The World's Biggest Pool
We started our day at the royal swimming pool. Gigantic in scale, it was excavated by hand in the 11th Century. Filled with rain water, it was used by the royal family only as a place to bathe and be ferried about by boats.
For some reason, this pool really seems to speak of this civilization's wealth. Unlike the other ruins which we were to see later, this was not built for some higher purpose -- like walls and gates protecting the city, like temples to house libraries, funereal crematoriums, or in honor of the gods Vishnu or Buddha. This was pure bravado and indulgence. And the Khmer king seemed to have done it in a big way.
It was at this testament to earthy pleasures that our guide filled us in as to the intricacies of the royal family. The king was said to have 300 concubines (hence the big pool). The concubines were volunteered by the villages to curry favor. Unlike those Thais, though, the king only had one wife, and only she was allowed to give birth.
This discussion was in contrast one we had the day before about the state of marital relations in modern Cambodia. Here, the women's family pays for the wedding, however the men must pay a dowry to the woman's family. I have it on good authority that a wife from the city "costs" $10,000, while a wife from the village might only run $1000. "They are different" said our guide. These differences includes such things as level of education, the darkness/lightness of their skin, and apparently their smell.
Things get weirder from here.
For example, if the man has a good job, he gets the woman for free. If he's a doctor, they woman's family throws in a set of Ginsu knives, retail value $339. "What if he gets fired?" I ask. "Then he must pay the woman's family." And in the city, the younger generation live together "European style." But this isn't smart - "If its easy to get, its easy to lose."
Other elements of sage, familial advice: The youngest child inherits the belongings from their parents, as they are the ones that will be expected to take care of them as they age. If a child neglects this duty, there own children will neglect to take care of them.
Ta Prohm: Wat of the Woman with Big Lips
But enough of modernity. What about Angelina Jolie's temple?
Like in America, people here are interested in Ms. Jolie. Visiting Ta Prohm was not the first place I encountered this. While in Chaing Mai, we had a 10 minute discussion about her Lanna-style tattoos while on our Culture Tour. You know - one for each kid, a tiger for prosperity. Yadda yadda. In Cambodia, she is referred to as "The Lady with Big Lips." While I'm not up to speed on all the details, I think she adopted her son from here after staying in Siem Reap for one month while shooting Tomb Raider.
During the course of our tour, we overheard many guides referring to this late 11th century temple as site of the Tomb Raider. Like - This tree was in the movie. They put a camera here. This shot was in there too. Take a picture here, like Angelina. Had I gotten off the wrong monorail stop? I wanted to go on the Land Before Time, not Universal Studios.
For all these moments, it was truly magical. Ta Prohm had been built for the king's
mother. Since then, countless trees sprung up around the temple, in the temple and on the temple. Fallen trees smashed arching gallery walls. Roots wedged themselves between the rocks, forcing them to topple. Sometimes the tree even has grown to keep parts of the temple in place. But for all the ruin, its was lovely and even more otherworldly.
In a million years, I'd never have probably taken the time to watch Tomb Raider. But after this, I just may....for the main attraction, all built in the name of a woman born a thousand years before the Lady with Big Lips.
T here - Of the roughly 2 MM tourists that visit Camdodia per year, 75% of them are Korean. Perplexed as I was by this, our guide was equally challenged at providing an answer - aside from, "Korean, they f*c**** smart." I tend to agree with him. In some ways, the 75% of Korean tourists per year explains the fate Cambodia faces today. This is a country who, for 30 plus years, fought itself in one of the most gruesome civil wars in history. The people don't have much to show for this war - all sides lost. In war, allegiances are made; and, in Southeast Asia, crony capitalism is the economy of choice. So the French own the airport, the Vietnamese own the company that sells tickets to the Wats, the Koreans appear to own a lot of Cambodia (though I still need to understand the historical connection), and, per our guide, the Cambodians own nothing. Apparently, there are museums for "Koreans-only" and the Japanese built one for "Japanese-only" and the museums hold artifacts taken from the Cambodian Wats. I dont know if this is true or not - but our guide, who I think fairly represents his country, certainly believes it.
ReplyDeleteBut what do these 1.5 MM tourists get out of this experience, flying from Seoul to Siem Reap and being bussed and carted from Wat to Wat in 100 degree heat?
L and I had a blast gawking at the "coach-potatoes", some clad in nipple-high rayon pants sweating and panting over the steps, their heads mindlessly bobbing and nodding, to and fro, as the voice in their ear (the tour-guide ear-piece) directed them to the linga, the carved lintel, the defaced and de-armed Buddha. Others, "like beer-girls", per our guide, dressed in too short skirts and too long heels to be trekking over thousand year old stones of Angkor Wat, looked entirely miserable. Sometimes I wondered what they were even doing here. There aren't Malls in Siem Reap - but an enterprising Cambodian could make a fortune by building one.
"They even bring their own Korean tour guides," he explained. To him this seemed slightly unfair as he had gone thru years of government schooling and pays an annual tour guide tax. Cambodia's government has a real stake in the tourism business. Whereas Phnom Penh (per guide) is full of bandits, pick-pockets, and "beer-girls" (mainly Vietnamese) who charge $50 USD a night and pick-pocket their clients, Seam Reap and its surroundings, are more like Universal Studios Amusement Park (think Cholocate Thunder) run by "reformed" Khmer Rouge bandits. Everyone seems chummy - now that there is real tourist dollars involved. There is an aura that all the rules havent quite been ironed out but there is a lot of money to be made as the government gets around to it. The police have a habit of standing (or sleeping in their hammocks) by the side of the road and collecting random taxes on random drivers. Per our guide, these "taxes" trickle up to the top. We were never stopped, but in some ways I wish we had. Our guide, having fought for years in the jungles of Cambodia, having a nice series of scrapnel scars up his left leg, and believing in all the voodoo of animism, would have verbally undressed the corrupt policeman and scared him off with threats of hexes and bodily demonstrations of what stepping on a Chinese imported land-mine might do to his legs. It would have been a treat to watch - most of the policemen are more like pimply kids.
All in all, Cambodia seems to be a place stuck in a time that no longer exists in the world I have known. Bicycles and mo-peds crowd the streets - whether in town or in the village - less than 15% of the population has access to electricity (per guide, the government built a road out to the Wats (gave the contract to Koreans) but the streetlights only work on certain days (last night must have been one of those days as we saw the ritual of families sitting underneath semi-operable streetlights having picnics)- parents and children line up at 4 AM outside the childrens' hospital for free malaria and encephalitis shots. It would be nice if the government gave a Korean or Japanese company a contract to build a pavillion for the parents and children to stand under as they wait in the blaring sun for the Swiss doctor to let them inside. Life is difficult here.