Although it is the dry season here, Cambodia is very lush and green. Instead of dirt, there is orange tinted sand lining the roads and under the palm, banana, and banyan trees. There is a lot of water around, whether it be just little puddles, the river that runs through town, or the huge moat around Angkor Wat. Skinny looking white and brown cows chill out on the sides (or sometimes in the middle..) of the roads, usually in large fields of tall grass. There are also a lot of very slim black roosters, and tired, scruffy looking dogs scattered around. The air is very hot and thick, but not humid. Even in the hottest parts of the day, walking into the shade makes it feel at least ten degrees cooler. Especially in town, the air often smells like incense because most businesses burn it in small pagoda podiums setup outside their shops. Once you escape from the motor noises of the busier areas, your ears are filled with jungle sounds, probably birds, maybe bugs, its hard to say really. There's an odd chirp that sounds like it's coming from inside our room sometimes... let's hope that one's small and doesn't bite.
Most of the roads are paved, although some are just bumpy orange sand and gravel. There are some cars, (oddly enough mostly toyota camrys with a sprinkling of sketchy mercedes mini buses, and also a good number of Lexus RX300s) but most people get around on fairly modern looking little motor bikes, or just normal manual bicycles. It is not uncommon to see a family of 4 on one motor bike, with dad driving, and then two kids squashed between him and mom, who hangs on at the end. Every now and then there is a "gas station" on the side of the road for these motor bikes, which usually consists of a man dozing in a hammock next to a large barrel with a long, plastic tube coming out of it. There are not many stop lights, and it seems the general rule for crossing an intersection is "just keep driving unless it looks like someone's going to hit you", while the rule for turning left is "drive into the oncoming traffic lane-> stay in that lane and dodge oncoming traffic as you turn into new oncomming traffic lane-> slowly weave back into your lane".
Lining the busier streets are large new looking hotels and restaraunts, and most of them are labeled both with the beautiful khmer language, which is very swirly and not at all like asian characters (probably derived from sanskrit?), as well as English. There are also lots of open markets with fruit and veggies, and other goods. I've seen a good number of stores with every style of accesorized, flowered flip flop you can imagine. Probably my favorite was a store called "modern laundry" where the clothes are all hanging out on racks by the side of the dusty road (I saw that in Beijing a lot.. maybe that was the Chinese influence?). There are also a scattering of small houses and other more run down looking buildings. Most buildings that aren't new looking are made out of some patchwork combination of tarp, ridged scraps of metal, scraps of wood, and palm/banana leaves all strapped to a wooden or metal frame. The houses seem to mostly be on stilts, probably to avoid flooding problems during the wet season.
The people here are very sweet and friendly and often eager to chat. They are not shy about using what English they know, and many of them can actually speak very well. It's actually pretty crazy how multilingual everyone is. Even the small children who sell postcards at the temples will switch off languages until they find one you understand, repeating their whole schpeal in the language of your choice. Today, a girl was trying to sell me a guidebook, and when I said "No Thank you" and tried to move on, she asked where I was from. I told her "America" and she asked "what state?" I said Washington, sure that she'd be confused and think I meant Washington DC (as do most people.. even in America..) when she said "Oh! Washington. Capital is Olympia! President of America is Obama. Alaska is the biggest state and capital of Hawaii is Honolulu!" I figure she probably knows more about America than most American children. Another little girl, probably about 3 years old, followed my mom around counting to 10 in seriously, at least 10 to 15 different languages. If you buy something, or donate a dollar to someone, they will often wish you "Good Luck!" or even "Good luck for your WHOLE life!!!" Which makes you feel as though you've really tallied up the Karma points (although I got sick after that.. so I guess I need more..). The sales people at the temple, though very persistent, will stop at the entrance to the temple and say, "I remember your name Emily! You don't have to buy, but if you buy coconut, you buy from me okay! You remember my clothes look like this!! okay?!" and then smile and wave you in. People are always quick to smile at you. Even a few people who we pulled up next to on the road would pull up their helmets and smile.
The students of all ages wear white button-up shirts and navy pants or skirts to school, and at certain hours you can see hordes of them biking along the side of the road, probably on their way home after class, or for lunch. You often also see Orange draped clad monks walking around with buzz cuts and flip flops. I've seen them with everything from cell phones, to laptops which seems unlikely, but I hear that many men will dedicate a few months of their lives to being a monk rather than living their whole life that way. The rest of the people dress in pretty much the average jeans and T-shirt style that you can see anywhere else, occasionally sporting the "Armani Jeans" or other knock off brand name logo. The city and area around the temples is very alive, and there are tons of people lounging by their carts or stands, sleeping in hammocks, or walking around with their families. The general population is very young, I think a huge percent is under 30, and it's pretty obvious just by the massive amounts of little children you see everywhere.
Instead of taxis, most tourists will hire a "Tuk tuk", which is a little wheeled seating carriage attached to a motor bike. On the first day, our Tuk Tuk driver was Mr. Lai, a 25 year old Khmer, who lives with his mother and two of his siblings. He said that after his father passed away, his mother sent him to a Buddhist monestary for a while, where he learned some English, and a little bit about the history of the Angkor Temples.
At the suggestion of our guidebook, we asked Mr. Lai to show us 10 or 12 of the smaller, older temples on the first day. This included the Roluos Group (Preah Ko, Bakong, and Lolei), which were built around 800 AD, as well as Prasat Kravan, Banteay Kdei, Pre Rup, East Mebon, Ta Som, Neak Pean, and Preah Khan (all part of the "large circuit"). So.. to be honest, I still can't pronounce most of their names, and probably couldn't tell most of them apart even after seeing them, but I'll try to describe them as a whole in a way that will hopefully at least hint at their grandeur. Apparently this whole area, around and between the temples, used to be a highly populated city, with many wooden structures and houses that are now long gone. The Stone temples still stand remarkably in place, and although they are over 1000 years old, you can still tell how intricately designed they were. The general structure is a sort of rectangular base, with a rounded terraced roof that goes up and ends in a point. Each temple usually has one large one of these, surrounded by at least four smaller ones, all sitting on a raised platform area, sometimes requiring a hike up extremely steep steps reach. The structures themselves are all intricately carved with buddhas, dancing ladies, or ornate designs, usually with a fake door carved on each side, and a real door facing East. On the inside, there is a central platform where it seems there used to be a Buddha, but I think, unfortunately, most of them have been destroyed or looted. If you go inside, and look up, you can see that the whole structure is hollow, and then open at the very tip, like a skylight. Some of the local people have put little buddha statues in the corners of them, with incense and other religious objects. At most of the temples, it seems that there is always music in the air, and as corny as it sounds, it's often actually true, sadly though, because it comes from troups of land-mine victims who play traditional cambodian instruments on the sidewalks leading to the temples. They take donations, and also sell their CDs, and if you give them a dollar they will wish you "Good luck!" and wave, although many cannot see. Many of the temples also have long hallways, with doorway after doorway, so that when you look down them you see each one framed by the one before it and then the little bit of green at the end. Because they are usually at least partly destroyed, there are many freestanding pillars and doorways, and platforms and stairs that were probably once inside, but now have no cover. Many of the temples have piles and piles of blocks of carved stone, that were clearly part of something important once. I guess they couldn't be placed but were too precious to throw away, so now they're just stacked up for people to see. Some of the temples like Bayon (one of the ones we saw today) look as though they were sliced up into cubes and then pieced back together. It's really odd, and I'm not really sure how they're still standing, but it looks very interesting. Sometimes the pieces will be from one bas relief, with each block being a slightly different color, and the pieces slightly mismatched but generally contributing to the same picture. The textures and colors of the stones are really dramatic and different from place to place too. Sometimes it looks a lot like lava rock. Other times its colored with green, white, or red tints, or looks like it's black from being burned. A few of the temples had been so overtaken by the jungle, that huge trees were growing in, around, and even out of the structres, giving it a very lost world, Indiana Jones feel.
Today we went out and saw the famous Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, which includes Bayon, The Terrace of the Elephants, and The Terrace of the Leper King. On the roads between Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, there are a lot of monkeys just sitting around and waiting for you to buy them bananas and feed them. I didn't buy any bananas, but I got some freebee pictures. Angkor Wat is surrounded by a huge, thick moat and to get there you walk across a big bridge, railed on either side by men holding a large snake (probably a naga?). The inside is much like the temples I described above, but perhaps a little more intact and orderly. Bayon, as I mentioned is crazy because of how pieced together it is. It's almost like a huge jigsaw puzzle. The terraces are intricately carved, raised platforms that you can walk along. I think there was more to see, but I started fading at that point, so I never got my Angkor Wat sunset. Next time.
We are staying at a charming boutique hotel called Villa Kiara, owned by a French husband and Cambodian/French wife. They moved here in 2007, after spending three years in Seattle, where they lived in Issaquah and he ran Le Petit Bistro, a French restaurant in Belltown. He is quite a chef. we enjoyed his scampi and duck specials on the first night. They have a three-year-old son, born in Seattle, and an 18-month old daughter, Kiara. The hotel has only 17 rooms. Ours is furnished simply, with two beds on a wooden platform and a semi-open bathroom. The Internet is free, but you have to displace the hotel receptionist to use it. There is a nice swimming pool, surrounded by palm trees, and if you order a coconut shake, they will climb a palm tree to pick a coconut for you. The dining area is open-air, underneath an older wooden building on stilts, built in the traditional style. At night little white geckos run across the ceiling. The people who work here are very friendly and helpful.
Well, I'm sorry that this has turned into such a long entry, I guess my excuse will be that it covers 4 days. I'm feeling much better now, which is good, because we have to be trekking in the hills in 2 days... haha. Thankfully I had my mommy here to feed me french pain killers, electrolytes (not french), and good old TLC. Anyway, we're flying to Chiang Mai tomorrow, hopefully with enough time to check out the floating village here before we go. I'll write more often from now on hopefully, so long as I don't get ridiculously ill.
miss you all! hope everything is goign well! email me updates or comment!
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