Daring the Cambodian – Thai Border at Preah Vihear

If you guys asked what the highlight of my whole trip to Cambodia was, you might half-expect me to say Angkor Wat without a single thread of doubt.

But NO. It wasn’t really the Angkor Wat . It was Preah Viehar, another wat complex located some 200km from the tourist-laden Siem Reap.

I first heard about Preah Vihear on a radio news when I was on my way to work one fine day. Located right at the border of Cambodia and Thailand – as I later discovered, it was the disputed wat complex that resulted in both sides exchanging fires and killed dozens of soldiers. It might be a sad news but it also sparked curiosity and interest about this place in me.

Almost each person that I talked to about Preah Vihear was against my plan of going there but somewhere at the back of my mind I knew I was going there anyway.

Our plan of going there was almost jeopardized when we suddenly felt so tired after finishing the Angkor Wat Half-Marathon. The 200km suddenly felt so far a distance and the 7 hours that it would take to go there suddenly felt so long. We were suddenly unsure if we had the will and courage to face whatever uncertainties that might be waiting for us over there.

But I gotta thank my two travel buddies. It was their very last minute decision that saved me from missing one of the best experiences that I have ever experiences in all my years of traveling.

Just when I thought (that) we should skip it, they came up with a firm and unwavering ‘NO. We should go’ so off to Preah Vihear we went!

Good thing about Cambodia is the fact that it’s always possible to book a tour (or hired a transport) at the very last minute. We sought help from Melissa the owner of Siem Reap Rooms Guest House to arrange a taxi to take us there the very night before.

Apparently, we were the first of her guests to have ever asked to arrange a transport to Preah Vihear in all her years of managing the hotel. To tell the truth, I didn’t even know how to react to that. We felt excited and quiet worried at the same time.

The agreed fee was USD80 and we DID actually ask around and most of the rental car services that we spoke to came up with more or less that price.

We left from the hotel very early, at around 5 am so that we could return to Siem Reap at least before dinner time. With so many things to see along the way, 3.5 hours passed by quite faster that we had expected. The taxi despite being in a very good condition didn’t play any shit of music or at least turning on the radio to break the ‘deafening’ silence. Thanks God there was a ‘live radio’ that we could always rely on to break the awkwardness that was beginning to creep in as we moved further and further away from Siem Reap. I mean, some people could really go on talking and talking without a single pause for many many hours on end. LOL.

The driver seemed to honk at just about every car that we came upon which was quite rare in Cambodia. He spoke very little English but was eager to talk about the current political scenario in Cambodia and beyond.

He lamented how the people of Cambodia deserve better than what they are having now. He even compared Cambodia with Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia.

“Look at you guys. You traveled to Cambodia because you have money. We can’t travel to Malaysia because we don’t have money”, he bluntly said. I swallowed a bitter gale of saliva when he said that. If only he knew that I may have to starve myself to death in the next couple of months or so to recover all the money that I had spent traveling to Thailand and Cambodia on a single trip.

Again we were amazed by how blessed Cambodia is with flat lands and beautiful countryside.  The ride to Preah Vihear really gave us the opportunity of exploring and seeing more less trodden parts of Cambodia.

We stopped at a small town to buy breads and local pizzas and later have breakfast at a restaurant nearby.  The place didn’t seem to welcome tourists and everybody looked at us as if we came from another planet or something.

I keep telling people that Cambodians are very good in baking and I really mean it. The breads and cookies and cakes that I ate in Cambodia were mostly so good and delicious I wonder where they picked all the baking skills from. I’d like to think that inherited them from the French who had colonized Cambodia for almost a century.

I actually did a little bit of research on Preah Vihear pending the trip and one of the most recommended things to do is to buy cigarettes to be given to the soldiers at the border. After stopping at one of the road-side mini-shops to buy a box of cigarettes (very very cheap compared to cigarettes in Malaysia), we were all set to march to the border. 

You know you’re almost there when you begin to see hills and uniformed soldiers riding on motorbikes or just relaxing under the shades of trees.

As part of the rules, the taxi could not take us directly to Preah Vihear temple. Instead, we were taken to an office building where we registered our entries.

The chill air washed over me the moment I stepped out of the car. It really felt like being in a totally different world from other parts of Cambodia that I already went to.

We were ushered into one of the rooms at the single-storey building where two young ladies were waiting to assist us in filling out some sort of form.

You have the option of taking a motorbike for USD5 or a 4WD for USD25 (return) to go to the temple. Riding on a motorbike would have been more adventurous but the hill as seen from the office looked quite high and the roads were steep so we didn’t want to put more to the risk that we had already put ourselves into just by coming there.

We were so glad that we took the 4WD because we could see how the motorbikes were struggling as they made their way up the steep road over the hills. The road was still undergoing some kind of upgrading work so I could only imagine how slippery it could get when it was raining.

There were more and more army personnel at sight as we moved further towards the border where the temple lies. Some of them were patrolling around while some doing labor work probably to just pass another day in the nothingness of the remote and quaint part of the country.

After quite a struggle riding up the steep and meandering road, we finally reached a small village whose residents were mostly soldiers and families.

Entering the village was like entering a battlefield with so many uniformed soldiers at sight. They were so welcoming and seemed happy to see new faces turning up in their territory. One of the soldiers came up to introduce himself and later escorted us to the temple while introducing us to other soldiers that we bumped into along the way.

 

 

It really felt so surreal to be walking amid gun pits and piles of real battleground sand-bags. When we finally arrived at the temple, it saw instantly why Preah Vihear had become a place of interest between the two sides of the border. It really was a beautiful temple built in a very beautiful place.

But then, having been encrypted on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, there is no doubt that Preah Vihear really deserves such a recognition.

There is a long stairs made of stone blocks that leads down to what is now the residential quarter to accommodate military personnel and their families. A bunch of soldiers was playing volleyball at one corner as if oblivious to the time which was now nearing noon. In a remote place like Preah Vihear, they have to be creative in doing whatever they can to pass time.

Our escort took us to the very fence that separated Cambodia from Thailand. Due to the strained relationship between the two sides, Cambodia has sealed all access to the temple from the Thai side leaving visitors with the only option of access via Cambodia.

Our escort told us the whole story – about how the land where temple was built has always been rightfully Cambodia’s and how Thailand has always wanted to take it away from them. He proudly told us that the international court of justice has awarded the ownership to Cambodia – and rightfully so as he described it.

Our presence in the neighborhood seemed to have drawn some curiosity from the army personnel so we had the most awkward moment smiling and hello-ing at them. To deal with the awkwardness, I opened the box of cigarettes that I had bought earlier on and distributed it among them. I later found out that I should have rationed up on the cigarettes because there were more and more army personnel that came our way later.

After spending some time at the residential quarter, we walked back up the stairs towards the temple where more and more of Preah Vihear’s beauty unfolded right before us.

I was so amazed at how the stone blocks were arranged in a way that made the temple such a beautiful and amazing piece of structure. I was told that elephants had been used to transport the stone blocks from some hill to the temple. Poor them. 🙁

More and more army personnel stumbled into sight and they all seemed so welcoming and happy at the sight of us.  I was surprised when some of them spoke Malay – or rather Indonesian – probably a language they had picked up from their series of joint military training with the Indonesian army or something. Their eagerness to have a conversation with us in Malay kind of amused us in a way that made us feel more welcomed.

 

They showed us the part of the temple that was damaged by a mortar launched from the Thai side. One journalist was killed and it sparked more fire to the already strained relationship between the two sides.

After saying goodbye and chipping in some USD5 to our self-appointed escort (he actually asked LOL), we continued walking and exploring the temple on our own. It felt so surreal to be walking along the long pavement of stone blocks towards the other end of the temple.

I noticed how the temple was so well tended, probably to show to the world how appreciative they are of the temple now that another country is claiming ownership of it.

What makes me so amazed by the temple is the fact that it is located very much on the edge of a cliff that plunges some 500 meter. It was so steep and high I couldn’t even see the bottom of it. It really is one of those places where people would come to commit suicide. One go and the world would be instantly relieved of a soul. :_D

The temple itself is so WOW I couldn’t help but mumbling OMG OMG OMG as I explored further and further into it. Parts of the temple may have collapsed over time but the original structures are still pretty much there.

The ‘focal point’ of the temple is still frequently visited by people who come to Preah Vihear to pray.

We actually told the driver that we’d come back after a couple of hours. Apparently we had underestimated Preah Vihear. We were enjoying our time there so much that it would be 5 hours before we returned to the village where the Land Rover driver was on the verge of bursting out. Opps! 😀

It was an awkward silence all throughout the ride back to the admin office. Thanks God our taxi driver didn’t mind the time at all, probably because he’s so used to people underestimating Preah Vihear and ending up spending more time there than they had intended to.

In fact he suggested that we did a little bit of detour to go to another temple but we just decided to spare it for another time.