Cambodia - Siem Reap - Angkor Temples

Cambodia. Here we are in the Royal Inn Hotel in Phnom Penh, after a 4 hour cab ride from Siem Reap this morning. A bit harrowing, but the roads are better and our driver was less erratic than Boing was in Indonesia. Saw some rural agricultural areas - subsistence living, roadside stands to make a little extra money. The adaptation of transportation technology is very creative - vehicles included two-wheel tractors pulling carts, ox carts, pony carts, bicycles, bicycle rickshaws, scooter-tuktuks, three-wheeled motorcycle tuktuks, a three-wheeled truck loaded with people, scooters carrying two braces of dead chickens to market, a large dead hog on the back of a scooter, a dog in a cage on a scooter, a live chicken in a cage on a scooter, a family of 4 kids and 1 adult on a scooter. Women in sarongs riding scooters side-saddle. All kinds of imaginative payload configurations. Drivers wearing dust/germ masks,but no helmets. Passengers mostly wearing neither. Safety seems a minor concern....

The Temples of Angkor. Their majesty has not been overstated. The sun rises over the five spires of Angkor Wat, the Elephants wait patiently at the gates of Angkor Thom, the Guardian Faces are ever vigilant at the Bayon, the trees at Ta Prohm win the battle of

time,
while the men in the friezes are endlessly engaged in the churning, churning, Churning of the Sea of Milk, and the sun sets over it all at the temple on the hill, Phnom Krom.

The temples are outstanding and worthy of the UNESCO Heritage Site Status. We toured the Angkor Thom complex the first day in Siem Reap. Bayon - big faces, Baphuon, by the Elephant Terrace and the Terrace of the Leper King. Afterwards, we made a stop at Ta Prohm where the trees still grow out of the temple walls. It was blazing hot out there, around 100 F and sunny. . . we're drinking lots of water, and seeking shade and AC in the late

afternoons. The second day in Siem Reap, we woke up at 4:30 am and went out to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat - it's a bit of a touristy cliche, but it was pretty cool to see the orange/red sunrise behind the five spires of the biggest of the temples and the world's largest religious structure.
The carved stone is endless...."bas-relief" if I recall my Art History properly. After sunrise we went to Preah Khan, Preah Neak Pean, took a short tethered balloon trip for a grand view of Angkor Wat and then finally to far away Banteay Srei with it's particularly fine stone carvings. At Preah Khan, a man started following us around talking to us and showing us things, then when we were done, he wanted money his "tour". Doug tried to give him a dollar, and he made an indignant face and laughed. He told us that people usually give him $10. We gave him $5 and told him next time to tell people he was selling his service and not to just follow people around and expect them to pay.

The next day, we went on a boat trip out to Tonle Sap Lake to the floating village. The water is very low because it is dry season here. The boats are designed with propellers on long shafts that drag over the mud to operate in very low water, but still got stuck a bit. There was a bit of a traffic jam at certain points and the occasional gunning of the engines to get unstuck created sprays of mud and water - talk about sediment. Once out on the lake, we could see the Viet Nam side, a floating school, a floating water treatment plant (built by USAID), and there was a crocodile pit
at the inevitable souvenir shop/cafe. A woman in a boat pulled up to the dock at the restaurant, with a very young child (maybe 2 yrs old), sent the kid up onto the dock to ask all the tourists for money, "dolla, dolla, dolla" was about all she said. Our tuk-tuk driver told us they were Vietnamese. We asked how he knew, and he said, "They are begging for money. Cambodians don't do that." Really? All those kids at the temples asking for a dollar were Vietnamese? Well, I guess maybe he's right, sort of. The temple urchins were all trying to sell us something - a bracelet, a flute, a small origami bird - not just begging.

Later that day, Roti (tuk-tuk driver) took us to the base of a tall hill/mountain that we laboriously climbed in the heat of the late afternoon. The temple at the top, Phnom Krom

includes a currently operating temple, as well as ancient ruins that are reasonably impressive at sunset with the golden light. From the top, we could just barely discern Angkor Wat and a couple of other temples in the distance.

On our way to the South coast of Cambodia, we wound up in Phnom Penh for day 3 of the multi-day Khmer New Year celebration... Most of what we wanted to see here is closed for the holiday. We won't get to see the Royal Palace & Silver Pagoda after all. The museums are open, but torture, genocide and the Killing Fields are just too disturbing to see on display. Besides, the suffering here is obvious to anyone whose eyes are open. We went to Wat Phnom instead and then had lunch at a socially responsible cafe, "Cafe Yejj", which employs, trains, and benefits underprivileged Cambodian women. Later, we had dinner and fruity drinks at the hotel restaurant, thankful for the French influence on Cambodian cuisine. We have really been missing bread.