple ruins.

One of the big attraction to Cambodia, is the temple ruins of Angkor. There are a number of ruins, with one being visited the most.

With my new hummer bicycle, i decided to cycle to the ruins, after all, the map application says it is only a 22min ride away. Well, I use 5 different map applications on my iPhone, depending on where i am going, and this one as it turned out, showed the route for a bike, like in motorbike. So it took me around 40 minutes or so to reach the ruins.

As i was cycling down a very nice road, towards the ruins.
Road to the ruins

A officer of some kind suddenly jumped out from behind the bushes and tried to stop me. Well, from years of motorcycle riding, I did what comes naturally to me, go faster. I got about 60 ft further when my keen eyes spotted two more officer on scooters way down the road. As i stopped and turned around (with loads of local people passing me) I note that the officer has pulled off two more tourists on bicycles behind me. I cycle back and he politely asks me to buy an entry ticket. For what I ask. The ruins.

So, in stopping people from taking pictures of the ruins without buying a ticket, they have a checkpoint up about 3km before the ruins.
Ticket booth and checkpoint to the ruins

I got a month pass, with 7 entries for $60. The most economical one. Your picture is taken with a webcam, then a pass is printed and laminated on the spot for you. Each day of the month is on the back of the pass, with the start date and expire date of the pass. Almost like a passport. After leaving the ticket booth, another officer checks your pass just before you can join the main road again, and punches out the current day. When you eventually get to the ruins, your ticket is checked again. Since your picture is on the pass, you cannot transfer the pass.

The ruins itself is an impressive design of military outlay. Considering that this was a temple, they must have really been expecting attacks.

The ruins are surrounded by waterways, that is accessed by a long pathway.

High walls surround the inner complex, that is accessed through a number of narrow entrances with steep steps. Original steps are covered with more tourist friendly steps.

Once through the fist entrance, you come into a large open area with the main building a distance away.

Following this pathway, you eventually come to the inner building. Build in a squire, with walls all around, and a number of narrow entrances.

You can walk all around the building on the outside, with a terrace build all on the outside of the building.

There are engravings all along the walls, with even some on the roof of some of the passages.

Once you pass through the second entrances, you come to the inner courtyard. Here is the most sacred building, with access by stairs. The original stairs are too steep, so more friendly steps was added for tourists.

Stairs to the innermost building
Inside the top building is a number of shrines, and statues. It is interesting to note, that although the temple was originally build for Shiva, it was later taken over and dedicated to a temple for Buddha. Yet, i did not see any Buddha statues, only a bunch that looks like they could be of Shiva. Yet, almost all of the statues had their heads and most of their hands cut off.

View from the inner building, showing the distance to the outer Temple walls in the far distance
There are a number of other temples and ruins that I will visit later on.