Cambodia

Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, Cambodia
From Phnom Penh, we took an express boat to Siem Reap. It took six hours. A few of those hours were attempting to sleep. When the realization that sleep was no longer an option, I went to the deck of the boat and took in the scenery. The Tonle Sap Lake is several miles wide and I could barely see trees on either side of it. Only the brown waters were visible. Somewhere the lake merged with the Mekong and a floating city appeared on the horizon.

We docked and some friendly children offered to carry our heavy backpacks to the ferry taxi. Once seated, they looked at us and asked for a tip. One dollar was the going rate to carry a pack about 15 feet. The longboat was operated by a young man and I was sure the craft was going to capsize. It was filled to capacity with people in addition to all our heavy packs. Now and again it would sway right or left and my heart skipped a beat imagining all my belongings sinking to the bottom of the river. But it wasn’t that deep and we didn’t flip over.

Locals moving their homes

It was moving day for the locals. Everyone’s houses, floating on bamboo sticks or empty barrels, were being tugged by struggling, underpowered longboats. The monsoon was coming, confirmed by our informative driver, and the people were heading closer to the mountain where it would be safer when the waters rise. As a side note, though it may seem as if there was no order to the arrangement of their habitations, it’s quite the contrary. Most of the floating houses had an address spray painted on the front as a means to remain in the same neighborhood.

Flooded streets of Siem Reap

Again, we opted for a luxury hotel in Siem Reap. This one cost us a combined $15 a night, negotiated down from $20. We got some food in us and decided to take a bit of a nap. It was early evening when we woke to the sound of rain, hard rain. Our rain jackets were finally going to come in handy. Outside we walked toward the main street. As we approached, we were surprised to see that the streets were flooded with nearly a foot of brown water. Cars, motorcycles and bicycles still drove on by. Some wore ponchos, while the others just got drenched. Unless a business had sandbags or ridge in front, then their first floor would be under water.

I tried to go to bed early, but failed miserably. We had to be up at 4:00am the next morning to walk around the temples.

Dawn opened her eyes and we were there to see it. The streets showed no sign of flooding and the air was just beginning to get warm.

Angkor Wat

As darkness turned to light, we walked across a bridge over a moat into Angkor Wat, just miles outside of Siem Reap. Travelers from all over the world were there with us, each with a camera in hand pointed at the ancient Cambodian edifice that was erected by 80,000 workers in the 12th century. The massiveness of the temple and its intricacies were hardly fathomable.

Around the back of the wat (Cambodian for temple) we were all alone to share this magnificence in solitude. Picture after picture were taken. Up the steep stone stairs we walked and entered. Ancient structures of this magnitude boggle my mind. Like the Egyptian pyramids, I wonder how they were constructed without modern tools and machines.

Inside we walked through different rooms and alcoves that contained statues. Intricate designs and writings were etched on all the walls and columns. I walked out by myself and sat down on the top of a staircase. Looking down, I couldn’t see the bottom of the stairs. They were that steep. I stared out at the temple and wondered what life was like inside hundreds of years ago. Wandering through the inner sanctum, I noticed joss sticks burning in a stone pot honoring a god or goddess whose missing head had eroded away or had, more than likely, been pilfered.

Angkor Wat is just one of many temples that were discovered not long ago in the middle of Cambodia. They cover and area of over 25km. That day we walked about 12km visiting several of them. Though many tourist were there visiting, it was still possible to feel alone in those sacred places.

Overgrown temple

My favorite wat was the last one we visited. It didn’t have the magnificence of the first one. Instead it had a mysterious feeling. It was one that had been lost. Trees were now growing through the walls and doorways and statues had collapsed and were horizontal on the ground. I can only imagine what it would have been like to have been the first person to rediscover this place after hundreds of years of neglect. I felt like an archeologist. Like Indiana Jones.

We stopped to eat twice. For breakfast I had a pancake and a lifelong curse, or at least that is what one of the children told me. This was the site of the most aggressive selling tactics. All we wanted was some food and we were bombarded by children trying to sell us books and postcards. The books were about the temples and the killing fields. As I was haggling for a fair price with two young girls for a book, I decided that maybe I better just buy it somewhere else because they were getting mean would have been upset if I bought from the other. To be fair, I bought one book from one of them and postcards from the other. Then yet another girl was offended that I didn’t buy anything from her so she started crying and cursing me to damnation. “You are not fair. You are a very bad man. I curse you.” She said to me. The curse didn’t bother me. I bought some joss sticks from a monk and offered them to Buddha for good luck. It was the fact that she viewed me as a very bad man for not buying anything from her that sort of bothered me. Was I bad? Of course not. There is no way to appease each of these children. So we just walked away shaking our heads.

But lunch was different.

The young scarf girl

We sat down to eat after walking around for over six hours. A girl approached us wanting to sell scarves. We said no, but she sat down and began to talk to us. She was older then the young ones earlier. Her English was excellent and she said she went to a good school back in Siem Reap. We quizzed her on some American states and she knew a surprising amount. She said she was curious and went to the library to learn about America. This was the type of person that money could help. I imagined having enough money to bring her to the States to visit and show her what my world was like. She had the brains and the motivation to make it.

Brad bought a scarf from her. And I will always wonder how her life turned out.