1-17-2010: Siem Reap and the Wats of Angkor

When it came time to think about where to go when our month in Thailand was up, Mike asked me where we should go for his birthday.

Well, I said, we haven’t been to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat yet, but where do YOU want to go?

So here we are, in Cambodia, sitting on the second floor open air terrace of a café called Red Piano in the town of Siem Reap. We’re enjoying a sultry breeze (augmented by the overhead fans), drinking fresh lime sodas, eating baguette sandwiches and watching the activity on the street below. The air has a slight tinge of smoke to it because it’s dry season and the locals are burning the dried leaves that have fallen from the trees. By the way, this café is locally known as the bar Angelina Jolie and crew liked to hang out in when they were shooting “Tomb Raider”. The menu boasts a cocktail she supposedly invented; Cointreau and lime juice and tonic water over ice if I remember correctly and named – wait for it – Tomb Raider Cocktail.

We’re visiting with an old friend of Mike’s. George Mann has lived in Thailand for many years and has traveled extensively here. He’s a photographer/photo journalist whose latest project is leading photographic tours tailored to small groups (1 to 5 persons.) He has joined us here for this trip and we’re looking forward to his expertise as we explore the sights. (small plug – if you love photography and want to go on a photo safari of very photogenic places in Asia, George is your man. Oh, sorry, no pun intended. You can find his website and contact info here: http://angkorroad.com/ )

The town has a lovely French colonial feel; the low buildings only have two or three stories open to the air. The streets below have little traffic besides pedestrians, scooters and bicycles and the ever-present Tuk-Tuk. The local incarnation of the Tuk-tuk is basically a scooter with a covered trailer that looks a bit like a horse carriage with a bench for passengers.

Most of the activity in the French Quarter of town centers around a couple of streets and boasts a covered market full of tourist clothing and souvenirs, a collection of restaurants and bars (on Pub Street!) and some small massage/”spas”, where the big thing seems to be Doctor Fish. A Doctor Fish Spa is a large tank of water (see picture), like an aquarium containing a few hundred small fish that nibble the dead skin off the feet of anyone brave enough to stick their feet in. Yea, I know, it sounds pretty gross but it seems to be a hit with the Chinese and Korean tourists.

The local currency is called the Riel, worth 4000 riel to the dollar, but no one really uses it – they all prefer American dollars. That makes the exchange rate easy unless your bill is less than a dollar. They don’t use the coins here so any change below a dollar is returned in Riel. If you have no dollars, don’t worry, the local ATMs dispense crispy new dollars.

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Cambodia sits cradled between Vietnam to the east and Thailand to the west like a pearl in an oyster shell. In the days when the Khmer kings were building their exquisite temples around what is now the small town of Siem Reap, the neighboring kingdoms were the Thais in Thailand and the Cham people in what is now Viet Nam.

Before we came to Cambodia, I had a vague awareness of Angkor Wat, that it was probably the most famous temple in all of South-East Asia. What I didn’t realize is how many temple complexes are scattered around this area, artifacts of an old civilization and a dynasty of god-kings who built their own monuments to the gods they worshipped.

I started reading about The Khmers and the temples, and the more I read, the more fascinated I became. I have long been aware of the Indian influence on the South-East Asian cultures but I never realized how deep those roots were.

The Chinese and Indians first came through South-East Asia (Thailand, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and Indonesia) in the first century when the area was becoming a hub in a huge trading network which stretched from the Mediterranean to China. They came, not as conquerors or occupiers, but as traders (and, evidently) teachers. They brought culture and religion and their spell-binding stories to inspire the local Khmers. From what I can tell, Hinduism and Buddhism came to Cambodia at roughly the same time through the Indian traders.

The stories they told about the exploits of the various Hindu gods evidently made a deep impression on the locals, who incorporated them into temples and contemporary life.

Well, that’s it for tonight. We have to get up early tomorrow for our first day of temple crawling and I can hardly wait.