It's a Holiday in Cambodia!

Entrance Guardians at Angkor Thom

It's a holiday in Cambodia - no really it is - and everyone is off at the pagodas celebrating today, guessing we could have timed this better...

9/22/06

So we woke up early and grabbed a motorcycle tuk-tuk to the airport, at least that's what we thought. After about ten minutes we came to an intersection and the driver motioned us asking which way to go, we were clearly lost.

I tried to pantomime an airplane with my arms out making whooshing sounds to no avail so Cindy tried using her hand to simulate an airplane taking off.

Giant Buddha Head at Angor Thom

The most exciting thing about the flight was the fact that they actually served food - raw bacon on a hamburger bun! Cindy doesn't like raw bacon (ask her about Puerto Vallarta) so we neglected to eat ours.

The new Siem Reap airport is really nice and we managed to get through the visa and immigration process without the delays or bribes that we had heard of (although my guy groaned when he saw that I was his first customer of the day - perhaps he was expecting Angelina Jolie).

We were actually picked up at the airport by our guesthouse Villa Loti along with a mom and daughter traveling together.

Entrance Guardians at Angkor Thom

We trodded into town along the riverside where you see everything from elegant five star hotels to ramshackle, one room  wooden and thatch huts on stilts above the River. It’s kind of strange but everything is in dollars here which is a little annoying and there are hordes of whiney children, many of whom are very fluent in English trying to sell mostly crap. "Hello Mister! You buy! Only one Dahlah!"

There was a nice but smelly little local market along the way including a few open "Movie houses" that seemed to have a bigger TV and maybe a dozen lawn chairs inside. We had an OK lunch since most places were closed for the holiday and wandered around in the heat a bit before deciding to return to the lumpy bed and comfort of air conditioning for a nap.

Traditional Dancing Girl at Angkor Thom

Brief interlude - is it just me or is it ironic that, as we cruise down the highway to Phnom Penh, I am writing this and "Rooster" from Alice in Chains just came on my MP3 player. The song is about either Layne Stanley's (now deceased lead singer) or Jerry Cantrell's (lead guitarist) father during the Vietnam War. His nickname was "the Roster" for his ability to avoid getting killed. OK probably just me... "Yeah, they come to snuff the Rooster, ya know he ain't gonna die..."

Around sunset, we walked to a Wat across the River and ended up talking with a young Monk who wanted to practice his English which was excellent. Its amazing how hard working, happy and resilient these people are, especially if you know anything about their gruesome history.

Traditional Dancing Girl at Angkor Thom

The funniest thing the monk said was that he and his friends really like to watch WWF Smack Down, very popular throughout SE Asia, but seemingly something less than Buddhist.

After our monk chat we went to the Foreign Correspondents Club and pretended we were colonial expats having cocktails on the patio - since Cambodia was once a French territory I felt obliged to drink Pastis and Cindy had some sort of Passion Fruit Mojito thing.

Sandstone Carvings at Bayon Temple in Angkor Thom

We ended up munching so many salted peanuts and cashews that we strolled back to Villa Loti and had Bananas and Vodka tonics for dinner. When we were checking out, Cindy realized that we had eaten the bananas from their daily offering - oops!

9/23/06

We ended up talking to Saren yesterday and are going to share a mini-van and guide today with the women from the airport ride yesterday, Carissa and her mom Becky who are from Florida. Carissa is a doctor working in a children's Emergency room (she said many of her cases are mundane and involve kids with things such as peas shoved up their little noses) and had just spent a few weeks volunteering in Vientiane.

Giant Buddha head at Bayon in Angkor Thom

Our mini-van and guide Sabbath arrived for our all day tour of Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat which happens to be the world’s largest temple complex and is absolutely unbelievable. It is so vast that you can’t get an idea of its scale without seeing it in person and has everything from crumbling ruins to exquisite carvings to labyrinthine temples overgrown with jungle. Think Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider (Angkor Wat, actually the temple of Ta Prohm, is where it was filmed). Most of the temples of Angkor were built between the 9th and 13th centuries, many by Angkor's greatest king Jayavarman VII.

We spent the morning exploring the major sights of Angkor Thom (which means Great City), a walled city about three kilometers square.

More Giant Buddha heads at Bayon in Angkor Thom

Inside are a number of incredible structures including Bayon, Bophuon, Phimeanakas, the Royal Palace, the Terrace of the Leper King and the Terrace of Elephants. So as not to bore you, below are brief descriptions (and hopefully eventually pictures) of these main sights.

Bayon is in the very center of Angkor Thom and has over 200 huge four sided heads staring down at you. The walls are covered with detailed murals of Khmer life and mythology and the insides snake their way through arched Corridors higher and higher - really an awesome place.

Phimeanakas Royal Palace in Angkor Thom

Bophuon is another huge complex and is supposed to be a representation of Mt. Meru, the mythical home of the gods. There is a long reconstructed raised walkway flanked by what used to be ponds of water and on the backside, the beginnings of the reconstruction of a 200+ foot reclining Buddah.

Phimeanakas and the ruins of the Royal Palace provide a nice climb up some steep steps to a three tiered temple surrounded by male and female pools for swimming.

The Elephant Terrace in Angkor Thom

The Terrace of the Leper King has a statue of Yama, the God of the Underworld but the lichen covered statue was missing its fingers and supposedly some people confused Yama with a Khmer ruler who died of leprosy and the name stuck. The carvings surrounding the huge base are very detailed.

The Terrace of Elephants is at the other end of a large expanse from The Terrace of The Leper King and has, well lots of Elephants overlooking the Royal Square.

Across from the two terraces are a dozen interesting structures that served two purposes, first for entertainment, acrobats used to tightrope walk between the buildings.

Sandstone carvings at the Terrace of the Leper King in Angkor Thom

After lunch, we headed to Angkor Wat to hopefully avoid the crowds. As you walk up towards Angkor Wat, you can see the five towers looming in the distance past an immense moat up to 200 meters wide and another inner wall and long walkway up to the temple. It was built in the early 1100's and took over 30 years to complete. Supposedly, Angkor Wat is a miniature model of the divine universe. The central and tallest spire represents Mount Meru, the holy peak of the mythical Hindu continent Jambudvipa where the gods live. The smaller surrounding four spires and courtyards represent the other continents and the moat represents the oceans with a Naga (snake) bridge allowing mortals to cross from the land of the mortals to the land of the gods.

Inside, the walls have incredibly intricate wall carvings stretching over 100 meters on each of the fair walls.

Nun lighting incense at Angkor Wat

Inside, you can climb some really steep stairs to get to the top level with the five towers and some vast views of the expanse of Angkor Wat. We all climbed up (all three women a bit nervous as there is no handrail and the steps are narrow and tall) and wandered the perimeter admiring the views.

There was a large crowd waiting on the descending staircase (where there is a handrail) that seemed to be waiting to watch a misstep. Apparently earlier this year a Korean guide fell down these steps and I asked Sambath if he was ok to which he replied "Not so good" which it ends up in Cambodian means he didn't make it.

Angkor Wat across the moat

After Angkor Wat we visited Ta Prohm, another huge temple being slowly devoured by the jungle. Incredibly photogenic, massive crumbling ruins are covered with monstrous trees and snaking vines that are gradually tearing the place apart - Very eerie and strange.

After a refreshing beer with Carissa and Becky, we went to a local restaurant called Arun for dinner (not to be confused with the awesome Thai meal we had in Chicago with Robb and Cathy Compliments of milt and Diana). It seemed to be mostly filled with locals, many of whom were wearing pajamas which are not uncommon here. The food was good and the kids running around thoroughly entertained us.

9/24/06

Today we decided to share a car again with Carissa and Becky who were going to go to a floating village and then a silk farm.

Monk at Angkor Wat

The "three hour tour" ended up being about 90 minutes that started with a long ride out past squalor huts and houseboats to the mouth of Tonle Sap, the largest lake in SE Asia.  Here there were two little boys in tubs paddling around to all the tourists on very un-seaworthy vessels asking for "Wan Dahla!" Great. Not exactly what we had in mind.

The second stop was a tad more interesting, a floating fish farm, souvenir shop and crocodile farm. Since neither our boatman nor his ten year old first mate spoke English, I can’t tell you what the crocodiles were there for. There were however two more kids paddling around in tubs demanding money, this time two particularly obnoxious and nasty little girls.

Cindy climbing REALLY steep steps at Angkor Wat

The last fifteen minutes cruising through the backwater canals was nice but the rickety boat was more concerned with getting back than with our ability to see much.

We decided to take a hot hike up the hill to Wat Phnom Krom and an elevated view of the floating village below which ended up being nice with some interesting ruins and a good but hazy view.

We had a really good lunch at the Khmer Kitchen in Siem Reap, offering to treat our driver to lunch which he shyly refused, eventually telling us that his very pregnant was at home and maybe having the baby today! We told him we would understand if he didn't come back after lunch.

One hour later he was back (no baby yet) and ready to take us to the Silk Factory where we got a very educational tour of how they make raw and fine silk from silk moth cocoons as well as how they dye and weave things, including ikat which is a complicated Indonesian process where they tie the warp threads and dye them repeatedly prior to weaving the weft threads.

Three monks at Angkor Wat

Since we still had a few hours left with the car, we negotiated with the driver to take us out to Banteay Srei, one of the more distant but beautiful temples made from pink sandstone. This trip was well worth it as the place was great (plus we ate some tasty palm sugar treats).

We made plans to go to Abacus for dinner which is supposed to be good and is owned by the same guy who owns Villa Loti. Unfortunately as we climbed in the tuk-tuk with Mr. Vanny our driver we found out Abacus is closed Sundays but "no problem" Mr. Vanny knows a good place where we get a puppet show for free. To lazy to argue, we ate there and it was pretty good and the show was entertaining even if we didn't understand a word.

9/25/06

Today we decided to rent bikes and ride around some of the outlying temples in Angkor.

Trees devouring Ta Prohm - this is the site where Tomb Raider was filmed

We made a big loop to a number of temples on "the Grand Circuit", first stopping at Sras Srang, a giant pond where we never saw the island in the middle, when it promptly started raining. Rut Roh we are not prepared for that!

We parked the bikes, figuring we could wander around the tree covered Bantay Kdei temple and grounds for a bit and hope it stopped which it eventually did.

Little boys paddling around Tonle Sap lake in Siem Reap

New!  This is a video of a little souvenir seller - they start them young! Little Business Woman

Here is another video of walking around Preah Kahn Temple The Ruins of Preah Kahn at Angkor

Getting tired and sore, we ambled back through Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat and grabbed some beer and spring rolls for late afternoon sustenance.

Little girls paddling in buckets on Tonle Sap

We went to town on the ride back to check Email and have an interesting potential new schedule twist. Harjot and Darci from i2 are getting married in New Delhi at the end of October (unfortunately the day after we currently are scheduled to leave Bangkok). Guess we have to look into possibly re-extending.

When we returned to Villa Loti, I asked Saren If he was an uncle yet (yesterdays Taxi driver was his brother) and he was, his sister-in-law gave birth to a baby boy this morning.

Tonight we went in search of the Abacus restaurant again for dinner. It looked like this was going to be another Le Lys episode as we walked up and down the area where it was supposed to be located to no avail. We asked a security guard who said in very broken English "Walk up.

Banteay Srei Doorway