Angkor Smile

How do I begin to describe the two days that we spent looking at the temples of Angkor Wat based in Siem Riep?  For so many people they are the primary reason for coming to Cambodia and it shows.  Our first morning, we met at 5am in order to drive to Angkor Wat, and walk in in the dark, so that we could watch the sun rise.  As we walked over the moat, I could tell that there were other people there, many other people...and in fact, once the sun was up, we all realized that we were there with 4000 others.  And as the day progressed, even more people began to arrive.

Our guide Mr. Ra led us through the temples over this two-day period and it was so stunning, with one magnificent photo opportunity after another.  The sheer magnitude size, and the complexity and overall vision of the carving, gives this place its well-deserved place as one of the wonders of the world.  Angkor Wat itself is only one Temple in the complex, and after walking through its corridors and looking at the bas-reliefs, we then ate a packed breakfast (the inescapable white bread, tiny banana, and boiled egg), and continued on to Angkor Thom which is the walled, main city of the classical Angkor period.  Inside the city walls are many temples including the graceful and haunting Bayon.  Each tower had four giant serene faces looking down on you from all sides and each face is made of many huge stones.  Everywhere I looked there was something beautiful to photograph and honestly, a photo can't capture the scope of the thing.

After the Bayon we visited a couple more locations in Angkor Thom and at the top of every set of stairs was always a group of industrious Cambodian youth trying to sell us guide books.  They have a rudimentary grasp of so many languages and I heard them trying to sell guide books in Chinese, Korean, French, and others.  It's actually quite impressive although after a while we got tired of being asked where we came from because it was the beginning of a fast and slippery slope into a sales pitch.  "Canada: Populations 36 million.  They speak English and French.  In Quebec they speak French.  Guide Book?"

Other temples we visited in Angkor Thom was Preah Khan with carved Ansara dancers throughout, and a Hall of Dancers that is still used today for visiting dignitaries.  I gave up on following our local guide at this point and simply followed Kevin and listened to him describe the things around us.  His experience as a local guide made this a really great idea.  I also took the opportunity to ask him other questions about Cambodia like how the great traditions were maintained and revivied after the Khmer Rouge.   

We also visited the spectacular Ta Prohm which is being overtaken by trees with massive roots that grow all over the stone walls.  It is also known as the 'Tomb Raider' Temple because Angelina Jolie once swung and leapt about those ruins.  There is even a 'Tomb Raider' cocktail at the Falang-friendly Red Piano restaurant. 

I think that I forgot to describe the classical Cambodian dance that we saw in Phnom Penh.  There were probably a couple of thousands of people there eating the rather dubious but elaborate buffet dinner (those Chinese and Koreans really eat!).  But once the performance began, I gave up on eating any more and walked right up to the front to see the dancing close up.  Some of the dancing was folk-ish telling classical tales of farming or fishing, or of courtship between men and women.  And a few of them showcased the exquisite 'Ansara' or heavenly nymph.  The dress was complex and beautiful and the dance itself was slow and deliberate and hugely controlled.  They do this amazing thing with their hands where they bend back the fingers somehow and tuck their thumbs in front of their palms.  I am not doing a very good job of describing it but it took my breath away.  I learned that our tour leader Kevin has a brother who did this style of dancing until one day he was spotted by an American who sponsored him to go to the US and train as a ballet dancer.  There is even a documentary about him called 'Dancing Across Borders' and once I'm back home I will look it up.  What a strange world we live in.

The afternoon of our second day in Siem Riep, we had some free time and so a small group of us hired our own private tuk-tuk and drove out to the stunning Banteay Srey temple.  It took us about forty minutes to drive there and we passed through some very poor villages along the way.  Mark, Russell, Alison, and I all agreed that the area we were driving through was more like what we expected Cambodia to look like.  But once we arrived at the temple, we were greeted with the familiar large tour buses and a very orderly and sanitary (relatively!) entrance area.  I'm sure that those Korean and Japanese tourists did not have the same experience that we did getting there, and did not feel the Cambodian countryside in our skin and hair.  I like our way better.  Banteay Srey is knows as the "women's temple" because the carving made into the red stones is so tiny and delicate that they think that only women's hands could have done it.  It is hugely different from the massive and spellbinding faces of the Bayon or the reclining Buddha carved into the entire back of the Baphuon Temple.  While we were walking through it our driver hung up a hammock in the back of his tuk-tuk and had a nap in the shade surrounded by other tuk-tuks. 

On the drive home we stopped at the grassroots Landmine Museum which just feels like an outpost with some basic information about the man who has taken the name Aki Ra and has single-handedly dismantled 50 000 landmines.  There are three landmines for every person in Cambodia and he himself laid thousands of them when he was a child soldier with the Khmer Rouge.  There is a sign at the front explaining his story and he says that he does not want to do any more interviews so if people want to know more then can read about him.  There is an orphange at the museum with art and photography as well as many old landmines on display.  It was very sobering and sad, and felt very raw and real.  Even today kids are still killed by landmines because they try to diffuse them in order to get at the metal inside to sell for scrap.

Also along the ride home was a village with over a dozen villagers stirring large vats of sugar cane juice to obtain the palm sugar which they then press into little disks to sell to tourists.

That evening we went for dinner at the Khmer Kitchen on Bar Street.  After dinner I met up by pure chance with Mark, Herlan, and Xavier in the market, and we walked to the Temple Bar where Kevin was playing pool with some very drunk and boisterous expats.  The bar itself felt like Hull in the 90s (it was so loud we couldn't even think) and so we went on to another bar with a live band for another drink. 

That single day was full of all of the range of emotions and feelings that I have associated with Cambodia.  Soaring and mindblowing classical architecture, empoverished gentle people making the most of their lot in life, heart-wrenching human stories, good food and beer, peculiar night life, and people always trying to sell me something.

Thank you for reading.  I hope that the next post will be able to describe my days in Bangkok and my trip to the beach.

Love Leslie