When I announced my intended destination to Japanese friends and colleagues, their shock was palpable. It should be noted that many people don't travel around Japan, much less pack up and travel abroad. I'm still surprised every time I tell someone, "I'm going to Place X this weekend. Have you visited there?," and their response is no. When discussing bucket lists with my adult eikaiwa group, we talked a lot about places we want to travel, and Mr. M asked me why I wasn't more interested in going to Europe. His attitude seemed to be, "Why would you want to go to Asia or someplace like Egypt, when you could go to France or Italy instead?"
"NO THANKS, YOU BUY"
We prepped for our Cambodian adventure by buying large amounts of sunscreen, researching local foods, reading some books, starting a malaria prophylaxis regimen, and watching Tomb Raider. We also received a lot of advice from friends and family, who all gave glowing accounts of their time in Cambodia...save one. "It was grand," said Paul, "But there's quite a lot of people trying to take advantage of you, so you have to be cold and hard sometimes. Elizabeth shouldn't have a problem with that, but the rest of you should toughen up." He was right about one thing- we were inundated by requests for money; however, I think BAL and I tied for being most hardened to the pleas. What's interesting is the tack people take in Cambodia, beggars and professionals alike.
Our cab driver from the Siem Reap airport (which is super swank, by the way) was very friendly, until he started trying to pigeonhole us into hiring him as our driver during our stay. Since we hadn't definitively decided where we would go first the next day or what time we would start, we told him that we'd be happy to call him after we'd discussed our plans. Would he give us his phone number? He told us that he couldn't give us his number, that he doesn't get mobile service in his home, but that he could still come meet us the next day. This went on for some time, back and forth, while he dropped other bits of information, like, "There are over 200 cab drivers in Siem Reap and this is the low season. If I'm lucky, maybe I will get one job a week. So I can come by your hotel at whatever time tomorrow you want." Finally, we told him that we couldn't commit at that moment, and unless he gave us a way to contact him, that was all we could say. We sat in near silence for the rest of the drive, and as we got close to the hotel, we thanked him for his help. "Don't thank me, give me a job!" he exploded. The next day, a young girl selling postcards by Angkor Wat said something similar to me. She was trying to get me to buy her wares, and I told her, "No, thank you. I'm OK." Without missing a beat, she said authoritatively, "You OK, but I not OK! No [say] thanks, I want you to buy!"
I've been to a lot of poor countries, and I've seen a lot of people begging for money. Some are trying to sell things, as they do in Cambodia ("We don't want money! We want a job!" says one sign in Phnom Penh), while others are flat-out looking for charity. But I've never been anyplace (China, India, Central and South America, Europe, etc.) where people were trying to guilt you into handing over your cash. Their reasoning is that because you have money and are in their country, you should be giving it to them. It is true that these people live unimaginably hard lives, and yes, it would be great if my $1 for a bunch of postcards helped that girl's family. But where the children are concerned, at least, they don't keep any of the money they are given. LAL would buy something from small children, and as we walked away, a man who had been lurking behind a tree or in the shadows would walk out, hand outstretched, and take the money from the child. Then the kid would go back to work. At first I was discouraged by these scenarios, and then eventually became outright irritated. Wherever you go, there is someone hovering over you, trying to get you to buy something, or to pay them to do something for you, and they will keep pressing you until you walk away, and they will make you feel bad about it if you say no.
Money turned out to be a major recurring theme of our trip. The Cambodian currency is officially the riel, but everyone accepts US dollars. It's rather disconcerting to pay for something in American currency, and to receive in change a mix of dollars and riel (the riel substitutes for US coins). We jokingly dubbed riel "Monopoly money," because $0.50 in change often resulted in a wad of riel bills being passed our way. Interestingly, dollars are very common in Siem Reap, but riel are more frequently used in the capital, Phnom Penh.
Money is a constant concern and topic of conversation in Cambodia. Our tuk tuk driver told us several times (enviously, it seemed) about a friend of his who was moving to Korea for 4 years to work in a factory. "He will earn $1,000 a year!" he said, shaking his head in wonder. There are very few fixed prices (other than restaurants, hotels, etc.), so often you find yourself haggling for the price of a taxi, or goods at a market, and having to figure out what the fair price should be. The LAs, generous as they are, were more willing to pay the inflated prices than I (I'm too German for that), which means we probably got ripped off most of the time we were in Cambodia. When we bought souvenirs or gifts for people, our tuk tuk driver and others would ask us how much we had paid for the goods. It's an awkward conversation to tell someone that you just paid 2/3 of the cost for hiring a driver for the day on local spices for your friends.
HEAVEN ON EARTH
The site known as Angkor Wat the world's largest religious building and is actually one in a series of temples built in what is today known as the Angkor Archaeological Park. Angkor is supposed to be an earthly representation of Mt. Meru, which Hindus regard as the home of the gods. Indeed, most of the temples were originally built for Hindu gods, and the art is very Indian as a result. Statues dedicated to Vishnu, Ganesha, and Shiva are everywhere. However, at some point, Jayavaraman VII, one of the latest and greatest devarajas (god-kings) converted to Buddhism, so the later structures are filled with Buddhas.
The temples of Angkor Archaeological Park range in size, style and state of preservation. Some, like Ta Prohm (infamously captured in the film "Tomb Raider"), have been swallowed by the jungle. Others are more exquisitely preserved thanks to efforts by India, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and others. Whether intact or in ruins, the entire site is a dream come true for anyone who, like me, dreamed as a child of discovering a lost city or being the next Indiana Jones or Howard Carter. We spent 4 days exploring the various structures, and there are too many places and experiences to name. Here are a few highlights:
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| Ta Prohm |
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| Inside Angkor Wat |
- At Preah Khan, one of the temple guardians led me through a maze of caved-in passage ways that seemed to shrink the farther in we went. I was a bit trepidatious at first, as the LAs had fallen behind and it was just me and this stranger. Soon we walked into a small alcove, where there was a brightly decorated shrine dedicated to the smiling ancient stone carving of a woman. This was Jayavaraman VII's first wife, the guide explained. He lit some incense from the shrine and handed some to me. Then, on our knees, we bowed and prayed several times. It was like being in another world.
- Also at Preah Khan, I was jokingly posing for a friend's photo between some apsaras (half-naked, supernatural women), when a Frenchman walked by and said, "You know, if you want to make that authentic, you should take off your top."
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| Apsaras |
- Bayon, built by Jayavaraman VII, has over 216 stone faces peeking out from every direction.
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| Bayon |
- I made friends with a couple of novice Buddhist monks, who had a lot of questions for me (in English!), including, "Do you have boyfriend?" and then giggled like school children when I responded. When we parted, one of them kept repeating, very earnestly, "I wish you good fortune, always."
- A terrifying 2 hour trip to Beng Malea in a tuk tuk (auto-rickshaw), followed by exploration of the grounds. Beng Malea has not been restored at all, and has been torn apart by the jungle, bombs, and land mines. We toured the site by climbing through narrow passageways held up by thick wooden supports, over large heaps of rubble and fallen stone, and sliding down giant vines- it was an archaeological jungle gym.
- On the way to Beng Malea, traveling along back roads through the countryside. People, mainly children, started spontaneously waving at us, as though we were neighbors passing by. Some of the kids got so excited, they'd jump up and down or run after the tuk tuk. I started counting, and in the span of 2 hours, 54 people had waved at us.
ADIEU, ANGKOR
On the 5th day, we left Siem Reap by bus for Phnom Penh. Our promised 5 hour ride on an air conditioned bus with a bathroom turned out to be a 7 hour ride in 90 degree heat, with a bucket downstairs in the cargo area. We made frequent stops along the way to load passengers, 2 motorbikes, a large wooden yoke used for oxen, and a bag of rotting matter that joined us for the final hour and a half of the journey. I can only assume that this noxious sack was someone's compost heap, from which they were loath to part. Traveling overland on the Oregon Trail would have been preferable.
We arrived in Phnom Penh stinky, dusty, dehydrated, disgruntled, and with our kidneys aching. In this frame of mind, we made our first foray into the city. Details to follow in the next post!
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