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Angkor Wat - Long Ago And Far Away March, 2008 |
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Arriving in Bangkok from the northern enclave of Chiang Mai on an overnight train, we had considered our options for proceeding to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Flying from Bangkok was certainly efficient, while overland would test our traveler’s fortitude with a four hour train or bus to the forgettable town of Aranyaprathet on the Cambodian border, followed by a debatable choice of a cheap but grueling ten hour bus ride or a relatively pleasant three hour private car to Siem Reap. However, my fear of flying combined with my quest to traverse the globe overland presented two sticky points. Giving in to the one-hour convenient flight certainly would void the spirit of the trip, besides, how bad could a three hour trip in a car really be? “Three days for a visa, it’s
very busy” revealed our new tag along friend as we parked ourselves in
front of Cambodian immigration and surveyed “For ten dollars, fifteen minutes” offered my cousin, opportunistically snagging me back into the moment and quickly accepted as he took our passports and 300 baht, stepped inside the room and added them to the top of the pile. Fifteen minutes later, we had our 30-day visas. As we left customs with our new friend, he continued with his offers - “brand new Toyota Camry to Siem Reap, good deal” - as we walked into Cambodia, anxious to be on our way. Expecting to pay between thirty-five and sixty US dollars, we negotiated a price of forty-five dollars for two people and luggage. Piling into our private car, our friend leaned in one last time and brazenly asked if there was “something extra for him”, an offer we politely declined. The driver promptly stopped on the way out of town at a dusty old dilapidated store, where a wizened young woman filled the tanks in the trunk of our vehicle with propane, crudely weighing the tank on a rusty old scale and charging the driver the difference.
Finally arriving in Siem Reap, we paid our driver, and checked into the Le Meridien Angkor, a deluxe hotel that advertises itself as closet to the ruins, but in truth is better described as far from downtown. Washing away the road dust that seeped into our pores, we spent a few hours poolside under the humid sky. Again, it’s a long walk to downtown Siem Reap from here, although transport is readily available for a couple of bucks. Downtown Siem Reap has an active nightlife in a 4-block area known as ‘Bar’ Street. Here you’ll find every type of restaurant, lots of outdoor cafes and bars, and other Westerners milling about. Siem Reap is a rapidly growing tourist town, with a burgeoning supply of guesthouses dotting the side streets. Compared to other Asian countries, it is disproportionately more expensive with prices quoted in US dollars – a bottle of water, a t-shirt, a pack of postcards, a tuk-tuk ride across town, always $1-2, with even the ATM’s dispensing US currency. We were sitting at an outdoor
café in downtown Siem Reap, quietly having a drink after checking into
our hotel. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dating from the sixth century, the region of Siem Reap is littered with a remarkable collection of sites in varying architectural styles, merging elements of both Buddhism and Hinduism. It’s best to purchase the Angkor three day pass (cash only), which provides both unlimited access to the many sites as well as ample time to spend at each one without having to feel rushed. Most visitors visit the big three - the so-called Grand Circle – certainly the most impressive and well known, although even the less known and minor ruins are rewarding and fascinating to visit. Dating back to the middle 12th century, Angkor Wat was built by King Suryavamanen II as a monument to the Hindu god Vishnu, and is the centerpiece and must see attraction in Siem Reap. Your approach across the moat is breathtaking, with bearded lions guarding the walkway, your passage across marked by interlinked blocks of rock assembled like a jigsaw puzzle, your entrance through the outer gate into the center open plain is visually stunning, the timeless conical spires rising in the distance with raised walkways leading towards the inner structures. Everywhere you look, rock carvings resist the ravages and erosion of time, while ancient walls and buildings stand proudly as they have for centuries. Intricate and timeless bas-relief carvings detailing scenes from Hindu mythology including the famous ‘Churning of the Sea’, span walls for hundreds of feet, polished smooth in many areas from the touch of visitors. The scale is spectacular, the scene inspiring, and the workmanship impeccable. We spent an inspiring half a day here and returned a second time just to walk these enduring corridors one more time.
Ta Prohm, also built in the
early 13th century by Jayavarman VII, is a Buddhist complex
intentionally left unrestored. For centuries, massive fig trees Twenty kilometers north of Siem Reap is my personal favorite, the compact and delicate ruins of Banteay Srei (“Citadel of the Women”). Small in scale, the hardened pink sandstone retains the sharpness of the extraordinary carvings, which seemingly adorns every available surface. Along the way, we opted to stop at the controversial Cambodian Land Mine Museum, a sobering collection of explosives testifying to the painful past. The founder Aki Ra, is both very good and very lucky having defused an alleged 50,000 mines in his lifetime, many of them stacked behind the plastic wall in one of the rooms of the museum. After these ‘must see’ big three, you can wander around the many other ruins, most of them easily accessible from well-established roads. Many of these structures are in very poor condition, especially the less visited sites, and you need to exercise caution and common sense when walking among them. Stay on the designated paths and don’t scramble off or climb on the jumbled piles of rocks. Trying to better Mother Time, walls are propped up with angled timbers, archways are supported like old mining shafts, and stone columns are wrapped in bands of steel, all in a feeble and halfhearted attempt to forestall their inevitable collapse. The best way to maximize your viewing pleasure is to hire a tuk-tuk (cheap-cheap) driver for the day, which will cost you $12-15, depending on your negotiating skills. We walked across the street from our hotel and hooked up with Mr. Sony, a delightful and friendly young Cambodian who spoke perfect English. For the next three days, Mr. Sony was our personal valet, picking us up at 8:00 AM every morning and returning us in the late afternoon, patiently waiting in the shade while we walked around the many sites. We spent five days in Siem Reap, an inspiring and awesome highlight of our twelve-month trip around the world. The temples of Angkor Wat are spectacular and unique, built centuries ago to honor their gods, temples that have survived throughout the ages despite many wars and fractured political alliances, testaments to greatness that inspire and challenge our existence on earth, and hopefully will continue to do so for many generations to come.
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“Brand
new Toyota, I’m not Mafia” was his curious introduction, an unusual
combination of phrases intended to put us at ease. Instead, I stopped
short and sized him up, my internal BS meter working overtime in its
evaluation. Speaking perfect English, the handsome young Cambodian
persistently offered ‘cheap’ transport to Siem Reap (evidently without
the Tony Soprano protection), as he shadowed our sweaty trek down the
dusty stretch of landscape separating the two countries - an
impoverished expanse of ground where beggars and touts established a
strip mall of destitution and opportunity. 
the solitary official on duty, who ploddingly worked his way through a
pile of documents as if they were his life savings and he shared office
space with a kleptomaniac. Even more incredible was the pile itself
since we seemed to be the only people standing at the window. While
waving off flies and ignoring the ubiquitous hawkers that threatened to
overwhelm my patience, I jealously gazed overhead and imagined
comfortable 737’s streaking towards their destination. 
We
then rushed down the washboard surfaced road to Siem Reap for the next
three hours, slaloming around other cars and skirting bone jarring pot
holes, coating everything in our path with yet another coat of fine
brown dust, our stoically silent driver stopping every thirty minutes or
so for a quick smoke. 
movement as a furry rodent scurried under my wife’s bamboo chair. I
considered my next move – should I say something or patiently hope the
bastard moves on – when I observed his mischievous head emerge next to
her leg. Panicked, I stamped my foot, intending to scare him off.
Instead, he mistook her leg for an escape route, and immediately began
to scamper up. This only created more pandemonium, as my wife came to
the realization that a rat was crawling up her leg, shot up, and
scattered the rodent in the direction of the other startled patrons. We
hadn’t been in Siem Reap more than a few hours, and already, I did not
like it. 
Next
up is the great two mile squared walled city temple and former capital
Angkor Thom, built by King Jayavaramen VII in the early 13th
century. Within the four walls Buddhist and Hindu structures peacefully
commingle, including Bayon and it’s 37 towers with giant stone carved
faces mysteriously watching over you , Baphuon, the collapsed
temple-mountain in the heart of the complex, Phimeanakas, a crumbling
sandstone pyramid that you can scramble up, the Terrace of the
Elephants, a 1½ mile long wall impressively adorned with elephants and
half human, half bird garudas, the recently excavated Terrace of the
Leper King and the four imposing entrance gates, each with unique and
memorable stone carvings, my favorite being the Hindu gods in an
imaginary tug of war with spirits from the other world. 
have
grappled within the fragile ruins, uniquely producing an atmospheric and
highly photogenic jungle within a temple, as roots encase and split the
structure, while dark mysterious corridors and open plazas populate the
enclosure provoking further exploration and rounding each corner raises
the expectation of crossing paths with Indiana Jones or Lara Croft. 
