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~ Ramblings, Rumblings and Travel Tales: Bangkok and Beyond

…dancing with the devil in the city of angels…

Category Archives: Cambodia

Travel tales from Cambodia

The Jewel of Khmer Art: Banteay Srei

09 Thursday Aug 2012

Posted by Bangkokbois in Cambodia, Travel Tales from Beyond Thailand

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Cambodia, Wats

The finely detailed carvings of gods and demons adorning Banteay Srei’s walls are part of the temple’s unique allure.

The famed temples that make up the Angkor Wat complex surrounding the bucolic town of Siem Reap in Cambodia are a major draw for touri from all over the world. Once in town, in visiting the ancient wat your options are limited. You can join in on an organized tour, sharing your experience with a bus load of your fellow touri, or you can strike out on your own. But even bypassing the organized bus tours still requires the assistance of a local, as either a driver or tour guide. Or both. A few brave souls rent a bicycle and find their own way to the closer and better known temples like Angkor wat and Angkor Thom. None choose that option to get to the smaller and more far flung temples. Even those who hire their own transportation may not make it quite that far. The larger and more spectacular temples are enough to fill most visitor’s stay.

Arriving by plane, whether you make the mistake of hiring a tuk tuk to get into town or spurge for the extra buck or two to travel in an air conditioned taxi your driver will do his damnedest to become your official source of transportation during your entire stay. Regular travellers to Se Asia may be wary, and with good cause. The region abounds in rip off scams, taking anyone on their word is an iffy proposition. So it is surprising that the drivers who solicit your business for touring the area’s temples are not scam artists. Fees, while negotiable, are usually within the norm. If you like the driver, and like the form of transpo you chose at the airport, go ahead and strike a deal.

The dusty, unpaved roads to Banteay Srei are covered in fine red dirt and are frequented by locals who know how to avoid the man-sized pot holes.

I’ve been amazed at how helpful these guys really are. Most speak excellent English and all have a working knowledge of the temples. After agreeing to their services the first thing each driver does is to sit down with you and suggest a plan of attack. They know when the best time is to visit each temple, when the bus tours arrive, and when the temples are the most photogenic. They also have a good idea of how many temples to comfortably squeeze into your stay. The major wats always get first priority. If you are in town long enough, your driver will suggest a few of the smaller wats, those which are a further distance outside of town.

Of course it is easy to get watted out in Siem Reap. Even when that is why you are there. On my first trip, Juan, my driver whose name was unpronounceable and who agreed Juan worked just as well, sensed my objection to another consecutive day of temple trips having all ready agreed to three days worth that covered all of the major wats. Undaunted by my mild hint of, “No more wats!” he insisted I had to see just one additional temple, a small wat some xx miles outside of town that would be the sole temple visit for the day. Possibly sensing that I was gay, he kept assuring me I’d want to see this one because it was pink. Possibly sensing I was gay, he never mentioned that Banteay Srei is known as the women’s temple. Sensing that there was no chance of him accepting no for an answer I agreed to make the trek the following morning.

As you approach, Banteay Srei looks like a small island floating in the Cambodian forest.

The roads within Siem Reap frequented by touri are all paved. Those on the outskirts of the town are finished with red dirt. The further out you go, the more in need of repairs the roads become and by the time you get halfway to Banteay Srei the man-sized potholes that have pummeled your kidneys into submission make you thank the gods you were smart enough to hire a taxi instead of a tuk tuk as those you pass who were not as wise elicit equal parts of disdain and empathy. They say it is the journey not the destination that matters, but if your destination is Banteay Srei, your journey can either be uncomfortable or as painful as going three rounds in the ring with Mike Tyson. Chose a tuk tuk to make the trip and you’ll begin to take on a remarkable resemblance to Muhammad Ali’s current visage.

I doubt any modern day visitor has ever toured Banteay Srei before visiting Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. Comparing the massive complexes and soaring towers of the larger and older temples with the small, almost dainty look of Banteay Srei is hard to avoid. From outside as you approach the temple you can’t help but notice how small it is, the temple’s moat and outer walls can be taken in with a single glance. As you approach its entrance at the eastern gate however you immediately see what makes this temple so special. Its size works to its favor, it’s color adds to its allure, the beautifully carved bas relief devatas adorning every square inch and covering the red sandstone walls like tapestries turn the wat into an enchanting example of the ancient Khmer people’s affinity with their gods.

The eastern entrance to the interior of Banteay Srei .

Banteay Srei is constructed of both sandstone and laterite, the former lending itself to carving by hand which allowed its builders to work scenes of Hindu myth into its walls and arches. The temple is in a remarkable state of preservation, making it difficult to believe it was consecrated in 967 A.D. The only major temple at Angkor not built by a monarch, the wat is dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva, and is known for the beauty of its sandstone lintels and pediments, which for the first time in the history of Khmer architecture, included entire scenes of mythological tales depicted on them.

Banteay Srei was not rediscovered until 1914. Nine years later it was the site of a celebrated case of art theft which stimulated interest in the temple and encouraged its restoration which began in the early 1930s. In the early 2000s measures were taken to protect the temple from damage by flooding and from the surrounding forest, the beneficial results of which the temple’s current pristine condition is owed largely to. It’s location and size work to its advantage too; it does not see the large mass of tourists that many of the larger wat receive and so does not suffer from their intrusion either.

After the gargantuan heads of Angkor Thom and the ginormous towers at Angkor Wat, the structures at Banteay Srei look like miniatures.

Touring the diminutive wat does not take long even if you linger to enjoy the finely detailed carvings. I’m not a fan of tour guides for Cambodia’s wats, at least not on the first visit, preferring to discover their secrets on my own. But for Banteay Srei I would suggest a knowledgable guide – as opposed to one of the gaggle of local kids hanging at the entrance who offer to take on those duties as well as sell you some postcards – can be a bonus. The walls are literally covered with Hindu mythological stories, having someone along to explain them to you will add to your appreciation of this temple. The wat is small enough that a guide would not keep you from seeing what he may otherwise consider unimportant as is often the case at the larger wats of Angkor.

Time was short on my second visit to Cambodia and I did not make the trek out to Banteay Srei again. But next time around I will; the wat is a great alternative to Angkor Wat for the sunrise experience and there’s a good chance at the early hour of having the entire temple to yourself.

Devatas abound on Banteay Srei’s library walls.

The sandstone used in the interior sections of Banteay Srei is a much softer rock than the laterite used at most of the Angkor temples, allowing masons to carve fine details into the blocks.

Related Posts You Might Enjoy:

Fear and Loathing in Phnom Penh: The Killing Fields

Fear and Loathing in Phnom Penh: The Killing Fields

Fear and Loathing In Phnom Penh: The Temple Angelina Built

Fear and Loathing In Phnom Penh: The Temple Angelina Built

Fear and Loathing in Phnom Penh: Mekong Express Toots Its Horn

Fear and Loathing in Phnom Penh: The Mekong Express Toots Its Horn

Getting Riel In Siem Reap

21 Monday May 2012

Posted by Bangkokbois in Cambodia, Travel Tales from Beyond Thailand

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Cambodia, Money Matters

angkor bar

Three quarters or 3,000 riel for a beer, it’s up to you.

I’d wanted to get into Cambodia for years; just never seemed to have the time even though it’s just a quick run from Thailand. But I finally decided to pre-book the trip to make sure I actually set the time aside. I mean any country willing to sell a kid to Angeline Jolie has gotta be worth seeing, right?

Now you have several choices of destinations within the country, Phnom Penh (third world capital), the killing fields (historic, tragic, but not exactly Disneyland), the countryside and the mighty Mekong (land mines, flooding, and dirty brown water), or Siem Reap and the many ancient wats surrounding what probably was a quaint little town a mere 10 years ago. My choice was Angkor Wat, which meant Siem Reap for accommodations.

I flew in on Bangkok Air . . . you can also make a long overland journey by bus, well known to be a major opportunity to participate in a scam (yeah, you get to play the part of the victim). The short haul was a 45 minute flight that they actually tried to serve a meal during – which I have to give them credit for since my last 5 hour flight to Hawaii on United came with no food unless you wanted to buy some from them. Watching the locals, I caught on quickly: take the food, wolf it down, because they come right back around to grab your tray. My seatmates from Australia tried the casual dining approach and didn’t get to finish. On landing, I was expecting third world type conditions and so was pleasantly surprised by the airport – quaint for sure, but very clean and it looked like it belonged in SE Asia.

Daytime colors of Siem Reap.

Daytime colors of Siem Reap.

Unless you previously obtained a visa, you need to get one before clearing immigration. Fortunately I had read a guide book for a change and came prepared with a photo of yours truly and $20 for the visa. No photo, you get fined. No $20 in US, well, noting I’d come in from Thailand the visa clerk first quoted me a 1,000 baht price. That’s like $35. Ha! I ain’t your typical stupid American touri!

After paying for the visa, you wait for it to be processed and your name to be called. The guy handling this part of the operation was quite funny and was having a wonderful time mispronouncing names. I always appreciate a man who enjoys his job. But then I also always appreciate weary travellers whose journey has beat them into submission leaving them basically brain dead having to then deal with officialdom in some tiny foreign country where they don’t have the good sense to speak perfect English. Immigration at Siem Reap was not the dreary experience it is in other countries; the entertainment value of Immigration Officer vs. Touri alone made the trip worthwhile. Provided you matched the immigration guy’s English with your last name you get your Visa, and you next get into yet another line to clear immigration.

Now I get to digress. You probably noticed I do that quite often. Live with it. In this case it’s a rant about damn Eastern European touri. Sneaky mf’s . . . World War II just didn’t do a complete enough job. The reason for this rant was a 30 something woman who wanted to cut into line. Her trick was to stand to the side of where she wanted to cut in, drop her bag, and then every time the line moved forward she’d kick the bag over a bit more into line and follow it. Bitch tried in front of me and when she got too close I strategically, but oh so casually, swung around allowing my heavy carry-on to bang into her. She got the message and cut in behind me. Ours was the slowest moving line (yep, I’m blessed) and I watched her pull the same move cutting into the next line over. Long line, long time to watch my fellow touri. My seatmates from the plane and I saw each other and nodded. International travel can be sooooo rewarding!

siem reap at night

. . . and its cooler colors at night.

A $5 cab ride to my hotel (the Ta Prohm, not to be confused with the wat of the same name) taught me the first rule of Cambodia travel: Don’t be cheap, fool! Very few of the streets of Siem Reap are paved. Even those that are are covered in dirt. An air conditioned cab cost the aforementioned $5. For $2 you could instead ride in the Cambodian version of a tuk tuk (more of a motorcycle pulling a buggy). So by saving $3 you get a noisy, hot, bumpy ride guaranteed to fill your nose and mouth with dust. Yeah, master those possibilities . . .

The second rule of Cambodia travel is that if you were smart enough to follow rule #1, your cab driver will offer to be your driver/guide for the entire trip. Sounds like a scam. But unless you come off as a total idiot, the fee he charges will be about the same as you’ll find anywhere else. I lucked out. My driver spoke excellent English and was 1 year away from completing his studies to be a licensed guide. Booked ‘em and he proved worth every penny (which is about what the local currency is worth – but that comes later).

My guide, Juan (Okay, that wasn’t his name but I couldn’t pronounce his name so we mutually agreed he’d be Juan for the trip) planned out my visit to the major wats for the following day to avoid the rush of touri. Seems there are certain times of the day everyone wants to be at special spots, which end up being not that special when viewed with every touri in Siem Reap. First up was Angkor Thom with the Bayon – some 54 towers of quadruple gargantuan faces on them. Way cool. And probably my favorite wat in the area.

Siem Reap Blues

Siem Reap Blues

Ta Prom (the wat, not my hotel) was next. This is the one that has been overgrown by large ficus trees, their roots encompassing the remaining walls of the wat. Cool, but did they have to name a tree after Angeline Jolie just because she bought one of the country’s kids as a souvenir? Lastly, for the day, was Angkor Wat, the mother of the local wats, and it really is awe inspiring. At Angkor Wat, as well as the others, locals are quite evident, still using the sites for religious purposes ( as opposed to the even greater number of local using the sites to fleece touri out of a few bucks for books, postcards and knickknacks available at a much cheaper price back in town).

With cultural duties taken care of my evening was free for more less than salubrious pastimes and I decided on a beer and dinner at The Red Piano. Both because it was close to the hotel and for its grand patio – dining outdoors with the hustle and bustle of bar street tableside. I’d barely quaffed down half my drink when a white pair of legs appeared with an Aussie accent asking, “Mind if we join you?”

The legs ended up belonging to the female half of the couple I’d been next to on the plane. Sylvia and John. They joined me, which seemed right since I’d constantly hooked up with Aussie touri on this trip. Nice folk. While I’d spent my first day touring ancient wats, they’d spent theirs trying to find a place to stay. Sometimes the ‘take it as we go’ mode of travel can be a pain. After several rounds of drinks and enjoyable talk about our travels, Sylvia lamented the fact that not thinking she’d exchanged her Aussie dollars at the airport for Cambodian riel. The country offers more than one source of comedic relief at the airport, there’s a money exchange booth there too. Feel free to snicker at those lined up in front of the cage when you scurry past headed to the taxis and tuk tuk waiting outside.

The Red Piano is a great place to soak up some shade during the day.

Had my new dearest friends taken the time to read a guide book, they would have discovered the Cambodian riel is worth zip, nada, zilch, or for those into actual facts, a bit over 4,000 to the U.S. dollar. And the local economy runs on the US buck. The only local stuff you see is when someone tries to give it to you as change. Anyway, Sylvia had a stack of riel piled on the table in front of her, and after watching her count out about three inches of it I offered to pay for the drinks and dinner (real generous, at the end, five rounds of drinks and dinner came to about $20). Good move on my part as we ended up dining together nightly for the next four days, it was like travelling with friends without having to actually spend the day with them.

I’m not that big on guidebooks preferring to strike off and find things to do and see on my own. But they do serve their purpose when it comes to the basics. A few minutes of pre-trip fact gathering can pay off. Or you can instead choose to be the punch line for some other traveller’s tale.

Related Posts You Might Enjoy:

Fear and Loathing in Phnom Penh: The Killing Fields

Fear and Loathing in Phnom Penh: The Killing Fields

Fear and Loathing In Phnom Penh: The Temple Angelina Built

Fear and Loathing In Phnom Penh: The Temple Angelina Built

Fear and Loathing in Phnom Penh: Mekong Express Toots Its Horn

Fear and Loathing in Phnom Penh: The Mekong Express Toots Its Horn

Fear and Loathing In Phnom Penh: The Temple Angelina Built

18 Thursday Aug 2011

Posted by Bangkokbois in Cambodia, Travel Tales from Beyond Thailand

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Cambodia, Wats

Angelina Jolie, The Goddess of Cambodia

Angelina Jolie, The Goddess of Cambodia

Cambodia has a rich cultural heritage, a glorious past during which it performed feats the Western world could only dream of in those days. Its more recent past is just as astounding. But for far different reasons. Proving they were capable of building on a scale that awes, they set out to prove they were capable of tearing down on an equally massive scale. The atrocities they inflected on their own people under the Khmer Rouge is mind boggling. Even more so than the grandeur hinted at by the remains of the vast temples of the Angkor Wat complex.

Neither past is hidden. Today, both are equally on display, especially where it means an influx of torui dollars. You can try and ignore the genocidal period and only pay attention to the magnificent glory of the ancient temple cities. But then the numerous land mine victims prowling the streets of Siem Reap make it difficult to not take those years into account. The locals are still paying a price for the time their countrymen were busy trying to kill each other.

In Phnom Penh, maintaining a lack of awareness is a more difficult task; there are no ancient temples to vie for attention. Every tuk tuk driver wants to take you to see the killing fields, a general term used to collectively cover three different sites, each a homage to Cambodia’s bloody internal conflict. There are enough wats of more modern build you can visit instead. Or you can choose to just sit for hours riverside in a cafe instead of making the trek to touri traps that celebrate the death of millions.

You can try to ignore that period of history, especially in light of how warm and friendly Cambodians are. But all it takes is a stray thought, that under the Khmer Rouge’s rule, every single citizen of Phnom Penh was driven out leaving it an empty ghost town. The sheer size of the capital city and the amount of hatred required to accomplish that feat makes you stop and think. About something you’d perhaps rather not think about.

Siem Reap

The Red Piano, Angelina’s favorite spot in Siem Reap when she wasn’t out shopping for kids.

A massive body count and bloody history, and immense, wondrous temple complexes, both are equally impressive. And both pale in comparison to an even more momentous force of more recent time. You can decide not to bother with taking a trip out to see the ancient temples. You can close your eyes and ignore the country’s bloody past. But in Siem Reap, it is impossible to ignore Angelina Jolie. That bitch is everywhere.

Angelina made her mark on this sleepy little burb when she was in town to film Tomb Raider. Bored between takes, she went shopping for a few local souvenirs and ended up with a tattoo in khmer script – a well-known traditional yant for protection and wealth – and a little Khmer kid, her first foreign-born baby in what was soon to become a growing collection.

Angelina must of heard it was easy to buy a kid in Cambodia, she just didn’t know that usually meant through the sex trade. From a life destined to selling postcards at crumbling temples to instant Hollywood celebrity status, that kid has some amazing karma. Whether that’s good or bad karma is debatable.

But that bit of social gamesmanship doesn’t get much press in Cambodia. There it’s all about Angelina’s stunt work at the temple overrun by trees outside of Siem Reap. And where she stayed, slept, ate, urinated, and breathed while in town. The Red Piano, a well known cafe/bar in a prime spot anchoring popular Pub Street likes to claim it was a major hangout of Angelina’s when she was in town. You can buy her likeness on one of their T-shirts – in Angelina’s favorite color of #000000 – have a cool, high-octane drink concocted in her honor, or even order a sandwich named after her. Better yet, just outside of town you too can visit the temple where a portion of Angelina’s movie was filmed and see the tree she made famous the world over.

Ta Prohm Cambodia

Planting roots at Ta Prohm

The temple of the goddess Angelina Jolie was previous known as Ta Prohm (though that isn’t even the ancient name of the temple; it was originally known as Rajavihara). Some tour guides and day trip operators still use the ancient name, but to avoid confusion, just ask for Angelina Jolie’s temple. Everyone in town knows where that is.

If you are negotiating with a tuk tuk driver or private car to take you on tour of the many temples that make up the Angkor Wat complex, Angelina’s place will be on your itinerary. Of course, some deference is paid to local heritage, so Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom get top billing. But your guide’s eyes will light up when he gets to the third best temple choice and starts singing the praises of Angelina Jolie.

The guides and drivers all know when the best times to visit each wat are. You get to define what ‘best’ means to you. That could be, for example, Angkor Wat at sunrise, when you and thousands of your fellow travellers will be there to greet the colors of the morning sun. Or a bit after noon, when the sun is at its hottest and the more intelligent touri have found a cool shady place to rest, leaving the massive wat to a few brave souls.

Ta Prohm is easy to visit during down times; it’s an add-on trip and the bus loads hit the place in sequence depending on which other wat the tour operators decided their charges should visit first. Your private guide will know the best time to avoid them.

With just a few touri about, it’s a beautiful wat, an atmospheric temple left to the clutches of the surrounding jungle, nicely overgrown and filled with paths strewn with rubble. It looks like a Hollywood film set, an amateur archeologist’s wet dream. There are numerous interior walkways and passages where you will be alone; even the main sanctuary can be empty of others if you time it right. And with just a few touri around, everyone is always willing to get out of your way so you can snap a photo of the tree Angelina evidently planted, nurtured, and blessed.

Ta Prohm

The Tree Angelina Jolie made famous.

A Buddhist temple, Ta Prohm was built in 1186 by order of Jayavarman VII soon after he ascended to the throne of the ancient Khmer empire. Constructed in honor of his family, and dedicated to his mother, many of the images within the temple bear the likeness of his family members. In its heyday it was home to more than 12,500 people and served as a focal point and religious site for the surrounding community of 80,000 souls.

With the decline of the empire in the 15th century, Ta Prohm was abandoned and left to the will of the jungle for hundreds of years until restoration work began in the early 20th century. Rather than restore the site to its former glory, the decision was made to leave it largely as found, as a “concession to the general taste for the picturesque.” The original restoration goal was to make it accessible, but to maintain its condition of apparent neglect.

If you’ve done the other two large wats first, Ta Prohm will immediately seem different. First, the temple is not visible from your drop-off point. It’s hidden down a long dirt trail whereas Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom are both accessible a mere few steps from your ride. Second, unlike all the other temples you’ll visit, there is no gaggle of kids guarding the entrance demanding a toll be paid in the way of a few bucks for useless postcards or pirated guide books.

Ta Prohm does not have some major historical or religious significance above that of the other wats which would preclude the local kids from exhorting money from touri, so I have to assume it is out of fear over the kid that disappeared when Angelina hung out there. I think the locals believe Ta Prohm is haunted by Angelina Jolie’s spirit. I’m sure Khmer parents use her kid-snatching tale as a threat for scarring their children into behaving.

Leaving what passes for bustle in Siem Reap behind, an early morning visit to the ancient wat starts with a quiet walk along a path bordered by dense vegetation, tendrils of cottony moisture law low, curling through the trees, licking at the leaves. Giant trees tower above Ta Prohm, their leaves filtering the sunlight, providing dappled shade and casting a greenish light over the site that looks like it came from another world.

Before you reach the entrance of tumbled stones and blocks of laterite precariously stacked to form an arched passage, the silence of the morning is broken by the sound of a cat fight of major proportions. As you round the bend approaching the noise you discover it is not a pride of cats at war, or in lust, but rather a local band playing traditional Cambodian music.

fruit vendor Ta Prohm Cambodia

A lone fruit vendor waits for a customer to be interested in her pineapple (served with peanut butter) inside the Ta Prohm Temple complex.

As you get closer still, you realize that it sounds even worse than usual because this band is made up of land mine victims; every musician is missing at least one appendage. (I’d make a comment about the drummer here, but then you’d all hate me even more than you already want to.) If you passed on buying one of the ‘Danger! Land Mine!’ T-shirts back in town, now is a good time to grab a souvenir. The band’s greatest hits are available on CD. Recorded in a studio with higher production values, the music sounds much better than the live version. Less like cats in heat, more like Gwyneth Paltrow singing country songs. A small distinction to be sure.

Ta Prohm’s claim to fame, discounting Angelina for a minute, are the large silk-cotton and ficus trees whose roots have enveloped the structure; it appears as though the trees have grown out of the temple. With roots squeezing out of narrow fissures, and trunks intertwined with large stone blocks, some trees have laid claim to immense areas of the temple’s walls. Massive trunks soar skyward under a shadowy green canopy, their endless roots coiling serpentine-like seeming to devour the stone structure, reclaiming the land for the jungle. It is an eerie, fascinating, and unique sight.

Ta Prohm does not have the majesty of Angkor Wat nor the sheer massiveness of the gigantic heads of Angkor Thom. It not as large as either, not as impressive, not as overrun. At least by people. On my first visit to Ta Prohm there were less than a dozen visitors to share the grounds with. You got to know the others fairly quickly, recognizing the same faces again and again as you wound through the inner area, smiling in greeting to those who’d become familiar in so short of a time. A sole guard made his way through the grounds too, dressed in the officious type of uniform security guards in SE Asia tend to favor. His job is to keep a careful eye on the foreigners who might desecrate Angelina’s temple, and, evidently to run off any locals trying to make a buck inside. Even in Cambodia there are some rules that must be followed. Or ignored for the right price.

Ta Prohm nun

Elderly Buddhist nuns man small shrines within the corridors of Ta Prohm. For a buck you can be blessed. For two you can be protected from Angelina Jolie’s spirit.

Angelina’s tree, of course, is one of the focal points. It’s even more massive than those around it. It has taken over an entire corner of the central sanctuary, it’s aggressive roots encircling the walls and doorways. Nearby, delicately carved reliefs on the walls sprout lichen, moss and even more creeping plants. In the movie version of the temple, this is where Angelina picked a jasmine flower and was sucked beneath the earth.

Ta Prohm is extensively overgrown and filled with crumbling structures, but you can still explore numerous towers, courtyards and narrow corridors, discovering hidden gems beneath the encroaching foliage. Many of the corridors are impassible, thanks to the jumbled piles of carved stone blocks that clog their interiors. Inside cleared, cool passageways, like at most of the area’s temples, nuns have set up small altars where for a small donation you can receive a blessing, or take a picture, or both. But the trees and their massive root systems are the main draw here. They are the photo op world travellers dream of.

But you better hurry if you want to see Ta Prohm in its overrun state. Last year a massive, aggressive restoration job began. Much of the vegetation and even some of the trees have been removed. A large crane for construction mars the charm of the temple, and wooden walkways and platforms have been built blocking some of the previously famous postcard photo opportunities. Brand new balustrades are being added in a decision that will only diminish the beauty and appeal of the place. Ta Prohm’s draw is its ruined state, any work that does anything more than preserve the temple lessens that which makes it such a unique historical site.

Ta Prohm Cambodia

Tree 1, Temple 0

On the way out, past the mind numbing beat of the land mine victim band, finally a local trying to cash in on the touri hordes appears. This one is a young girl, face grimy as seems to be de rigueur in Siem Reap’s community of begging children. She has no postcards for sale, no pirated guide books to offer. Instead, she shyly displays a small lizard, a noose tied around its neck, hopefully as a leash and not in homage to her recent ancestors’ reign of terror. It’s a CD or this grubby urchin; at the temples of Angkor I’m too used to handing out the worthless riel I’ve collected as change during the day in exchange for souvenirs that are just as useless. The little girl wins. Besides, I can always listen to Gwyneth Paltrow when I get home.

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Fear and Loathing in Phnom Penh: Peace and Quiet At Angkor Thom

Fear and Loathing in Phnom Penh: Peace and Quiet At Angkor Thom

Angkor Wat: Still Life in the Still Life

Angkor Wat: Still Life in the Still Life

The Forest Temple of Wat U-Mong

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Siem Reap’s Night Market(s)

27 Monday Jun 2011

Posted by Bangkokbois in Cambodia, Travel Tales from Beyond Thailand

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Cambodia, Markets & Shopping

angkor night market neon

Siem Reap’s Angkor Night Market

From the number of markets crammed into this tiny town, you’d think Siem Reap is all about shopping. However, most touri, if not all, visit Siem Reap to see the ancient Khmer temples just outside of the city. Shopping is just an add-on bonus, something to do at night when entrance to the temples closes down. At night,non-shopaholics head to Pub Street to soak up another Siem Reap speciality: a hangover. I’d already spent a few mornings ruing my previous night of fun and decided shopping might be a less detrimental form of entertainment. At least for one night. And figured any SE Asian town has got to have a night market.

The Old Market, located just a few streets away from Pub Street, is open late into the night. Though by then its customer base is all foreign. Locals pack the place early in the day shopping for produce, meat, and household goods. The tourist knickknack booths are available for perusal during daytime hours, but the majority of visitors are out at the temples or viewing the surrounding countryside.

Whether you drop into the Old Market during the day or at night you quickly realize there are about a dozen different booths offering different merchandise. Multiplied by a few hundred. Same stuff over and over again with far too much of the local handicrafts being made in Viet Nam and shipped in from Thailand. I’d visited the Old Market on my previous trip several years before, so I was pleased when reading a free ‘What To Do’ publication that there was a new night market in town. And it promised a selection of handcrafted goods not available anywhere else in Siem Reap.

Wooden souvenirs

Wooden souvenirs from Cambodia, made in Viet Nam.

Cambodians are as skilled as Thais at reading maps. Which wouldn’t be a problem except that skill level transfers over to making maps. The nice map included in the magazine made no sense so I manned up and asked the front desk clerk at my hotel for directions to the night market. “Which night market?” he asked. Yup, there’s more than one. Because in a town that covers maybe 12 small blocks downtown, a single spot to feed a touri’s shopping jones would make too much sense. So I pulled my handy little guide out and pointed to a picture. He smiled, and drew a simple diagram showing the route from my hotel to the market. Nice. And close. Out of curiosity I asked him where the other night market was. He smiled again and placed a big X right next to the spot he’d designated as the market I wanted to go to.

So if you are headed to the night market in Siem Reap, don’t be concerned about which is which because the first, the Noon-Night Market, just off Sivatha street, flows along and then dumps you at the entrance of the second, the Angkor Night Market. If you miss the large lit overhead sign of either, you won’t know that you just left one and entered the other. And if you can’t find either because you are trying to follow the map in the free What To Do guide, don’t despair: just head over to the Old Market instead; regardless of the market, they all sell the same stuff.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t bother trying to find the officially designated night market(s) as opposed to the market is just open at night or the night market that is also open during the day. Prices were surprisingly less there than you’ll find at the Old Market. T-shirts were a steal; everyone settled on the same deal displayed on a variety of homemade signs: Buy Four $8.00, Get One Free. (Cambodia uses the U.S. dollar; their version, the riel, is close to being worthless and is usually only handed out as change). Five T-shirts for eight bucks is cheap. And, their XL size really is XL. I loaded up; at that price they become disposable, their cost cheaper than what it would run to launder them. It’s doubtful they’d last through many washings anyway.

angkor night market stalls

Trinkets for sale under thatched huts @ Angkor Night Market.

If you are going to the night markets from the Pub Street area, the first market you come to is the Noon-Night Market, primarily storefronts running along both sides of the street with a few mini-arcades stretching deep into a few of the buildings. I ran across the first DVD store I’d seen in Cambodia at the Noon-Night Market, and like everything else in the country, prices were dirt cheap. The discs are undoubtedly pirated movies, eh, sue me. I bought the first two seasons of Torchwood, a British TV show I’d heard about but had not yet bothered to see, and ended up paying less than $1 per disc. The vendor carefully loaded each disc into a player showing me they all worked and were all the movie they were advertised to be while I enjoyed the shop’s air conditioning. Most illegal DVD sellers in Thailand do the same. The problem for an American is that most times they are not formatted for US players. As with the metric system, we don’t use the same system as the rest of the world. But I lucked out, they all worked when I got home. So DVDs that played at home and T-shirts that actually fit: damn! Thailand could learn a lesson from the Cambodian pirated goods industry.

At the end of the bustling street a dirt road separates the Noon-Night Market from the Angkor Night Market. This is the market advertising a different selection of merchandise, handcrafted items not available at the other markets. Maybe they mean not available at the other markets in Peru. To be fair, there were a few stalls offering something different, though most were stocked with the same stuff you’d already passed on back in town. But the vendors were all careful to tell you that they handcrafted their merchandise themselves, an obvious lie but told with such a straight face you had to give them a few points for the effort. And the Buy Four $8.00, Get One Free T-shirt signs were, technically, all handcrafted.

night market brew

Shopping for a brew at the night market.

The big difference at the Angkor Night Market is the layout. The shops are thatched huts strewn along a series of pebbled walkways. It is more aesthetically pleasing than the other markets in town and a cooler shopping experience, the layout allowing a gentle breeze to waft through the aisles. There are also two large bars inside toward the back so you can kick back and rest a bit, drink a few beers, and realize you’re back to doing exactly what you’d been trying to avoid doing by taking a night off to go shopping in the first place.

Angkor Wat: Still Life in the Still Life

23 Saturday Apr 2011

Posted by Bangkokbois in Cambodia

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Cambodia, Wats

angkor wat

Angkor Wat Reflection

Like ducks in a shooting gallery, spotted, sized up and claimed; the cross hairs zeroed in. All that is left is the baggin’ and taggin’. The sun is bright, the sky incredibly blue, the surrounding trees far too distant to cut the afternoon’s glare, and touri frolic happily under bullet holes, souvenirs of the locals’ attempt to claim what was already theirs; a skirmish of class as bloody as only a family squabble can be. Angkor Wat. The Big Kahuna of Cambodian wats. Its image flies on the country’s flag beckoning touri from all over the world, calling to those on the prowl for the historic and the exotic.

More than half of the visitors in Siem Reap head out to Angkor Wat for the sunrise. It’s the preferred time of day to visit the temple, the sun’s early play of colors but frosting on the cake. In my book it’s the worst time of day to visit unless you want to spend quality time with the hordes of backpackers you left puking in the gutters on Pub Street the night before. With no alarm set, no crowded bus to board, and a plan to laze the morning away in bed, I’ll miss the famous sunrise. No problemo. I can always Photoshop it in later.

By 10am I’m up, still an ungodly hour in my mind, but caffeine is a necessity and I’ve only an hour before Tony, my personal tuk tuk driver, guide, and fellow hangover enthusiast is scheduled to come puttering down the soi. Morning is officially over, but the local shopkeepers are used to the lazy ways of touri and getting a fresh cup of thick, rich coffee requires nothing more than plopping my ass into a chair at one of Siem Reap’s numerous street side cafes. Halfway through my third cup – so strong and black it would kill the unprepared – and just beginning to realize the world exists, Tony makes an unscheduled appearance. Early, a first for any Cambodian in the history of his country, he has hunted me down, though the task proved not to be a difficult one. At my invitation, he joins me for a cup, adding a teaspoon of coffee to his mug of sugar, our respective buzzes similar in effect, different in chemical origin.

Jacked and primed, we soon are off for the twenty minute ride to Angkor Wat, passing crews of old women, palm leaf brooms laggardly rearranging the dust that serves as a street in Siem Reap. Customer-less tuk tuk drivers already settling into the back of their rides for their first nap of the day line the road while a few blurry eyed touri greeting an even later dawn than I amble out into the malicious sun.

angkor wat entrance

Guardian lion at the gates.

Surprisingly, since Angkor Wat is the Main Event, the normal gaggle of snot nosed kids exhorting dollars from passing touri are absent from the entrance to the temple, their place held instead by huddled knots of Khmer seniors listlessly gathered in the shade, silently staring across the moat’s murky waters at a scene that once trumpeted the grandeur of their land. There are no signs pointing toward the path, no guides offering to show you the way, just a brick lined dusty causeway stretching out across the lake-size moat’s turgid water, birthing clusters of lotus apathetically blossoming vivid pink splashes of neon in the stifling heat of the afternoon sun.

Angkor Wat is a picture postcard of incredibly clear skies, jewel toned blues set off by the saffron robes of Buddhist monks, visitors to this historical temple competing for space with pale faced touri from foreign lands. Huge stone lions carved by artists who had never seen one guard the pathway leading across the outer moat. Their likeness frames the distant buildings, a mirage that rises with the heat, studded by a few solitary palm trees stretching skyward serving as pathetic reminders of the tropical locale, the humidity that presses down upon you like the guilty conscious of a convict’s rank soul a better indictaion of Cambodia’s climatical disposition.

khmer seniors

What the old folk do.

The long walk across the causeway suggests a quick pace, a scramble toward the shade of the ancient temple’s sandstone walls, only to find on arrival it is but an illusion. I’m only halfway there, Angkor Wat’s temples and galleries are still another distance off, another causeway to pass over, this one spanning the breadth of an ocean of sunburnt grass, the dust and heat competing for space in the air with an army of dragonflies zeroing in on the few splashes of color that decorate the parched brushland.

But the shade is real and I pause long enough to be cooled, and then amused by a cigarette smoking monk, his ragged robes a dusty gold, legs dangling over the edge of rough hewn block as he laughs a non-monk like roar over something some local says to him. The tone of his laughter tells me he is not laughing with him, but at him, possibly having been scolded, as he lights another smoke off the glowing butt of the one held between his nicotine stained fingers. A flash of blue out of the corner of my eye grabs my attention. A shade of turquoise the gods never considered dandifies a Khmer wedding party posing for formal pictures in traditional attire. Hair, make up, and shiny fabric of no natural origin, solemn faces more appropriate for a wake, form a scene of Daliesque garishness captured for posterity; a photographic reminder of a day spent melting in the heat while flocks of touri snapped pictures to show friends and family back home.

Khmer Bride and Groom

Khmer Bride and Groom

Local men illegally posing as tour guides troll the touri hordes for prospective customers, offering a quick synopsis of what lies ahead. Their spiel like the trailer for a B Movie, offering up all the good parts before a ticket is sold, I pass on the con. I’m not interested in details, the historic record, or modern day man’s version of what the ancient ones intended in building the spatial temple. The Ankgor Wat experience for me will be the ambiance I soak up rambling through the site. If need be I can make up my own stories far richer than the version the touts think touri want to hear. But one hopeful points out the bullet holes decorating the temple’s facade, an offering from the Khmer Rouge I’d have missed on my own.

Past a pair of naga performing their serpentine duty flanking a set of laterite stairs, I climb over and then down again through a dank gallery of little note, the last half of a lengthy hike still before me. Baking in the sun, I stop under the limbs of a few straggling trees, their sheltering shade unable to offer cover for both my head and feet as I rest against a stone balustrade, my presence signally an army of red ants that fresh meat is near. Monks on tour pass by in groups offering photo op after photo op with the main temple as backdrop. A chubby little monk with a green sash accenting his robes stops and smiles, pantomiming his desire to take my picture. Exoticism is in the eye of the beholder. Trudging onward I reach the temple and the first of far too many knee high thresholds that will make this visit more strenuous than an hour spent on a Stairmaster.

Inside I’m greeted by a twenty foot tall statue of Buddha displaying Shiva’s eight arms in mass array. Angkor Wat, the world’s largest religious building, was originally dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu at the time it was built in the first half of the 12th century as Suryavarman II’s state temple and capital city, redounding his name and securing his place in Cambodia’s history. Following wars and the internal squabbles that have plagued the Khmer people throughout their history, the temple gradually moved from Hindu to Theravada Buddhist use. The imagery of the two religions compete and often merge throughout the galleries and quincunx of towers at the compound’s midst. Extensive decoration, predominantly bas-relief friezes, cover the inner walls depicting a series of large-scale scenes from the Hindu epic the Ramayana. The bas-relief work is a major draw for many touri though the monochromatic spread of artwork does little for me. Larger, highlighted carvings, a bevy of young nubile dancing girls to serve the King – European in form and Thai in function – are of more interest but still can not compete with the gargantuan carved heads of nearby Angkor Thom.

In the middle of the compound a steep set of stairs rise, edging the shrine’s central tower some 150 feet high. Most visitors stand in awe staring at the brave and foolish souls making the trek skyward. An obese German sex tourist, his Thai gogo girlfriend trailing behind and ruing her demands for a free trip to a neighboring country, insists they make the pilgrimage. Her six inch come fuck me heels make it an impossible task. Slipping them off, barefoot, she gamely follows his fat ass, a hemisphere of its own, upward. If she is as eager to please in bed, he’s found himself a winner. A telling demonstration of what a Thai will undergo in her attempt to land a husband she can later dump after making it to his home country and sucking off his life savings, her sacrifice a boon to her family’s future.

angkor wat janitor

Janitor’s Journey

Not as fortunate in age or gender, a gnarled old Khmer man bent with age carefully picks his way down the same narrow precipitous steps, stair by stair, balancing woven bamboo baskets of trash, his broom used as a cane. His fortune for the day the heavy toil of cleaning up after visitors to his country’s pride and architectural masterpiece.

I make a circuit through the stone corridors that form a perimeter around the temple, pieces of Buddha littering the sandstone floors worn smooth by the passage of millions of pilgrims and hundreds of years. Sun filled plazas peak into the shadows, most abandoned, some peopled by faux nuns who man small shrines obtaining offerings for the gods and wages for their families from touri willing to trade a dollar or two for a blessing. A candle’s flickering flame barely illuminates a long dark hallway, enticing me into its cool duskiness where yet another local has set up his shrine. His smile, the only facial feature I can make out in the dim light, widens as I approach. His shrine is small, a remanent of a statute of Buddha draped in orange lame cloth, the single tallow candle casting minimal light on the obligatory plate for monetary offerings. He forcibly thumps his chest and smiles. I nod thinking, “Got it. Your shrine.” until again he beats upon himself. Maybe the smile isn’t friendliness or even eagerness for some cash, but a state of craziness in this man who spends his day standing alone in the dark. Thump, yet again, and I notice his stance: ear cocked. When he strikes himself again I hear the echo resonating down the hall. Seeing the fear fade as realization comes into my eyes, he pushes me to stand with my back against the wall so that I too can participate in the masochistic echo trick. My hearty thump produces a weaker echo. And a cough. I really need to quit smoking. I leave him a generous tip and collect yet another knotted yarn bracelet as a blessing, my wrist now sprouting an entire rainbow.

angkor wat nun

Buddhist Nun tends her shrine.

Wandering out to sit on a shaded portico, despite the presence of hundreds, I’m alone and able sit in peace enjoying the momentary serenity, the aura of the ancient temple imparting a sense of wonderment and conveying a reverent soothing to my soul. But at the prime viewing spots, touri gather, groups of Japanese visitors forming a herd and hoarding the available space. Camera in hand, lenses bulging in a bag hanging from my shoulder, I’m often asked to take someone’s picture. They assume I’ll agree because my face fails to match my demeanor. And as often, I take the camera extended toward me, turn, and begin walking away just for the pleasure of the momentary flash of panic on their face. I’m easily amused.

Having spent hours circling the compound searching for the best shot of the day, it’s time to brave the sun again and I debate the wisdom of seeking shelter in the only shade available on the long trek back. Lines of stalls selling the same crap I’ve seen at every wat in the area huddle under the only strand of trees. A few places offering food, drink, and cooling shelter are buried at the far end. The need to hydrate settles the matter. Decision made, I find my way immediately blocked by a pair of women holding out useless woven blankets, either for sale or in supplication. I smile, or maybe sneer, in their direction and angle off the path to a small pond, its mirrored surface dotted with lotus blossoms, a popular spot to photograph the wat’s reflection.

A circuitous route to avoid the souvenir vendors takes me to the furthest food stall, allowing some degree of tranquility and back to the wall seating to keep a wary eye on the trolling merchants. Along with the bottle of water I order, a timid, grubby faced urchin selling postcards arrives, her shy smile showing she doesn’t have the aggressive marketing act down quite yet. In what is becoming a tradition for me in Cambodia, I barter away her sale for a photograph. She understands the need for a smile, but still proffers her dog-eared book of postcards unsure if whether or not they too are included in the deal.

angkor wat postcard kid

The beautiful eyes of a postcard selling urchin.

A young woman hovering nearby, emboldened by the little girl’s good fortune, meanders over and introduces herself as Sophon. We chat about the weather, the wat, the dwindling number of tourists since Bush broke the world. I buy her a drink, compliment her on her English and she tells me of a Dutchman – man from Dutch as she puts it – who has befriended her on his frequent trips to Cambodia. An older gent, he helps her with her English and has offered to pay for her schooling. She’s not sure if she should trust him; she’s not sure if his offer of assistance comes from a good heart or a more nefarious purpose is in mind. Cambodia has recently passed legislation that bans foreigners over the age of 50 from marrying a local woman; even the government realizes the value of the country’s only export. I’d like to tell her to be more trusting of the world, but an old guy, comely young girl, and frequent visits to SE Asia arouse my suspicions too.

Eventually she owns up to having a stall. Number 53, though the number of booths are only in the dozens. Sophon invites me to come look at her wares, then at my lack of interest resorts to pitiful begging. Because I am her customer. She explains the cluster of merchants have devised a system to allocate potential customers among their number. As touri are spotted walking across the causeway on their way to the temple, they are singled out, identified, and claimed. I’d been designated ‘Old Army Man’, and I was hers, and hers alone, to fleece. Fleetingly offended at the ‘old’ moniker, the army part makes sense: I’m wearing khaki colored pants, an army green shirt, and my favorite hiking boots bought in Spain decades ago that have travelled the world often enough to have earned frequent flyer miles of their own.

angkor wat

Angkor Wat Sandbox

Realizing her next opportunity for a potential customer is far down the rotation, I acquiesce and she leads me to her booth brimming with merchandise I’ve seen a hundred times before. But I crouch down to paw through a plastic basket of metal knick knacks anyway, each piece probably worth twenty-five cents. I figure Sophon will ask for ten dollars, I’ll settle for five, though it would be easier to just pass over some cash and feel my duty has been done. Instead she tries to gouge me for 30 bucks, increasing the trinket’s implied worth by lying, “It old.”

Amused, I point at a badly painted canvas, a rural scene done in oils and saturated in colors not evident in Cambodia’s natural landscape. The potential for bigger bucks brings a gleam to her eyes and she quotes a $75 price, upping the value of the art with a claim it’s been painted by her brother, who must be quite proficient as I’ve already seen the same painting several times in town. With a $10.00 price tag attached. Concern for her plight gets erased by her greed and I tell her I’m sorry but her merchandise is beyond the depth of my wallet. Shaking my head, I walk back to the causeway as she sarcastically shouts at my back, “You want free then!?”

I’m not sure if her comment alludes to her merchandise or to the only other thing she has of value to offer an old farang, but her disappointment that so quickly turned to anger makes me wonder if her man from Dutch has yet experienced the shrew hidden in her soul.

Possibly Tony, my tuk tuk driver, too has identified me as Old Army Man as he has spotted me among the touri throngs far enough in advance that by the time I reach the street and my waiting ride he has bought an ice cold bottle of water to offer as I hop into his ancient machine for the ride back to Siem Reap and another night crawling through the bars on Pub Street.

angkor wat

Blue Sky, Saffron Robes.

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Fear and Loathing in Phnom Penh: Siem Reap / Postcard from the Edge

29 Tuesday Mar 2011

Posted by Bangkokbois in Cambodia, Travel Tales from Beyond Thailand

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Expat

“I am a sick man . . . I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased.” -Fyodor Dostoevsky

Siem Reap. Cambodia. I’ve been channeling the good Doctor – Hunter S Thompson – on this trip. But it’s a Dostoevsky line that slams into the cells of my brain as I sit on the patio of Le Grande Cafe, one of Siem Reap’s numerous outdoor bistros, struggling to remember the date, the day, the reason I exist. It is late in the morning, the touri hordes have yet to descend upon the town. Still ensconced in their buses, shepherded to yet another ancient, crumbling temple they’ll only get to enjoy amidst the pandemonium of a few hundred of their fellow travellers; a raucous scrum jockeying for the best view, the best photo, first in line to get back on the bus. But the beggars are out, blatantly displaying their deformities. Missing appendages, a tragedy yes, but a boon if you need to pull at the heart strings of foreign visitors whose pockets bulge with riel. An amputated arm, stick thin legs, or twisted spine guarantee a windfall. A handful of change paid in appeasement, soothing the guilty conscious of Westeners who can only assume their nations hold some responsibility for the locals’ deplorable state. I’m on my second, or is it third, cup of coffee. Caffeine is coursing through my veins, slowly jump-starting my lethargic mental state. I’m almost there. Almost awake. Almost aware.

I pop another valium, a looming habit addictive as eating M&M’s. A counter to the effect of the caffeine, a hazy veil to enshroud my consciousness. It’s balance I seek: my body alive, nerve endings afire, my mind in sluggish motion like the cafe’s ceiling fans languorously stirring up the dust that coats this parochial town. An aimlessness in both purpose and spirit. Am I turning into a drug fiend? No Not me. I’m not to blame. The fault lays with Siem Reap, a bucolic setting that commends peace within. Harmony. Stillness. A centering of your wa. The constant reminder that death and disfigurement wait just steps off the path, a harsh juxtaposition. Cambodia offers no shades of grey. It’s black or white, good or evil, kill or be killed. It causes my psyche to ache for the means to drop kick the edge off reality. But I have yet to achieve the drug induced state that will quell my cognitive process. It is my only goal for the day. The Doctor would approve.

Early for me, not too late in the morning for the rest of the world, the sun has yet to reach it’s zenith, still angling its rays across the dusty street, spilling its warmth onto the cafe’s cobblestone floor. The serenity of the morning is jarred. An undercurrent of cataclysmic proportions envelopes the street. Like a scene from a bad spaghetti western an apparition appears backlit by the sun: a haloed band of farangs, well past middle age, raucously stumbling their way across the dust ridden street, not so much weaving through the traffic as daring to be hit, their beer bloated bodies surely a winning match against the rickety bikes and decrepid motorcycles the locals load with entire families, goods from the market, and fowl for future meals. Each of the farang clings to a can of Angkor Beer, craftily hidden in a brown paper bag, a life ring to keep them afloat in the turgid existence that life has cast their way. Muscle T’s that yearn for muscles, plaid shorts in need of a wash weeks ago, black socks that only serve to heighten the paleness of their hairless legs. The tall one has a faded blue tattoo running down his leg, the design more appropriate to someone a good forty years younger. Rummy eyes hidden behind cheap sunglasses they take up position at the table on the corner. Expats. Why is it that you can immediately pick out the cantankerous old alcoholic farang who have taken up residence from those only passing through?

What traumatic event is it in their past that makes them want to soak that motherfucker in amber fluid that roasts your tongue as it courses down your gullet and sends its radiant message of hope and love to the far precincts of your body and numbs out your mind with the buzz of alcoholic bliss? What is the causation that results in an attraction to a foreign land where they’ll live out the golden years of their lives soaking up equal parts of torpid sun and cheap gin, a locale they’ll never consider home and which will never consider them to be anything more than a ravenous tick sucking at its life blood, a blight that plants its obese ass squarely on your chest like a fat black cat asleep in the night? Is there within me that germinating seed that could easily blossom into my being called to join their ranks? Is this sad existence to become my fate?

Siem Reap Ruins

Siem Reap Ruins

I try to avoid the thought with as much determination as the locals display in trying to avoid the sudden presence on their street that mimics the effect of a great white settling into a new cove. Tranquility lost. Danger sensed. Turquoise blue waters soon to be stained a bloody red. Wary of the peril, they make themselves scarce. Urchins cut a wide swath to avoid them, scurrying off to safer shores, leaving a sense of having sailed too close to the wind in their wake. Tuk Tuk drivers give up their chase for customers; a nap under a shady tree a safe and more unassailable position. Deformed beggars disappear fearful of their bodies being victimized yet again. You can almost hear the theme to Jaws echoing through the town. No one wants to take a chance. No one wants to sleep on the volcano that erupts within these guy’s souls. No one wants their bad karma to rub off on them.

They amuse themselves at the expense of a beggar who didn’t get away, his limbs incapable of the speed needed to avert disaster. Their laughter not of humor but of boredom. I start to object before my anesthetized mind can still my sense of outrage in favor of safety. But as my feet plant squarely on the floor, I see worn, multicolored bills passed. Their entertainment paid for. The beggar content. They know and are known.

The waitress who won the unlucky lottery of having them take up residence at her station ignores their presence, hoping they’ll disappear, or that maybe the Khmer Rouge will make a guest appearance and bring their bloody act to town yet again. But it’s not to be. Their patience and lack of purpose rule the day. Summoning every shred of courage to her aid, she approaches, her order pad a shield against their abuse. As boisterous as they’ve been in their revelry, I cannot hear their order. Shots to wash down the tepid beer? A bottle of amber gold to match the morning’s festering mood?

The staff shows an alertness, attentiveness, and speed unfamiliar to my experience in this somnolent town that holds a place of honor for any local moving slower than a snail on quaaludes. The waitress returns, careful steps balancing the weight of a serving tray heavy with their order. Served, beer abandoned like a cheap whore who dropped her last hit of crack down the sewer drain, the toothless old coots fall upon their feast like jackals devouring the last scrapes of flesh off the carcass of a fallen wilder beast.

The still lingering effect of my previous night out crawling through the bars on Pub Street dims. My fourth cup of coffee serves to clear my befuddled mind, allowing for a splinter of clarity, a momentary spark of lucidity. The scrim drops from sense and place. The lardaceous mounds of soggy fried foods laden with grease and promising to further clog their already hardening arteries that I’d envisioned dissolve into a kaleidoscopic tableau of ice cream, piled high in chilled glasses, dripping with sugary toppings festooned with tropical fruit; a confetti of chilled confections sweetly strewn across the table. A kids party of vacationing seniors happily gumming their frozen desserts takes stage. The bats take wing.

Fuck I need a drink.

I leave the old folk to their just desserts, moving off down the street past the market and its swarm of flies gliding on the waft of putrid fumes rising off what already is no longer fresh meat. Concentrating on the tedious process of laying one foot down after the other, I head back to my hotel where Tony, my tuk tuk driver, waits. My lack of a morning in Siem Reap but an ill conceived memory gladly left behind.

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Cruising Tonle Sap, Or, Look Mom, No Hands!

22 Tuesday Mar 2011

Posted by Bangkokbois in Cambodia, Travel Tales from Beyond Thailand

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Cambodia

Siem Reap Bath Tub Kid

Paddling In Circles

OK, I’m going straight to hell for that one . . .

Cambodia is filled with undiscovered land mines left over from the war in the 70s (and minor local skirmishes since). They’ve progressed nicely in finding and getting rid of lots, but still most guide books warn you against straying off the beaten path to avoid being blown to pits. Unfortunately the locals don’t read guide books. You see vast numbers missing appendages from playing with mines. Which has turned into a local cottage industry.

The streets of Siem Reap are overrun with amputees selling books about Cambodia from carts they wheel about. Begging is rough in Siem Reap if you are not missing at least one hand, arm, or leg. On the walk into the ancient wat Ta Prohm, there is a small clearing with a local band made up of land mine victims . . . donations accepted and CD’s for sale (I’d make a joke out of the skill level of the drum players missing arms, but too many of y’all would get pissed). There are dozens of variations of land mine danger T shirts for sale, as well as cups and mouse pads. OK, sometimes they local folk just don’t quite hit the mark in touri offerings.

Which brings us to my journey to Tonle Sap and a river cruise. Tonle Sap is a large lake fed by the Mekong River about a half hour outside of Siem Reap. My tuk tuk driver, Tony, suggested going for a cruise as a touri must-do event. Seemed like a good break from touring wats, so I agreed. Off we sped down dusty bumpy roads to the embarkation point; a narrow river meandering through piles of garbage and smelly areas of mud and debris. Quite picturesque!

tonle sap

Tony negotiated a price for the trip up the river with a boatman, and then renegotiated when I suggested he come along. Cost was under $20 for both of us on a boat with seating for about 25 (missing the other 23 passengers). Ten minutes out, the banks cleared up and waterborne housing appeared. Houses, schools, stores, churches . . . all built on floats tethered to the shore. Nowadays the floating village is mostly made up of families from Viet Nam who fled here after the war. They are allowed to stay, I think, because the Cambodians make money off of taking touri out to see the village. The villagers make money by fishing. For fish and for cash from the visiting touri. As your boat strategically slows at certain spots, the locals come paddling out, racing their fellow villagers to sell refreshments, usually bananas. I don’t know why they decided the proper bait for catching touri is bananas. But that’s what they all use. It must work. After the first vendor attack, and in preparation for slowing for the second, via Tony’s translation skills, I convinced our boat driver to just keep on going. No bananas for me. No bucks for them. Disappointment all around.

After cruising to the middle of the lake, we headed back. But had to stop at one of the local crocodile farm / restaurant / fruit stand/ trinket places that line the banks at the mouth of the lake. I tried to get the driver to pass on, but both he and Tony felt I really needed to see one of these places and were quite encouraging about my doing so. Figuring that meant they both would make a buck from the stop, I agreed.

tonle sap

Stopping at one of these places is a signal for all the locals to swarm to the large floating emporium to sell you more bananas (which are also offered for sale on the boat). And paddling like crazy off starboard are the picture taking opportunity bathtub brigade kids. I’d heard about this scam incredibly delightful slice of daily floating village life before, and thought it’d be a good photo op regardless of its commercialization. Seems a decade or so ago some local kid paddled by in a wash tub and got his picture taken by a touri and earned a tip. Now there are dozens of youngsters floating about, doing what Cambodians do best: begging for money. I climbed to the top deck of the barge to shoot down upon one energetic little fellow (thinking I’d get the shot and be far enough away to not have to pay him for it – not that I’m cheap, I just hate to encourage such brash commercialism. Okay. I’m cheap). Wasn’t until I zoomed in on the boy waving from his wash tub that I discovered he was yet another victim of a land mine.

I’m not sure if it was his friendly attitude, the effort of one-hand rowing, or just plain guilt on my part, but this kid’s plight touched me. So after taking his picture I climbed back down to water level and gave him the pocketful of riel that had been pawned off on me over the last day. Major coup for the kid. Then, my feeling of compassion and love for my fellow man dissolved as dozens of his brethren came swarming over with their hands out, figuring they’d found a gullible touri to fleece.

So while in Cambodia, watch out for land mines, and watch out for locals bearing bananas – both can be equally hazardous!

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Fear and Loathing in Phnom Penh: Peace and Quiet At Angkor Thom

15 Tuesday Mar 2011

Posted by Bangkokbois in Cambodia, Travel Tales from Beyond Thailand

≈ Comments Off on Fear and Loathing in Phnom Penh: Peace and Quiet At Angkor Thom

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Cambodia, Monks, Wats

Angkor Thom

Angkor Thom Early Light

We were somewhere around Angkor Thom on the edge of the jungle when the drugs began to take hold. Yes, I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to rip off Hunter Thompson’s most famous opening line, modified for the setting. My second visit to Cambodia, this one centering on a trip to Phnom Penh, and channeling Hunter is unavoidable; Cambodia simmers with a Dalisque aura. Hunter would have been in ecstacy. But I’ve gotten ahead of myself. Let’s go back to daybreak.

The hotel was dark and the neighborhood quiet as I made my way down to the lobby to meet my tuk tuk driver Tony for a day exploring the ancient temples outside of Siem Reap. It was early. The local roosters had not yet started their insistent crowing. I felt a minor pang of guilt at having to wake the bell hop to unlock the gate at the front of the hotel’s compound for me. While you sleep, a padlock protects you from the dangers of the Cambodian night. I knew from my previous trip to Siem Reap that a predawn start was necessary to see the wats before thousands of touri descend upon them. More importantly, I was hoping to avoid the gaggle of snot nosed grubby Khmer kids that wait in mass at the entrance to every major historical site in Cambodia, pestering you to buy their postcards and books.

Tony was running late. Cambodian time. But the country’s torpid life-style had already creeped into my system, so I was mellow and unconcerned about the time passing as I sipped my coffee, sharing the small soi with nothing but a few sleeping dogs. My plan was to head to Angkor Thom and the Bayon Temple first. Angkor Wat, its larger and more prestigious cousin, is a more popular spot to catch the sunrise. But I’m not a morning person. Sharing that moment with hundreds of my fellow travelers just didn’t have an appeal. And I prefer the Bayon’s ruins and colossal heads in any case.

Angkor Thom Bayon

Bayon Face

Half an hour later Tony came puttering up the street, the unmuffled engine of his tuk tuk waking the dogs from their slumber. He was drunk. Or hung over. Somewhere in between the two. A friend’s sister had been married the night before and Tony had been out partying into the early hours. The normal vividness of the whites of his eyes had a dark and bruised look about them. Being chauffeured through 1,000 year old temples by a drunk native fit Cambodia perfectly. I dropped a valium, took the last sip of my cooling coffee and climbed aboard for the 20 minute ride to the Angkor Wat complex’s main gate.

The weather was perfect, just a slight bit of chill in the morning air. The locals were bundled up in heavy coats. Freezing for them, not quite the ‘work up a sweat from simply breathing’ humidity typical of SE Asia for me. A perfect time to hit the entrance, we’d missed the sunrise multi-bus caravan and beat the after-breakfast crowd. You need to buy a pass to visit the various wats within the complex. A one day pass runs $20 and it’s issued with your picture on it so you can’t later pass it off to a friend. Hard to scam a scammer in Cambodia. The process of getting the pass only took 5 minutes. Hit the entrance booths with the crowds and it can take an hour or more. There are also 3 and 7 days passes available, but I was taking it one day at a time. Who knew what I’d feel like doing tomorrow? No reason to add a sense of urgency to the lazy days of bucolic bliss ahead.

Everyone warns you about the danger of land mines in Cambodia. No one warns you about the potholes. I think the latter do more damage. Tony tried slowing and avoiding the worst. More out of concern for the hangover induced throbbing in his head than for my comfort. No problemo. And thank you Hunter: we were somewhere around Angkor Thom on the edge of the jungle when the drugs began to take hold. And my body was pothole proof.

Angkor is Khmer for city. Thom? Dunno. Maybe some guy’s name. Angkor Thom comprises a large area of land with several well known temples and ancient structures. The most impressive being the Bayon. Most touri say Angkor Thom when they mean the Bayon. Most say Angkor Wat when they are getting ready to make a bad pun. And you’re welcome; I haven’t yet done so. They’ll also say Angkor Wat when they mean Siem Reap (the town closest to the temples). Angkor Wat is a temple. It is also the name of the complex that covers all of the main wats outside of Siem Reap; that includes Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. It’d be confusing if anyone really cared.

Angkor Thom

South Gate Demons

Most touri enter Angkor Thom through the South gate. It’s an impressive entrance. The street is lined with Hindu cosmology and imagery, one side flanked with demons, the opposing side with gods. The forces of good and evil play out the same regardless of one’s religious preference. Tony pulled over to attempt summonsing up enough energy to spout the typical touri intro speech. I took pity on him, reminded him I’d been there before, and waved him on. No need to stop, there were bigger heads just up the road.

The Bayon in the morning light is an impressive sight. Shadowed stone walkways give way to massive quarried columns alive with the morning sun. The lower levels of the temple are reminiscent of the crumbled ruins of ancient Rome The sight of a saffron robed monk picking his way over the jumble of ruins reminds you you’re in Asia. A photographer’s wet dream. I’m in heaven as I stumble through dark passages and climb the steep narrow laterite stairs to be greeted by gargantuan, enigmatic grinning faces, the pride and prime focus of the Bayon.

Angkor Thom

Monk Amongst the Ruins

There are 54 massive sandstone towers at the Bayon, each bearing carved stone heads displaying serene expressions, closed eyelids and thick, slightly curled lips, They stare out over the surrounding jungle. Some say they are Buddhas, others the likeness of King Jayavarman VII who had the temple built in what was his capital city. The less argumentive claim the faces are a combination of the two. Make up your own story. Chances are you’ll be just as correct. Some are close enough to touch. Others soar over head. New facades come into view as you turn each corner. A local man demands I sit on the deteriorating ledge of a stone window to have my photo taken nose to nose with one of the immense smiling heads. A trick of perception and camera angles. He’s too insistent for me to refuse. And then doesn’t ask for a tip after the shot has been taken. That’s Cambodia: the urchins guarding the entrance demand extortion for useless postcards, the picture of you at the Bayon is free.

It’s early enough in the day the temple has yet to see the thousands of touri it will experience in just a few short hours. I share the ruins with a tour group from Japan, not usually my favorite brand of touri as they are rude, pushy, and travel in herds. But this is a small group. Buddhist monks and their guide. They are dressed in deep plum colored robes and I take more photos of them than I do of the surrounding structures. My wet dream just became a deluge of orgiastic pleasure. I love taking pictures of monks.

Angkor Thom Monks

Purple Robed Prayers

Deep within the temple’s dark crevasses, old women playing the role of nuns maintain small shrines. From my previous visit I knew the drill. Stop, kneel, light some incense and say a quick prayer. Drop a few riel in the box. The more generous of mind will consider this making merit. The more realistic know that it’s but a bribe to be allowed to take their picture. My thousand riel donation earns me yet another colorful yarn bracelet to add to my growing collection. I’ve been blessed, yet again. And it only cost me a quarter.

Angkor Thom Shrine

Guardian of the Shrine

I spend hours at the Bayon, circling the temple again and again, taking different paths up and down the narrow corridors each time. New vistas greet me on each round; new photo ops appear at every angle. Lichen litters the walls that spend the day in shadows. The elements have conspired to paint the stone the colors of the Louisiana swamp. Dusky greens give way to brittle roots of brown, evidence of vegetation that tried to once gain hold. Surprising hues of purple stretch across the archways overhead. On the plazas its a monochromatic world of grey occasionally broken by faded orange cloth draped on stumps of decaying statues of Buddha. By the time I hop off the last sandstone block, the sun has begun to beat mercilessly down through the sparsely planted trees. A touri glides by on the back of an elephant. An old Khmer woman stops sweeping the walkway to pose while I take her picture.

Angkor Thom Nun

Angkor Thom Nun

I rest for awhile under the skimpy shade of an silk tree, chatting with an old Aussie guy, an expat living in Viet Nam. His hands are full of postcards and he bitches about the local brats blocking the temple’s entrance demanding ‘only one dollah, sir!’ to allow him to pass. I laugh and think, “Yeah, and you just added to the problem.”

A middle-aged English woman approaches me in panic. Her’s was an unexpected trip while visiting a son in Bangkok. She’d borrowed his camera; the batteries are dead. She wants to know if I have any to spare. What, I look like a 7/11? It’s probably not an unusual occurrence, and those damn ragamuffins could be making a killing selling batteries instead of books. But that would make too much sense. This is Cambodia after all.

Signs lead you past the Phimeanakas temple, a smaller pyramidal wat, past the Terrace of the Elephants, and over the ruins of the Terrace of the Leper King. It’s not like you have a choice or need directions; you have to go this way to get to where the tuk tuk drivers wait for their customers. The last part of the trail conveniently takes you away from the main road and through a gauntlet of merchants, aggressively pushing bad paintings, poorly carved statues, knick knacks proudly bearing the stamp ‘Made in China’, and yes, more postcards and books. I try a new response for variety if nothing else. “Not shopping today!” I say, only to have a disgruntled vendor sneeringly repeat my refrain to her neighbor. I stop at the next stall to browse for a while, just to piss her off.

As the walkway lined with stalls crammed full of cheap trinkets snakes back toward the road, I head off in the opposite direction. Yes, the road not taken and all that jazz. A small compound nestled in the trees waits just around the bend. Buddhist monks sit on the verandahs of crumbling wood structures that look incapable of bearing their weight. Further in a local man squats in supplication, his hands forming a reverent wai before a young monk who is dumping pan after pan of water over his head. Washing away his sins? Or is that too Christian of an interpretation? I know it’s a photo few touri will get to take.

Angkor Thom Monk

Water Blessing

I brave the final mob of sellers and mafioso rug rats to get to where Tony and his tuk tuk wait. “Postcard for you, sir,” the little demons cry. “Only one dollah,” as they follow along not willing to give up the chase.

One little girl with beautiful eyes and a dirt smeared face tags along beside me, her hands empty of the usual paraphernalia. She smiles sweetly and in her sing song English offers, “Sir! For one dollah I give you pees and quite.” Sold. I laugh and hand her a pocketful of worthless riel. She beams, and makes good on her promise. I walk off alone in the quiet afternoon, savoring my good luck and the silence I’ve paid for. 

Angkor Thom

Nose to Nose @ the Bayon

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