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Profiles at Bayon
Bayon was built during the 13th Century and sits in the center of Angkor Thom. I just got back from a trip to Cambodia and am so glad that I followed Jim's advice to travel to Siem Reap before we head back to the U.S. As you can imagine, it's now easier for us to do trips separately rather than as a family to certain places. I would not recommend going to Siem Reap with small children as they would probably get bored and have difficulty sightseeing in the heat. The temples that surround Siem Reap (including Angkor Wat) are so amazing and Siem Reap itself is a charming town with lovely people.
I have never been to a country before where I felt so good about spending money (providing it went to Cambodians). As you may already know, Cambodia was decimated by war and genocide and it is impossible to meet someone over a certain age that wasn't touched by it. Originally from Siem Reap, our guide, Boonsit, age 31, told us that he was once a starving child with a bloated belly as he and his family tried to survive in the jungle so that they could escape the violence in the city. Our guide was very knowledgeable about the history of the
Massive faces at Bayon
There's more than 200 of these huge things. temples and said that he studies with several archeologists. He also gave us lots of information about Cambodian politics and culture.
Cambodian people lost much of their culture through war and genocide and have to rely so much on foreign aid to survive. All I could think of was how fortunate it is that these early kings built so many magnificent structures so that people would have a reason to visit Cambodia and so boost the local economy. To visit Siem Reap now, which is a lovely town with French colonial architecture, little traffic, and lots of beautiful trees (the government now prohibits logging in the area), it's difficult to imagine the hell that this place must have been. But our guide pointed out things to us along the way, like the bullet holes in the temples, that remind us of the attrocities that took place (or like the former school filled with skulls that Jim saw that I put into a previous post). Also, the projects that exist because of foreign help, like the Artisans of Angkor and the Cambodian Cultural Center, to basically teach Cambodians the culture and arts that they lost during the war, as well
Ta Prohm
This is the famous temple from the 12th Century featured in the movie "Tomb Raider". It was originally a Buddhist Monastary with gigantic fig and other trees shooting out through the structures. as the victims of landmines who have become local musicians, are constant reminders of the recent past. Yet, the Cambodians we met were such lovely, friendly and honest people. We never felt like anyone was trying to take advantage of us (as is the case frequently on our travels in other countries that are hard up for the tourist dollars), people spoke English very well, and even the small children trying to sell trinkets somewhat aggressively outside the temples were charming in their attempts to introduce themselves. There's not much to buy in Cambodia, but it is good to purchase something, even if you don't need it, just to help out the people.
If anyone reading this is thinking of travel to Siem Reap, I highly recommend it. However, I would also recommend that you hire a local tour guide who has taken archeology classes (apparently anyone can be a tour guide if they buy a license, so you have to be careful) and only stay in Cambodian-owned hotels or, if you are going to stay in a foreign-owned hotel, stay in one that is commited to training and hiring Cambodians, like the Raffles hotel. The service may not
always be perfect, but the people are friendly and try hard. We were quite happy in the Prince D'Angkor hotel, which our guide arranged for us. Our guide cost about $50 per day for the two of us, including driver, and he was able to negotiate lots of great rates for us, like at the hotel. A 2-3 day temple pass costs $40. Meals everywhere (whether at open air Cambodian restaurants or fancier foreign food places) cost about the same for tourists - between $5 and $10 per person. The food was excellent and the quality of ingredients very high at just about every restaurant we ate at. Our favorite food in town was a restaurant called Burgers Without Borders, but our guide took us to some lovely open air Khmer restaurants in between sightseeing.
The weather was very hot during our visit and we had some rain our first day, but we were able to see most everything we wanted to in 3 days without feeling overwhelmed and having a little chance to relax in between. The large temples were amazing, but sometimes we preferred the smaller temples, particularly after a tour group left and we would have
Banteay Srei
This is a Hindu temple built much earlier than Angkor Wat. the place to ourselves. Standing on an ancient structure that is overgrown by jungle with lots of butterflies when it's very still and quiet is quite an awesome experience. I am posting photos of me and my friend April at the various temples.
In other news, Max's New Zealand buddy who left about one year ago, Ava, came back to visit and Max adored seeing her. Next week is his last week of school and then he will start a summer sports camp. Levi is all but walking and Bram's vocabulary has really taken off. We're heading back to the U.S. in 6 weeks, so not much time left. Jim is going to Ho Chi Minh City this weekend for fun and has one more trip to Indonesia. My piece on shopping in Bangkok was published in the June issue of Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel magazine. You can see it at http://www.budgettravel.com/bt-dyn/content/article/2008/05/07/AR2008050703258.html
That's all for now. We have a beach trip planned in early July to a resort in Pattaya (driving distance from Bangkok) so I might try to post again after that. Hope everyone is doing well!
Maddy
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