Siem Reap is touristy, loud, busy, lit up and the perfect place to explore Angkor from.
Angkor Wat.
The road to Siem Reap from Phnom Penh is a bumpy one. Not figuratively, quite literally. I bumped, jumped and was thrown from my seat on the unsealed and road. People went by in vans with the boots open to cram more people inside, bikes zoomed and the dust was everywhere. It even made its way into the bus. a thin film of red dust had settled on our seats, our luggage and ourselves. Luckily we had plenty of stops along the way. First we dropped in on a spider market. Not selling spiders as pets, but to eat. I wanted to eat a spider, but I was harassed so badly by a group of 5 little girls selling fruit that I only got to try silk worms. The little ones were amazingly manipulative. The told me buying the fruit would help them go to school, they called me ‘sister Ali’, that they would cry if I didn’t buy from them, called me a liar because apparently I “promised” to buy fruit from them. It was overwhelming. Of course I ended up with bananas (which I don’t eat), an unripe mango and a pomello. The pineapple girl was seething. Next we stopped at a working silk farm where an ex-pat American and his Cambodian wife have worked with the local community to train women, some with disabilities, in the village as silk weavers. They sell beautiful scarves for decent prices and the women are treated well. Projects like this one are so important for locals here and give them skills and work where there might not have been an opportunity before. The woman who showed us around even broke down the wages, sales and profits for us just so we could see that the women weren’t being exploited. Finally, after crossing a bridge built in the 12th century, we jumped on a boat at the Tonle Sap lake to visit the floating village. This is the largest inland lake in South East Asia and is home to thousands of people who live on houses on poles in the water. Most are fisherman. It is a hard life with disease rife as people drink and defecate in the same water. It amazes me that people on the planet don’t have safe to safe drinking water with the resources we have. I take this for granted everyday. We jump in a converted fishing I notice a little boy, no more than 6 jumps on the boat with us. I wonder what he is doing until he starts untying ropes and pushing the boat out on to the lake by leaping from our boat to the ones that are moored beside it. Obviously you’re never too young to earn a living in Cambodia or be a ship’s First Mate. After lots of waving at local children we stop to watch the sunset. It’s beautiful over the water. After the ride back, the First Mate picks up a giant paddle and steers us into our moorings. Amazing. From there it was only an hour or so to Siem Reap.
Life on the lake.
Siem Reap is in the middle of the water festival too, so the streets are busy, loud and lit up. Cambodians have come from all over so even the tourist mecca known as ‘pub street’ is filled with tourists and locals alike. We went to a pub with tasty food and karaoke, after blowing the crowd away with my version of karaoke staple “Total Eclipse of the Heart”, we went out to explore. On this street sound systems pumping club anthems compete for your attention, as do tuk tuk drivers and vendors who set up night markets. I find shopping here quite stressful as there is no such thing as browsing. As soon as you’ve made eye-contact you’re sucked into the vortex. I just wish the stall owners didn’t insist on telling me gleefully that they have a ‘big size’ for me. Me being a Cambodian XXXXXL might be a genetic reality, but I’m not keen to be reminded of it constantly. The markets are also interesting because everyone has the same thing. I looked at a dress that was $12, which was then quickly discounted to $7 by the vendor as I walked away, that I found in another store for $5. You just have to be smart, I guess. Or an excellent haggler; which luckily my Mum is. I’m getting better.
The First Mate.
But we weren’t in Siem Reap for the night-life and shopping. People come to the city as a base to explore the temples of Angkor. A temple pass for 3 days costs about $45. Considering there are about 300 temples in the park, that’s not bad. Unfortunately I missed out on 296 of them; but the ones I did see were great. Obviously, Angkor Wat was high on the agenda. We visited twice: once in the afternoon and once for the sunrise. Both were very different experiences. During the day we viewed the beautiful carvings, statues and offerings, got our photos taken with monks (on their cameras and ours), saw a lot of monkeys playing on the temple walls and I even got my fortune told by an old man. He gave me a bracelet and a book that I put over my head and selected a page from, he then read out the page in Cambodian (which was translated for me), my story was about somebody who lost something important finding it again. I wondered what it could be, but the more I think about it the more I realise that I lost myself in a bunch of stuff that doesn’t matter and this year I have found ‘me’ again. Cheesy? Probably, but I’m going with it. As usual there was lots of photos, silliness, being pushed and shoved around and dealing with massive crowds, as there has been at all the attractions I have been to. Angkor Wat in the morning was a different proposition, yes, the crowds were there but everyone was much more relaxed (perhaps from sleep deprivation). We watched the sun come up over the five towers and it was a stunning sight. True beauty. I wish this could have been the first time I saw the place, but it was still very special.
Sunrise over Angkor Wat.
My favourite temple was in Angkor Tom. As we entered in the gates we found ourselves on a bridge filled with faces of good and evil. Some have been restored, but most are crumbling. We spent most of out time with the ‘evil’ faces because they were much more interesting to look at and do awesome impressions of. Bayon Temple was made up of hundreds of faces of Lokesvara. A serene, calm face that stares out of each tower 4 times, one on each side. This temples was weathered, you could climb on it and explore and above all else it was beautiful. I loved it. It was even relatively quiet compared to Angkor Wat, so that was refreshing.
Bayon temple.
We also visited the Jungle Temple of Ta Prom. This is the one used in the Tomb Raider movies. When you see it you can see why Ang made the trek down here. Trees twist and turn and bind themselves to the stones of the temple. they grow out of the oddest places and tower high into the sky. This power play by Mother Nature has meant that much of the temple is in ruins. But it makes for a beautiful contrast. The final temple was Bunteay Srey temple, or Woman Temple. This was much different. A Hindi temple, it is dedicated to different gods and is much smaller. Lots of the middles section is blocked off, but the statues and carvings are in pretty good condition. In fact, the carvings are really beautiful. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the outer walls. As was the case with many of the temples here, there is a lot of damage due to theft. Countries like Japan are donating money and working with Cambodians for the restoration of many of the sites, but much of the damage was done during the time of the Khmer Rouge and the parts have long since vanished.
So many tomb raiders.
When people have told me about how much they love Cambodia they have always mentioned how beautiful the people are. Friendly and happy are the common adjectives. I saw this first-hand during my time in Siem Reap, especially on a quad-biking adventure we took through the country-side. I had never ridden a quad bike before, so after seeing my skills (read: none), one of the drivers jumped on the back of my bike to help me out of any sticky situations, which I am happy to report were few and far between. Riding through the country-side we saw cows, rice fields, water buffalo, and of course people. Locals whizz by on bikes and kids ran out of their houses just to wave and smile at us. When we got off the bikes to take a photo of the scenery they would edge closer and giggle. They all know ‘hello’ in English so they use it for everything. We got pictures with one group who made the shapes of hearts with their hands and giggled even louder when they saw the digital camera screen with their faces on it. It was so nice to meet the real people of the villages. They were very sweet. We also saw locals perform traditional Apsara dancing at a restaurant. Most of the dances had a boy-meets-girl narrative and we’re pretty easy to follow. The beautiful dancing was performed to a live band which was lovely. As I mentioned earlier, the water festival was blocking off streets and creating havoc in town. We stopped by to watch some races and some people. families and friends were all enjoying the sunshine and the boat racing on the river. Food and drink were being sold everywhere and some locals were happy to strike up a conversation with us as we waited in between races. There’s that Cambodian kindness again. It’s everywhere.
Sunset over the rice fields.
I was surprised by how varied the temples of Angkor were. That helped wave off dreaded ‘temple fatigue’. But as spectacular as they were, I think the best part of Siem Reap was its people.
Ali's adventure 