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Published: January 17th 2008
“Conas a tá tú?” says one.
“Tá mé go maith” says the other one, materialising out of nowhere.
Two small Cambodian girls selling wooden jewellry stand beaming at us in the red dust as we wait for our tuk tuk driver to reappear outside Ta Prohm.
“...Cad is ainm duit?”
The kids of Siem Reap had their sales pitches worked out perfectly, quickly recognising our accents and moving in for the kill. We weren't buying anything, but Aoife had a great time chatting to them anyway, complementing them on their mellifluous Gaelic
á la Flann O'Brien and peppering them with questions about their lives in Cambodia. Some of the chewy sweets we had brought were shared out also.
“Give me dollar and I stop annoying you” said the older one after a while.
“You're not annoying me - I like talking to you!” replied Aoife, genuinely. The kid was a little stunned by this response and went quiet anyway, sans dollar, before sidling off a few minutes later in search of other more likely customers.
Twenty-five minutes later our tuk-tuk driver, Mr. Chin, finally turned up.
This was day one of temple crawling
in Angkor, an incredible sprawling complex of ruins near to present day Siem Reap in northern Cambodia. Between the 8th and 13th centuries, a succession of Khmer kings created magnificent Hindu and Buddhist temples in stone here when the region was preeminent in South-East Asia. We were very excited to be here. The mysterious ancient ruins at Angkor had captured my imagination from the very first moment I saw them in an old encyclopedia we had at home, and the stories of 19th French explorers accidentally stumbling across them, forgotten and swallowed by the jungle, added greatly to their romance.
The first complex we visited after paying $40 each for our three day pass was Banteay Kdei, to the east of the major sites. It was an amazing place to start since we had it pretty much to ourselves. We had heard horror stories about the volume of tourists at Angkor and expected the whole place to be overrun, but it seems that the whistle-stop tour bus packages only really visit the big two (Angkor Wat and Bayon) for a few hours either side of mid-day.
Banteay Kdei was absolutely covered with intricate carvings and had loads of
nooks and crannies to root around in, and the vivid reds and greens of the old stones was stunning and completely unexpected.
From there we headed to 10th century Ta Keo, and clambered up to the top tower via its enormous, almost vertical, sandstone stairways. Ta Keo is pleasingly geometric - almost completely free of the dense carvings that adorn every other structure here - so it was a bit like inhabiting a giant lego set which pleased us no end. Next stop was labyrinthine Ta Prohm, which has been used in a few movies in recent times (Tomb Raider, Two Brothers) as many of its structures are rather photogenically being smothered by enormous tree roots.
We continued on, visiting a few more minor temples before reaching the Elephant Terrace and Bayon. Suddenly we found where our fellow tourists had been hiding. Air conditioned buses disgorged a constant stream of whistlestop Japanese and Korean day-trippers, shattering the spell cast by the places we'd visisted earlier. Both the Elephant Terrace and Bayon were places I had been particularly keen to see so we had a quick look around and decided to come back the next day towards sunset when
Ta Prohm
Ruins consumed by the forest the tour buses were gone home and the evening light would be at its most atmospheric.
On our way back to town we passed a large troupe of monkeys lingering at the edge of the forest. We were delighting at the sight of a trio of baby monkeys fighting over a piece of discarded pineapple when Mr. Chin suddenly shouted “BEEG PEEG”, and an enormous black boar thundered out of the brush, scattered the shrieking monkeys and nearly shocked us out of our tuk tuk.
“Beeeeg Peeeeg”, Mr. Chin repeated delightedly, and then quietly and more to himself than us “...My peeg. My beeg peeg...”
It was new-years eve, so after we bid farewell to our driver, still adrift in porcine reverie, we cleaned up and headed into town and treated ourselves to a budget-busting dinner, bottle of wine and all. There was a street party arranged to ring in the new year so we stuck around. It was good fun, but the sight of the earnest and slightly bookish types attracted to Angkor off their heads on mineral water and dancing awkwardly to the worlds worst DJ was a bit of a departure from Koh Phangan
Ta Prohm
Whither Ms. Croft? the week before. We had a laugh chatting to a Japanese guy from Asakusa in Tokyo, who had never heard of Ireland, Leprechans, St. Patrick or even U2. Luckily we met a cousin of one of the Courtney Brothers (the circus family) who was so fond of the Irish that he secretly footed our drinks bill much to our stunned amazement (cheers Neil and Nadia!). The clock struck midnight and we all cheered and went home to bed.
We were up again 4 hours later to watch the first sunrise of 2008 over Angkor Wat. We were exhausted, but it was well worth it as the sky slowly paled through purple, pink and orange and the temple's five magnificent beehive towers emerged from the darkness and the stars disappeared. It might also have been quite a romantic way to see in the new year, had about 200 head-torch toting Japanese amateur photographers not had the same idea... ah well!
We went back to bed and stayed there till lunchtime. That evening we returned to Bayon. Bayon is a truly remarkable place. It dates from the late 12th century and is essentially a stone mountain of ascending peaks comprised
of a few dozen towers with a huge and enigmatic face on each side. The crowds had dispersed for the day so the quiet and the long shadows of the setting sun made for quite an eerie and other-worldly atmosphere as we wandered around under the eternal gaze of the stone sentinels.
The following day we hired bikes so we could do our final day of exploring at our own pace. To say our bikes were crap would be an understatement, but we persevered and finally made it to Angkor Wat for a proper look around, providing local Cambodians and American tourists with their entertainment for the day as they pointed and laughed at our creaking bone-shakers from the comfort of their tuk-tuks.
Angkor Wat is an absolutely enormous complex accessed by a crumbling stone bridge that spans the widest moat I've ever seen. We read that at the height of its power the cities of Angkor Thom were home to over a million people at a time when London housed a mere 50,000. Wandering around it wasn't hard to imagine - even though only the temples remain as everything else was constructed in perishable materials - the
scale of the place is overwhelming. There are over 600 meters of finely carved bas reliefs and we found a particularly fine set depicting the various heavens and hells of Hinduism, complete with Christian style judgement process. Heaven seems to promise an idler's eternity spent loafing around watching topless Apsaras (celestial dancers) gyrate, while the hells gleefully and graphically depicted a blood curdling menu of torments tailored to your particular sins - being crucified and stuck with copious nails, trampled on by elephants, your tongue being pulled out by a pincer or just being slow cooked, to name but a few. In particular avoid stealing strong liquor, seducing others' wives or going near the wives of scholars as you will be first torn to pieces by birds of prey and then thrown into a lake of slimy pus... nice.
Chastened, we made for the Elephant Terrace, and the Metallica-esque Terrace of the Leper King. The elephant terrace remains were once part of the pavillions of the Royal Palace, and as the name suggests are finely carved with a variety of quality elephants and elephanty scenes, though sadly none of elephants playing elephant football. Wandering around here I met a
Ta Prohm
West Gate face tower monk who was meditating in the shadow of a particularly picturesque ruin I had ambled over to photograph. We had a great chat and he told me all about his life - he had been given to an orphanage as his family couldn't keep him (counting back this would have been in the time of the Khmer Rouge, so I found this statement a little ambiguous) and entered the monastery at 14. He now helped organise and run a school for disadvantaged children. “Living is learning” he said, and probably would have chatted all day if I didn't have to keep reminding him I had left Aoife sitting on a rock over yonder, and I really should be getting back to her.
That evening, saddle sore but satisfied, we had another quality dinner and discussed our favourite ruins and our time in Cambodia. On our way home a tuktuk driver asked if he could show us around tomorrow, and we said we would be leaving tomorrow - 'tomorrow?' he said, 'tomorrow... tomorrow never comes' then he laughed and as we strolled off up the road we were serenaded with a soulful rendition of 'Tomorrow Never Comes.'
There were
Ta Keo
Sacred geometry - this was like climbing around inside a game of tetris! far too many sites to explore properly in Angkor even with three full days. We'd had to choose carefully and naturally missed out on loads, so hopefully we'll be coming back someday. We really enjoyed our time in Cambodia - we hadn't really been sure what to expect but had found a fascinating country struggling to its feet after a very dark period in history, full of seriously welcoming and inquisitive people.
It felt too early to be moving on, but moving on we were, against the flow of the muddy Mekong, to Laos.
psst: more pics on page two!
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chilled2thecore
Matt & Carla
Hi guys, times have changed and now we are reading your blog but without a trip to look forward to :-( It's bittersweet reading your blogs as it looks like you are having a great time and we recognise most places so it brings back so many happy memories....but we miss it. Enjoy every minute. Carla and Matt