Siem Riep, Cambodia

Quick note that I forgot from the previous post: on our drive back to Hanoi from halong bay in Vietnam our van was pulled over by the police. Why were we pulled over? Apparently for no reason, but that didn’t stop the police from forcing the driver to give him $40 in order to not go to jail. Basically, we were pulled over b/c there were a bunch of white ppl on the bus and therefore, we must have a lot of money. The driver paid the $40 (which is about ½ months salary, which is actually really high for Vietnam) but then everyone on the bus decided to chip in $1 so he got $16 back and was very thankful. It was pretty interesting though being stopped by the police for literally doing nothing wrong and then being forced to pay a bribe or go to jail… don’t see that very often in most other countries. On to Cambodia…

Siem riep, Cambodia, is famous for it’s temples which were built by kings roughly 1,000 yrs ago or more as a testament to both the kings that built them and different forms of Buddhism, depending on when it was built. I decided to do the smaller temples first to sort of build up to the larger ones, which includes Angkor wat, which is what siem riep is famous for. First thing I noticed about Cambodia was that there are a ton of beggars, most of them little children and they all have a routine. For the kids between 3-5 yrs old they will come up to you and try to sell postcards and say “hello sir, you want postcard?” they will then count from 1 to 10 in english and say that it’s 10 for $1. If that doesn’t work they count to 10 in Japanese, if that doesn’t work 10 in Spanish, then Vietnamese, then Cambodian and then Chinese. Then they ask what country you are from and start listing random facts. So I say I’m from the USA and the little girls automatically go: iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, florida, population 300 million, st Louis. It was kind of bizarre but I guess it sometime works. And I guess it’s better than vendors in Vietnam who just yell “hey you”. It was clear the kids didn’t even know what was going on and there would be times when I’d keep walking and the kids would just keep talking to themselves trying to see if they could remember 1-10 in all the different languages and doing their whole routine even though I was 50 feet away. Once they’re over 6 they get a little more complicated and start reciting only the capitals of various countries and say “if you buy magnet for $1 I tell you capital of USA” as if them telling me the capital of the US would be some incredibly joyous occasion for me. But then after not buying their magnets they will say “ok, ok, capitol is washington DC” as if I had won our battle and I suckered them into telling me for free. Once they’re over 10 they start selling serious stuff like scarves/food/clothing and are more pushy than they are cute and will follow you for a few hundred feet. It was kind of annoying and sad at the same time, but hey, It’s Cambodia and I believe their unofficial slogan is “shit happens”.

I started going around the temples and they were pretty cool. A lot of them looked like what you’d expect to see in some ancient movie that had temples in it and I later found out that they filmed parts of Indiana jones and the tomb raider movies here. Anyways, there were various temples as each was built by a different king but I didn’t find the temples on the first day that incredible in retrospect (b/c at the time I thought they were incredible) b/c compared to what I was going to see the next day it was nothing. At one of the temples I met an cool girl from philly and we decided to grab a few drinks that night which was fun and decided to go out the next night as well. In between drinks we had gotten a foot massage from fish which I had never seen. Basically, there are a ton of little fish in a large tank and you stick your feet in and they bit off all the dead skin. It was a really odd sensation but it was $3/hr and came with a free beer.

The next day was crazy. I rented a bike to get to the temples which were each about 7km away from each other, but the bikes in Cambodia, shockingly, aren’t exactly like the bikes in the US. Mine was meant for a child and wasn’t meant to be ridden more than 5mph. I figured I could take the heat b/c it was only about 100 at the hottest part of the day whereas I had just gotten back from hanoi and halong bay where it was about 125. I started out going to bayon which is a temple that is made up of 216 smiling faces that are Buddha like faces but molded after the king. Each of the towers has 4 faces on each making 54 towers in total. It was pretty cool and a really massive structure. Walking up and down these stairs was absolutely insane as not only were they completely worn, slippery, and sloping downwards, but Cambodians (and apparently all s.e. asian countries) have incredibly small feet and so I could barely get more than my toes onto the stairs. I read in a guidebook for Cambodia that I bought in Vietnam for a little over $1 that i “wouldn’t be the first person lost to the stairs” and I could see why. Anyways, after that I went to ta prohm which is more of the jungle temple and there are some absolutely massive trees that grew on top of the temple and it’s roots came down 10 feet or more to touch the ground. It was also really cool. Then for the mother of them all – Angkor wat.

Angkor wat was absolutely massive and I was def glad I saved it for last. It was about 1.5 square km’s which, in comparison, is larger than the entire old city of Jerusalem. It had a massive moat about 600 feet wide and then a really high wall so there was only one entrance and five main towers. It also had a huge walkway leading up to the temples which felt pretty grand as you were walking on it b/c it led up to the temples. It was not only the largest but also in the best condition out of any of the temples. The carvings were still pretty clear on the wall. You could climb up to the tops of the towers (via staircases they put in b/c even when it was brand new, they made the stairs hard to climb b/c it was supposed to be like ascending to heaven which isn’t supposed to be easy), walk around the place and really do whatever you want, absolutely nothing was off limits. Some of the younger kids there decided to walk off the side of the walkway and go swimming in the moat and the guards didn’t care at all. It was pretty cool seeing such a monumental structure that’s been so well preserved as usually there’s only a small piece of it left (such as w/ the temple in Jerusalem) but this was almost entirely entact and absolutely massive. Describing it really doesn’t do much and after looking at my pictures, neither did they but it’s better than nothing. That night i went out w/ Isabel again and this time we were a little more adventurous as we bought a small bottle of rice whisky (which has cobra’s and scorpions in the bottle). We had a few drinks after and got to see the town a bit more as we walked around after dinner but for $0.50 beer you don’t even realize how much you drink. I was planning on taking a 9am bus ride to phnom penh which takes about 7 hrs, but I woke up completely hung-over so I decided instead to go back to Angkor wat and I ended up taking an elephant ride to various temples near Angkor wat. It was pretty awesome b/c what could possibly be bad about riding an elephant and it was definitely a hilarious experience. One last note about the temples - b/c we’re in asia there are a million Chinese tour buses and Chinese tourists are sooooo annoying. Not only do they take pictures of everything, including the normal stuff like temples etc. but also: grass, trees, dirt, gravel, rocks, hats, every single staircase ever built, food stands, clothing stands, little children, adults, anything with water, any insect or small lizard. Also, they are all professional photographers and therefore decide it’s ok to stand there for 10 minutes taking a picture of a few trees. I got into a little argument with one or two of the chinese bus groups when I walked through a picture that took 15 min to set up, but thankfully I am 6’3 and had a solid foot over anyone that was going to take on and we didn’t have a language in common so the altercations ended pretty briefly.

I took the bus to phnom penh in the afternoon and was more or less what you’d expect from a $6 bus ride that takes 7 hrs in Cambodia. It was incredibly bumpy, the top of the bus swayed like no bus ever should and the driver didn’t slow down when he picked ppl up on the bus. I always thought that when ppl try to drop you off somewhere and say “we’ll slow down and you just jump out” was a phrase, but apparently they take it quite seriously in Cambodia. I got on at the first stop and off at the last stop so I was fine, but for anyone didn’t they would have to run to jump on the bus b/c the driver refused to slow down to anything under 6-8mph and while one girl and her mother where jumping on the bus, they almost died b/c the mother couldn’t carry the child and run quick enough to catch the bus. This wasn’t the fancy bus though b/c by the time I booked my ticket, the fancy bus ($8) had already been booked. Gotta love Cambodia!

I’m in phnom penh tomorrow and then I leave for china the next day.

Pictures in order:

1. sitting at bayon

2. jungle temples

3. angkor wat from outside the moat

4. some pictures on the wall in angkor wat

5. angkor wat

6. a delicious dinner, i love the few pieces of lettuce mixed in with the bugs to make it appetizing

7. me and isabel

8 & 9. Riding an elephant

10. getting a fish massage

11 & 12. Angkor-wat

13. Bayon temple (one with all the faces on the towers)

14: ta prohm, the jungle-y temple

15-17. various smaller temples