Cambodia - Day 3 & 4

(12/26-12/27/09)

The next morning was a little later, I got to sleep in until 5am. Kim got me on the motor bike to the entrance to Angkor around 5:20 while it was still pitch black - sunrise wasn't until 6:15 or so. I didn't bring a flashlight with me on the trip, so I just tried to stay close to the one or two people that had as we walked from the outer wall, over a small river, and down the stone pathway to sit in front of the large pool on the left side of the temple. There were several people there, offering chairs and hot coffee or chocolate, in exchange for a dollar. I took the chair and a coffee, but mostly because I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, and appreciated someone showing me where to sit and wait. I could hear as people were seated beside me, but couldn't see them for about half an hour.



The stars were amazing, though no one was able to capture them, no matter how expensive their camera looked. It started to get lighter around six, and people spent the next hour taking pictures at as many possible angles, light exposures, and shutter speeds as they could. After taking one or two shots, though, I preferred to just sit, watch, and listen. There was a German couple sitting on my right, and a couple from Newcastle on my left.



After watching the sunrise for about an hour, I went to the nearest 'restaurant' to get some breakfast, which was little more than some wooden tables under an awning. It was good, but slightly dissapointing. I had ordered banana pancakes. The pancakes were good and fluffy, but they'd just been put over a plate of bananas. Oh well, they were only $2.



As I was eating, I was keeping an eye on the temple, as the sun hadn't actually made an appearance yet. Most people had left, but there were still several people waiting around for the final moments. Their wait was well rewarded when the sun finally did peek over the edge of the temple, and I took one of my favorite pictures:


I had missed out on taking an elephant ride the day before, so I was determined to make it there on time. We got to the starting point, but we were about 45 minutes early. So Kim took me to the Terrace of the Elephants, where I wandered around for about half an hour. I met a girl there who was just waiting for tourists. She first asked if I wanted to take her picture. Usually when I took their pictures, the kids were eager to see what they looked like in the screen - she didn't seem to really care.


She then lead me down some steep steps to the five-headed horse, which is a famous carving at the Terrace. As I began to walk away, she told me she was an orphan, and asked for money so she could go to school. I don't like giving money to the kids, as it encourages them to beg, but I had a few Khmer bills in my pocket that I didn't want (that were only worth about 50 cents), so I offered them to her. She seemed to get angry, shook her head, and asked for dollars. I had dollars in my wallet, but I wasn't about to give them to her. I told her that she could take the Khmer bills if she wanted, but it was that or nothing as I started walking away. She said something in Khmer and scowled at me, which I'm pretty sure was something lovely and nice, and as I had almost dissappeared down the stairs she grabbed the bills from my hand.



After that, I headed back to meet Kim so he could take me to the elephant ride place. On the way there, we saw three elephants that had already left.


The ride was only about 15 minutes, but it was pleasant and quiet, a nice break from the loudness of the tuk-tuk and motorbike.



Kim met me at Bayon, and from there we headed out to Beng Melea, which was the best part of my trip. Beng Melea is about a 90 minute ride out of Siem Reap by motorbike. The countryside on the way out there was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Unfortunately I couldn't really take pictures because I was clinging onto Kim to keep steady, and we were going fast enough that any pictures I would have wanted to take would have been blurry. If you ever go to Cambodia I HIGHLY recommend taking a trip out into the country. Even if you're not going anywhere in particular, the trip itself is worth it.

Anyway, we got to Beng Melea way too soon, and a girl showed me the entrance, and then proceeded to show me through the ruins. We got back to the beginning, and I told her I wanted to sit down and write for a while and that she could go back to where she'd been. She just sat next to me and waited - apparently I'd highly overestimated her English skills. I had wanted to go back through the temple and explore on my own, but eventually she said something to me about a "$2 guide", and I realized I'd been had. Unfortunately (or fortunately as the case may be), the smallest bill I had was a 10. I tried to make her understand that I was going to go get something to eat and get change and come back.

Well, I did leave to go get something to eat. I was looking at the little shops across from the entrance to the temple, when I was asked by a woman if I wanted to buy notebooks and pencils for the kids who needed them for school. I told her I didn't have any small bills, and she told me she had change. So after a short conversation, I'd talked her down to $3 (which even so was pretty expensive, all things considered), and bought a packet of notebooks and pencils. She yelled something in Khmer, and within about 30 seconds, I was surrounded by about 15 young kids all clamoring to get something from me. They were genuinely happy, and I can honestly say I've never seen a child get so excited about pencils before. I'd seen the school that the kids went to - it was about 6 miles away from where they lived, and they all walked there every day. I wish I could have gotten a picture of them, but it was rather sudden how quickly they arrived, and then went off to play with their new things.



After that, Kim drove me all the way back to the Roluous Group, which is about 13km east of Siem Reap. I didn't think to take pictures on the way back until we were passed by one of the strangest sights ever:



It wasn't moving at all, merely bouncing slightly with the movement of the bike. My first thought was "That poor pig. I wonder how they killed it." And then I realized it was blinking. It was alive! My next thought was "That poor pig!! I wonder what he's thinking strapped upside-down like that!".

We went to all the temples in the Rolous Group, including Lolie Temple which was built in the late 9th century.


There was a small school there, where the monk in the picture approached me and started talking to me. He showed me his school, which was little more than the space underneath the hut with some benches and a cracked whiteboard. He told me quite a bit, and though he never outright asked for money, I could tell he was trying to get me to offer to donate something.



On the way out to Beng Melea we'd had to stop at the side of the road at a stand that lookd like they were selling really old water in used bottles. Turns out this is a gas station, and it's perfectly normal to buy gas from a place like this to put in your motorbike.

We got back to Siem Reap around 2:30. I cleaned up from the bike ride and laid down for a short nap, and of course woke up 3 hours later still tired, sore, and sunburned. I had dinner at the guesthouse, and then Kim took me to the market area. He asked if I wanted him to join me, which I said yes to. He said he wasn't feeling well, and declined, so I asked him to come back for me in about 2 hours. I spent about 45 minutes wandering through the city. It was really touristy, and not that interesting. I bought a wallet, which I'd been needing (the one I bought in Korea after I lost my other one just barely fits Korean won, and was too small for dollars). Then I found a cool bar called Angkor What?, where I had two beers at 75 cents a pop (expensive, when compared to 50 cents at the bar next door), and met the owner and a guy from Ireland who came to Cambodia for the weekend and has now been there five months. They also donate 5% of their profits to the local children's hospital. I pulled myself out of the bar at 9 when Kim came to pick me up, and I headed back to the guesthouse. My plane flew out early afternoon the next day, so I packed everything that night.

I checked out of Earthwalkers at 6:30 and had breakfast. Kim took me and my bags to a few more temples, the second of which was Ta Prohm. This could easily have been my favorite temple, if it hadn't been so hugely overcrowded. The pictures I took are deceptively empty of people - I was waiting up to 10 minutes to take some shots because people were walking by, and there were even lines in several places to take some pictures.


I did manage to find a few spots that weren't as crowded, and even some that were completely deserted.

The place is a maze, and when I thought I'd made it out the other side (where Kim was supposed to pick me up), I realized I had come out the same entrance I came in. So I braved the crowds one more time and made it back through.


I went to one more temple, and then we had to leave for the airport. I made it there in plenty of time, but they didn't start checking people in until about an hour before the plane boarded. The flight itself was a half hour late, but I somehow managed to be the first one on the plane, which was nice. We landed in Saigon about an hour late, and this time the person that was supposed to pick me up actually showed.

Coming up next - Saigon and the Mekong Delta. Stay tuned for more.

Cambodia - Day 1 & 2

Even though I was only gone nine days, I did so much that I'm going to have to break the trip down into the cities that I went to. Otherwise I'll be writing for hours with no end in sight.

(12/24-12/25/09)

I started out in Cambodia, even though my first airport stop was in Hanoi. I got off the plane in Siem Reap, and for the first time I actually got to walk on the tarmac. Siem Reap is a very small airport, and rather primitive in comparison to other international airports. My visa information was written in by hand, and to enter the country I didn't have to go through any metal detectors, customs, or immigration - I just had to pay for my visa.


When I left Seoul, the temperature was about -6C/21F, but not snowing. When I got to Siem Reap, the temperature was around 30C/85F, which was a welcome change. The guesthouse where I was staying was supposed to pick me up, but I didn't see a sign anywhere with my name on it. I asked at the counter, but there was no public phone I could use to call them, and my cell phone didn't get reception there. So I sat down to wait and see if they showed up. I started chatting to an older guy from Denmark named Henny while I was waiting, and we ended up sharing a cab to the guesthouse because my pickup never showed.


The guesthouse wasn't that far from the airport, maybe a 7 minute ride by car. I checked in, making a point of saying that no one had ever arrived to pick me up - not sure if I ever got an apology for that. The room was nice but plain, with only a fan instead of air-conditioning (as I didn't really feel like paying extra for it when I originally booked the room). I'd also severely underestimated how HOT Siem Reap would be (I was, after all, sitting in snow when I booked it). The people running the guest house are very nice, and the woman who owns the place has the cutest daughter I've ever seen. She's learning three languages: Thai, Khmer, and English.


Because it had gotten dark and I didn't really know the area that well, I decided to stay in for Christmas Eve night. That way I'd be able to wake up in the morning at 4:00 to get to the temples for sunrise. I paid the front desk for a tuk-tuk driver the next day to take me at dawn to a hot air balloon, and then take me on the 'grand circuit' of the temples. I spoke to a driver later that evening who was hanging around outside the guesthouse. He seemed nice, and asked if he could drive me around the next day. I told him I'd paid for one through the guesthouse, but he could talk to them and see.



The next morning the same driver knocked on my door at 4:30am to take me to the temples. First stop was the hot air balloon. As nice as it was, I had hoped we'd be up in the air as the sky got brighter, not just when the sun came over the horizon. I'd been getting antsy because it had gone from pitch black to rather bright before they let us up in the balloon. While I was waiting, though, I got a chance to talk to my driver. His name is Kim Sour (pronounced Kimsoor), and he was very interesting to talk to. He had lived in Siem Reap all his life, and learned how to speak English over the last five years from talking to tourists. Considering he hadn't really taken any lessons, he spoke very well and even knew some slang ("If you're knackered, you can go back to your room").


I was up in the balloon for about 15 minutes, and then after breakfast we headed to the 'great circuit'. At this meal was where I met my first 'Angkor child'. These children are everywhere. They are small, thin, and adorable. They aren't in the least bit shy, and have no qualms about asking you to buy 10 postcards for a dollar, Khmer scarves, some photocopied travel books, or even handmade paper ornaments. If you politely tell them you're not interested, they'll try to bargain you down to a lower selling price. And they are persistent. The heartbreaking thing is these kids do this all day, every day. It's how they survive. If you're still not interested, they'll try to strike up a conversation with you, like asking you where you're from. When you say the country, they will promptly name the capital, and then ask you again to buy their item.



There are two different routes people generally take to explore the temples. The small circuit is more popular, as it includes Angkor Wat, Bayon, and the temples closer to the entrance of the Angkor Archaeological Park. I wanted to go on the big one because I thought it would be less crowded because the temples were further out (and I also thought it started at Angkor Wat - I was wrong).


We started at Preah Khan -meaning 'sacred sword', which was a Buddhist temple built around the 12th century.


I probably spent the most time at this temple because I was simply awestruck at what I was seeing. It took me almost a half an hour just to get through the front gate. Unlike in the west, where banisters, handrails, and no entry signs would be situated everywhere, you are allowed to climb or explore anywhere you like. The only exception is areas of the temples which are under reconstruction, or which are too unstable and might fall in on top of you. There is nothing that can describe, in pictures or in words, what it's like to be in this part of the world. The sounds of birds in the trees, animals in the underbrush, and occasionally someone playing traditional Khmer music near the temples. The smell of algae in the water, incense burning at shrines in the temple, and morning mist evaporating from the leaves of plants. The feel of the jungle heat, the slight breeze, and the exhilaration of clamoring your own way over stone ruins that are thousands of years old can only be experienced, not described.

After Preah Khan I went to Neak Pean, which is another 12th century Buddhist temple. It's a small island temple that's in the center of 8 pools of water. There's a horse at the entrance to the main temple that's saving some drowning sailors. There was an older French couple walking around near me. I almost asked them to take my picture, but I couldn't quite pluck up the courage to ask, in French or in English.


I spent most of the rest of the day being driven to various temples around the park. I was clamoring over piles of rubble, through broken stone windows, scaling steep and narrow stairs, getting sunburned, and just in general have an exploratory grand ole time.






I had finished the grand circuit before noon, so I went to a few on the small circuit. I had wanted to do an elephant ride after lunch, but they only do them in the morning. It would have been nice to say that I rode an elephant for Christmas, but I was willing to wait a day. I was seated along at lunch, and then the restaurant seated another lone traveler at my table. I didn't mind at all, and after chatting for a bit about what we'd seen and were going to see, we exchanged facebook info and I headed out.


By this time I was getting a little tired, and more than a little sunburned. I decided to do one more temple, and then head back to the guesthouse, so I went to Bayon. It was amazing - I could spend days exploring that one temple. While we were pulling up to the temple, I heard a loud sound that I thought was coming from the tuk-tuk, but it sounded like the whining of construction machinery. Kim Sour said it was cicadas. If it was, they were louder than anything I'd ever heard before, including the ones I'd heard in Mokpo at the White Louts Festival.







I heard several languages while wandering around the temples. Most of them I recognized, including Japanese, Chinese, Korean, French, German, English, Spanish, and Italian. Some I had no clue. I did hear some people talking about the tuk-tuk drivers and they way they swerve around all the time like they're drunk. I wanted to pipe in that the reason they do that is to avoid the massive potholes and bumps in the dirt road that would make for a highly uncomfortable ride, but decided against it.

I'm so glad my friend Kathryn suggested I bring a face mask. In Korea, I only use them to keep my face warm, though the Korean use them to protect themselves from getting/spreading diseases as well. The roads in Cambodia are dusty, and things kept flying into my eyes. They're constantly sweeping or raking the leaves in the park so that only the dirt shows. I bet if they didn't it wouldn't be as dusty, but I'm sure there's a reason why they do.

After Bayon, my battery (the second one!) was dying, and I was getting more burned, so I asked Kim Sour to take me somewhere I could get sunscreen. We stopped at a gas station, where I got soap, sunscreen, and two 2-liter bottles of water ($2 inside the temple, 60 cents outside). They only had 12SPF left, so I made a mental note to apply it liberally and constantly the next day.

I went back to the guesthouse and tried to plug in my camera battery to charge it, but the power in my room was off. I asked at the desk, and they said all the power had been turned off because they were fixing the air-conditioning. They must have meant the air for some of the guest rooms, because the main area was pretty much an outdoor room with a roof and three walls. So I started reading a book on Angkor, but fell fast asleep in the lobby for about 90 minutes. When I woke up the power was back on, so I plugged in my battery and got cleaned up.

Then I decided to go through my pictures and delete any extra or blurry pictures. I'd taken over 600 pictures in one day! I hadn't realized the settings for my camera were set at the max resolution, which must have been why my first memory card didn't even last me a day. I'm so glad I brought a second one, and that I'd put the bigger one as the back-up. Otherwise I would have had to delete pictures from my first day in order to make room for the other 8.

Kim Sour was supposed to pick me up around 6:30, but I was ready to go by 6. I talked to "The Old Man" as Kim calls him (the tour-guide/receptionist) about tomorrow. I decided to take a motorbike on my second day instead of a tuk-tuk. It's not as comfortable, but it's much faster, and since I was going out of the city it was the logical choice.

So I went to a restaurant where they serve western, Asian, and Khmer food, and have an Apsara dancing performance afterwards. I had an ice milk coffee with my dinner. They use sweetened condensed milk instead of regular milk. I didn't know that when I had coffee with my dinner in the morning, but I learned rather quickly not to add any extra sugar to my coffee.



The dinner was decent, and the dancing was facinating. It told a story, but with much slower and stranger movements than I'd ever seen. At first glance it looks rather easy, but on closer examination, the extended positions that they keep their hands and feet in, and the slow steady movement they use, is probably much harder than it seems.

Kim picked me up from the dancing around 8:30. When I mentioned beer, his face lit up, and he said "OK" and hoped on the tuk-tuk. He took me to a bar on a small side street with all Cambodians, no Westerners. The 'snow beer' was 50 cents a glass, and though the musive was loud, we had a great conversation. He told me more baout his schooling, old folk tales, his version of history of the Khmer Rouge, and How to say my name in Cambodian (Kolab or Kolap means Rose). He wants to be a tour guide, but it's $3000 to get a license, $2000 if you have a high school diploma. He finished 7 of the 12 years of public school, so he'd have 5 more years to pass in order to graduate. He speaks English well, but he says he can't read or write well. After a few beers, we headed home, because the next morning was sunrise at Angkor!

Here we go!

I was talking to my parents on the morning of the 22nd, two days before I was scheduled to leave for Cambodia. I was eager to share everything about my trip, and was reading the information listed on the visa . "Entry is 24/Dec/2009, and exit is 24/Jan/2009, single entry with my passport number."

My mom interrupted me with "Wait, what? What do you mean January twenty-fourth, two-thousand NINE?"


Apparently embassies can make mistakes as well as the rest of us when it comes to changing the year when we end the old one. I figured it wouldn't be a big deal, but at the behest of my mother, emailed my travel agent as soon as I got a chance. Within an hour of the first e-mail, I had not only sent a scan of the page, but a "Quick Service" courrier had come to the school to pick up my passport, which I reluctantly handed over. Several emails throughout the day assured me that they would fix it with the embassy, and I would have my passport back in my hot little hands by the time I left work on Wednesday, my last day of work before I left.

Later that afternoon, after the students left and much to my surprise, I received my passport back from another delivery man. I eagerly opened the envelope, flipped to the visa page, and promptly broke out in hysterics at their remedy to the situation: scratch it out and write the correct date in black pen.


I thought at first that it was quite a fuss (and expense on the part of the travel agent) for something that I could have easily fixed myself. My co-teacher had to point out to me that they had stamped over the date, probably as proof that I hadn't done exactly that. I had to go back and check the original photo to make sure, but yes, a pen and a stamp was all it took.

So now, after a lovely Christmas chat with my parents in which we virtually exchanged gifts, I will finish cleaning my apartment. I love coming back to a clean home after a vacation, but I have more pressing reasons to make sure my place is clean this time. A friend of mine's family is coming in tomorrow to Korea to visit her, and then a few days after Christmas they're all going together to Japan. Her place is much smaller than mine. Her family has a place to stay after Christmas Day, but nowhere for Christmas Eve. I don't have much room, but I'm glad to offer a bed and a shower to them, but it of course means that my place needs to be spic n' span before I leave.

I'm all packed and really excited. I don't know how well I'll sleep tonight, but seeing as how I need to wake up at 5am, I'm thinking that I need to at least try to go to bed at a decent hour.

I'm, like, totally cultured.

I'm on several mailing lists for events in Korea, as well as facebook groups and other ways of keeping up with what's going on. In general, I will either delete the messages I'm sent or barely skim them if something looks vaguely interesting. In one of these emails, I happened to notice that the Seoul Arts Center was putting on not one, but two ballets for the Christmas season - Swan Lake and The Nutcracker. I took several years of ballet as a child, but I'd never actually been to see a real ballet before (and by real, I mean a ballet company performing, and not my school or another children's school). So I called up Kathryn to see if she wanted to go to one with me. We settled on the Sunday matinee of Swan Lake on a Sunday, which was amazing to watch.



I did get a little confused about the story line - it'd been a while since I'd been exposed to the story, and all I really remembered was Odette was a swan who had to be on a lake when the moon was out in order to turn back into a person.


Then I got a message from another friend, who had wanted to go to see The Nutcracker. My parents had a VHS copy of Baryshnikov dancing in The Nutcracker ballet that I practically wore out as a kid, so I knew that story quite well. The ballet they performed in Seoul was remarkably similar to the Baryshnikov one, with the exception of another pair of dolls danced with each other, while in the original it had been Clara and the Prince doing their goodbye dance. There was even a growing tree as the backdrop, and the Asian dancers were made up to look English from a distance.


.

They were both lovely performances, and I felt quite cultured (and lucky) that I got to see both