I've been more careless on this trip than in the past. I left some shampoo in Hanoi and my good razor... somewhere. I left for Sapa without my camera's SD Card. I left my phone on the bus.
Nothing too too awful, but inconvenient and, I feel, unlike me. I wonder if it's because I'm so focused on crossing the street and making sure I make all my buses, etc, that the little things are getting pushed out.
I was fortunate to have gotten the phone back, as it serves as my primary alarm, and I needed to be up way early today to see the sun rise behind Angkor Wat. It was clever of the ancients to place it in front of the sun.
Sleep was a little fitful, since it turns out I'm here on some species of Cambodian holiday (Moon festival? Water festival? I couldn't get a straight answer), so the streets were loud outside, and there were some thrashy lizards in the room. Their tails whipped the garbage bag in the waste basket. I guess I had some of that primitive concern about sharing my bed with one.
Weaksleep or no, the idea of seeing this world-famous landmark provided enough adrenaline to get me up and out where Mitchell, faithful Mitchell, and his loyal tuk tuk were wide awake and waiting.
If I haven't described it yet, a tuk tuk is a motorcycle with a open carriage attached to it. It's a motorized rickshaw.
He was going to take me everywhere I wanted to go, he knew where everything was, and he was mine all day for $20. Packed the camera and we took off into the pre-dawn dark.
The temples are open for visitors starting at 5:30, since many folks want to experience the sunrise there. You can buy tickets at starting at 5am, though, so we booked it for the ticket office. Several of the guide books suggested the sunrise thing was for the hardcore and was a kind of secret, but there were hundreds of people waiting in line when I got there.
But, they know exactly what they're doing at that ticket office, and everybody was back in their tuk tuks or on their bikes or on their horses (!!!) in no time at all, really. Mitchell parked himself in the place where the hired men play dominoes, and pointed somewhere in the dark. I'll be here, he said, you go there. I went there.
You really couldn't see much, but there were tons of folks in white clothes and tons of folks documenting their lives on camera, so by the glow of a hundred wifebeaters and video screens I found my way to the sacred temple.
As the sun gradually rose, you could begin to make out that famous profile, and you could hear and feel people gasping and weeping. It was a genuine energy. Whether or not it was religious fervor or the power of realizing you're actually doing something you've always wanted to do, or just the Magic of Recognition, it was real. My face was wet too.
It was like seeing Leonard Cohen in concert!
Like everyone, I angled to get the shot where you see it reflected in the water. I was satisfied with the result. There were merchants there selling, weirdly, giant paper puppets and paintings. They sat on blankets just outside the crescent of tourists. It seemed unlikely anyone would want an enormous monk puppet at 5:45am that you would have to carry around all day, but one lives in hope.
And, it's certainly true that we have no better way of expressing our emotions than buying something.
It still wasn't quiiite light enough to see, but I headed into the temple anyway. I figured that might make it more fun. Like, it would be cool to stumble around and then have the walls and floor gradually revealed.
I walked toward the Famous World Monument-shaped shadow and climbed inside.
Spooky and musty and cool. Indiana Jones. Tomb Raider. Etc. Peaceful and interesting. Bats live there too. I could hear their squeaky dreams.
Giant, distinctly Cambodian stone lions that kind of looked like ducks. Their curling roar-lips resemble a bill to me. Their faces were mostly worn away. Also big cobra-looking things. Most the bannisters and railings were their snake bodies. I learned later they're called "naga," which is probably something I've heard before but maybe didn't associate with Buddhism?
As things became more visible, you could see actual monks lighting incense and praying and you could see actual Europeans complaining that they couldn't climb all the stairs. One German woman was irate that she could see someone on a higher level than she was allowed to be.
She yelled at a monk, "I suppose he paid you? How much!?" She reminded me of one of the parents from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. "All right, Monka, 'ow much for the Buddha? My little girl 'as to 'ave one."
I think what happened was, the folks in the forbidden zone had climbed up there in the dark before the holy staff could put out the sacred signage. Anyway, it's weird the sense of entitlement people get in these situations. There were some beautiful relief carvings and a general sense of order. It was impressive and very pretty. The real action, however, was down the road at Angkor Thom.
The complex of temples is large, and you can do it on foot, but you'll be doing it for a very long time. I thought I was being luxurious (almost decadent!) by hiring Mitchell, but it's really almost a necessity. I went back to where the tuk tuks were parked.
Many of the drivers were sleeping in little hammocks they'd set up in the carriage. I loved this. They just hang out until their fare is done doing whatever. I have no idea how Mitchell spent his idle time, because one of his charms was he always found me first. I'd be poking around the parking lot and hear his gentle "Mr. Simon? Mr. Simon? Here here." And we'd be off.
Angkor Thom features The Bayon, which is the stone pile of amazement with all the faces carved in. To get there, you cross some pretty cool bridges where giant figures play tug of war with a naga. Mitchell took my picture at one of them. He was fascinated with the focus ring on the lens.
An old monkey was sleeping at one of the gates and a guy was cracking up pretending he needed to show the monkey his ticket. Am I allowed in, monkey? He was really amusing himself. It was sweet to see an old man making himself so happy with an old monkey.
Once again, Mitchell parked and sent me templeward.
The Bayon was fantastic, filled with the strange intelligence of ancient artists. The stone smile was sweet, scary, leering, and welcoming all at once. Enigmatic, you might say! It reminded me of the motorcycle men in the Night Market.
They ask you if you want a ride on their bike, but they are also pimps, so there's a parenthetical after each request.
It's like this: "Hello sir, want motorbike? (want lady?)"
The parenthetical is spoken aloud. Not whispered exactly, but spoken in a conspiratorial register and delivered with that stone smile from The Bayon.
"Hello sir, want motorbike? (want laaady?)
"Most certainly not! (how much?)"
I spent a very nice time counting the faces and experiencing genuine awe at the scale and skill of it. It's very different than anything else I've seen, really. Like, the pyramids are amazing. The Eiffel Tower is cool, but there's something a little more... remote about them. They're just sort of... famous shapes.
This had a kind of majestic purpose mingled with a freaky aesthetic. I was pretty amazed they let you walk around in there. It was like being one of those people who get a "pagan license" and are allowed to sleep with the rocks at Stonehenge or something. Another famous shape.
I don't know. I loved it. It was strange and beautiful. And people were cool, not running around or acting like goofballs. Just sort of gasping softly and appreciating it.
I found Mitchell again (or rather, he found me - Mr. Simon? Here, here!) and we motored on to Ta Prohm, which is the one you've seen in the movies with the trees reclaiming everything.
Story goes, the Frenchmen who rediscovered all this stuff (the remnants of the mighty Khmer empire), wanted to leave one temple the way he had found it, so folks would get a sense of what it was like for him. I love that.
The rest (Angkor Wat, The Bayon, many others) are being restored and are as I saw them (clean, fascinating) but Ta Prohm is wild and filled with roots and smashed columns, etc.
I was like, "Hey, Mitchell, will you be my date to Ta Prohm?" but he didn't get it. He was like, "It is here. We are here now."
Like the others, it's an enormous structure with towers and temples and ornate carvings. This one just has spooky Wizard of Oz trees in it.
Of the thousands of carvings inside, I had read that one of them was supposed to resemble a Stegosaurus. It was supposed to be in a tiny circle somewhere in the vast complex. A Jurrassic needle in a Buddhist haystack.
It's said, an exaggerated claim, I'm sure, that Christian fundamentalists use this stegosaurus carving to claim that dinosaurs and men were on the earth at the same time and that the world is just fifty years old or some shit.
Take that, Darwin. Too bad the Beagle didn't sail up the Mekong River, or you would have known the truth! Praises to His Highest!
It had been a long morning after a rough night, and the mid-day sun was hot, but I was determined not to leave until I found it. I looked, of course, and if I heard someone speaking English, I asked them, "Have you found the dinosaur?" and they 100% had not found the dinosaur and 110% wanted me to get the hell away from them.
Their loss! I found it!! After a really sweaty hour! (a guide knew where it was). It kind of looked fake and also could have been a rhino with leaves behind it? It also really looked like a Stegosaurus with a Triceratops head. Anyway, I loved it.
Mitchell found my soaked body and was like "More temples?" and I was like, "No way in Buddhist hell. Take me home at once!"
So, it was farewell to the great majesty of this sacred region and back to the hotel. Like a person.
I gave him a massive tip and we said goodbye. I took a massive shower and felt cool and refreshed. Then I took a massive nap and woke up to a sky shaking early-evening rainstorm. God, what if that had happened a few hours earlier?
Super hungry, so I tip-toed through the mud and went back to the Danger Zone.
I drank a Black Russian, which for some reason they make with Coca Cola here (you Khmer for this one!) and ordered another heaping helping of Fish Amok!!
While I ate, I watched a Spanish teenager roll her eyes at her sunburned parents.
I really overate, and the rice and the fish paste and the amok and coke and the eye rolling were kind of making me sick.
But, there was too much fun to be had, so I paid a few dollars to let fish eat the dead skin on my feet, but I could only stand it for a few seconds. You put your toes in a tank.
They REALLY go for it!! I was giggling like a crazy old woman. It tickled so much. I did everything I could to keep quiet and still, but those fish were merciless.
Then a beggargirl tricked me into buying some expensive milk powder for a baby that probably wasn't hers, and I felt like a chump. She was probably in cahoots with the store owner.
What are you gonna do? It cost more money than a day's worth of Mitchell, this milk powder.
Then I got another massage, and this time the mattress was even dirtier and there were four ladies. I was like, "Whaaaat is thiiiis?" and she was like, "Four-lady massage. Costs four time." They REALLY go for it!!
I was like, "I don't have that much money," but one of the four found my pants in the corner and was like, "Here's all of your money. It's not enough."
She had gone through my pockets. It was like a movie where someone goes through your pants pockets.
So, I was like, "It's all I have, and I'm going to keep it? And leave?" and eight hands held me down and two voices said they would go back to my hotel with me and help me find my ATM card, and I was like, "Noap!"
And four voices said, fine! It would be enough. Just this one time, though. Special price. Don't tell anyone how you cheated four poor ladies.
So, if I hadn't been ripped off with the Cambodian Powdered Milk Scam, it would have happened here anyway. Siem Reap is gonna get your money one way or the other. Sooner or later, you dance with the Siem Reaper!
The Cambodian version of massage involves a lot of rolling and twisting, and with my tummy having gone amok from before, I didn't enjoy it as much as the previous night. I guess two ladies really are better than four. Five's a crowd!
So, I left, penniless, but relaxed, but kind of gurgly in the guts.
I woke up to loud fireworks. The fucking moon festival! Or water festival!!
I was wet, something cold and horrible was in the bed with me. Had a lizard gotten in the bed!!!?? Had I rolled over and crushed a lizard!!!??
No, it was just shit. I had befouled myself in my sleep. Fish amok!
That's never happened to me before.
I cleaned it up (surprisingly easy), took another shower and went back to bed.
I cracked myself up thinking, "Angkor Wat was so amazing, I shit myself."
In the morning, I would take a bus to Phnom Penh
Suddenly I'm in less of a hurry to find authentic fish amok.
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