Good job, Angelina! Amazing Angkor and a glimpse at Cambodia

Angkor Wat, the most famous of the Khmer temples in Cambodia, is beyond verbal expression!

[Yes, it's been a while...and now I'm blogging backwards! I was in Cambodia before I headed to Malaysia and Singapore. Next up: Myanmar!]

When describing the famous Khmer temples of Cambodia , most people make the mistake of collectively calling them “Angkor Wat.” Maybe you even have done so in the past. Or now!!! That’s OK, because I’m here to set you straight! Angkor Wat is actually just one of the amazing temples in the man-made wonder that is Angkor , the ancient capital that is home to an incredible (and huge) complex of temples built gradually over a period of approximately 800-1000+ years ago by the great Khmer civilization. These peeps were shaping heaven out of rocks when the English and French were shuffling around in their feudal rags, people! Ah, sigh, yet another example of an advanced people that mysteriously disappeared after a period of prosperity, only to leave behind an architectural shadow of their greatness in a developing country, a la the Mayans and Egyptians). But I digress!

Bayon temple at Angkor Thom features the serene, smiling faces of Khmer King Jayavarman VIII - 173 of them, to be exact.

For those that need a more popular reference to Angkor , did you watch Tomb Raider? OK, so you were probably watching Angelina Jolie (or various parts thereof…), but remember when she was swinging through some dark temple? Or something? Do you remember any temples? OK, good! Yeah, so that’s an Angkor temple. So it’s clear now? Great!

The outer walls of Angkor Wat are decorated with incredible bas-relief murals, the most famous being one depicting the creation myth, Churning of the Sea of Milk. It's my favorite!

Apsaras, the Khmer court dancers, decorate the carved walls of many Angkor temples. It's amazing - 800 years have passed, but some of the carvings still look as fresh and beautiful as if they were finished yesterday.

My five days in Cambodia were spent mostly exploring the city of Siem Reap and its most famous surrounds, the Temples of Angkor. Although I did not have much time to explore the country (and a super-touristy place like Siem Reap and the Temples are bad places to have a genuine experience, anyway), I learned a lot about this interesting country formerly known as Democratic Kampuchea and currently (and unfortunately) known more as the place that is home to the Killing Fields, Pol Pot, landmines, and Angelina’s son’s birthplace than anything else.

After the Khmers abandoned Angkor, the temples were left to the jungle, which promptly proceeded to swallow them up. Mother Nature still reigns supreme at some temples like Ta Prohm, but the coexistence of nature and manmade marvel is really still quite beautiful.

The Journey
I rolled into Cambodia after nearly a month in Myanmar . And by “rolled,” I mean “flew on an airplane.” Originally, I had planned to travel by bus and pickup to Cambodia from Bangkok, but decided against it at the last minute – not because I didn’t want to have the adventure of getting all dirty in the back of a pickup truck (I’ve grown rather fond of dodgy overland border crossings), but because I wanted to save that day of traveling in my increasingly tight schedule. It was worth it!

The beautiful international terminal of the Siem Reap Airport, open all of 2 weeks. Hmmm, maybe taking pictures of airports is somehow a security risk...?

The flight from Bangkok to Siem Reap was a ridonkulously short affair - perhaps 35 minutes (and still we got a nice, almost-meal-like snack onboard! Damn you, crappy American air carriers!). The new international terminal at Siem Reap Airport was approximately 2 weeks old, and it was really beautiful. Call me crazy, but – even after having the great pleasure of transiting through Singapore ’s Changi (apparently, the world’s best airport) and Hong Kong International (#2 on the same list) – I’d have to say I might like lovely little Siem Reap Airport best. Well, except for the pricey US$25 exit tax that everyone needs to pay in order to fly out of Cambodia . Yeesh. Thanks a lot, Hun Sen…

Ah, the Honda Dream. Includes its own driver, too!

From the airport, I hired a motorbike driver for the US$1 ride into town. He seemed like nice enough of a guy, so I hired him for all 5 days to take me around the temples and town. I spent most of my time in Cambodia , therefore, on the back of a motorbike, inhaling large amounts of dust. Just like a local! :)

Language: Krazy Khmer!
The Cambodian peeps speak Khmer ("Khmer" is also used to describe native Cambodian people and culture). I believe the language is of the same family as Thai. To me, it sounds like a blend of Thai and Vietnamese and has lots of nuances in tones (more so than Mandarin, in my opinion). In any case, it sounds difficult! I wasn’t able to learn many (OK, any) Khmer during my short time there, but, luckily, many people in a touristy place like Siem Reap speak good English. WHEW!

Cambodian Moolah: Hope you learned your 4 times tables!
Ah, America ! You’ll be glad to know that your covert bombings of Cambodia in the 1960s and 1970s apparently had no effect on Khmer faith in the mighty (::cough::sarcasm!::cough::) US dollar! Along with the officially issued riel (pronounced "reel"), the U.S. dollar is freely used as a de facto currency of Cambodia. Prices are often quoted in riel and US dollars, although you can convert fairly quickly if you have a 3rd grade education and/or learned the 4 times tables when you learned multiplication (gee, I sure hope you did!): the exchange rate is about R$4000=US$1. Since there are no US coins in circulation, the riel is used mostly as small change. So if something costs US$1.50, and you hand over US$5, you will get US$3 and R$2000 back in change.

Food and Drink
Khmer cuisine reminds me of Thai food, except that it’s not so spicy (whew). There is liberal use of curries, lemon grass, and coconut milk. Also, we’re in Southeast Asia territory now, kids, so "fried egg on top of rice" cuisine is widely and wonderfully available. Yum. Cambodia ’s national dish is arguably amok, a mélange, if you will, of vegetables and fish (also could be chicken or pork) cooked in a banana leaf with spices and coconut milk. Positively dreamy. I also ate an awful lot of lok lak, which was beef in a savory sauce, served over rice, with a fried egg on top. And, because Cambodia was a French colony once upon a time, there are quite a few cafés around and local sandwiches on baguettes, as well as some French influence that creeps into the local cuisine (especially in the more upscale restaurants). Let me now heave a dreamy SIGH for the cuisine I have left behind.

While in Cambodia , I also discovered dragon fruit. It’s totally wacky-looking (with its skin on, it looks almost like a oversized flower bud), but delicious. The flesh is white and sweet, spotted throughout with small black seeds that sort of resemble sesame. It tastes sort of like a cross between an apple and pear – a really mild flavor, actually. My motorbike driver took me to dragon fruit farm of a friend, where we plucked a few as snacks. I guess you could say we enjoyed the fruits of our labor. Haha…I’m so funny…OK, no, I’m not. I just couldn’t resist the bad pun.

Mmmm...crickety! (Photo courtesy of Reuters)

Oh, I almost forgot! I didn’t try it, but I certainly saw the most famous of local Khmer snacks on sale at the local night market, too. What local snack do I speak of? Fried crickets!!! As you can see, they look exactly as you might expect. Supposedly, they are crunchy and nutty tasting. Quite delicious, I’m told. Um, OK. I wanted to try some, but, as I stepped up tentatively to the fried cricket snack cart (geez, I can’t believe those last 4 words exist as a collective), I chickened out as I realized I would have to buy a whole bag of crickets. I would try one or two, but buying the whole bag was a little daunting. And maybe a little gross. Still, now I sort of regret not trying them. I mean, it was probably all of US$0.10 for the bag. Let me now heave a SIGH of disappointment...but maybe also one of relief...?


Kids, kids, kids...and landmines, too
Cambodian people are generally friendly, but one aspect that I found not-so-appealing about the country was the prevalence of kids begging. Perhaps it’s because I was in a touristy area, but I’ve never seen so many kids out in full force in any country I’ve been. Yikes! These kids are professionals! In Angkor, a lot of them are selling stuff, which isn’t bad, I suppose. What I found really enteretaining were all the tricks they knew to attract foreign tourists: for example, "Hi! Would you like to buy this set of 15 postcards? I’m going to count them in 5 languages! Eins, zwei, drei.......uno, dos, tres......" and "What country are you from? America? Capital: Washington, D.C.! Population: 299 million!" (they know this for tons of countries!). Cute, but slightly disturbing when you think about the fact that they are working instead of in school. Sigh.

Still, what I find particularly disturbing are the kids who are taken out of school and then into the streets by their parents in order to beg. Nooooo! Okay, I am being a pampered, judgmental Westerner here, but I think I’m a little justified. At first, of course, the kids ask for money...and when they don’t get that they ask for pens and candy ("Candy, yum yum?"). Sigh. What can they do with candy and pens. Okay, okay...they could sell them. But I didn’t seem to see many second-hand pens (or candy...thank goodness!) on sale in the streets. I dunno...

The culture of kids begging surprised me in the most unexpected of ways. For example, I was out on Tonlé Sap lake, enjoying a boat ride through a floating village. It was quite nice to see how life was in this village, which indeed is floating: everyone's houses, the shops, and even a school were basically buildings on a floating raft platform. Other than that, life is not all that different in a floating village:

Doing the laundry...


...hitching a ride to school with friends...


...playing on the porch...


...dealing with that crazy neighbor that paints his house all brightly!

After passing the village, my boat driver drove out into the open lake, which, by the way, is the biggest freshwater lake in Asia. Yay, no people except me and my driver in the middle of a huge lake. Wait a minute...what’s this?!?

Poor kids...good thing that water is shallow!

The kids paddle out into the lake in laundry tubs and beg tourists on boatrides, too! I even saw a mom who took her kids out on a boat and paddled towards tourists so that they could get a head start in their laundry tubs. Double sigh.

Again, yes, I know I’m imposing my own social beliefs on this country when I express my disbelief/anger/sadness on this. From a purely selfish and personal point of view, I just hate seeing kids’ innocence stolen from them in this way. In a perfect world, kids would be in school and playing, and wouldn’t see begging as a viable way of life (which I see as the beginning to greed and, eventually, theft and perhaps even worse). But life isn’t perfect, I suppose. It just makes me really sad.

Another sad aspect of Cambodia is its still-prevalent landmine problem, another legacy left by years of war. There are about 40,000 landmine amputees in the country. It was an aspect of Cambodia of which I had heard, but I didn’t know much past superficial details. Now, well, I can’t say I know the nitty gritty of it, but my experiences in Cambodia have really raised my awareness. I hate to say it, but that Angelina Jolie is doing some great work (you have to give her that, even if you’re pro-Jennifer Aniston!). Gosh, that was the second Angelina reference in this blog! Yikes.

Lasting Impressions: Crafts, Music, and An Unexpected Lesson in Cambodian Healthcare

I want one.

Lest I sound pessimistic about Cambodia, let me say this: I think the country has wonderful potential for development. Besides developing responsible tourism (every country - even the so-called "developed" ones - can benefit from this), I think there is great promise in traditional Khmer crafts. I visited the Siem Reap workshops of an organization called Artisans d’Angkor, which trains Cambodia youth in the traditional craftworking so that they can develop real skills while producing things for sale. Okay, the cynical side of me (and probably you) is thinking, "OMG, this is exploitative labor!” All right, all right...I see your point. But I think it is a start. And the stuff produced by these kids is beautiful:

Finished!

The carved stone tablet above (a replica of one of the bas-reliefs in Angkor Wat) costs US$1,200! I’m sure the artisan (the talented and very nice girl with the mask made this tablet by hand) does not see a significant cut of that, but imagine how she could use the skills for her benefit in the future! Well, that’s the way I’d like to see it anyway.

Ah, one last thing: While riding back and forth (and back and forth...and back and forth over the length of my 3-day entry pass) from the temples to Siem Reap, I passed by Katha Bopha II Jayavarman VII Children’s Hospital everyday. A sign outside advertised “Free Cello Concert by Beatocello Every Saturday.” Hmmm, free music! And the cello, no less! I was game! Well, it turned out that Dr. Beat Richner, founder of several kid’s hospitals in Cambodia, talked more than he played (and he played beautifully...I pretended I didn’t know that his tone went sharp, though :). He spoke a lot about the dire state of Cambodian healthcare and how third world countries deserved first world facilities, too, despite many naysayers (including many policy makers and politicians) who claim that his hospitals are too “advanced” for the Cambodia people. It was really quite an inspiring night, from learning about the poor healthcare conditions of countries like Cambodia to appreciating the passion and hard work of people like Dr. Richner who try to improve things in the small ways they know how. As I didn’t have much money to donate, I instead dropped in 350 mL of my universal donor O+ blood for the kiddies.

The famous Dr. Beat Richner and cello.

The concert was my last activity in Cambodia. Perhaps it’s appropriate I will always associate the country with the cello, an instrument that sounds so sad, but is always so beautiful despite its melancholy. Thank you, Cambodia!