Angkor Wat

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April 11th 2005

Published: April 20th 2005

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wanderingbri

Angkor at Sunrise

I got back into Thailand, and met up with Nat. We immediately ventured forth to the Cambodia border.

The magic casino bus

Getting to Siam Reap turned out to be quite the adventure. First off, Nat wanted to take the "Casino Bus". Gambling is quite illegal in Thailand. Fortunately for the hard core, Cambodia (the SE Asian equivalent of the Wild West) is only a few short hours away. The big casinos run a shuttle bus from several locations in Bangkok to the border for practiaclly nothing. The only trick is that these buses are pseudo illegal. I think. In any case, it took us a long time to find the stop. We finally did, and managed to get to the border without incident. I think we were supposed to pretend like we were hard core gamblers, which was tough with our big bags and all.

The longest 50 feet of my life

The border crossing took about a million years. Or at least 2 solid hours. To travel 50 feet in line. It was quite possibly the most frustrating thing ever. At one point, a fight almost broke out between a really fiesty old lady and

Angkor in the day

a gigantic oafish looking guy. Apparently dude's mom wanted to quit the line for a quick potty break. Old lady didn't like the mom trying to deviate from the process, and let the mom know about the disapproval. Crusty old lady startes screaming, pointing her finger. She is really laying into the mom, screaming and ranting. I wish that I spoke Thai, so that I could hear all the juicy bits. So mom sulks back to her position in line, and then the son starts in. He doesn't like the way his mom has been treated, and lets old lady have it. Verbally.

Here's my interpretation of the conversation:

Dude: "Hey you old so and so, you can't talk to my mom like that!"

OL: "Yeah, and who's going to stop me? You? Ya big oaf? I am not scared of you!"

Dude: "You better be scared of me, old lady, I'll come over and slap you into next tuesday!"

OL: "Bah Bah BRING it!!!"

Dude flys into a fit of rage. Seriously. Foaming at the mouth and everything. The old lady actually put up her dukes. She was ready for the big show-down.

Blown up view of bass relief

Dude was at least 100 times bigger, but old lady didn't care.

Dude charges the old lady, and badness would have ensued had the crowd not held the dude back.

The old lady spent the rest of her time giving mean looks to Cambodian kids who happened into her view.

The longest 150 km of my life.

So we get across and eat our free meal. It turns out that the nearly free bus ticket included a free meal, since we were hard core gamblers and all. Nat also knew a guy to help us sort out the craziness of the casino town. He helped us arrange visas. He drove us to the Taxi stand (on his skate-board sized moto bike, which was interesting because we fit three people and four bags on it). We get to the taxi stand, and he helped us negotiate our price.

Picture this: A Toyota celica. Old. Seats five, max. Right?

Wrong. Wrong. WRONG. So first off, the three seats in the back are actually four. We attempt to buy all four seats, to leave us with a little leg room. No can do, the car is already

Wall-long carvings

So this wall is FULL of carvings like the ones depicted in the previous shot. The wall is about 100m long, and there are three other walls the same size with the same number of carvings. Yikes.

full. And I mean FULL. So in a normal situation, two people could sit in the front. We got FOUR. Two people shared the normal passenger seat. One guy had a cheak on the seat, and a cheak on the E-brake. That's right, and the driver had a passenger in his lap. But it was OK, because if I worried about the driver's ability to see, all I had to do was look at the level of dirt and the number of cracks on the windshield, and take comfort in the fact that the driver couldn't really see anyway. At least the journey only took 4 hours. And we even had paved roads. For about ten minutes of those 4 hours. Seriously, this was the worst long distance "road" I have ever seen. But all part of the experience, right?

At one point, we were passing someone on the left. There was so much dust in the air (on account of the fact that we were driving on dirt roads) that we literally couldn't see 50 feet ahead of us. Luckily the car the oncoming car that we didn't see, and almost hit was at least 55 feet away...

Tour-guides to be

Funny thing happened with these kids: We first saw them at the entrance to one of the larger temples. They started to tell us about the sites, then suddenly bolted as a cop drew near. The cop gave them a chase, but they eluded capture. I felt for the kids, and wanted to lead the cop in the wrong direction. They eventually met up with us again, and continued to tell us about the sites. I eventually realized that they would want money from us at some point, and told them that I didn't have a lot to give them. Their friendly attitude suddenly turned sour. They basically followed us until I gave them three times the amount that I initially offered them ($12 or so in the end, which doesn't sound like a lot, until you realize that is 1/2 month's wage for most people there). Nat was pretty uncomfortable with the situation, and thought that they would attack us at anytime. I was naive enough to think that I could handle them if it turned ugly (I am bigger than the both of them combined), but I am glad that it didn't. In the end, they took the $12 and left. Maybe I should have directed the police their way in the first place...

I seriously thought that we were gonners. Ah well, I lived to tell the tale. All part of the experience, right?

Angkor

Yikes. Is all I can say. The Khmers were pretty industrious with their temple building. I'll let the pictures speak for me here. It was worth it. Simply amazing. We did a marathon temple session in two days. This inculded both a sunset and a sunrise.

I did see ample evidence of the scars that so many years of conflict have left. Everywhere you look, you see guys with no arms or no legs. Results from contact with bombs or landmines.

I read a really interesting article on the wikipedia about the recent fighting in Cambodia. Most startling for me in this article was the fact that we (the US of A) dropped 3.5 times more total tonnage of ordinance on Camodia than we did on Japan.

Next up was a lenghty bus ride to the capital, Phenom Phen. We rode in style. Cambodian style. I bet you didn't know this, but Cambodian Karakoke is terrible. I mean terrible. Espeically when piped into your brain from the loudest speaker in the world. Where

Tourism abounds

Another way of separating tourists from their money. I didn't opt for the hot-air balloon ride. I heard it was nice though - especially at sunrise.

would this speaker be? Right next to my head. I really liked the capital, though we were only there for a night. It was on the bus that we met up with Peter and Bea. We traveled with the two for the next few days.

Next up was another long bus ride to a coastal town. The town was pretty cool as well, though really busy. We arrived just in time for the Khmer new year, so all places were packed. The most exciting bit about the trip here was arranging a fleet of moto-bikes to take the four of us and our bags across town to the hotel. And since the town was so full, we had to see a LOT of places before we found a room. I felt like the leader of a deranged biker pose. Picture it:

4 small moto bikes, each ladden with a driver, a passenger, and one large bag. We had Peter the kitemaster. Bea the mid-sized Philipina mid-wife. Nat the fearless graphic designer (with gusto). Both Bea and Nat were dwarfed by their drivers, and their bags, but that didn't make them less fear inspiring. And me, the farang with

The pilgramage

Tourists making the trek to the temple

a goofy grin and a silly baseball cap. We rolled up onto hotel after hotel. That's right, hide away your valuables kiddies, the Menacing Motos are in your hood!

We spent one night here. Hung out, got some good grub on.

Another startling image: After we finish eating our breakfast, a pack of kids comes up on us and asks if they can eat the left overs. We say sure. They devour the plates like they haven't eaten in weeks. I wasn't sure what to make of it.

We then saddle up the motos again, and head to the port. Here we catch a boat to the Thai border. Interesting fact about this boat - it never seemed to be really full. I mean people were standing in the aisles, pressed up against the walls, taking up every inch of space. It didn't seem to matter - more people always came on. Just when I thought the boat would sink with the weight, we finally left.

Getting off the boat was an experience as well. It was raining. We had to climb a small ladder to get off the boat, where we were greeted by seriously

The quest for sunset

Tons of tourists climbing the hotest sopt in town for an amazing sun set. You could bypass the walk in favor of an elephant ride, but I like to walk.

50 taxi-drivers. All of whom wanted our business. We had to climb up the ladder into 50 pairs of outstretched arms. Surreal to say the least. This was the only time in the entire trip that I really lost my cool. At one point I had 10 people grabbing my arms, and grabbing Nat. I wrenced several hands off of me and I screamed at them to "Not touch me or her!!". They all backed off a few paces, but kept us encircled. Each telling me his was the best car. Once I calmed down, I got my wits about me again, and we found Peter and Bea. No harm no foul, I suppose. Looking back, I think I reacted a bit too strongly, though I was in a state of bewilderment.

Overall impressions of Cambodia: Nice place. Don't let this entry fool you. I selectively pick out things that I think will be interesting to read about. The scenery is amazing. It is very cheap - if you know what you are doing, and don't look like a tourist. I didn't know what I was doing, and I look like a tourist. So for me, it was anti-cheap.

Sunset

I think that had I not done the whirl-wind visit, I might have gotten a better feel of the place. I did get rather tired of the constant pressure to buy things from everyone I saw. Especially the kids.

Enough for now. Between the pictures and the verbose text, this could be my longest entry to date. Sorry about that.

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