Angkor

Angkor Wat…the name is so evocative, and so exotic. It turns out that Angkor is the ancient Cambodian city. Angkor Wat is one of the (main) temples of the city complex. Once the largest (and perhaps the most populous) city of the ancient world, Angkor can be seen from outer space. Its population declined, through war and climate change, from a peak of about 750,000 in the 12th century,  to just a few small villages in the jungle when the French discovered it in 1863.

More than 300,000 men and 6000 elephants labored for 37 years to complete Angkor Wat. Some of the earlier structures are Hindu; the later temples are Buddhist. Some were converted back to Hinduism with some modifications of the carvings and the statues. Angkor has survived sacking by Siam and societal collapse, with echoes of Easter Island.

Incredible, haunting temples. My favorite was the Bayon temple in Angkor Thom. Amazing beauty, Alice lost in Wonderland, 216 ancient stone Buddhist faces, dizzying in their size and repetition, everywhere you turn. Forty-nine towers for the forty-nine days that Siddhartha Gautama meditated under the banyan tree. The serene images of the Buddha’s face may be modeled after the king who paid for their construction.

When it was built, almost 1000 years ago, only the highest of monks were allowed into the inner sanctum. Those monks might be horrified to see modern-day tourists posing for elaborate selfies with all the Buddha heads. Jump-in-the-air selfies, sexy hands-on-hips/lips pouting selfies, align your nose with Budhha’s nose photo ops. Elegant Asian women with big floppy hats and flirty lipstick standing on tiptoe to hold the Buddha’s face in their hand for the camera.

I should learn not to be surprised by this, but there were so very many people. Like the Taj Mahal, and Machu Picchu, there were hordes of tourists; 2.2 million visitors in 2017. Many of my photos of these gorgeous temples make it seem like there was hardly anyone there, but really it was a landmine of avoiding other people’s cameras and selfie sticks.

I loved, too, the temples of Ta Phrom; the photogenic images of giant trees growing out of ruined temples, the jungle taking back its own. “All things must pass away,” George Harrison sang, back on that triple album right after the Beatles broke up. In 2001, I saw a video of him singing an acoustic version of that song, a few weeks before his death at the age of 58.

Walking from the temple gates to main temples, there was often a shady venue claimed by souvenir hawkers and women selling fresh-cut pineapples, but also lovely acoustic classical Cambodian music played by disabled landmine survivors. The drums and the bells and the stringed instruments lent a touch of the sacred to the tourist scene.

Many visitors come in tuk-tuks, and the tuk-tuk drivers have it all figured out. The tourists go into the temple for an hour or two while the drivers wait outside. Some string up hammocks under the shade of their tuk-tuk roof and nap, recovering from the early wake-up of tourists seeking the perfect Instagram moment of dawn at Angkor. Some watch YouTube on their phones; our driver was nice enough to have a cooler of cold water hidden under the seat of the tuk-tuk.

We stood in line to have the opportunity to experience sunset at the top of Phnom Bakeng. Driving there in the late afternoon, the cicadas were so loud that we had to raise our voices as we drove to the sunset. Just 300 people are allowed at the top of the temple at one time; temple guards hand you a lanyard when someone comes down from the top. Sitting on the top of this temple for sunset, I am reminded of a different sunset and a different temple, in Tikal, with Julie, many years ago, and how we thought it was a good idea to spend the night at the top of the temple. I think I would not do that today. Probably I no longer have access to the right mind-altering chemicals; also, I think that Declan would grumble.

Chasing the perfect temple sunset photo makes me question my relationship with photography. I love taking photos, but digital photography lets me take a lot of photos and delete the ones that don’t come out perfectly. What if I were back in the old days, and I just had one shot to use in a roll of film? Would I spend more time engaged and in the moment, enjoying this special sacred time?

Geocaching gave us a bit of a break from temple-hopping in 97 degree heat. We showed the Cachly map on my phone to our puzzled tuk-tuk driver, and headed out of town. Maybe this is the right place to mention that all of the Cambodians we have met have been so sweet and kind and courteous, all “ah koum“ (thank you) and bows. Our tuk-tuk passed two shaven-headed women Buddhist monks dressed all in white, riding together on a motorcycle, purse dangling primly from the handlebar. We ended up at an abandoned old temple out of town, with a satellite antenna on top of the temple! After the crowds at Angkor, it was nice to have a temple completely to ourselves.

Vivian, the French girlfriend of Elephant Valley Project’s manager, had had shaved her head because of the heat. She was a beautiful woman and looked like a young Sinead, but the locals did not like it. Cambodian women take great pride in their long hair, and the only women who shave their head are widows and monks.

We have enjoyed our air-conditioned hotel. I decided to splurge on the Popular Residence Hotel because of its excellent TripAdvisor reviews and its pool for relaxing after temple viewing; I didn’t know that $40/night would buy me such luxury. Hotel staff waiting with cool moist towels at every arrival, iced lemon tea upon check-in, spa. We paid $6/night at the Envoy Hostel in Siem Reap, and $40/night is a lot of money in Cambodia; the staff is so young and eager to please.

Siem Reap is a scene. Millions of tourists come every year, and Siem Reap is ready to receive them. There’s a Sofitel, a Hard Rock Angkor, fish pedicures, and those group party pedal-carts where groups of people can go bar hopping together.

Today we went to the Phare circus, an acrobatic affair supporting underprivileged youth. Tomorrow we will have one last look at the temples and then it’s off to India!

PS: one postscript about the landmine museum, which we visited on our last day. It was a bit of a drive out of town, but well worth it. Aki Ra is the founder of the museum. Both of his parents were killed by the Khmer Rouge when he was five years old; at the age of ten, he joined the Khmer Rouge and became a child soldier, laying thousands of land mines. When he got older, he repented of all of the suffering and death caused by landmines, and he made it his personal mission to clear hundreds of thousands of land mines, mostly by hand. One in 300 Cambodians has been injured by a landmine. The landmines were planted by the Khmer and by the Vietnamese. Pol Pot called landmines “the perfect soldiers” because they never slept, never complained, and required no food or water. The United States, China, and Russia are three notable exceptions to the 155 countries that have signed an international treaty against landmines. The US supposedly has not signed because the treaty does not contain language about a “Korean exception”; the US still thinks landmines are a good idea at the border between North and South Korea.

As our tuk-tuk drove away from the Landmine Museum, I saw so many pretty Cambodian women, riding primly on one-speed bicycles down country roads wearing big floppy hats. All of the Cambodians I encountered were so warm, polite, and kind; it was such a pleasure to get to know this place.