Lucky girls

So this weekend was the big trip--Siem Reap and Angkor Wat. We are talking about the filet mignon, the Hermes Kelly bag, the Drakkar Noir of Cambodian tourist attractions, a small town surrounded by Khmer Empire temples built between the 8th and 13th centuries. We saw many splendiferous things, which I will NOT describe in that much detail except for to give my main impression and a teeny bit of history. I dropped Indian history after one day in college due to the names. Plus, I've been working on this on and off all day and I'm boring myself.  And I got to see this stuff live.  I have 200 and some pictures of towers and bas reliefs, and they are pretty much all gray stone or pink stone or some other kind of stone. Instead of using flickr, I am going to experiment with using the photo album feature on this weblog, so that will be exciting. And highly organized, as you can see by the many albums to your left (imagine flight attendant gestures). And I am legally blind from culling through them and uploading only the best for all four people who will check them out.

I wonder if I could get a job as substitute guilt tripper for Beatocello. (Foreshadowing!)

So it all started when Karin was brave enough to attempt speed dating at the FCC (Foreign Correspondent's Club, chief Expat hangout, and also the closest thing to Chuckie Cheese on offer in town judging by the enormous family of towheaded Australian children eating pizza during happy hour yesterday).  She didn't meet anyone, but she did manage to finagle a weekend for two at the FCC Angkor, the branch in Siem Reap. She could only take one of us with her, and she chose me! Or actually, no one could go but me or SW, and during the bidding process I locked him in the closet. Shenanigans!

Anyhoo, we went last weekend because we had a three day weekend for the Queen Mother's birthday.  We flew up on a DELIGHTFULLY flower-covered plane which offered one of the most delicious in-flight snacks ever, pictured at left. I know what you are thinking right now. Why is there chili sauce in the box with the water and the croissant? The answer is obvious, my friend: the croissant is filled with tuna. 

We wanted to get right to it, so we had a tuktuk (motorbike with a little golf-cart sized trolley towed behind) waiting at the airport. We dropped our bags off and headed for the temples, where I I had literally the worst picture ever taken for my 3 day temple pass. Seriously, I look like I have aggravated rosacea and possibly a developmental disability. 

But there was no time for my vanity!  First, we went to see Angkor Thom, the capital of the Khmer Empire built by Javayarman VII in the 12th century--another previous capital is sort of adjacent and partly underneath. The main thing to see here is the Bayon temple, the last temple built in the complex. It is famous for the many faces of Javayarman that adorn the towers, and panels of relief pictures of everyday life in the Khmer empire.  I really enjoyed this one. While we were there we also saw Baphuon, the Terrace of the Leper King and the Terrace of Elephants.

We stopped for lunch and then saw Angkor Wat, which is what people think of when they think of Angkor. It was built as a Hindu temple, but remained  a pilgrimage site for Buddhists long after most other Angkor sites had disappeared into the jungle. It is magnificent, has a lot of dancing girls carved in it and in the back yard jungle I saw a monkey.  Two thumbs up.

We had a tour guide, just for the first day, and he was interesting. Less for what he had to say about the sites, but more for just general chit chat. He was 27 and very good at English, which he said he mostly learned in his year at the monastery.  He was also learning Spanish from a computer program, so we practiced together a little.  He seemed to understand politics here pretty well and talked to us for a long time about the way the majority party keeps its influence in rural areas. He also gave us a taste of some of the Anti-Thai and Anti-Vietnamese feeling that is pretty pervasive in Cambodia. A Vietnamese company administers the Angkor sites, and he said that most of the goods for sale around town were made in the two border countries. He also imitated how Korean and Japanese tourists walk for us, which was...awkward.  Karin had to school him on some things, like the fact that being half ethnic Chinese did not keep her from being All American. But he definitely spiced up the day, at least when we had to block his body from view whenever a Korean wandered by.

Then we went back and experienced the wonder of the FCC ANGKOR!. I haven't been in any sort of water since the night before I left for law school so the black slate pool was pretty sweet. Also fabulous was the lemon scented room, the shower head as big as a pie plate attached to the ceiling with hot water flowing down like rain.  I don't think I can fully describe the glamour of everything, but this picture of the snooker room at dusk gets the point across.

I think I can fully describe the food. I'm kind of embarrassed that we ate at the FCC ANGKOR!, but I think the choice was redeemed by the bizarre east-meets-west blue pumpkin (kambucha squash) and blue cheese dip and by the olives with sweet chili sauce, onions and cilantro, both of which came on my pita plate. So weirdly delicious.  Complementary breakfast included coffee, juice, a basket of croissants, yogurt, fruit, and giant bowls of rice porridge with fish. If you think those don't go together, clearly you haven't seen Cambodians dip donuts in fish broth.  I think the room service guy thought we were greedy jerks for checking off all the free boxes on the card, because when he delivered our food he listed everything back to us. But we ate it all, didn't we SMART GUY? Didn't we?

We also went to a concert to benefit the Children's Hospital put on by Beat Richner, MD. He's the eccentric Swiss head of the hospital and he is apparently pretty famous as a cellist in Switzerland. From what we can figure, he lures in tourists with the promise of free cello (it'll be like a concert in the park!) and then ambushes them with medical statistics and a brief list of foreign influences that have led to drastic health problems in Cambodia.  Basically, a guilt fest for those who stay in fancy hotels where a room costs between 300 and 800 per night (our room would have been about 100/night, about a third of the average yearly income here).  He's not a big fan of international attitudes (his hospital is quite expensive, with per patient costs that are very high given the economic level of most of Cambodia) and he had quite a few comments to make about the US bombing and TB, and about UN forces and HIV. It's scary to hear, but also informative and a good show.  On the other hand, I've also heard that he refuses to allow auditing and no foreign doctors are allowed to visit.  But what can you do? He's a fanatically devoted dude.

(After a midnight room switch due to electric failure that we'll just pretend did not happen to mar my beautiful, Gatsby-in-Southeast Asia experience at the FCC ANGKOR!) it rained in the morning, so we didn't go to see sunrise at Angkor. Instead we went straight to Banteay Srei, a temple made out of red sandstone with incredibly intricate carvings that have remained sharp over the years. It was beautiful and the pink color really breaks up the gray spots in front of my eyes from uploading all these frigging photos for you people.  THERE WILL BE A QUIZ!

Then we went to Kbal Spean, which was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. This site is also known as the river of a thousand lingas (lingas are fertility symbols, with the base representing female and the top representing male. One is pictured at left, and the significance is pretty obvious).  It was about a mile climb straight up the side of a mountain to get to, and the carvings are just sort of hanging out there. After all the temple action, it made for a nice interlude. And, we saw a six inch long centipede!

After lunch we saw two more buildings built by Javayarman VII for his mother and father. Ta Prohm, the mother's building, was intended as a monastery and university. It is a popular place to come because it was taken over by the jungle and trees grow out of it. That tree from the cover of Tomb Raider is there. I don't think I have a picture of it.  This isn't because of my Jennifer Aniston allegiance, I just can't find one.

The temple he built for his father? Called Preah Khan. Almost like the one for his mother. Can you tell I'm losing steam here?

The final activity of the afternoon was an attempt to see the sunset. It looked like it was going to rain, our tuktuk driver told us it would rain, but we still went up to the top of a very steep hill to see the sunset anyway. I was exhausted and sweaty and cranky and indecisive, but I'm glad Karin was patient and forced me to go up because she could tell I really wanted to.  We couldn't see the sunset, but we could see the rain. Coming at us. We still stayed up there for a few minutes, while I took pictures and Karin got hit on by some monks. Then we raced the rain down the hill, and the rain won.  A little boy led us down the gushing path about half way (not entirely out of the kindness of his heart. We gave him a dollar, he demanded two, we just left him to find another sucker.)  The whole thing really livened up the afternoon.

We went home and showered, had a quick dinner and conked out. The next morning we went to a silk factory outside of town, which was really interesting. I love a good factory tour.  So we watched the nice people pick through worms and then boil and then dye and then weave, and it was fabulous. Artisans d'Angkor was started as a not-for-profit company. I think it is for profit now but it still has profit sharing for employees, which is close to unheard of here.  They make some of the best silks around, and watching them form the patterns was amazing.

Then we went to the market and bought some things that we really NEED, like special shawls for when the library at Michigan gets cold and flip flops with jewels. Some kid tried to get Karin to buy his sister formula from another kid, but it turned out to be a scam and she cleverly escaped.  And then we got on a bus and went home. We went right through the town where they eat spiders, but we didn't stop so I didn't have to test my mettle and try to eat one.  Also, it's apparently corn season because we passed many people shucking fat ears, surrounded by piles of husks.  We pulled over for a few minutes, maybe because the engine was a little on fire, but we got herded back on the bus pretty quickly.

It was a great weekend. It is a much more touristy town than Phnom Penh and for many casual visitors, Angkor Wat is the only part of Cambodia many will see. You can see and sense how poor people are, but land is being grabbed up all the time for bigger and fancier hotels. So the regular people are being pushed further and further out into the countryside.  More of the local people speak English, which made things easier to accomplish. They also seemed to have a better sense of how to manipulate us and how much they could ask for. I respect them for that--what else are they supposed to do? We are the income--but I think I am more comfortable in Phnom Penh.

And then we went home and lived happily ever after, feeling very lucky, and the proud owners of ginormous and brightly colored pairs of thai pants.

Comments

[Joshua Leeger]

JESUS CHRIST!

Have you seen any good Thai Boxing yet? When are you going to go see some fights? They should be pretty easy, and cheap, and fun! Like bullfights in Mexico.

[Sam]

Kickboxing is big here, but I haven't gone to see any of them. I don't like watching people kick the crap out of each other particularly, unless I know them.
In Siem Reap our tour guide did offer to take us to see a cockfight, though. Or a pig fight. Karin wasn't into watching animal abuse.

[sarah]

SAM I found out where to see KHMER boxing! this Sunday, baby, this Sunday.