Day 22 - Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom

For our last day of touring in Cambodia, we saved the best for last including sunrise at Angkor Wat, and the second largest complex Angkor Thom.   

T and I were to rendezvous with our guide at 5:20 am, so we could make the drive and arrive early for a good seat to catch the sun rise. As I put on my touring togs, I was reminded of a great line in the second book of Little Dorrit. Dickens is at his best, pillorying a certain type represented by the young Tip Dorrit. Tip along with his family has recently come in to an inordinate amount of money after spending twenty-some-odd years in debtors prison.  Now being wealthy, the Dorrits make up for lost time by taking a European.  The book opens with them in the Alps, and with Tip at his most haughty, condescending to converse with a fellow traveller by the fire. And Dickens roasts him indeed, describing Tip thus: "He was dressed in the very fullest and completest travelling trim. The world seemed hardly large enough to yield him the amount of travel proportionate to his equipment." Oh Charles, oh Chuck.  How funny you are!

But it got me to thinking about travel attire.  There are many factors to consider: 1) the damn heat, 2) the damn mosquitoes and 3) the damn steep stairs and tiny treads that the Angkoreans sadistically employed to connect galleries (i.e. floors).  Apparently the harder they are to climb, the more analogous they are to difficulty of attaining heaven.  For me, this means I should dress as a cross between Indiana Jones and high school version of myself.  Khaki pants, t-shirts, and Patagonia tied around my waist.  Top it off with my hair stuffed under my husbands explorer hat (Sorry Rye and Jen, I have a bad habit of making good use of T's gifts).  And my tennis shoes.  After an hour or two in the late afternoon heat, the outfit coalesces into what I consider to be a proper sweaty mess.

T has the additional consideration of also acting as our dromedary.  You name it, he's toting it - my cold medicine, Off wipes, sunscreen, maps, passports, wallets, blackberries, receipts, the hotel card, sunglasses case.  Luckily enough, he got an appropriately named "Ex-Officio" Traveller's vest from his valentine, bought at the only Orvis inside of 5 Burroughs.  Don that bad boy over a Nike workout shirt recently acquired on the cheap.  Pull on some linen pants--the subject of a breakdown in Barney's when purchased (I think it had to do with the pants having an exposed drawstring?).  A voila.  A second proper, even sweater mess!

We had the morning by the reflecting pond at Angkor Wat waiting for the sun to rise, to cultivate a better understanding other's interpretation of travelling trim.  There are some who chose the nylon route, or the high-healed/mini-skirted route as chronicled in T's Post-Postscript yesterday.  But there are also those who have -- how should I say -- decided to go "native."  This usually includes a combination of a) Angkor and/or Singha Beer Tee b) purple swami pants, with the inseams meeting somewhere be the knee and ankle, c) flip-flops, and d) pointy rice patty hat, bought at the nearest tourist trap.  Typically, this is accompanied by a beard if a man, and a headscarf if a woman.  Never mind that this version of a hot sweaty mess has almost nothing to do with the actual native togs of the countrymen from which they were purchased.  Do borrow a bit from Dickens, there would hardly seem to be a backpack big enough to accommodate the stereotypes from which this equipage was drawn.

Oh good fun.  

But the view was splendid, the temples were interesting and our guide was marching us along as intent as ever.  Angkor Wat itself was large, with the whole of the first gallery being carved sandstone with various Hindu epic scenes, images of Vishnu, of the Naga, of Garuda, etc.  It was said that 7,000 slaves labored for the 40 or so years it took to build this complex.  That the amount of Sandstone quarried from 55 km away was equivalent to the amount of material used to build the great pyramid.  That if the same complex were to be built today, one team of engineers estimated that it would take 300 years.  And that the Khmer Rouge had hid in the complex during the civil war.  Despite being atheist, they didn't destroy the religious images, but rather used its galleries and halls as hideouts.  Americans dropped a bomb nearby the temple, which caused one of it's south towers to fall.

Angkor Thom, and specifically the Bayon temple within it was my favorite

 of the 10 or so we saw over the course of our 3 days.  It was the first place I really felt like I understood the term "Mountain Temple" used to describe this style, with is representative of the Hindu belief about the mountain at the center of an ocean representing heaven.  The temple had massive stone faces at the top of its many towers, successively on higher galleries towards the center.  Climbing up the galleries, you could walk between narrow alleys, looking up at the faces above you and the blue sky above them.  

Day 21 - The Minor Wats

Yesterday we were run ragged, touring the lesser known wats, palace gates and other ruins. Most of the 200 ruins and temples in this area were built by the Khmer people as Hindu temples dedicated to Vishnu between the 9th and 12th century.  During most of that time, this area was considered the capital of the Khmer empire.

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.

Days 20 - Cambodia's Tonle Sap

I've never been to a place where war has so recently raged. Sixty-percent of the population is under the age of 20.  The story of our tour guide is a good example.

His father was a high ranking general in the army and was killed by the Khmer Rouge after its rise to power in the mid 1970s.  His mother's land in the city and the country was taken.  She fled, working in the rice patties.  Her 4 children were placed in an orphanage, and were raised there.  Our guide told us he lived with 100 other orphans, and every morning, the older orphans would go out and bury the others who had died in the night.  He left the orphanage at the age of 13.  

In the mid eighties, he joined the army.  He was wounded in the army.  He caught malaria.  His mother bought the expensive anti-malarial medicine needed to cure him.  I asked him how it is that he survived between the war and disease.  He said many people in his troupe died, that he prayed for good luck, and that he would avoid going into battle if he had a nightmare the night before.

In the mid-nineties, he left the army and worked for a year clearing land mines alongside a Dutch non-profit organization.  He quit after he saw his boss lose a leg by stepping on a mine. He tried to study to be a nurse, but it was difficult to get a job at the hospital.  He became a teacher instead.  He said that teachers, army and the police all get paid the same, but through extortion, police can make more.  Teaching was hard he said.  The kids don't respect the teachers any more.  Some of the parents are indifferent.  Only 9% of Cambodians go to schools at the high-school level.

And after that, he became a tour guide.

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The city of Siem Reap, where we are staying, is nearest to the most famous of the more than 200 temples in this region - Angkor Wat.  "Siem Reap" is Khmer for "Defeated the Thai," referring to battle in the 17th where they had overthrown Thai invaders that had long laid siege and then occupied the area.  

Within our first two days here, our guide frequently enumerated various grievances against the Thai including, but not limited to: stealing temple treasures like the Linga (phallic image worshiped in Hinduism) and Buddha; laying claim of rightful ownership for the Angkor complex; deporting migrant workers who have gone to labor in Thai rice patties; selling them bad fruit, which Cambodia has too little irrigation to grow for themselves; profiteering from the civil war, including levying heavy taxes on the weaponry imported by both the Khmer Rouge and the national government.  

(I am struck, while listening, that we never heard about this antagonism while in Thailand.  The Khmer hate the Thais, the Thais hate the Burmese.  And as it follows, each of the former had been occupied by the latter.)

As a people who have lived through much, there are many such opinions - about the police (corrupt), the French (arrogant), the Vietnamese (recently chummy), the Koreans (bad tourists), the old king (disgraced), and the current political system (still, the walls have ears). 

*

The morning of our first day, we go out on the largest fresh water lake in Southeast Asia - the Tonle Sap.  Between the wet and dry seasons, water levels vary so dramatically that in the wet season, the lake is fed all the way from the Himalayas in the north.  In the dry season, the Mekong actual changes its directions and flows into the lake from the south.  

Many locals make their living from the lake.  Many live literally on the lake.  We visited two such villages, Chong Khneas and Kamong Khleang.  

Roughly 9000 people live in floating homes in Chong Khneas, which is closest to Siem Reap.  There are tourist catfish and crocodile farms, homes that have TV antenna for their battery operating TVs.  A bar and a floating restaurant.

T and I make for a longer trip.  Our boat goes for an hour along the distant coast. Along the other side of the boat,  only the occasional hand-motor powered boat or fish-trap anchors punctuate the horizon.  

We come across the Kamong Kleang village.  "Visitors during the dry season are universally awestruck," according to one guide book, "by the forest of stilted houses rising up to 10 meters in the air. In the wet season, the waters rise to within one or two meters of the buildings." T and I were struck by that, I guess, and other things too: the "new" hand-crank telephone, the women peeling dried shrimp caught 

yesterday in the river, the girls selling us half-eaten pencils to donate to the school, the garishly painted new Buddhist temple, the young monk, drenched with sweat, crouched over the tiles he was laying.