Dave the Nomad

Many people have heard of Angkor Wat, but what they don’t realize is this is just one religious building in a massive complex of ancient ruins, dwarfing places like Pompei or the Taj Mahal. As I had mentioned, I met up with Pat and Mary in Siem Reap, and we caught up on life and travels over a few beers. They planned to get up early to watch sunrise over Angkor Wat. I passed, and decided to sleep. I bought a three day pass to the ruins, and used every minute of it.

On the first day, I rented a bicycle for a few dollars and headed off in the general direction of the temples. After about 10 km of small road biking I somehow entered the park on a back road. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help as they check your ticket before entering each temple. I backtracked to the entrance gate, and met a group of people who ran into the same problem as me. We biked back to the temples, and made Angkor Wat our first stop.

Angkor Wat is a phenomenal structure. Before you can see the Wat you stare at the impressively large moat surrounding the symmetrical complex. Although I expected the towers to be twice as high, the place is still very impressive with inner layer after inner layer of intricate carvings and vast Bas reliefs. We went back to our bikes and set off for the Royal Center of Angkor after a solid haggling by the 10-year-old business gauntlet.

The scorching heat was tolerable, but it left us guzzling water, and wanting to get back on the bikes just to get some moving air. We wanted to see as many of the different temples as possible without getting overdose, which we commonly referred to as “templed-out.” We had just visited the Bayon which is distinct from the other ones thanks to its several meter high faces staring in the cardinal directions.

We wanted to visit Ta Prohm next, but made a very impromptu stop at a newer looking temple with a large Buddha statue. The monks told us it was only 20 years old. Off to the side we noticed a family sitting on a small stone balcony getting absolutely soaked by a monk as he chanted and threw bowl after bowl of water on them. A few of the younger monks were happy to entertain our questions about wha was happening. He explained the ritual was part of the Cambodian New Year. Once a year families come to the temple to be blessed for good luck in the coming year.

Then they asked us if we wanted to do it. After several hours of sweaty biking, the decision was simple, and 15 minutes later it was our turn to be soaked. We gave our cameras to the monks, and proceeded to get soaked by the eldest monk. It was refreshing, and hard to keep a straight face as the monk paparazzi took more pictures than I had the whole day. It was a great experience, and a refreshing change from the tourism machine in which we were immersed.

The following day, I decided to get a tuk-tuk with Sheri to see the other temples, including Ta Prohm which was the backdrop of Lara Croft Tombraider. The bizarre and exotic roots climbing through and around the ruins were absolutely stunning. Besides this highlight, I was starting to get templed out. After convening with the other we decided to visit two temples much farther away on the third day. One of these was created entirely by women, and is believed to be the origin of Khmer culture. The other is carved into the banks of a small stream with a waterfall.

The first temple we visited was sadly, packed with tourist buses, and hard to find a quiet place to stare at the beautiful carvings. They said women built it because there’s no way a man could give such attention to detail to each piece. A bit jilted by the temple, we had higher hopes for the waterfall temple.

The waterfall temple had a much more promising start, as there were only a few tuk-tuks in the parking lot. We hiked for about 20 minutes up the hillside and found ourselves at a small stream with some carvings and linga carved into the surrounding stone. The trickle of water was disappointing, and there were no building to be found. Thankfully, the waterfall was perfect. We promptly jumped in the water to cool off and relax. Although it was the dry season, there was enough water to give you a good back massage, butterflies flickered around the sun spots on the rocks, and small fish swam around the trash free pools. It was a good end to the temple sight-seeing. I was happy to find a few things off the beaten path here, and it really helped make this a great experience.

I took another overnight bus back to Bangkok, and hung out with a Thai friend I met in Madrid while waiting for my Chinese visa. Wasinee had to work during the days, but we caught up over a couple nights of dinner and wandering the streets. Getting my Chinese visa was virtually painless compared to my Indian visa adventures in Turkey. I simply handed my passport over without filling in a form, and picked it up two days later, and $200 poorer.

Ready for my trip, I boarded a bus for Siem Reap, which is the major town outside Angkor Wat. The plan is to get the Cambodian visa at the border, and take a mini-bus the rest of the way. After a brief stop for lunch where our guide tried to have us pay almost three times as much for our visa through his agency, we were back on the bus to the border town of Poipet. We arrived in a nice strip of shops and well kept roads, and started walking to the border. On the other side was a plume of dust rising from the road, and suddenly the people were not smiling anymore.

While walking to the customs office our guide offered to take care of our visas for only 1000 baht (it was 1400 baht at lunch), but the visa only costs 650 baht. I was happy to wait an hour in line to save the money and pressed onward. Our guide walked in before us, jabbered to the immigration officials, and sat us down to fill out papers. When it came time to pay, the officials wanted 1100 baht. I knew something was fishy, so I nonchalantly asked for a receipt with my passport. No one was willing to sign off on it. No one wanted to admit how much the visa cost.

Perturbed, I stood in line, got my visa stamped, and politely asked how much the visa cost. They said it was 650 baht. I asked if they could tell me why I paid the guy 40 feet away 1100 baht, and why he couldn’t just give me a receipt. They said it was for “fast process, no wait.” I was fine with that if someone could own up to signing a piece of paper. I walked out, looked at the guy in charge, who couldn’t hold eye contact, and told him to have a beer on me, and put his children in a good school.

Our guide agreed to get a taxi for myself and a nice Irish couple I had met so we wouldn’t have to take the 6 hr long non AC mini bus. Before we could do that we were put on a bus to listen to some guy talk about Cambodia, hyper-sweat for 10 minutes, and walked back off the bus which only went about 100 meters, and were ushered to the back of the taxi building to get a taxi. We asked why we were out back, and he said, “special priority, you skip all others.”

Our taxi driver took off, flying down the dust blown roads, honking so frequently, I wondered if he hadn’t just attached it to a CAM shaft on the engine. I was back in India.

In India, you could do anything for a price. The scam artists are God, and sometimes you have no other option. Trash was splayed like spring flowers, cows aimlessly roamed the streets, and our driver was driving on the left side of the road (you drive on the right side in Cambodia) as if we were fleeing for our lives. Unsurprisingly, we arrive in Siem Reap in record time, and were left at a tuk-tuk stand to go to our hotel.

My plan was to meet up with my friend from CWRU, Pat, and his fiancee, Mary, at a guest house, so I had a place to go. The tuk-tuk/rickshaw driver hates this. They always want to bring you to their buddy’s place. Wryly he asked which guest house as their were two of them very close. I said the cheaper, but I would just check at reception. We passed the ‘Popular Guest House,’ and turned into another place. I looked behind at the sign; a ploy. This wasn’t ‘Popular Guest House II,’ but another hotel. I told them to take me to the guest house, and that was final. Unhappily, he took us there, and we immediately ran into Pat and Mary.

The poverty level back up, the scam and buddy networks thriving, I am finding it hard not to compare this country to India. The stretch of road we had just traveled is infamous for scams, and I felt glad to make it out relatively unscathed. It is not all bad however, I missed the small children business selling you trinkets and pouting. I enjoy bartering with them, or tricking one of them into telling me their break-even point.. The difference here is they get upset when you buy from someone else, and they whine at you, “Why you no buy from me, I talk you first,” and every business advance is done in the most pathetically high pitched voice possible. I’ll go into more detail of the ruins, but when you arrive at one of the temples, the sound is very similar to the noon time tornado warning horn at home. A cacophony of women starting their attention getting, “helllllloooo, driiiinnnk, collllldddd drinnnkkk,” as they flap their menus in the air at you, and scoot their children off the hammock to sell you postcards.

Same, same, but different.