Wat-tacular

My morning started off with a humbling lesson in Cambodian daily life.  Apparently there are two directions to run from our hostel: left along the river and right along the river.  In this case, right was right and left was wrong, but I didn't know that yet.  And so I turned left and spent all of about ten minutes running past open sewage, piles of burning trash, children playing on non-functioning water pumps, and men wading chest deep in liquid mud.  Fallen trees had chip bags twisted in their roots and rotting fruit spotted the path, which had transitioned from road to pot-holed dirt.  I felt very female, very alone, and very conspicuous, so I returned to the hotel.  In contrast, Nicolas got up about ten minute after I did and turned right along the river, passing a giant water wheel, French gardens, the royal palace, and fancy hotels.  He felt none of the Tourist Invasion Anxiety and Guilt that characterized my run.  Welcome to Cambodia, a country still figuring out its present as well as it's future.

Our group convened for a breakfast planning meeting and decided to get a tuk tuk and a guide for our first day at the temples.  When you're visiting during rainy season, you have to pounce on good weather and make the most of it.  While we enlisted a trusty tuk tuk driver, Tom, we failed to get a guide.  The reason?  It was the first day in a week that there wasn't a constant downpour.  Curse our good weather luck!  There are two temple circuits: the inner loop (Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, and a few others) and the outer loop (temples built for mothers, fathers, ancestors.  Smaller temples honoring gods and such built by older generations as the necessary building techniques were being discovered).  We settled on the outer loop, which has fewer bas-reliefs and details that would need explaining.  The temples were incredible.  Each was unique but they all spoke a common language.  The temples were a Hindu-Buddhist mash-up, a series of east-facing bonus point-earning tributes to the gods, but also a series of pats of the back.  Every surface that hasn't been worn smooth by the years was covered in carvings with minute details, from dancers in ancient, exaggerated versions of plies to seductive celestial nymphs with one hand to the sky and a sly smile on the lips.  Faces appeared at the bottom of pillars or the tops of towers.  The whole place was alive with a thousand silent observers, who watched millions dwell on the land, then slowly disappear as the jungle advanced, then reappear in strange Western clothing with cameras at the ready.

Sadly, I knew nothing about Angkor Wat before a few month ago.  Or I thought I didn't - I had seen Tomb Raider and didn't know that part of it was filmed here, but more on that in my next post - and I am so glad that it made it on to our itinerary.  It is one of those places that you can look up online and read about, but you are still completely bowled over upon arrival.  You see a moat, then the subtle outline of a stone wall cordoning off the jungle, then the three vertical spikes that become more defined - oddly- in the dusk and dawn light.  

Angkor by Maurice Glaize states that these two times are the best for viewing the temple carvings, and he is completely correct.  The worn-away designs suddenly become clear when graced with a bit of shadow.

Anyway, enough sentimental rambling.  We started by wandering around Angkor Wat on our own, just to get a small taste of what we had anticipated for so long.  Corridor upon corridor, long rows of columns.  Thousands of soldiers and demons and beasts caught mid-warfare on the walls.  Candida of kings and Buddhas and soldiers from numerous ancient kingdoms (each distinguishable by their hair, facial features, and dress).  Without a story to draw all the elements together, it was overwhelming.  I decided to wait for the tour.  While I waited outside for the others, I heard a loud commotion above my head and looked over just in time to see four monkeys grabbing a bag of soda (yes, you can buy that here) from a tourist and guzzling it down.  The mother monkey had a small, dark baby clutching her chest, like a backpack worn the tourist way.

Other strange moments included stumbling upon an abandoned pavilion detailing conservation efforts. It helpfully decoded the different kinds of statues/carved figured we would see

But our favorite part was the Adopt-a-Garuda program.  Once we have 25,000, we are totally going in on this.  It's like having a bar stool at Mory's, but about 1,000x cooler and harder to visit.  In our growing obsession with garudas, we have created Gary the Garuda, a character who appears in our sleep deprivation- and awe-induced delirium.

Given our vague knowledge of Cambodia, we did our best to learn a bit more.  At a tourist site like Angkor Wat, there are hundreds if not thousands of people (often teens and children) selling postcards, magnets, and scarves, as well as shirts, skirts, pants, and dresses.  They can be frustrating and aggressive, which makes it easy to forget they are people living very hard lives.  Often, they only make $0.25-$0.50 per sale, even on larger items like a t-shirt.  While sketching, David saw some of the small girls practicing sad faces for each other and applauding good attempts.  When they finally noticed him, they tried to sell him their wares but became fascinated by his sketches of the places that we have been.  When he got to his most recent sketch, which included them, they were incredibly excited.  A lovely reminder that these are just little kids.  We also got to have several great and informative conversations later.  We found out that school is free, but families must pay for books and the uniform (around $65/year) and that the poorly-paid teachers often charge students for the paper for their exams.  Given that families here can have 10-12 kids, there is often not enough money.  School is also held only in the morning, and most children spend all afternoon hawking goods at the temples to supplement their families' income.

We ended the day atop a temple to watch the sunset, which didn't arrive in splendor due to the abundance of clouds.  We caught a glimpse, though!

Some picture from the temples:

We ended the day with a meal at Haven, a restaurant set up in 2011 by a Dutch couple.  The restaurant employs orphans who are too old to live at the orphanage and teaches them skills to work in the hospitality industry.  It also serves some great food.  The menu had a lot of Western offerings, but we stuck with Cambodia fare, trying Amok (also spelled Amock), Khmer red curry, and lok lak.  

Yum!  The restaurant had been recommended to us by a couple we met at the temples, and it did not disappoint.

Spotted: 

  Even cheaper massages.  $1 with a free beverage (that usually costs a dollar on its own at tourist sites). The pricing scheme here is so interesting based on what they make and what has to be imported.  I have no idea how western brands make it in some of these places.  No wonder this is the next frontier of cheap labor now leaving China.