Cambodia

Once again, my apologies for the delay in the blog. I promise, we’re still alive and doing well. We’ve done so much since I last wrote, but I promise that eventually, everything will be accounted for. I’ll just keep plugging along as best I can.

Stepping off the plane in the Phnom Penh airport was such a relief. Although it was nighttime, the air was warm and smelled tropical – a huge change from the cold and smog of our Shanghai. I know there’s something intoxicating about landing in a new place, but something about Cambodia was special even before we exited the airport. It just had a buzz to it. We just knew we were going to like it – and we weren’t disappointed.

We hopped in a beat up but clean Toyota taxi for the ride to the hotel. The driver introduced himself as Chen and we chatted for the duration of the ride into town. He told us a bit of his life story and we were impressed with how much he valued reciprocity and paying good fortune forward. He had once driven some Australian tourists around for a few days and made lifelong friends with them when he returned a very expensive camera to them that they had left behind in his taxi. He could easily have kept it and profited from their loss, but he decided to do the right thing and give it back to them. They were so impressed with his honesty and strong character that they bought he and his family a brand new house in Phnom Penh. Since then, he has vowed to abide by the golden rule and to treat everyone with integrity and kindness. Amazing. Up until that point, we’d been swindled, duped and taken advantage of all across Asia and the first person we meet in Cambodia is a complete 180 from that. We took his card and arranged for him to do all of our driving in P.P.

Our hotel was called the Bougainvillea and was located at the riverside. It was a beautiful boutique place with a great French restaurant on the ground floor. Our room was a 5th floor walk-up, but we had plenty of help with our 6 bags. The room was spacious and cheap. We headed out to town for a quick foot massage before heading to bed. We had an early flight the next morning to the town of Siem Reap in central Cambodia.

Many frequent travelers often enjoy landing in small, out-of-the-way airports. The lack of hustle and the simple joys of walking onto the tarmac in the sunshine are quite a treat after the monotonous international mega-airports all over the world. Siem Reap was just that kind of delightful place. Instead of a baggage carousel, the bags were simply carried in by the ground crew and placed on a low counter for passengers to claim. From there, we walked outside and hired the first tuk-tuk driver we found. Just to explain, a tuk-tuk is a form of transportation common to SE Asia and consists of a moped with a trailer passenger area on its own wheels. Luckily, we were able to leave most of our bags at our hotel in Phnom Penh as we were to return there in just a couple nights, so we loaded our one suitcase into the tuk-tuk and took off. Our driver was competent and fairly talkative. We learned that his house was just down the street from our hotel and we ended up hiring him to drive us around for the 2 days we spent in town. Our hotel was down a dirt road on the new side of town and cost us $6 per person per night. We had a large, clean room with a bathroom. Everything at this hotel was a bargain – the beer was $1, 1-hour in-room massages were $7 and breakfast was $3. Incredible. Cambodia is known for its low prices, but even we were taken aback.

Our reason for coming to Cambodia and Siem Reap in particular was the large temple complex known by the name of the most famous temple – Angkor Wat. It’s an enormous system of temples, moats, and walls carved out of the jungle in the 12th century. The buildings were used for several hundred years through the height of the Khmer Empire, then for reasons unknown, were nearly abandoned and left to rot in the jungle. When European explorers uncovered their remains hundreds of years later, they were astonished at the way these monolithic structures had been subdued by nature. The temples became an icon not only of Cambodia, but of the power of nature to reclaim what humans had worked to build. They have been the backdrop for countless movies including one of the latest Tomb Raider movies starring Angelina Jolie.

After we checked into our hotel, we headed into town to the Mexican restaurant (we make it a point to sample global Mexican cuisine – Japan, Cambodia, China, France, Italy, England, Poland, etc). The food was cheap and decent but it was so hard to sit at the sidewalk and watch all the poor children and land mine victims come by and try to sell things. Through the Khmer Rouge era in the 70’s, wars and massive genocides left the country with thousands of landmines, orphans, and a scarred conscience. Still, the Cambodians do what they can to get by, and many resort to peddling their wares to tourists on the main pub street. Most sell pirated travel books, but others sell DVD’s or sunglasses, all trying to make a living. While we saw hundreds of impoverished or maimed people selling things, we hardly ever saw people just begging for money. They all wanted to make a living as honestly as they could and it actually works in their favor. Tourists are often so impressed at the Khmers’ will to improve their situation that they end up spending far more money buying than they would ever hand out.

From the restaurant, we checked out the local market – a mélange of produce, odds and ends, fish and dollar store type bric-a-brac. Our tour continued with a stop in the local shopping street and some other sites around town. One of the most notable occurrences was a bathroom stop we made at a restaurant further from town than tourists normally venture. As we walked to the back of the restaurant towards the toilets, we passed what was essentially an outdoor kitchen where a man had evidently just slaughtered a pig on the tile and dirt floor. As we passed, he was squatted on the ground with his sleeve rolled up and his arm up to the elbow inside the pig’s carcass. He waved hello to us (with his free hand) and kept on disemboweling the pig. He was just so casual about his pig puppet and so unconcerned about it just bleeding out on the floor that we could only raise our eyebrows in disbelief and keep walking past. The bathrooms had very little plumbing so flies helped keep the mess under control. Needless to say, we didn’t dine there.

After the city tour, we headed off to our first temple in the complex called Bayon. The temple features hundreds of carvings of faces of the god Lokesvara looking out in all directions. The temple looked as if it had been decaying for centuries, but on closer inspection, it had been carefully repaired and preserved to ensure that its broken down look won’t get any worse. It really gives it character. You just can’t walk around and not feel like Indiana Jones.

From Bayon, we went to see the “Elephant Terrace.” This was a large raised platform that was covered with carvings of elephants, but was also used as the royal grandstand to watch parades of elephants as well. As we walked along the top, we saw a group of children playing and singing about half way down the wall. We said hello when we approached and found out that most of the 4 of them spoke at least some English. The undisputed ringleader of the group was a boy of about 9. His English was excellent and he wasted no time impressing us with facts he knew both about our country and his own. He knew state capitals and had a rough idea of US geography and said he learned it in school. His knowledge of the Elephant Terrace was spot on as well. He explained carvings and their significance to us and knew far more than our guidebook could tell us. He led us up to the entrance of the next temple area but said he could go no farther. Then we realized that he was not only good at English, he was a shrewd business man as well. Having just knocked our socks off with his knowledge of the place and his 9 year old charm, he knew he could coax a few bucks out of us. He said that he needed to pay for his own schooling and asked us for money. We only had a couple singles on us which we gave him. Apparently, he is used to impressing more cash flushed tourists because he asked if we had a ten. Honestly, I might have given it to him if I had it. Cambodians do have to pay for education and that burden often falls on the children themselves. It’s something like $40 per month in tuition for the public schools and that’s a tough number to hit for many of them.

We continued on down the path to the next temple. As soon as we came within line of sight, more children approached us to sell us bracelets, scarves, postcards, books and an assortment of carved souvenirs. We didn’t need any of that but it became increasingly hard to say no when the children kept getting cuter and cuter. It really is hard to exaggerate how adorable Cambodian kids are. The country is ethnically half way between China and India so the kids have somewhat Asian features with Indian coloring. They have heads of thick black hair, tanned skin and the biggest smiles you’ve ever seen. Eventually, Alexa broke down and bought some post cards from a young girl who was just too beautiful to say no to. She didn’t really need the postcards but the dollar was well worth the picture or two she was allowed to take.

That particular temple was basically comprised of one pyramid-like structure with impossibly steep steps going up and down both sides – imagine a Mayan temple. It was a climb-at-your-own-risk type thing and me, always excited by activities that stand a real chance of injury, decided to go up. It was a near vertical climb up with only a couple of inches of depth on each step, but I managed to scramble up the side. Alexa met me on the other side and we gathered our strength to face the gauntlet of adorable little salespeople lining the path to the temple.

We made it back to our tuk-tuk mercifully without spending any more money and headed back to town. We had a nice dinner at an Indian place and arranged to have in-room massages back at the hotel. We paid $7 each for our hour long treatments. I had a Thai massage and Alexa had a foot massage and we didn’t even have to leave our hotel. Marvelous. I fell asleep briefly during mine and awoke to find my masseuse standing on top of me, walking up and down my back and legs. No harm done though; she couldn’t have been more than 5’0” and 80 lbs.

The next day, we met our driver after a light breakfast at our hotel and headed back to the temples. We planned on seeing the second most famous temple in the complex called Ta Prom. This was the particular temple featured in the Tomb Raider movie and is the one most covered in vines and trees. On our way there, we drove by an orphanage with a sign that said “Come see our children's paintings!” and we decided to catch it on the way back.

Ta Prom did not disappoint. From the red dirt car park, we walked up a long jungle path until we came to a bridge. The water under the bridge was covered in tiny, bumpy algae that made it look like bright green asphalt. We climbed a slight rise and finally came face to face with the temple. It was a massive stone structure comprised of a protective outer nave and an inner complex of buildings. It wasn’t much different from other temples we had seen except for the fact that this temple had been left for 1200 years, letting nature take its toll. Enormous trees had taken root around the temple with roots that looked like tentacles choking the stones. Roots twisted everywhere, slowly eating away at the structure in a poetic reclamation of the land. Walls were toppled and everything was in ruins. It really felt like something out of a movie. In fact, there were several spots where small plaques denoted filming locations for different films. The pictures really tell the story though.

On our way back to town, we stopped at the orphanage we had passed earlier. It was a terribly shabby place with only one real building and several banana leaf huts. Children of varying ages were playing in the dirt yard as we approached. A young man greeted us in broken English and introduced himself as Cheat (pronounced chee-at). He explained to us that the orphanage took in children from Siem Reap and the surrounding countryside who had lost their parents to a host of reasons. However, instead of just caring for the children, the orphanage required all the kids to take art classes, then produce pieces to sell to passers-by and support the school. He led us inside the front most hut that served as a gallery. 20 or so paintings were on display along with several sculptures and hand made trinkets, all displaying remarkable skill and craftsmanship. As we browsed, several children wandered over to meet us. Cheat introduced the kids and told us that he too was an orphan and had been raised at this very orphanage. Because of the impact it made on his life, he decided to return to volunteer as a caretaker and painting teacher. Honestly, I couldn’t think of a much more rewarding life than that. Each one of the children he introduced us to was so special and so beautiful and so full of life despite the tragedies they’d seen, just standing in front of them was inspirational. We picked out a water color painting of some stilt river houses done by a 12 year old and hung out for a while with the children. We held some of the little ones and talked with some of the older ones (they learn English as well as art in school, so we were able to have basic conversations) and had such a wonderful time that when Cheat invited us back for lunch the next day, we didn’t hesitate. We left after about an hour with huge smiles and most of our hearts still wrapped around the little fingers of the kids.

From the orphanage, we stopped at the base of a mountaintop temple from which we planned on seeing the sunset. But instead of climbing on foot as most of the tourists did, poor saps, we bought tickets to ride an elephant to the top. I had never even stood next to an elephant, let alone climbed on top of one and I was thrilled. We ascended the nearby flight of stairs and sat on the bench strapped to its back. The driver sat over its neck and controlled the elephant with voice commands and apparently pushing its ears with his feet.

It was a bumpy 15 minute ride up the hill but we enjoyed every minute of it. How often does one get the opportunity to ride an elephant through the jungle to see ancient temples? “Not often enough” is the answer.

We were slightly deflated at the sight of 100 or so other tourists already at the top waiting for the same sunset, and clouds threatened to obscure it anyway, so we headed back down early to get back to town.

That night, with our lunch date at the orphanage in mind, we picked up a few items to bring as gifts for the kids – some children’s books and basic groceries, etc. and grabbed another dinner of Indian food.

The next morning we had breakfast at a local pub. For $5.80, we both had a full cooked breakfast, coffee, rolls, fruit, juice and a great atmosphere. What a country.

From the restaurant we continued back to the orphanage to hang out for the morning. We spent several hours playing with the kids and taking pictures. I spent almost the whole time playing a hackey sack type game called “siah” with a group of the older kids and Alexa spent time with the little ones. Each and every one of those kids was so beautiful and so magnetic – it really was a wonderful privilege to spend so much time with them. It was so humbling to think about the tragedies they’ve seen while watching them smile and enjoy themselves. It was especially neat to get a chance to play games with the oldest girls of the group. They normally take on motherly roles for the kids and have lots of assumed responsibility so they really relished the opportunity to relax for a while.

We met the director of the orphanage, a man of 40 or so, who had been working with these kids for years. His English was pretty strong and he told us about the mission of the place. His goal is to equip each one of the kids with an artistic skill so that they’ll be self sufficient by the time they move out. We were really impressed and we hope to be able to support this cause in some meaningful way someday.
As we played, some of the older girls and staff cooked lunch. They had a bowl of rice and a large chicken stew (with two whole chickens in the pot – de-feathered of course). We sat with them as they ate, then said our goodbyes after lunch. It was tough to leave all those smiling faces but we had a feeling that we’d be back. Since then, I’ve kept up with Cheat over email and he sends us little updates on how the kids are doing.

From the orphanage, we took some time to explore the actual Angkor Wat Temple before flying back to Phnom Penh that evening. As we passed through the outer walls and headed down the processional road to the main temple, we saw a group of young girls dressed in traditional Cambodian dress. They would pose with tourists for photos for donations. Of course we did it. When else can you have your picture taken with priestess-looking Cambodian girls in front of one of the most iconic buildings on the planet? It was great and made for really cool photos.

After our shoot, we continued closer to the temple and stopped at a reflection pool to take some more pictures. As we were enjoying the view, a group of Asian tourists approached us for a photo. Unassuming as we were at first, we thought that they wanted us to use their camera to take a group photo of them. No, no, no. We were actually going to be in their photos as the token foreigners. This happens from time to time in Asian countries. White faces are still pretty rare there and sometimes quite a novelty. I’ve posed for several pictures in China and one or two in Japan as well. Perhaps we’re good luck or something. Who knows? Anyway, we ended up taking turns and standing in for 20-some photos, one with each member of the party both with and without a particular pair of sunglasses. So amusing. I think we’ll occasionally miss being novel when we get back home.

We continued on toward the temple, taking time to watch and feed the resident monkeys along the way. Once inside, we had a good look around but, honestly, after some of the other temples in the complex, we were slightly underwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong though. Angkor is a fantastic place, just slightly less so than Ta Prom or even Bayon. We both agreed that it looks best from the outside.

To catch the sunset that night, we decided to take a ride in a balloon. It was a large helium sphere to which a circular walkway platform was attached. The entire thing was tethered by a large cable. Just as we were about to buy tickets for what ought to have been a fairly private ride, a large tour bus pulled up and a load of very noisy tourists piled out. We went up anyway and enjoyed the bird’s eye view of the fading light on the temples.

After that, we grabbed some dinner, collected our things from the hotel and headed for the airport. We allowed the usual hour and a half before the domestic flight but we weren’t anticipating the size of the airport. We walked in the doors, turned right, 4 feet to security, then another 10 feet to the check-in desk. We were nearly the only people in the airport. I don’t believe I’ve ever gotten to a departure lounge quite so quickly. Needless to say, we had about 1:28 to kill. Oh well.
Back in Phnom Penh our taxi driver friend Chen picked us up and we headed back for the Bougainvilla. We arranged to have him take us on an early morning sightseeing tour of the city before our flight out the next day. So, when we woke up (seemingly at the crack of dawn), we found him outside our hotel waiting for us. Unfortunately, his car was out of commission for some reason, so he arranged for his friend to show us around. His friend’s English was decent and he made a good tour guide. We went first to the Russian market. No, they don’t sell Russians there, although that would have made for some nifty souvenirs. The name comes from the market’s early popularity with visiting Russians who would take advantage of the low prices and buy tons of stuff. It’s basically a jumbled maze of tiny shops all under one roof. You can buy nearly anything there – food, clothes, hardware, souvenirs, electronics, etc. We had a good look around and bought a couple things from a charity shop that featured handmade goods fabricated by underprivileged kids and single moms out of recycled materials. It’s the kind of place where you’d feel guilty not buying anything, but the quality was top notch and the designs were really cool.
From the market, we made our way to the royal palace complex. Cambodia still has an active monarchy and the fit and finish of the palace shows that it’s still a place of importance. The complex consists of 15 or so buildings of varying sizes. Some are residences, others are temples and at least 2 are formal throne rooms. All are ornately decorated, gilded and encrusted and all are fantastic. Unfortunately, we only had about 45 minutes to look around, but the sun was coming up and the color in the pictures we got made the quick visit worth it.

The royal palace was our last stop before the airport. We loved Cambodia much more than we anticipated but we weren’t too heavy hearted to leave, for our next adventure was the big surprise trip I’d been planning for Alexa over the past months.