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Tuesday, July 7, 2009

The Great Angkor Wat (Cambodia)

Sometimes in life, you pinch yourself and go right on dreaming. This happened to Kristin and I today. As cliche as it has become to write or say that something cannot be expressed properly in words, this cliche is tailor made for a place as special as Angkor Wat. It rises out of the Cambodian jungle like a lost world that must remain lost, too recklessly beautiful for modern function and too relentlessly epic to be categorized as anything but what it is.

We arrived at 4:45am to watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat. After staking our claim to a patch of grass at the edge of a pond front and center, we were approached by a Cambodian woman from a nearby village. She offered us coffee and chairs which we accepted, and eventually, when all was said and done, she even made me banana nut pancakes. They were delicious. As I sat in a plastic chair eating pancakes and watching the sunrise over possibly the most strikingly gorgeous piece of architecture in the world, it dawned on me. This is probably about as amazing as it gets. I would have to go unicorn hunting with Santa Claus to top this moment. In our human history, the confluence of circumstances are rare where an empire had the time, resources, and power to build something as magnificent as this. And here we are enjoying breakfast, watching the sunrise over the piece de resistance of the old Khmer Empire, it was truly one of life's great moments.

After taking in the sunrise, we wandered off the beaten path to find a restroom. We stumbled upon a little monastic village. The chanting drew us in for a closer look, and that is when we noticed this thin black dog. We followed him out of this village and onto the perimeter road around Angkor Wat. Eventually, the small black dog came across a female dog friend. They greeted each other for a moment, until an alpha male came running out of the jungle to break up the tryst. It was a bona fide temple love triangle, a compelling doggy soap opera.

After touring the temple for about 2 hours, we headed back to the hotel so that I could write yesterday's blog and take a brief nap before our ATV adventure through rural Cambodia at 11. The tour company sent a tuk tuk to pick us up, and after a scenic drive through Siem Reap, we arrived at the ATV jump off house. It was a pretty rough initial 15 minutes for Kristin and I. First, we had planned on sharing an ATV, but the guide said that we were too fat. We think hope that it was a lost in translation moment. After this, we went to the restroom in a nearby house, accidentally tracked mud inside (after realizing that we forgot to take our shoes off), cleaned the dirty looking mud with toilet paper, and then clogged the toilet with the t.p. that we used for the cleaning. Embarrassing stuff. After the aggregate of our actions were laid bare across that poor restroom, it looked like someone had a pretty severe accident, and did quite a poor job dealing with it. We set off with our guide, Sobey, leaving our disgrace behind. I mentioned to him that we made a mess in the bathroom, and he laughed and said, "No problem, it is not my house." Not too reassuring, Sobes. Our ATVs were a blast to drive, and in the first 5 minutes, this Indian guy that was with us had crashed twice. It was pretty funny. Our drive took us through villages, rice paddies, and jungles. In Cambodia, people just drive, there is not really a right or left hand side to drive on. They simply drive where there is space. The countryside is filled with naked kids and skinny cows. Every house that we passed, kids came running out to wave and yell at us. We eventually stopped at Chres Village School and Orphanage. It was a very rewarding experience, and Kristin and I had the chance to spend time with some young Cambodian orphans. The girls really liked Kristin. She had a full entourage about 6 deep that followed her everywhere. I hung with my main man Clee, a 13 year old orphan who spoke very good English, and his little buddy, Hun. They gave us a tour of their school, showing us where they sleep and telling us where the big kids get to learn computers on Saturday. We were treated to a tour of the pigs on their farm, and when we asked the pigs' names, the girls laughed and said, "Pig." It was seriously heart warming stuff to see all of these adorable orphaned children learning numerous languages (they have to learn Khmer, English, and Chinese or Japanese) and having such high spirits. They essentially learn all day and sleep in their classrooms. We did not want to leave, and decided that we would contact the school and try to do something small for them in the future. Kristin gave hugs to all the girls and I gave out a few high fives, and we were off.

Cambodia holds on and then holds on a little tighter. It is romantic, mysterious, uplifting, and heartbreaking, sometimes all at once. It has definitely grown on Kristin and I. We are both glad that we have one more day and one more night in this great country.

Angkor Wat 5am

Angkor Wat - There are quite a few of these

Almost sunrise

Thanks for the great pic stranger

Monastic Village school

Monk Cemetery

Our tour guide

It was so empty at the temple, so thankful

Dogs

Broken Up by Alpha

Submission

A retreat to the temple

Rear of Angkor Wat

Naga

Along the temple wall

Inside Angkor Wat

Bas relief

Kristin in the temple, not in bad shape for being almost 1k year old

Kristin provides a frame of reference for the

size of Angkor Wat

Temple Sweeper

Front door

Front of Angkor Wat, all to ourselves

Just one more

Some lilies in the moat

Kristin on an ATV

Rural Cambodia

Cambodian Cows

We both wore a traditional Khmer scarf to keep the dust out

Clee and I

Kristin and her entourage

You could tell they do not take many pictures, and they thank you

for taking their picture

Where the big boys learn computers on Saturdays

Class in session

Showing us their picture board, we are going to send them these

pictures for their board

Where the boys sleep and learn English. There was a sign on the

wall, "No Khmer in this room, only English." They rely on teachers

from the west to volunteer teach English

Visiting the pigs

Clee and Hun

Back on the road

We had a chance to take a picture because

the Indian wrecked again

Riding my atv

Country scene

House that was dropping the beats

This is a good pick to click through for detail

Village

Dorkls

Dinner at a traditional Khmer BBQ place

Monday, July 6, 2009

The Ruins of Ta Prohm (Cambodia)

We woke up in Bangkok and were immediately on our way to the airport, in a taxi, with spinners. The taxis in Bangkok are pretty tricked out, many our pink, some red, some have huge spoilers, and apparently, some even have spinners. A 45 minute ride to the airport costs about 6 dollars, a small price to pay for racer boy thrills. At the airport we shared some croissants and a chicken baguette with mango juice that was so delicious it made us smile. The food kind of blindsides you over here with its quality. You will be eating at an amazing restaurant and the food will be pretty good, and then in a totally different context, at the airport or on a plane, you will have a sliver of pineapple or a glass of mango juice that simply makes your heart soar. It is so unexpected and random, though always exceptional.

A brief aside. At this point, we have forgotten what day it is. I am blogging about yesterday, which is your today, we have changed time zones 4 times in the last week, and we have had it up to here with the cheap thrills that our malaria medication provides in the form of the unexpected dizzy spell.

We boarded our flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia on Bangkok Airways. The flight was an hour long and we were served a sandwich, thai wrap, fruit bowl, juice, water, and dessert. Kristin's family recently flew from Dallas to Hawaii and did not even receive a snack. It is crazy how much better the airlines provide for you over here in Asia relative to the U.S. We took off with Fernando by Abba blaring through the sound system, which, on a flight from Thailand to Cambodia, is about as out of place as Joel Osteen in the octagon. For the record, we landed to Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered." The Siem Reap airport is small and very interesting looking. On the way from our airport to our hotel, we were treated to the sights of Cambodia. Motorcycles, free range cows, and a whole lot of smiles was the general fare enroute from the airport. Our hotel, The Le Meridien Angkor, looks like a bad guy's lair from a 70's James Bond movie. It is a cool building, but internet costs $60 for 3 days, and that really pisses me off.

Cambodians suffered a great deal under the regime of the Khmer Rogue led by Pol Pot, and have just began to recover from the genocide of millions of Cambodians. The Kingdom of Cambodia has had time to recover and build up anew and this is evident in the spirit of the people. Cambodia has an extremely interesting history, at one point ruling most of southeast Asia from Burma to Vietnam. During this period, the Khmer (Cambodian) people built some of the most amazing temple complexes in the world, and their capital, Angkor, spread out over an area the size of modern day New York. It was the largest city in the pre-industrial wolrd. This kingdom lasted from the 9th to 15th century. They left the world some beautiful sights, and that is what brings us to the jungles of Cambodia. We visited our first temple Ta Prohm, which has a sort of Indiana Jones feel. It appears as if the jungle has started to take back the the temple gounds, with gnarled arthritic looking roots gripping the fallen kingdom's temple. We had arrived right before closing time so we had the temple to ourselves, and since it had just rained, we had to navigate through puddles and streams to get around the temple grounds. It honestly felt like a video game. We had to assess the risk involved with taking route A versus route B, and then climb, hop, and shimmy our way through Ta Prohm. Our driver had dropped us off and just kind of told us that he would pick us up on the other side, whatever that meant. We struggled to find him, before reaching his Toyota Camry "on the other side," which was more like through 2 jungles, an amazing temple, a village filled with beggar children, and down a long road.

Our next stop was the Angkor night market. We left with bags full of stuff, and it only set us back about $40. We had a spa treatment in the middle of the market with "Doctor Fish." We dipped our feet into a pool of water and hundreds of fish swam about and ate the dead skin off of our feet. It felt strange at first but after a few minutes, it became exceedingly enjoyable. After sharing an Angkor beer and talking with some locals, we called it a night. Our 4:30am wake up call loomed like an albatross, but to see the sun rise over Angkor Wat would be a thing of pure beauty.