CAMBODIA

For some reason, Cambodia has been an intriguing mystery since we had that first tantalizing exposure back in 1975. We had gone to Poipet from Bangkok to renew our visas and had been given five minutes across the border due to military tensions. Al and I had scrambled to collect hundreds of yards of silk for the US officers back in Lopburi. We had run from shack to shack buying up stretches of beautifully woven and majestically colored silk. The contrast of the beautiful silk to the hut surroundings had left the impression that there was hidden treasure somewhere further inside the country. Now we were going to find out.

I wasn’t disappointed. As the twin engine prop plane started its descent to Seam Reap, the Cambodian landscape began to materialize. Beneath me were miles and miles of neatly sectioned farming plots. Here and there were a few houses on stilts surrounded by clumps of green trees. From the air, everything looked neat, quiet and agricultural.

I could see the landing strip on approach; a single cement swath out of the surrounding green fields. As we taxied to the lone rectangular structure we were the only plane at the airport. A small army of officials waited to receive the passengers and escort us across the tarmac to the terminal.

Once inside, everyone crowded around a counter to purchase the Cambodian visa for $20 US. The process was interesting. You handed your passport and forms to one officer; he looked at it and pulled off one of the pages; passed it to a couple more that looked at it; one wrote down the passport and visa number; he handed it to the last one who raised it with the picture showing forward so you could claim it. You handed him 20 dollars. Some of the bills went in a pile on the desk – one or two got slipped into a briefcase while we were standing there.

We moved across the room to passport control and they checked our newly stamped visa. Walking past the front door, we were told we needed to get an ‘official’ taxi into town and a pass to Angkor if we were going there. Both of these procedures were mentioned in the Lonely Plant guide to Cambodia so we handed over our money. The taxi into town was $5 and a one-day pass to Angkor was $20.

On the plane I had struck up a conversation with a woman sitting across the isle about my guide book and whether it mentioned any places to stay in Seam Reap. We decided to share the cab and checkout the same guest house – Apsara International. It was very clean, spacious, had air and there just happened to be two rooms left.

I could tell already Cambodia was going to be a different experience. The main road form the airport was single lane, hand paved, and full of potholes. Couldn’t really tell whether it was left hand or right hand driving. The steering wheel was on the left but with potholes, bikes, and vehicles maneuvering we seemed to be dodging traffic in both lanes. Much slower driving here than in Thailand.

Of course our cab driver suggested he could take us around for the day – only $20 US and we could go everywhere. To me that sounded ideal – plus his car had air conditioning. Suzanne wanted to share even though she was going to stay two more days. We got to know her quite well after a day trudging up and down stone steps. She is a graphic designer from Cambridge Massachusetts and makes her living teaching seminars on how to design artistic and effective Web pages – something that seemed so foreign to this place. She was off for three months and had just come from Burma with some fascinating stories.

We checked the rooms, dropped our bags, grabbed our cameras and were off. I just don’t know how to describe Angkor. It is the remnants (in surprisingly good shape) of a magnificent age that had been rediscovered after centuries of lying asleep. Those here now include a modest number of monks, the adventurous travelers from around the world and the poor but determined to sell Cambodians.

Angkor is actually a series of temples built over a 600 year period from 802 to 1432 AD. One king started it and his successors worked to outdo him until the last and largest project sent the empire into decline. It remained virtually unknown until a French explorer found it in 1860.

The entire complex is spread over 15 kilometers and includes lakes, pools, temples, palaces, and walls. Our entrance through the east gate was spectacular. We entered via a long tree-lined road to a bridge. The bridge spanned a large moat and was lined with Buddha heads on both sides and lead through a grand arched gateway with the rock stone face of the god-king overhead.

Immediately we were accosted by little children waving paper fans trying to ‘cool’ us in hopes of getting money. I did need some film and made the mistake of looking at one of the older girls holding a plastic bag of film before I had a buying strategy planned. Suddenly two of them were within inches of my face shouting ‘Mister, mister buy dis one from me.’ $5 US for a Kodak 36 print roll (later I got two more for $8 total). The girl I didn’t buy from moved from selling film to selling post cards. I finally bought two packs of 10 for 100 Baht.

Each of the temples are built after a similar pattern. They are generally symmetrical, moving from outer courts to inner courts. The center of a temple is the holiest place and admission was only granted to the highest order of monks. It represents Mount Meru, the home of the gods and is the highest part of a temple.

The building materials from the temple are surprisingly built to withstand. Most Thai temples and statues are brick covered with stucco. The Khmer (Cambodian) temples were either made of laterite (lava like stone) or sandstone. Most of Angkor is a mix with the foundation/inner materials being laterite and the walls and carvings being sandstone. Absolutely amazing is the history and stories that are carved in stone completely around the walls of each court. Village scenes, wars, kings, and heavens, earth and hell.

As we fist approached Angkor Thom, a line of 800 monks were filing through the ruins in their yellow robes and carrying their rice bowels. A crowd of young boys glommed onto us and immediately started pointing which way to go. Their English was rough but as we moved in one direction they started telling us the stories of the wall carvings. I was amazed at what they knew. Every section had a history, a certain king, and an accompanying action story and the boys from the youngest (about 8) to the oldest (maybe 16) could recite it in English. They knew all the places to take pictures, where to pray to Buddha for good luck and where to get the ‘good view’. We worked our way around the outer court, in and up a level and around that, and finally to Mt. Meru where there were statues of Buddha.

The religious allegiance of the Kmers is interesting. They predate the Thais and actually controlled much of Thailand at one point – the main temple at Lopburi is Khmer in origin. The central them was Hindu with the many Hindu gods and Vishnu. At some point there was a change and one of the kings (blaming a defeat of Angkor on the Hindu gods) switched to Buddhism. Many of the statues are Buddha but there is lots of Hindu influence with the multifaced, god statues, the elephant god, snakes and the mountain. Particularly impressive at Angkor Thom were the large stone faces.

As we got ready to leave, our new tour guides, who had been entertaining and informative, wanted a tip. We were short small change (if you ever go – take $50 in one dollar bills) but offered them the equivalent of a couple of dollars in Thai money. There were indignant saying Thai money wasn’t any good and they wanted $5 US each. We had three dollars and offered them that but they were intensely insistent that they needed more. I said ‘take it or leave it’ and started to walk off. One boy (one of the better guides) broke with a smile and said, ‘OK’. The others continued to whine that it cost much to learn about this and they wanted more. I was surprised at their intensity and determination to get money and wondered if maybe they were in fear of abuse if they didn’t bring it back.

The next area was another smaller but higher temple. I climbed the steep narrow steps only to realize it was difficult and hazardous to get down. Fortunately there was a rusted but anchored rail down the back side. We wandered through gardens of numbered stones that had been carefully marked and methodically placed as part of the UNESCO restoration projects. The French and Japanese both had sites that were in the process of being restored.

One of them was the Elephant Terrace. It consisted of a maze of walls all ornately carved and flanking a stone tower. The tower was guarded and supported by life size stone tigers and three headed elephant statues. It was used as a review tower for kings to survey their legions of warriors and armies of elephants.

Across the road was a temple fronted with twelve towers, all symmetrical and still standing. On the back side of the temple none of the vegetation had been cleared. It was dense, thorny and easy to see how the whole area could have been consumed by the jungle and lost for 450 years. In many areas, there were giant trees growing right out of the rock towers.

We stopped at one of several customerless bamboo huts for lunch. Immediately there was competition for our business. We ordered fried rice and a cold drink which came to $2 per person. Similar to Thai fried rice but the rice was pink and spices were not as hot.

While we ate and talked, I watched at a distance the community water hole. It was a hand pump well and was constantly busy. Four or five at a time would be there bathing. One would pump while others poured water over themselves with bowels. They all wore wrap-around cloth and then rubbed the outside of the cloth to scrub themselves clean. It looked so refreshing after tramping around in the humid heat.

A uniformed man on a motorcycle pulled up and ate next to us. As I wondered whether he had in some way been involved in the ‘killing fields’ I noticed a red patch on his shoulder that had a cross bones and skull and underneath it the words ‘Mine Patrol’.

After lunch we moved to Angkor Wat – the most intact and grandest of the Angkor temples. The blue of the afternoon sky, the green of the surrounding palms and grass were a beautiful background to the black and gray of the temple walls. A bridge to enter, an outer wall (complete with carvings) and a beautiful elevated bridge that lead several hundred meters to the first level of the temple. The etchings were grand and they completely circled the first level.

Everywhere, people were selling. Young girls, ‘Mister, you buy fim? You want cole drink? You want scarf to wipe your sweat?’ A firm "No thank you,’ and a smile sent them on to the next tourist.

Even though there were other tourists, it wasn’t the mobs of buses and flag leading, sticker pasted tours you see at grand attractions like this in other parts of the world. It won’t be long coming I’m sure. We loosely followed a couple of English speaking guides and gathered bits and pieces of the etching stories.

Watching the girls selling while we rested was interesting. After a long hot walk, I was extremely thirsty. Carrying around an ice cooler with a chunk of ice and an assortment of soft drinks, water and beer a young girl offered us drinks. ‘Two for $3.’ We bargained to two for $2 which wasn’t bad. But some Germans (who looked like they had been there a day longer) got two or $1.

Apparently those that can sell inside the temple grounds do so by permit. As a uniformed officer came riding the perimeter on a motorcycle, the two girls scrambled for cover behind the temple columns. They had hid their coolers in a cement hole and for some reason were not allowed to be there until after 4:00 p.m. They kept asking me the time and on the hour they scrambled down the hole, pulled out their cooler and were off to happy selling. I noticed them several times throughout the afternoon, asking people if the wanted a drink at the bottom of a steep stairway and then scrambling to the top (cooler in hand) to be there and ask them again after they had sweat a little.

We finally made it to Mt. Meru. It was entered by four archways from four sides and each contained a Buddha in different poses surrounded by burning incense, candles and flowers. Supposedly at the center of the highest spire were the remains of the god-king that built Angkor Wat.

Apparently, there is a pattern of things to see at Angkor and towards afternoon everyone ends up at Angkor Wat. As we started back along the long exit bridge it had become filled with trinket vendors, fortune tellers, and beggars. The beggars were heart wrenching and I was conflicted as usual between wanting to help but not wanting to contribute to an occupational pattern. An aged woman with no hands or feet took the bill I handed her between the stubs of her arms. They were blind, maimed and lots of missing limbs. A group of three with musical instruments filled the air with an ancient melody of string and flute.

From Angkor Wat, the crowds move to a nearby hill – the only one in the entire flat plain – and trek enmasse up the barely recognizable remains of stairs to the hill top temple to watch the sun sink into the haze and clouds of the far horizon. I sat on a rock next to a young man from Japan to drink in the end of the day. His name was Hito and he had been traveling alone and would be for another couple of months. Alan talked with the little girls that had followed us around most of the afternoon singing, laughing and showing us the way. He showed them pictures of his family and Hito admired his way with children.

With the sun down and the encroaching darkness, we picked our way down the hill where our driver had the car waiting and the air conditioning running. The drive back into Seam Reap was slow – dodging potholes, returning peasants and unlit bicycles. Tee (our driver) made sure we had reserved his taxi to the airport for the next morning.

At Apsara, we turned on the air, showered and then met Suzanne for dinner. We were going to try the open market that was only a couple of streets from the hotel but by 8 p.m. it was pretty well closed up. We walked the streets of Seam Reap to the Bayon Restaurant. The roads were mostly dirt and the sidewalks and street lights spotty. Traffic was light and mostly bicycles and motorcycles with an occasional truck.

The restaurant was open air and geared to foreigners – all prices were in US dollars but most entrees were $1 or $2. We had Cambodian chicken curry, frogs legs, and mango salad – all delicious. We had a great conversation with Suzanne about Burma, work, and religion.

On the way home we wandered into the local wat for what appeared to be a community dance. The pumping sounds of disco and techno were vibrating the air. Small children were dancing together near the back and youth were dancing near the front while a crowd of adults were watching from the sides. On a second story balcony we could see orange robed monks observing the action by the dim green neon lights. Some looked to be observing critically while others longed to join in. We were shocked at the music lyrics. They were in English and of the most crude and vulgar language. I doubt most of the party goers had much of an idea of the words but it was extremely disheartening to see the worst of western society being adopted in this simple and susceptible culture.

Our taxi was coming at 8:15 a.m. so I got up at 7:00 and walked over to the market. Markets are always fascinating. This was the ‘new market’ and consisted of a covered open area with stalls of goods. Fresh vegetables, eggs, dried meat, fresh meat, dry goods and trinkets. I saw a new method for keeping flies off the meat. The women had small plastic bags tied to the end of a stick that they rhythmically waved back and forth. A combination of the motion and the noise kept the flies at bay. Several of them going at once were an interesting site. The market was a little more raw and you could tell the eggs and produce had just come from the farms and wasn’t cleaned yet.

I had been sort of watching for silver-like serving things and found some there. The girl that waited on me quoted prices in English and in dollars but weighed everything and charged me by the kilo. I got a serving spoon, a soup urn and ladle, and a rice bowel. She said it was 75% silver and had been hand crafted by locals. The price was $95 but after a delightful round of bartering she gladly took $65 and threw in a rice paper temple rubbing complete with a woven tube to put it in.

The car was waiting when I returned and on the drive to the airport we passed bikes carrying wood, charcoal, pigs, and about everything else. We noticed several large new hotels being built. The simple diesel powered electricity generation plant we saw definitely won’t be adequate for them and I’m sure the crowds coming will have the place ruined in a few years.

Leaving the country was a process. Airport Departure was a single room with tables for checked luggage security, carry-on luggage security, tickets, exit visas, airport departure tax and passport control. The small airport setting to me was just cool. The twin engine plane landed and passengers got out and an old army truck rigged for aviation gas backed up to refuel it. As we walked to the plane, the sun was shining and we could see the sunset hill in the distance. Taking off, I caught a brief glimpse of Angkor Wat before it disappeared in the morning mist.

At the only gas station we saw in Seam Reap, I noticed a Caucasian on a motorcycle (big dirt bike) fueling up. I asked our hotel owner (who is now from Sydney since the war) if it would be safe for a foreigner to ride all over Cambodia on motorcycle. He said, ‘Sure!’ A dirt bike would be a great way to go since the roads are rough. His view contradicted a story Suzanne heard about a group crossing the border from Thailand that were held at gun point until the bandits got some money.