Angkor Wat and Siem Reap, Cambodia

SO heres a raw blog about Cambodia! yay! mom told me i should finis up my blogs of Thailand, and shes right. So i'm getting started on that project.


Angkor Wat and Siem Reap


Stone temples carved out of the jungle, hundreds of children trying to sell the same cheap souvenirs, riding our bicycles through the ruins, dancing all night in streets that literally flowed with muddy beer…..
Angkor wat was great experience to balance out my view of south east asia. It was both my first in-depth encounter with mega-popular tourist destination and sad and desperate poverty.
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Getting there was quite a trek. I was invited to go with a group of friends that was already going and it was really nice for me because this was a group I hadn’t gotten to know very well yet and it gave me a great experience to try traveling and spending time with a new variety of people. We took the 11 hour bus to Bankok (Martha, Clay, and Adam brought a bottle of 100 pipers for the ride there) and then another long bus ride to the border. I ate a bag of fresh passion fruits on the bus.
(before which I forgot to go to the bathroom and had a very stressed first three hours before going up and asking for a stop… which turned out to be in 10 min. The bus attendant was unnervingly friendly once she discovered I spoke Thai, and gestured for me to share a seat with her, and proceeded to write all sorts of phone numbers and other strange symbols all over my ticket which speaking extremely rapidly in Thai. At one point I caught she was talking about her aunt, another the return bus…I never quite got what she was going on about. I nodded politely and kept my eye out for the bathroom. I think she may have insisted on holding my hand at some point).

The border was an adventure. The bus dropped us off on a street corner in the middle of no where. The only other thing on this street quarter were about a dozen hawk-like Tuk Tuk drivers to take us to the border for 200 Bhat a Tuk Tuk. Eventually, resigned to this kind of annoying and possibly un-necessary expense we loaded up and were shuttled to what we hoped was not just around the corner. (thankfully? It was a bit of ride to get there… which perhaps increased our susceptibility to accepting which ever thing came our way). We were dropped off at a “border station” (a big tent next to a parking lot) where we were rapidly separated and wisked to processing talbes. Here we were told we had to pay 1,000 Bhat (33 USD) or 20 USD for a visa. Only we had to pay in Bhat. This was very confusing to us, and we didn’t get very satisfying answers. Eventually, we caved and coughed up the money. I was chatting with my attendant guy and so I guess he like me and didn’t try to push the rest of the scam but other people in the group were charged an additional 200Bhat “Service Fee” . Martha was great. She was charged this and caught on, flat out refused, and got louder and louder until the guy dropped it. We took up what sounded like a good deal for a van to take us all the way to our hotel in Siem Reap (the city outside Angkor Wat, about 4 hours from the border) and we were convinced to pre-pay the 150 dollars in cash.

Quite a bit poorer than we anticipated we were dumbed out onto the dusty curb. Where we were slowly processed the painful reality that we had been scammed –before- we had even entered the country. There on the other side of the tent, was the –real- border crossing. (and hopefully on the other side of it, our van). It turned out they had, at least, given us real Visas (if for a high price) and once we got thorugh a rather nervous wait in line, our van was waiting for us. Phew. A little bruised in pride we continued on.

The first thing that greeted us on the other side of the gate was a giant statues arches build to look like the ruins, vendors, and BANG! We, our guide, the vendors, jumped, bolted, ducked, or started and looked wildly for the source of the would be murderer, kidnapper, criminal, gun firing rebel…

…Which turned out to be a guy standing in the middle of the street with a wooden cart. He and the cart sort of awkwardly topple over and that’s when we realize the noise was just a tire exploding.

“Welcome to Camobodia!” shouts our van driver in his pin stripped black shirt, and laughs.

With only moderately more annoying fees, bad information, pushed nerves, and bickering we made it through a labrith of buses and fees, services, customes, tips, tricks and guides, and through the four hour drive to Siem Reap.

Alright well… I’ve done it again. There is no way I can get through all of the rest of my trip at this rate. So condensed version here we go~

From the top of our lovely hotel called the Red Piano, we could see roof tops, and a school or something full of kids next door who waved and waved and giggled and shouted hello. And other short phrases the knew in English. At one point the asked Marth and I to dance. From the roof we could see the sun set over the roof tops. Two little kids played together in an ally way.

I got my organizing on, and we rented bikes from next door (for 1 dollar a day per bike) to get up before dawn the next day to bike to the ruins. (3o min away). We went out to dinner at the red piano restaurant in the bar strip, and passed the circus-mirror-fun-house-prostitution-nest and dozens of hawking Tuk Tuks drivers, restaurant greeters, and other Cambodians engaged in what would be just the beginning of the consistant pounding to get tourist attention, and patronage. This was uncomfortable, frustrating and sad. I think neither of us enjoyed the people we had to become in this unfortunate routine. I expect the locals no more liked to be the harassers, shouting above each other, running into the street to intercept the tourists paths, than we like to became cold faced jerks, rushing past avoiding eye contact –and muttering or shouting No thank you! No! NO! as we passed.
I met up with Kaite that night ( I still can’t get over what a amazing chace it was we were both there) I rode up to her five star hotel on my bicycle with a head lamp on! I asked the coufours where to park my bike and one guy escorted me to the tiny motorcycle parking lot in the back  couldn’t meet up with Katie but enjoyed walking around the palance of the a place and high speed internet so I could acutally look at some of Tor’s pictures on skype and miss him loads. It was also a really neat cultural experience… I mean…This was the kind of place where they pull out your chair for you in the internet room!!! wow~!

Katie eventually found me at the Red Piano and we went out for a beer. It was cool because she was the first family I had seen in 4 and a half months. In retrospect I can see that I did a bit of the classic returning from study abroad “over tell” and enthusiastically ranted about my whole experience, my host family, ext…. anyway, It was so nice to see cousin Katie, and so surreal!

The next morning bike ride was incredible~! (expect for getting up at 4). But how nieve were we! Some how we had still half had imagined a dark and peaceful ride to sit with a few others and watch the sun rise over these famous and majestic ruins. HAha! VROOM VROOM. We cycled down the road side and were blown passed by streams of tuk tuks, taxis, motorcycles, and hundreds of tourists had the exact same plan as us. Regardless, it was quite beautiful. We walked around the raised sidewalk-way and perched on some crumbled ruins to see the sun come up over the ponds and the central temple. The reflections were fabulous. As was the company. I did a quick water color. Hungry quickly, we succumbed to one of the restaurant hecklers and had breakfast nearby. My pancake was ok, but everybody else ordered eggs, which turned out to be the the only food in all of SE asia that ever gave me a stomach ache (I ate their left overs). After that we wandered around the ruins, and my camera promptly ran out of batteries, which was probably good because it made me just live in the moment more, although it would have been a blast to capture some great shots of the place.

I did some rubbings, (you know like we used to do in kinder garden) off the walls of the temples. And wished I knew more about the history of the place and enjoyed hearing so many different languages. It was quite warm, the ruins were immense. The best part of the day was riding our bicycles around and around between the patches of ruins. The patches of ruins are connected by long straight roads through the forest. Sometimes lined with stone walls. (with hundreds of identical busts carved their immense length, just the effort put into carving those walls is dizzying). Some kids helped us get help to fix a bike that had a flat tire. I bought some water and post cards from them. The vending that made me saddest were the women outside each attraction who would should “FRESH PINEAPPLE, COME EAT AT MY RESTAURANT, COLD WATER! Sir?! Lady?! COME EAT?!” I can’t even remember now… what the exact phrase was but dozens would rush out and all demand you come eat at their restaurant, demand or beg. I’m not sure. It was awful. And we were only there a few seconds each time before running into the ruins, they must hate it, every day, screaming like that. But like… it works… you go to the one who grabs you first, its hard to like
seek out the quiet ones you know?

I want to remember the good too though. Biking was truly the best part. We just flew on our single speed bikes through giant stone gates, and over bridges with slow blue rivers. My favorites were bridges were lined with huge stone states of men pulling on one long serpent. Often their faces were mystically chipped, but sometimes they were restored … each face unique! The grey stone was flecked with colored mosses, fuzzy with vines,and/or splashed by the sun. Once we saw, down river of the bridge, some Cambodian boys were net fishing at the rivers edge. We rode passed temples or stopped and went in and strode through twisting passage ways, clambered over blocks. Even though there were tons of visitors, there were just so many temples it was easy to get away and be alone with all that stone, and detail, and rubble.

My favorite temples were the ones with the big trees still in them, they had so much character. I stayed and did a water color of one, while JJ took a nap. And then the two of us rode our bikes on an epic 26 mile loop around all the temples, through a bit of a village, past a resivour, and home again into the bustling city of Siem Reap just waking up with lights, and traffic, for dinner.

That night was new years.

We went to an indian restaurant for dinner, which was delicious expensive, and exactly the kind of thing I don’t every want to do again. It was a good counter experience. To see that people can come all the way here. Eat food not from here, drink imported wine, sit on a balcony on the tourist street and be in their own convenience bubble. Ignoring it all.

The party was huge. The night was epic. Lights strung from the restaurants on one side ot the other. First works flying and bursting above the crowd. The street was packed. The dancing sweating singing tourists, smelly backpackers, but also local employees, and then more tourists, prostitutes, johns … Speakers blared globalized music. Beer and mud ran in the street. We danced and danced and danced. People would throw buckets of ice water over the crowd. It was blazing hot. Right after the countdown Black Eyed Peas “tonight's gunna be a good night” played. The token song of study abroad for our program. And my group we went nuts.

That night really exemplified the whole emotional Cambodia experience for me. I ended up trapped out there with my group (we found out around 1:30 that we accidentally left the key at the desk, so we couldn’t get back into our room, so the plan to pull an all nighter and “dance all night until sunrise” suddenly became my plan too). The night, would oscillate between really fun and exciting, an experience! And then the bubble would pop and I’d look over my shoulder … once I saw some young Thai woman dancing with a balding, greasy, white dude and he grab her and try to kiss her and shed just… grimace and try to dance more and avoid it. Other times you’d look down and a 5 year old kid would be standing there at your hip, in the middle of a sea of bodies, just watching and watching. Then she’d put her hands out and ask for a dollar.

Britney caved at this, squatted with them and talked to them in soothing voices, and pressed a dollar between their hands. Maybe I’m imagining the kids looking vacant at this, maybe the nodded, I don’t remember. they were wearing little dresses. But they took off when they got the money, and then there were more kids, of course.

I chose not to pay them. I figured it would just be enabling it – if it is profitable for their families to tell their girls to do this, then they would continue to do it I guess. But I can’t say I didn’t feel like a huge jerk. I can’t say it didn’t make me sick. .. I also I can’t say I didn’t have to keep justifying it to my self that way. I can’t say I realized I would be out of dollars really soon.

Eventually Martha pulled me away, she couldn’t stand it anymore. We went back to the room (to crawl in with one of the couples (JJ and Hanah) who had their own room and had returned to it). She was in a fit of furry, disgust, sadness, that no one saw it, at our hippocracy, our heartlessness. She was so full of every emotion that I should had been feeling. I couldn’t really help her. I had put up a barrier I guess, to keep my sanity. Hannah helped her out. She called home. … my barrier was that you can’t solve every battle, you can’t fight every problem. My battle is for the environment.

I took a shower – maybe I was still in my clothes, they reeked of beer. My flip flops, feet and legs were caked in mud, it bled into the drain. JJ gave me a dry shirt. I crawled into bed with him and Hannah, apologizing a lot. A few minuets later everyone else came arrived from the party. Turns out we hadn’t left the key at all, Kerri had taken it… But when Adam went around asking us all if we had it, she forgot, and said no.

I remember right before we left the other four had started –really- dancing with eachother, and I had been all pre-occupied with trying to figure out if I could get inot that action or not. God! I was thinking of that, and all that reality was right there, literally staring at me and asking for charity. I felt dirty, and exhausted. I was glad when Martha and I left. Its amazing. How thick that cloud of denial can be.

((detail. The group took really good care of me, considering I was kind of the outsider. They bought me drinks, and checked often to make sure I was having fun. Later, on the Tuk Tuk back we were having a conversation about how anything could be controversial to ISDSI kids. The Adam came up with the killer point that no one could contend that “New Years was Awesome” ! I looked at Martha, she wasn’t saying anything. I didn’t either. ))

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The next day we took it easy, and took tuk tuks on a two hour drive to get to one of the temples that is still mostly eaten my the forest. We got to climb all over this one. Kerri and I went on an unofficial tour with and had things pointed out to us and explained in simple Thai. The boys played human jungle gym with some kids that leapt and scrambled over the ruins, ran along crumbling roofs, climbed towers and vines! (I would have done this, had I know, but I had a good time, too with Keri). Everyone else got tired of the ruins much quicker than I did. I went off alone at the end and got stuck way out on a rickety vine and dead leaf covered roof. We rode back home. It was a long hot ride.

Going home I started work on the coloring book of the Karen Village culture. right before we left I ran out to look for supplies. With about 10 min to spare I found an art gallery that sold art done by local artists and kids of the temples. I explained I was looking for a sketch book and they gave me one for free~!!! Another example of unbelievable generosity. This was the kind of place I wanted to support, buying art was the sort of thing that I thought was perfect for I tourist money could support that would help people, not keep them trapped selling cheep junk. I bought two pieces one of a butter fly in b and w and another of one of the temple statues. A boys was practicing drawing in the studio. He was drawing from a glossy pamphlets for Angkor wat. At first I assumed it was because its easier to draw from pictures than real life, before feeling like an idiot and remembering its frugal. Most Cambodias have never seen Angkor Wat, the national heritage treasure of their country, because they can’t afford the 20 USD entrance fee.

I felt good supporting the artists, but I also remembered all the money I had spent following the easy way – the restaurants, the chintzy souvenir bracelets I didn’t actually want, the drinks, the donations to the street performer who swallowed string with a bottle cap on the end and pulled it back out his throat, who’s act culminated when he lept through a flaming ring of steak knives. (his shoulders nicked with scars) I wondered if when you summed it all up, good and bad, if it was good that I come here at all, for the country.

Good bye Cambodia.