Traveling Diary: March 2008 Archives

Wat the heck? Ok, enough with the puns already. Cambodia - Yep - Out of the blue.

Recently I met my friend Simon in Thailand. He was there for a sailing competition and I guess we figured it would be just out of the ordinary enough for the two of us to meet up in the middle of this planet in order to make it a completely logical thing to do. After a day in Pattaya (known as Asia's Sin City), I for one was getting an itch to move on (I guess those ping pong shows just don't keep my attention as much as they might some others'). It didn't take much to persuade Simon. This is me in the reflection of the sunset that bid us farewell from BKK.


Unfortunately we need to just fast forward through a long story of an unbelievable kidney illness; a true story of a serious knee injury; and an on-a-whim flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia. But now that has you landing with me at the beginning of this blog's topic. Angkor Wat....the world's largest religious building.
 

Arriving into Siem Reap quite late and unable to see much, we got up ridiculously early the following morning and made it to Angkor Wat's front gates just in time to share the sunrise with about another 10,000 people - 99,999 too many....ok, fine, maybe 99,998 too many.


I could write a book on Anchor Wat, as many others have (I know cause I bought one for 10$ from a kid who I am sure will be able to retire now) but instead of giving you too much info, I will garnish my photos with some simple quotes from the Lonely Planet guide:



"It is easy to spend as long as a week at Angkor....many traveler feel that four or five days is the ideal length of time..."

We did it in about 8 hours. I like traveling with Simon.



"The temples of Angkor are the heart and soul of the kingdom of Cambodia....the perfect fusion of creative ambition and spiritual devotion."


"The Angkorian period spans more than 600 years from AD 802 to 1432, during which time the temples of Angkor were built."



"The hundreds of temples surviving today are but the sacred skeleton of the vast political, religious and social centre of an empire that stretched from Burma to Vietnam."

At the time, people built their houses only of wood; this material has long since decayed and thus all there is left of this empire are the sandstone buildings. What we see today were built only for gods to live in and use rather than people. Yes, the imaginary-friend-type of gods.




From there we drove South a bit and arrived at Bayon; and although it was 'just' an old temple too, it had a completely different feel. Likely in part due to all of the smiling Buddhas in each pillar.


"Ta Prohm is undoubtedly the most atmospheric ruin at Angkor.." so much so that Simon's creative juices began to flow and he was inspired to play some guitar... on his leg... Or, oh wait...was that a kung fu picture?

On a more serious note, it was sure nice not having to share this experience with a trillion other people;)


My personal favorite quote from the guide book: "Land mine alert! At no point during a visit...should you leave well-trodden paths, as there are land mines in the area."


This quote brings me to more of a philosophical subject.
There are many places in the world that lack compassion, but Cambodia is not one of them. There are posters everywhere regarding volunteer projects, non-profit organizations, and charity organizations. Walking around I felt inundated with information on how I could improve the lives of the less fortunate to the point of feeling fairly guilty. but more than anything this had me wondering...shouldn't it be like this everywhere? Why do we need a civil war where millions die in order to band together and help the less fortunate?



There is a humanness in wanting to help - such as there is in wanting to hurt. The ghosts of the Khmer Rouge still effect this area with 2 deaths from land mines daily. 539,000 tonnes of bombs have been dropped on Cambodia (some of which by the US in order to 'help') and there are a grand total of 20 psychiatrists here. Random facts - maybe -  but I think they do a good job to paint a picture of life here.

Although the blatant killing has stopped, corruption remains the way of life in Cambodia; and if you're not on the right end of this corruption, poverty is the only option. But the beauty of Cambodians is they are happy, generous and thankful for what they have. Shouldn't we all be so fortunate.


After a bit of a midday break (read: beer), we headed out for a boat tour on Tonle Sap, S.E Asia's largest fresh water lake. On the way there, we really got to see how Cambodians live.

And here is a crib for a water baby.




S.E Asian boat rides seem to be the end of my camera and my battery died completely at this point....I'm not even done with day 1... but Simon picked up the slack for the rest of the trip. Another post with great pics and blatant ploys to try to get you to send all your money to charities in Cambodia will soon follow.