It was a tad bit funny how it all panned out. I was to be in Siem Riep for the Angkor Half Marathon. Originally, my other half would’ve taken part in the race with me. But well, as work would have its way – he had a major event on the same day – the MTV Exit concert at the Angkor Wat as well. So, for me – just making this trip to Siem Riep meant that I killed not just two, but three birds with one stone! I had a race, I got to watch the MTV Concert (being one of the media sponsor for the concert got me tickets!!) and I could of course, be with MoH – however little time he had spare from work.
I flew in on Friday, 5th December evening (the flight was delayed 40mins because a kite was stuck in the wheels just as it was about to take off! Imagine that!). I arrived and was told to head to the Somadevi Hotel – well, MoH had an event launch at the said hotel. Ended up staying for the whole event, had dinner, watched some terrible performances and games and got swamped by bugs. It was oddly stuffy – maybe because of the enclosed poolside area. Anyway, didn’t get up to much that night. After the event, the company’s van (Phibious) dropped us off at the Soria Moria – where we were staying. I got that from the barter deal from my office. Thank you Touchstone J
Saturday, 6th December, we woke up for breakfast (provided by the hotel) and then hopped on to the same van to take us to meet his colleagues who were all staying at the Somadevi Hotel. I got a bit tired of sitting and waiting around so I walked out to the markets by myself. The weather was very pleasant. It was sunny, yet very cooling. I walked to the Center Market – it was modern, clean and huge – unlike the markets in Phnom Penh. Very, very airy as well which made shopping rather pleasant. But Oh my God – it was just shops after shops of the same items! I have to admit though, I can find more boho items here than in the markets in PP. I bought some scarves, a blouse and some bags. I guess, I was lucky enough to go in early as being the first customer, they were more than willing to offer me a great bargain. Which was why, when I walked over to the Old Market afterwards, I was hugely disappointed. The items were the same, however, the price was a lot more expensive – more so than PP and more so than the earlier Center Market! Not to mention – the vendors were not at all willing to bargain.
Well, just about the best thing about making good bargain is when you know you don’t need that item and you will only buy it if the price is right (translate : dirt cheap). The Old Market is a little like the Orussey Market in PP. But what was really off was to see the fish and meat sellers hawking their produce right in the middle of the walkway of the clothes and trinket stalls.
I thought I would be spending the whole day shopping, but there was nothing different at the markets which you can't find at the Russian Market…so I walked out of the market and found the famous Pub Street. Over here, I discovered a sort-of hidden alley in which lies more restaurants and little guest houses – there was a very Marrakesh feel to it and this was one of the charms of Siem Riep which I fell for. I was actually looking for Burgers Without Borders and well – wa-la, here it was at this little alley. Since I had a lot of time to kill before MoH could “potentially” be available for lunch, I went for a massage instead. Frangipani was also located at this alley and I ordered up a Tropical Massage – which was non-oil. It was good. A bit painful, but good. I love the lemongrass tea they served before the massage and the fresh lime juice they serve after the massage.
Anyway, after I finished my massage, it was just in time to meet up with MoH for lunch. Of course, I had no clue that the entire Phibious team was going to be having lunch too! But there they were – all sitting at Burgers Without Borders. But the whole team was really great. I mean, really nice people and all. At BWB – I ordered a Grilled Chicken Foccacia Sandwich (it was all about me trying so hard to keep to the healthy side of food before the race)… MoH had the Cheeseburger. The burgers were just unusually ‘tall’.. not necessarily large. I also had an Apple Cinnamon smoothie which was just too much and I couldn’t finish it (as usual).
After lunch, I basically followed the Phibious team (cos I had nothing to do and nowhere I wanted to go) to go for the site check at Angkor Wat in preparation for their concert. There it was – my first time to Angkor Wat – not as a tourist. Just as a – “oh, we’re going for a site recce. You can come along.” – kinda thing. Whilst I had never had the thing for the Angkor temples, I was stunned by the sheer magnificence of its beauty. It was….. I think it never sank in – the fact that I was actually at Angkor Wat – THE Angkor Wat. After maybe twenty or thirty minutes, we left without MoH as he had a meeting to attend. Again, I went on the Phibious van and we went to Lucky Mall. We met up with Lamp and Nat (MoH’s immediate boss) at the Lucky Mall, and chatted for awhile. After that, we all went back to our respective hotels – I was dropped off at Soria Moria and I waited for MoH at the hotel. Actually fell asleep as didn’t sleep well the night before…. !
When he got back, he had a shower and we walked out to the Angkor Night Market. It was really really nice weather. The Night Market was really nice. As in – the place was situated very nicely. The first stop – I bought some candies and snacks – I could bring them home for CNY. Then we moved on. Again, it was just shops after shops selling the same stuff. But there was a shop that was doing a “cheap sale” thing. So we bought lots of stuff from that shop – some spices and tea, and we bought lots of T-shirts as well. For spending USD8, the shop owner gave us 3 free items – 2 scarves (yes, more scarves) and a key chain! After that, we left and decided to grab dinner. Went to Pub Street, couldn’t decide what we wanted – and we walked to that Marrakesh alley again. It was really nice. We settled for dinner at Phuket Noodles Behind Bars. It is just normal noodles but the shop is designed in a “prison” concept. Well, the food wasn’t great, it was alright. But the service sucked big time. I had a Seafood Soup Noodle with Beancurd sauce and MoH ordered a Spicy Fried Rice and we shared a Fish Amok. After that, I bought one scoop of Blue Pumpkin ice cream – Dark Chocolate and it was so good. Then, MoH walked me back before he had to go for a meeting for his MTV event again. Sometimes, I see him work and I want to scream. But I respect his work style – just as much as he respects mine. He would do it differently and I would do it differently. And of course, ultimately, it sometimes sucks if we have an idiot client to deal with. In his case – he also had to deal with all that idiotic bureaucratic authorities as well. Poor guy, I guess. I didn’t accompany him as I wanted to get my rest for the race. I think he only came back around 1am…
Sunday, 7th December, I woke up early to get ready for my race. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I really had serious doubts as to whether I will make good time for this race. Training’s gone all wonkers and I wasn’t exactly in the prime fitness level I was at when back in KL. Anyway, we caught the tuk-tuk and made our way to Angkor Wat. Oh my God, the journey to Angkor Wat in the tuk-tuk was so, so, so bloody cold! I was freezing my ass off!!! Talk about frozen muscles!!!
So, there I was at the Angkor Wat again. It was beginning to feel quite surreal – being at the temple again. I didn’t see any familiar faces – but MoH actually caught a photo of the Japanese guy – that pro athlete who is always in the international races (to win). Well, I have to say, the entire race was really very well organized.
At 6.30am SHARP – the start horn blared. And off we all went. About 2,000 odd participants, racing with the spectacular Angkor Wat in the background. The weather was really very nice to run in. Very cooling. Cold, in fact. I started off ok. Was trying to gain some constant pace. There was water station every 2km – and they handed out bottled water – not water in paper cups. Which was – both cool and also wasteful. I wasn’t going to carry all that water around with me. But the good thing was that there were the kids that were just waiting for these bottles so they can pick them up and earn some money from recycling them. We were running on dirt road for the most part of the race and the route was really very scenic. Shaded by trees, and then suddenly, you see a temple structure looming ahead, running across temple archways, passing through temple walls, it was just absolutely beautiful. Plus, a lot of kids from the villages were cheering us on and gave out their hand to get a high-five from us. It was really fun and I never knew how just having some spectators of sorts really does help you mentally to keep going. But it was really good fun and I wasn’t sure if it was all that adrenaline, I felt “happy”. When I reached the 8km mark (45mins), I was feeling quite good physically so I accelerated. I was keeping to a 5minute per kilometer pace and I knew if I kept that up, I would make it in less than 2 hours. Of course, just thinking of MoH at the finish line helped tremendously too. All in all, I really enjoyed the entire 21km of the race route. However, I was greatly disappointed when I crossed the finish line. I made 1:52 – which was a great timing. But my MoH was missing in action. And it was odd, but I suddenly felt very alone. I hadn’t expected to feel that way. But it was the first race where I really had no familiar race friends around, so, crossing that finishing line alone was… lonely. And then when I couldn’t see MoH, I just felt like… crying! Cos everyone of the participants had family or friends waiting for them – whether they had raced together or simply just cheering them on….. they all had someone there. I walked about aimlessly, trying to look for MoH. In the end, I borrowed a stranger’s phone and made a call to MoH. He was on the tuk-tuk coming in. I was so mad at him! What kind of stupid thinking was that to go off when he knew to expect me back within at least 2 hours? I was just truly, truly disappointed. Everytime I expect him to be there for me, he had done a no-show. Not cool. He arrived, nonetheless, and I really want to just slap the living daylights out of him. In fact, I just wanted to leave without him. He was such an insensitive jerk. I mean, if he had left because of a work emergency, I could understand that. But it was nothing like that and that made it even worse. Aargh.
Anyway, we went back on his van. He had to be dropped off somewhere else and I had to go back to Soria Moria, grabbed our stuff, checked-out and checked-in to Allson Angkor Paradise. That was part of how the barter deal worked. Don’t ask me why.
After checking-in to Allson, I had a good shower and then I went out. I was starving. I took the tuk-tuk to Pub Street and I had Bacon & Eggs (the name of the shop? I actually didn’t even take notice of that!) and then I walked over to Blue Pumpkin to get me some of the nice pastries as well as my delicious ice cream! This time, I got 1 scoop of Peanut flavour and 1 scoop of Cinnamon flavour. It was super awesome. I got some pastries as well in case I got hungry and also in case MoH had no time to eat, he could have those.
I then went back to the hotel and lazed by the pool the rest of the avro. It was sunny, but not that hot and the water was freezing. I swam some, dozed off some and read my book.
After that, I went back to the room and waited for MoH to come back. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t make it back in time for a shower and told me to follow the rest of his team to Angkor Wat for the concert. So, I did.
So there I was – at Angkor Wat again, for the third time this trip – this time, for the MTV Exit Concert. After a bit of hassle and stuff, we managed to get in and I went to the seated arena as I had tickets. I gave 2 to Lamp and Nat as well. Click Five kicked off the set with their performances. The rest of the show was really rather draggy. But again – the weather was really nice. Cold in fact, to be sitting out there for a 4 hour concert. But again, just watching the concert and with the stunning beauty of the Angkor Wat looming in the background was so…. surreal. Never been to Angkor Wat and all of a sudden, I was there like 3 times in a short trip. But I was not too keen on doing the entire temple tour. My parents had enjoyed the temple tour when they came last time.
Anyway, the local stars and the international artists were giving a bit of a lackluster performance making it quite boring to sit through. Even Placebo had to tone down their act – so as not to “disturb the Gods of the temples” with their blatantly loud rock sounds. So they played acoustic and semi-acoustic versions of their songs instead. They even had to cover up their tattoos and remove their nose rings and eyebrow piercing, etc…. Pou Klaing had his mic switched off twice as he was on the verge of raising “political issues”. So much for freedom of speech. I don’t know how he does it – but he gets the audience going every single time. Kate Miller was a shocker. She was pretty damn awesome. Her voice was spectacular and her music definitely different from the norm. I had to say that I enjoyed Placebo’s acoustic set.
After the concert, we all went to Hotel De La Paix cos the main sponsors threw an "after-concert" party so we had a chance to mingle with the stars and all that. My, my, my… I went round taking photos and autographs of the stars… and I felt like a teenager again. It’s funny how you always feel young when you are star-strucked …. And you even feel young AND daring after knocking back a few glasses of wine! I took photos with the lead of Click Five, the drummer of Placebo (Steve Forrest), the lead of Placebo, with Kate Miller and Duncan Sheikh. Notice that I am unable to name the lead of Click Five or the lead of Placebo. That is because I do not know the names. Just taking photos for the sake of – “Yay! I got his autograph,” or “Yay! I got his photo!” I got all their autographs on my MTV Exit bag. Maybe I can consider e-baying it now. But the drummer of Placebo was oh-so-cute and all of only twenty-one years old! Aaargh! We only left the party at 1.30am….. I knew I was going to be in trouble waking up for my flight. Not sure why, but I didn’t have a lot to drink, yet, I felt rather tipsy by the time I got back to the hotel!
Monday, 8th December, got up at 5am – thinking it was 6am. My Malaysian time is doing me in already. When I found out that it was only 5am, I wasted no time in clambering back to bed and sleeping some more. Woke up again at 6am and went for breakfast at the hotel with Lamp, Nat and Jamie. They were all on the same flight as I. MoH was going to be traveling with the van again. I wouldn’t mind, I just didn’t want to miss a day’s work.
And so, I boarded the plane without incident this time…… and that was it for my trip to Siem Riep! I would go back – only in the cold months. Otherwise, the dust would be a bit too much to bear during the summer months.
For the results of my last race - click here. I think I did not bad. What a way to exit.
