Siem Reap Part 3: Floods and Orphans

Posted in Travel by Jasvinder Khera

With the horse riding, I thought I’d seen just how bad the floods in Siem Reap were. I hadn’t seen anything yet. Later that evening, since I couldn’t do the microlight flight, I brought my plans for the next day forward. Every weekday, the orphans at a local Siem Reap orphanage, Acodo, perform traditional Khmer dances, I really wanted to see this and since I had time, decided to do it today. I had someone from the front desk of the hostel call to see if they were still open, they said that the street outside was flooded but that the show was still going ahead. They made it sound so minor. It really wasn’t. I had a guy with a motorbike take me most of the way, we went through the level of flood water I’d become accustomed to over the last couple of days, maybe a few inches here and there but when we got to the start of the road the orphanage was on he said he couldn’t go any further. The water was too deep for his bike. Shit, what was I going to do now? Luckily, the motorbike driver answered that for me. He wandered off for a little bit and when he came back, was telling me to get in a different ride. In this area, I’d seen these strange tractor-like vehicles driving around pulling wooden carriages behind them but had no idea what they were for. I later found that people were calling them tuk-tuks. I think mega tuk-tuk is more appropriate. They were way bigger than the regular ones and were so high above the water that there was no way anyone inside the carriage would get wet. That said, they weren’t exactly a smooth ride. The seats were made of metal and since I was already sore from all the horse riding earlier, the lack of suspension did not help.

As we headed down the road it became darker and darker, the power to the street lights in this area must have been damaged during the flooding because the only illumination was from the headlights of oncoming vehicles and the faint light a few people had coming from their houses. It was very dark and on many sections of the road you couldn’t make out anything. Walking here was dangerous because even with a torch you’d have no way of knowing what you were walking on or where the sudden drops in the road would be. And they really were sudden. I don’t know how bad the road looks when it’s not flooded but it must be pretty terrible. Numerous times, there were very sharp, sudden drops in the road for which there really was no warning at all, the water was deep almost the whole way. Despite these conditions, I could just about make out a few people that were braving it anyway and still walking through like they normally would have. They didn’t look like it but they were pretty badass for doing that.

I got to the orphanage in one piece, and thanks to the kind help of one of my fellow passengers, I managed to find it even without any lights. Everyone else on the mega tuk-tuk was Cambodian and I guess they were all headed in the same direction as me. The hard bit came after I got there though. The water wasn’t so deep as I first stepped on to the road, it didn’t go much above my ankles in the spot I was standing, but with each passing step I took towards the orphanage it got deeper and deeper. By the time I was inside the grounds it was knee high to me so it was at least half way up the thigh of most of the locals. Most of the kids at the orphanage would have been completely submerged if they’d attempted walking through it. The orphanage was mostly an outdoor complex but the stage had a large roof covering both it and the seating area. It was still surreal seeing any sort of a performance while there was knee high water everywhere. The audience seating area was on a second floor that as I mentioned earlier had been built under the same roof that was covering the stage. It wasn’t a proper second floor, it felt like more of a large balcony but it meant we stayed dry during the performance so I didn’t have any complaints. Even with that roof though, the orphanage was still all ‘outside’ .

I was expecting the performances to sort of be like the ones on those ‘8 out of 10 cats’ Christmas specials where kids from a primary school or nursery perform a scene from a well known film or TV show. Everyone loves the segment because the little kids are so cute and adorable but their actual performances are always shit. That wasn’t the case with these kids. They were just as cute and adorable but their performances were fantastic, they did a great job on everything and I was genuinely impressed. It was really cute when they made minor mistakes though :) It was funny when the kids back stage would peek through the stage door to take a look at the crowd too, they’d always try doing it discretely, thinking nobody had seen them but we always did. I think that made it even cuter. They performed 3 traditional Khmer dances; the monkey dance, the fish harvest dance and the coconut shell dance, I think that of the three, the monkey dance was my favourite. For each of 3 dances we saw, there were 12 kids on stage. They moved about the stage and interacted with each other in very interesting ways. I have to say, traditional Cambodian dancing is pretty cool.

Everyone gathered on stage at the end and all the people in the audience (there were maybe 12 of us) got some pictures of the kids before we said our goodbyes. I’m so glad that there were a good number of people in the audience. As I was entering the orphanage (and during the whole ride over) I didn’t really see many tuk-tuks going back towards my hostel. If I had been the only one, I would have had no way of back and may have even had to spend the night at the orphanage. Luckily, as there were so many of us, the guy running the orphanage came out with us and arranged transport to take us back. It was a truck with seats this time, and was much nicer than what I had come in on. The truck dropped us off at the Siem Reap Night Market. Apart from the fact that it was (surprisingly) very clean, it was more or less like any other night market I’ve seen in Asia. I still enjoyed it though.

With all said and done, Siem Reap was brilliant and I had a great time there. It’s a shame it didn’t work out with the microlight flight but I already knew that New Zealand has loads of them, I guess I’ll just have to do it there instead :)

22Oct2011

Siem Reap Part 2: Flood Plains Horse Adventure

Posted in Travel by Jasvinder Khera

That something else ended up being horseback riding in the Cambodian countryside. I’d wanted to do a microlight flight over the Angkor temple region too but the guy running it said the runway was too saturated with water for the landings to be safe. I’d have to hope I had better luck with that another day.

I’d only really rode a horse once before, and that was very briefly, so I wasn’t sure how I’d do. I felt a little better though that I was in good hands when I got to the ranch. Even though I’m in such a deprived country, the ranch was beautiful and it was clear that all the horses there were very well cared for. It was a little strange being up there when I first climbed on to LA, my horse. Just like it was with the elephant though, I got used to it pretty quickly; I was going at a steady canter before long. One problem I realised I’d have early on was that the heat wasn’t just a bit much for me, it seemed to be affecting LA a fair bit too. He didn’t want to run at any sort of speed for very long and the couple of times I tried getting him to he almost threw me off! It was a good thing for both of us then that the areas we were riding through were so flooded. The water sloshing up provided some much needed relief from the heat (I’m going to pretend that I don’t know what was probably in that water).

When we started the 3 hour ride the dirt road we were on was really dry, there was plenty of water by the sides (we had some fantastic views of rice paddies and flooded farm land) but the path itself was high enough to avoid the water. We weren’t even at a trot yet with the horses so even if there had been water it wouldn’t have affected us much. Before long though, my guide, Yen, had us turn onto a narrow dirt road with small, make-shift looking, but almost certainly permanent, houses on either side. I’m guessing these people worked on the flooded fields we saw earlier. Their road had large sections that were flooded too. It was fun walking and trotting through it on horseback. I had a pretty good view from up there and the kids that lived in the houses were so happy to see us go by :) It was my first experience going through water on horseback too. On this flooded dirt road, Yen lead the way on his horse. With every step he took the horse was disturbing the dirt under the water. As he moved forward he left a trail of gradually expanding, circular mud blooms in place of each step. It looked really cool. The water wasn’t very deep (yet) but it came a fair way up LA’s legs. Going through was a bit of a struggle and I definitely was not confident enough to try and ride through at speed. There were loads of water buffalo and cattle just chilling there too. The road was really long so I could see them quite a far way off. Some of them were just laying down right in the middle of the road, as they were visible from so far away, I noticed that they weren’t moving for anyone, not even the couple of motorbikes that were passing through. Everyone had to go around them and get more wet than they otherwise would have. I was thinking it might be a problem since there wasn’t enough room for us on either of the sides of the road, Yen just calmly continued towards them without saying anything. When we got there I realised why, those buffalo couldn’t get out of the way quick enough. We didn’t even have to do anything. I guess they’re scared of horses. The same thing happened any other time we came across cattle (which on this long road, was quite a lot). Not all of these dirt roads we were on were flooded and none of them were without at least some dry sections but with the next one we turned on to, there were some sections that must have had almost 2 feet of water on them. It was cool passing through but it occurred to me that this water must have ruined a lot of people’s day when it first showed up.

We were on an actual road next. You’d think it would be nice with the lack of obstructions and flood water but the lack of something else made it more unpleasant than what we’d been riding through before. There were way less trees here than on the narrow back roads we’d just been on. We felt the full force of the mid-day sun and it was not pleasant. It was less visually interesting too because the thick vegetation and trees along the earlier dirt roads created a cool looking play of light and shadow, the way the leaves were breaking the sunlight was both refreshing and it made everything look better. LA didn’t even want to trot on that tarmac road so we went pretty slowly for most of it. Since it was such a long road too I wouldn’t be surprised if my skin got a full shade darker just while I was on this stretch of the ride. All the roads were pretty wide and open now, there were almost no trees on them, even the dirt road we were on next. LA got a second wind though so we managed to trot for almost all of it. As that road was finishing we came to a few flooded fields but I couldn’t see any roads leading in other directions. Where were we going to go? Through the flooded fields, that’s where! The water here was ridiculous, it came all the way up to LA’s belly and for sections of these fields, the water level was about a third of the way up my shins. It was pretty extreme but it felt weird too. Because of the baking heat, the water was all nice and warm, if it wasn’t for the myriad nasties swimming around in it, it might have been quite a relaxing experience. Riding that horse through such deep water will definitely be one of the things that I remember for a long time.

20Oct2011

Siem Reap Part 1: Temple Heaven

Posted in Travel by Jasvinder Khera

It was an early start to get to Siem Reap, apparently earlier than my body could manage. My train to the border town Aranyaprathet would be leaving at 5:55 and I could only buy a ticket for it on the day of departure. I thought a safe bet would be getting to the train station at 5, which meant checking out and leaving my hostel at 4:30. My alarm woke me up at 3:30 like it was supposed to, but in a flashback to how things are at home, the snooze button was not my friend. The next time I opened my eyes it was 4:50. “Oh shit!” I quickly brushed, got changed, packed the last remaining few things and rushed out the door as quick as I could. I found a taxi fairly quickly. One thing I didn’t factor in though, was how favourable the Bangkok traffic would be at 5:15 in the morning. I ended up getting to the train station by 5:30. I got my ticket with barely a queue in sight and there was still plenty of space on the train. I would have been sitting there with my thumb up my arse for one and a half hours (the train left the station late) if I’d got there when I wanted to!

As I’d previously read, the scenery during the ride was fantastic. There was so much varied, rarely seen (by me) greenery. There were massive mountains in the background and huge, sprawling rice paddies everywhere. Every now and then we’d see people tending to the fields and before long we’d see their houses. Each house was really far from the next but because the water they were built on was so deep, each of the houses was on large wooden support struts, sort of like stilts for a house. They looked pretty cool. It was more or less the same type of stuff for 6 hours but I couldn’t stop looking at it. It barely changed the whole time but it was beautiful.

There were several stages to this journey. I’d thoroughly researched the entire thing but it didn’t stop me feeling bewildered and utterly lost at the next stage. As soon as I stepped off the train I was mobbed by people offering to take me to the Thai border or helping me to get a Cambodian visa (which I didn’t need) or do any number of things for me but they all saw me as a target and were only after my money. I knew all this was coming but it still caught me off guard. About a minute after I’d been in this, a young woman walked past, locked eyes with me and simply said “don’t talk to anyone”. She kept walking and gestured for me to follow. Soon after, a tuk-tuk driver offered to take us both to the border for 60 baht. I was expecting it to cost me 100 solo so 30 was a great deal. I introduced myself to her on the short ride over but the wind was loudly rushing by the speeding tuk-tuk and I didn’t hear what she said when told me her name. Augusta? Augustina? When we got to the Thai border it was not clear where to go but we managed to figure it out. That was just the start though. I got through with no problem but she’d stayed in Thailand one day longer than she had been given permission for. She needed to pay a 500 baht fine but didn’t have it; she was distraught and disappeared without saying anything. I didn’t even realise she’d gone. I looked for her and waited for her to come back so I could help her out but she never showed. I couldn’t wait forever, I didn’t even know her name. I moved on.

There were a couple of hiccups as I cleared “customs” (I could have gone through wherever the hell I wanted and nobody would have known about it) on the Cambodian side but I managed to get through ok.

What I saw when I got to Siem Reap was not expected. A few days earlier in Bangkok, I’d been hearing about severe floods in northern Thailand, of particular interest was the fact that the flood waters were feeding rivers that flow south to Bangkok. The Prime Minister was insistent that Bangkok would be safe but it was clear that nobody was convinced. There were sand bags everywhere and people were even building small brick walls in front of their shops and places of business. I still haven’t checked whether Bangkok was actually hit by the floods in the end. I’d thought that since Siem Reap is further south than Bangkok that it would be fine. It wasn’t. There was massive flooding, enough that in places you could water-ski down the road if you wanted to. People were fishing practically in the middle of the street. Apparently, 250 people have died here because of the floods since September. Even the hostel I was staying in was badly hit but they managed to sort everything out a few days before I got there. I was told by someone that the entire street my hostel is on was flooded, it seriously freaked me out but I later realised that that guy was only trying to get me to stay in some other hostel instead. Arse.

I had an early start the next day. The tuk-tuk driver I’d chosen a day earlier picked me up at 8 and we set off for the first stop, the ticket office for the Angkor temple region. The Siem Reap administration knows that their USP is the astounding beauty of their temples. It’s a really good card to be able to play because Siem Reap is not that big. There is quite a lot to do here, but all the people running these events and activities wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the temples. Since the local government knows how much people want to see these temples they charge a relatively high amount to see them. A one day pass to the region costs $20, this is almost definitely more than most people here earn in a day. And since dinner on any given evening won’t cost more than $3, 20 isn’t cheap. It is completely worth it though and anyone that sees these temples will have no regrets about spending the time or the money needed to do so.

Our first stop in the huge temple region was the most famous one, Angkor Wat. Even if people have never heard of this temple they’ll probably know what it looks like or have seen a picture of it at some point. This world heritage site is the crowning jewel of the many gifts that Cambodia has to offer. It’s stunning and the two and a half hours I spent walking around its grounds were an absolute pleasure. It’s quite big but there isn’t that much to it. The first two levels feature bas reliefs depicting various battles in Hindu and Buddhist mythology (the second also provides a better view of some of the towering gopuras) but the third level is where it’s at. It’s the inner chamber and being in there was very cool. Walking around, you get a really good look at the towers and through the viewing spots in the walls, because you’re so high up, you can see the entire Angkor Wat grounds, including the surrounding forests.

Next was Ta Prohm, 15km away (I mentioned that this area is big, right?) All of the temples I saw that day were amazing but this was definitely a highlight. The temple has huge trees that have grown either on or through the actual rock that the walls are made of. It looks like nothing else I’ve seen, like nature is trying to take it back. And when you actually get to the sheltered sections it’s like being in a maze, there are so many different routes to get to the same place. You can’t really get lost because this one is relatively small but it’s a lot of fun walking around.

We stopped for lunch after that. It was a really hot day and I was wearing jeans (I didn’t want a repeat of that episode in Bangkok) so I needed to recharge. Since the driver was doing such a good job so far I bought him his lunch too.

Onward to the largest complex of temples in the region, Angkor Thom. Angkor Thom is made up of a number of incredible temples but the one at the centre of it (if this was a music festival it would definitely be the headline act), is Bayon. Like Angkor Wat, it’s made up of three levels, the first 2 have bas reliefs (there’s 1km of reliefs at the temple) and the 3rd is the business end, it’s where all the best stuff is. It’s got these towers, each with four sides, all over the place. Every one of the towers has 4 large face carved into it, one for each side. It all looks very distinctive (and cool). Again, there’s sort of a maze-like feel to some areas of the temple but you can’t really lose your way. One thing I did almost lose though was my tuk-tuk driver. It started raining while I was in Bayon and since the rocks were pretty slippery with my flip-flops on I thought I’d better head to the next place. I walked towards where I thought he had gestured but he wasn’t there, then I walked to the next place I thought he might be but still nothing. In the end, I did 2 complete laps around the Bayon grounds, spending 30 minutes doing it but there was no sign of him. Since it was raining this whole time, the muddy roads were not doing me any favours. I had brown splashes and strange stains all over my jeans and t-shirt, I’d hoped (and kept telling myself) that they were just mud but really I knew there was other stuff in there too. The few times I had to walk through questionable looking water and mud (at times with my feet completely submerged in it) were not fun. I looked and smelled fantastic, I’m sure. It was not an easy day, with all the walking and climbing I did I must have gotten a pretty good workout. Also, it was tough helping the driver pull the tuk-tuk out when it got stuck in some really deep mud (the flooding must have caused large sections of the ground to reach their water saturation point). So anyway, since I couldn’t find my driver I just carried on to the next place hoping that since I told him where I was going I’d run into him at some point.

Baphuon was a temple that I had not planned on going to today. Since it was on my way to the next place though and also the fact that I didn’t realise what it was until I got inside, I thought I might as well give it a go. If I had known Baphuon, one of the major temples in Angkor Thom, was so close I would have headed there immediately. It definitely did not disappoint. There was a very long causeway raised high above the surrounding area, leading to the temple. It reminded me a lot of the Lord of the Rings films, especially the Helms Deep and Gondor stuff. Actually now that I think about it, a lot of the main temples in Siem Reap looked like something out of Gondor. I guess I know where those Kiwi filmmakers got their inspiration from. Anyway, this causeway was very impressive. When I actually got inside the temple it seemed ok, as nice as most of the others, but then I climbed a level and it really started to shine. I was beginning to see the point of this place. I climbed higher still, to the top level and the view was incredible. The surrounding forests looked great but the view of the causeway leading first into the main entrance and then into the temple itself was something else. The photos sort of give you an idea of what it was like but it’s difficult to convey the sheer sense of scale, this place was massive. Strangely (probably since we were so high up), there were dozens, maybe hundreds, of large dragonflies flying around above the temple. I’d hardly seen them anywhere else so I’m not sure what they were doing. I didn’t want to leave but it was 4pm and I really wanted to see sunset from the top of another temple. There was still other stuff to do as well so I got going.

Nearby, The Elephant Terrace, was an enjoyable climb and walk decorated with, you guessed it, elephants. It was cool, as was The Terrace of the Leper King. Just as I was making my speedy exit (there aren’t many people trying to sell you things in Angkor Thom but a bunch of them had set up here so I was trying to avoid them), I was looking for another tuk-tuk driver to take me to Phnom Bakheng, my last stop, when I ran into my actual driver. It turned out that he was waiting there for me the whole time because he knew where I’d end up. It’s a shame he didn’t tell me that before. When we got to that last temple at maybe 4:40 it wasn’t a particularly clear sky. I wasn’t hopeful of my chances to actually see sunset but I thought I’d give it a shot. As well as knowing that I wanted to see sunset from this temple, I knew that it was possible to ride an elephant to the top. I enjoyed it too much last time to say no to this. When I got to the top of the small mountain that the temple sits on though, I wished I had sad no. The elephants last time, the ones in Phuket, looked so happy and they were clearly very well treated. These ones didn’t look too lively but I’d just assumed it was because they were tired (I even saw one of them yawning, it was cute). When I was riding on the elephant though, I noticed that the handler had a short, pointy metal pole in his hand and was constantly using it prod the elephant on the top of his head. I wasn’t happy at all when I saw this, I was upset for the whole 20 minute ride up and got off as soon as I could.

The rest of my experience at the temple was much more pleasant. Just like the few other main temples I’ve mentioned, it looked amazing but since this was the highest one in the region, I knew I still had to climb higher to get the full effect. There were a few sections of stone steps, the first one wasn’t much steeper than the steps on the other temples, maybe it was at an angle of 65-70 degrees but the next set of steps was almost vertical. You couldn’t climb these steps without using your hands, it really was something seeing all those people clambering up those steps using both hands and feet to do so. It wasn’t as tough for me getting up as was for some of the others but it was still a bit of a challenge. The view from the top was totally worth it though. I could see for miles upon miles in every direction, the sky looked a lot brighter than it did at the bottom too. There were quite a few people up there that had the same idea as me for seeing sunset from the temple but that day it just wasn’t meant to be. The sky, despite looking brighter than it did at the bottom, was still not clearing quick enough. We got a bit of a peak at sunset but that’s all we got. It was enough for me, the view was amazing even without the sunset.

I headed back down to find my driver (much easier since he told me exactly where he’d be this time!) and we started on the way back to the hostel. It had been a long, tiring day and I was definitely ready to relax a bit. I’d planned on coming back to the temples the next day but since I’d already seen everything I wanted to there wasn’t any point. I’d find something else to do instead…

11Oct2011

Scuba Diving, Phuket

Posted in Scuba Diving, Travel by Jasvinder Khera

I realised almost straight away that I love scuba diving, after Langkawi it was only going to be a matter of time before I got my undersea adventure on again. I wasn’t planning on it happening until Australia when Jill and I would be able to dive together but an opportunity presented itself in Phuket that was just too good to pass up. A friend at the hostel I was staying at was telling me one day about the scuba diving he’d done here. He’d booked it at this place called Water World (less than a minute away from the hostel) and had got a day of diving with 3 dives, equipment hire, breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks throughout the day (all of which I later found were delicious), and this was all for less than 100 pounds. I’d paid 70 for 2 dives and a single meal in Langkawi, so it was a really good deal. I booked soon after he told me about it and am really glad I did.

Since it’s monsoon season over here, it’s been raining A LOT in Phuket and the surrounding islands. During the 10 nights I’ve been here only 3 days have been completely rain free, one of them was the day I went diving. Rain doesn’t make too much difference when you’re diving, the primary concern is that it takes longer to warm up when you surface, well, that and the gentle patter you’ll hear throughout most of your dive (sound travels 4 times faster underwater and it seems like it’s coming from all directions, it’s pretty strange, all sounds underwater are in surround sound). Anyway, the weather during the diving day was absolutely gorgeous. It was really bright, definitely north of 30 degrees Celsius and there was barely a cloud in the sky. It certainly helped appreciate all the stunning islands when we were on the boat enroute to the first dive site, Racha Yai. During the way back too, the great weather gifted us an amazing view of the sunset.

The people I was diving with were brilliant. Unlike the last dive trip I went on, everyone on this boat was a scuba diver. There were maybe 20 people on board. One of them was this Australian girl Hannah from my hostel, so it was good having someone I already knew to talk to on the way over. It was only really a thing at the start though, I met a lot of cool people during the course of the day. Three of the people I was talking to ended up being assigned to the same divemaster as me. Dave from Australia, Dominic (who was unbelievably camp) and Jason (both from America) were very nice and friendly. All of them had been diving for at least 15 years so they were full of useful information and advice.

Any of the trepidation I felt before my previous dive was a distant memory, I couldn’t wait to get in. When it was go time, we geared up and jumped in right off the back of the purpose built boat we’d come in on. Our divemaster Lamm checked that everyone was ok and we began our descent. Our maximum depth was about 23 metres and we stayed down for an hour. As we descended the water was very clear, it stayed that way the whole time and we could see 15-20 metres away. I was really excited about this dive because of Ash’s glowing recommendation but when I was actually down there myself and throughout the whole first dive, I was a little disappointed. There were no soft coral, only hard ones and the fish we saw were few and far between (though I thought to myself afterwards that I may have only felt that way because the visibility was so good). Also, the changes in topography were nowhere near as dramatic as Langawai, it was very much even the whole way. The water was very nice and warm though and it was just as relaxing being down there as I’d hoped it would be. Despite the slight disappointment I felt, it was an enjoyable dive and a good start to the day. The meal we had on the way to the next dive site helped settle any nerves the first timers had and we were treated to amazing views from the top deck as we sat and unwound a little.

The next island, Raja Noi, would be the site for the remaining two dives. We were told that the island had no inhabitants, the only things living there were goats and monkeys (not that anyone had any idea how they came to be there). Dive time came and we geared up and jumped in. There were a lot more fish this time and the bottom was angled downward as all the sand went further and further from the island. There was a lot of rich and varied marine life near the corals and there were some soft corals too. There were a lot of very inquisitive fish on this dive. Some of them seemed to linger for ages and only seemed content to leave after I’d taken pictures of them. I happily obliged but some of them still looked miserable afterwards. It was a really good dive and I definitely enjoyed it more than the first. We stayed down for 50 minutes and the maximum depth was 18 metres.

The boat moved only a few hundred metres to get to the next dive site. While we were sitting on the top deck we just chilled with some fruit platters as we waited for the minimum surface interval to pass. While diving, people build up an unhealthy amount of nitrogen in the tissue that makes up their bodies. When you return to a normal pressure, this nitrogen safely works its way out on its own but (depending on how deep you went and for how long) you need to leave a certain amount of time for this to happen). FYI, flying after diving is usually a big no-no too because the change in pressure can cause the excess nitrogen to work its way out of your body too quickly and result in unpleasant things like paralysis and death. It only clicked with me on the morning of my dive that I had a flight the next day and as soon as it did, I checked what time we’d leave the water for the last dive. Luckily, I’d meet the 18 hour minimum (my flight was 20 hours after dive 3 ended) so I didn’t have to cancel any plans.

I wasn’t quite ready for how amazing dive 3 was going to be. It was in the same type of angled sand environment as the previous dive but it couldn’t have been more different. A few minutes after we got down there was seemingly endless coral for as far as the eye could see. We swam in the direction it led and it just kept on going and going. There was so much down there, hard coral mixed with soft and any part of it you looked at was just buzzing with countless species of fish. It was incredible. At one point (when that massive section of coral finally ended), we were swarmed by thousands of these medium sized fish. They were sort of silver but their skin looked iridescent and they had blue stripes running along their bodies and around their mouths. It was really something, they were all over us and there were so many that at times it was difficult to see where my fellow divers were. Those fish moved on after a couple of minutes and we too kept going. Before long we reached another large coral but this one had a clear boundary. I wasn’t looking towards it as I was swimming in that direction because there was still so much behind me but when I finally turned around I was amazed to see another huge shoal of fish. Since they were so small (each one was around the size of my finger tip) and because they blended in with the water so well (and also the fact that I wasn’t looking in their direction at first), they seemed to come out of nowhere. At the very least, they numbered in the tens, probably hundreds of thousands. It was like a living cloud had enveloped us. Of all the things I’ve seen and experienced this was one of the most spectacular. They didn’t seem frightened of us either, they moved out of our way as we passed through but otherwise they just seemed to be going about their usual business. The varied marine life continued for the whole dive and because the sun was shining so brightly, the visibility was so good and the current was near enough non-existent, everything was illuminated so well that the colours of all the fish really jumped out at you. I couldn’t name any of the speci
es apart from the ones I saw in Langkawi but I think there were at least as many different species here as there were there. The third dive alone was worth the cost of admission for the entire day. The others in my dive group agreed and it was a fantastic end to the trip.

On the way back, we had a great time talking about the dives over dinner and were treated to an amazing view of the Phuket sunset as well. This was undoubtedly one of the best things I did in Phuket and it leaves Cambodia with a lot to live up to.