"Good Luck!" It's a phrase I’ve heard often here, whether it’s from a temple devotee offering incense, or an ambitious tuk-tuk driver jonesing for a fare. It’s interesting, because although I’ve encountered infrequent failures in my few days here, they always seem to be followed by small successes. My first bad news came when my adaptor plug stopped working, which left me with no means of power to charge my laptop, iPod, or camera. I wasn’t sure where I could find a replacement in Siem Reap, but felt confident that there had to be somewhere that sold a similar device, at least in Bangkok.
Chen, my moped driver and knowledgeable local, met me at 7AM to take me to Siem Reap’s cash cow, and Cambodia’s #1 tourist draw, the Temples of Angkor. After purchasing my pass, I took Chen’s advice and did what he called the “opposite tour”, whereby I took the reverse route of most visitors, thereby avoiding the crowds and saving the biggest and best temples for last. I began with the complex known as Angkor Thom,which was a walled city built at the end of the 12th Century containing one million people, at a time when there were only 50,000 Londoners. The wooden structures of the common folk are long gone, but the stone temples and palaces remain. After that, I continued my “opposite tour” to the Bauphon temple, and the much photographed Bayon temple, which features 216 enormous smiling faces of gods carved in the likeness of the king who commissioned it. By the time I’d finished checking out Angkor Thom, it was already stiflingly hot, but I had one more stop before the day was done…the national symbol of Cambodia, Angkor Wat.
I found the temples at Angkor even more impressive than the Great Wall. While the Wall is no doubt an impressive feat of engineering, the logistics of building such grand structures by floating massive stones quarried 30 miles away up the Siem Reap river without the aid of modern equipment is mind-blowing. It involved a lot of steep and sweaty climbing, but it was worth it. When I met Chen at noon, the cooling wind from the moped ride felt good on my sun-baked skin.
Because Angkor cannot be done in one day, I again met with Chen at 7:00 the following morning so he could take me to see more temples, a couple of them about 30 miles farther out of town. At our first major intersection, we were stopped by motorcycle cops and forced to wait for about 15 minutes. I said to Chen, “This looks like what they do in America when the President visits.” I didn’t know how right I would be, as a motorcade passed by, and I saw Hu Jintao, President of China, rolling along in the back of a Mercedes. I don’t know what it is about autocrats and Benzes, but they sure seem to have an affinity for them. Once Mr. Hu came through, we passed truckloads of Cambodians in the other direction, holding pictures of their distinguished guest, along with little paper Chinese flags. It was cool to actually see the Chinese leader; which is a rare event…even in Beijing.
After the delay, it was smooth sailing down sunny rural roads to Banteay Srei, also known as the “Lady Temple”, a small but more aesthetically pleasing place made of pink sandstone and full of intricate carvings devoted to the Hindu god Shiva. It was chock full o’tourists, but nice to see nonetheless. Outside the temple, I sat under a tree and listened to a traditional Khmer band made up of landmine victims. I don’t know if it was because of the overwhelming nature of their injuries, or because I wanted to really try and listen to music that at first sounded like noise, but I closed my eyes. After that, each instrument became individually audible, and the music began to take on a pleasant form in my mind.
During the nightmarish rule of the Khmer Rouge during the 70’s and 80’s, the evil “Brother Number One”, known as Pol Pot, order millions of landmines to be placed all over the country. He referred to them as “perfect soldiers”, because they do not need food or sleep. To this day, remaining mines still kill and maim thousands of civilians. I had wanted to try and visit a museum created by Aki-Ra, a man who laid mines as a child solider, and has devoted his adult life to clearing them. I was told it had moved out of the Siem Reap area, so I thought it was unlikely I’d be able to make a visit. But then, on the road back from the Lady Temple, I spotted the Cambodian Landmine Museum. I asked Chen to make a pit stop, and I’m glad I did. Although not a very big or detailed attraction, the Landmine Museum marked the most emotionally evocative site I visited in the country. Seeing the on-site school for child victims and the video on the Cambodian de-mining program left me no doubt saddened, but I would recommend it to anyone traveling in the area. It also left me a little ashamed, as much of the unexploded ordinance was manufactured in the good old US of A…but I felt good that the violence of the past three decades has finally come to an end, and that there are people like Aki-Ra working hard to make their country better.
After the somber sight of the Landmine Museum, Chan took me to two remaining temples in the Angkor complex I’d had yet to see, Ta Prohm and Serang Srei. Ta Prohm is a more forgotten ruin, complete with giant trees growing in and around the buildings. Chen was proud to inform me that Ta Prohm was where they filmed the movie Tomb Raider. I asked him, “Is Angelina Jolie in there?” And he said, “Yeah, she waiting for you now!” The next temple was not so great, and I could’ve taken it or left it. In hindsight, I should’ve probably left it, as I was assaulted with lots of little kids trying to sell me junk. One of them was a pushy little girl who called herself Anina. She kept saying, “You buy? You buy painting for Mom? You buy coconut?” To get her off my back, I capitulated and told her I’d by a coconut on the way back out of the temple. My hopes of somehow avoiding her upon my return were quickly dashed as she was anxiously waiting on me. I bought a coconut (which they cut open and serve with a straw to drink the milk from) and thanked her. But then, she kept following me and trying to sell me a painting. I tried to explain to her that my bag was not large enough to accommodate such a mammoth piece of framed art. She kept saying, “Oh my gawd! Oh my gawd!” in the most dreadful nasally tone. Then she said, “You American all same! Cheap A-hole!” and tailed me for about 100 yards shouting “Cheap A-hole!” at the top of her lungs. At home, I would’ve been quite bothered by this behavior, but knowing that it’s her bread and butter, and she probably has elders to report to, I could understand the hard sell. Still, for the most part Cambodian hawkers have been rather polite, so in a way I wish I’d saved my coconut money for a nicer kid.
Chen and I had a good laugh about little Anina, and I said goodbye to him when he dropped me back off in town. I washed up, walked down to the “Pub Street” and ate a hamburger made from Crocodile meat farmed nearby. On my way back, right outside of my guest house, Chen just happened to be passing by on his scooter on his way home. I asked if he’d like to join me for a $2 pitcher of beer. Going to a very local establishment, Chen and I sat for a couple of hours chatting and throwing back pints of pilsner. It was at this point when Chen made the transition from hired driver to new pal, and I hopped on his moped to go out for a night of partying, Cambodian-style. First, we met some of his friends at a discotheque where I was definitely the only non-Khmer in the place. It was a blast. Chen’s friends were all very nice, and brought me out on the dance floor to teach me how to move like they do, which is in a counterclockwise circle while doing demure little hand movements. Then, we stumbled off to some other club, but this one was more upscale, and I didn’t want to overdo it. While I was there, I was approached by many young ladies wanting me to buy them drinks. I’m not sure if they were prostitutes or just barflies, but I knew that they weren’t interested in me for my good looks, and like a truly cheap American A-hole, I wasn’t about to waste my cash on them. It wasn’t long before Chen was passed out drunk on the couch next to me, and I got to feeling uncomfortable. So, with my wits still about me, I high-tailed it out of the club and hired another guy with a moped to take me back to my hostel. Somehow, by the time I got back, Chen was already there, asleep on a bench outside, presumably looking for me, yet too intoxicated to moped back to his home ten miles away. I woke him up and let him crash in my room.
After waking up late, Chen asked if I wanted to go to his hometown and go net-fishing, then spend the night with his family. While it sounded like a great time, I had to decline, because I’d already bought my early morning return ticket to Bangkok for the next day. So this time, it was goodbye for real, and I thanked him for showing me a good time in Siem Reap, and being the only person I made a real connection with in Cambodia.
I spent my last day in town going from store to store looking for a replacement to my busted adaptor plug. After a series of salesmen viewed the old adaptor as if it were made by aliens, I finally found a shop that sold all kinds of dumpy electric gear, along with cans of motor oil. Digging though a box, I found a $2 appliance that managed to work. Good luck indeed.
Cambodia has been another place I’ll never forget. While I could’ve done without the drunken British punters perusing the tourist traps and changing TV channels to Premier League games, I found most Cambodians to be exceedingly warm and kind…a far cry from the average Chinese citizen. I suppose I could’ve spent more time here, especially after getting to know Chen, but there’s so much of Thailand left to see, and the nearly unbearable temperatures have left me yearning for a spot on the sand.
I’m writing this now on the aforementioned morning bus, and we’re about an hour away from the border. From there, it’s through immigration and another 6 hours to Khao Sanh road in Bangkok, a party street popular with backpackers, where the bus drops us off. If I can find a good guest house in the neighborhood, then I might hunker down there. If not, then I’ll probably head back to the hostel near the airport where I stayed when I first arrived, where I’m definitely staying tomorrow night so I can easily catch the cheap flight I just booked to the famous island of Phuket.
