Temple Day - Cambodia

Sun, Jan 10, 2010
Siem Reap

Today was temple day. We had an early start, leaving the hotel at 5am to catch sunrise at Angkor Wat (the temple you always see in the National Geographic). When we got there, the place was packed. Hundreds of people with hundreds of cameras, all hoping to get that great shot (which, incidentally, is impossible when there is such a crowd). The sky just gradually lightened until it was bright, and then people began to drift away. Our group was scheduled to leave at 7am so we could get back to our hotel for breakfast, and just as we were gathering at the entrance and getting our group photo, the sun itself actually arose. It was a gorgeous red ball rising up behind the towers of Angkor Wat –really beautiful. A few of us managed to drag our feet long enough to get a few shots of it, but we were getting on the bus as it began to climb. That’s one of the drawbacks about traveling with a group – you go when the group goes.

After breakfast, we went back and had about an hour and a half to explore before heading to the next temple. By then it was already getting quite warm, and the experience got stickier and dustier as the day went on. By 1pm when we finally took a break for lunch, most of us were about templed out and ready to call it a day. The lunch break did help though, and we were able to rally sufficiently that after we ate we went to Angkor Thom, but decided to choose only one temple to see. Sambaht, our guide, recommended Bayon temple and I’m so glad we went. It wasn’t big and it wasn’t real tall, but it had loads of towers with the face of the Buddha carved on all four sides – facing east, west, north and south. They call them the kissing Buddhas because if you sit down on a ledge or stand in the right spot, you can line yourself up so that when you take a photo, it looks like you are kissing the Buddha. There were lots of people taking advantage of the optical illusion.

Once back at the hotel, we barely had time to set down our stuff before heading back out to Tonle Sap (I believe it’s the largest lake in Cambodia) and the floating village. As we drove to the lake, the sun was getting low in the sky and the rice fields became magical to see. The rice plants were emerald green and the sun was glinting off the water and the people in the fields were rimmed in golden light. Just beautiful

When we got to the dock and began walking down to our boat, some guy stuck a camera in our face – I couldn’t figure out what he was up to because he was kind of grim-faced and it was like a drive by shooting, or in this case, a walk by shooting. I had just taken a photo of a woman with her baby and I thought maybe he was upset about it and trying to give me a taste of my own medicine. Except I had asked if I could take the picture and had gotten permission. Oh, well… On the boat, which was long and skinny, we were seated in wicker lawn chairs set two per row (weight reassignment was worked out along the way, depending on which way the boat was tilting). Then we proceeded to motor our way along what seems to be a very long and skinny bay lined with hundreds of house boats, or more accurately, shack boats, moored up to a steep bank that had quite a number of grass roofed huts along it and at the top a narrow road. It was so interesting to see how people had lashed together what they could find and had created shelters for themselves. When we reached the lake itself (Tonle Sap), we motored out a little ways to watch the sunset. Like the sunrise, once it started to go down, it went down very quickly. But it was lovely to watch.

As we motored back to the dock, I was startled to suddenly see a little kid running along the edge of our boat – that railing couldn’t have been any wider than three inches – and he was carrying a small basket filled with cokes. One dolla! One dolla! We politely declined and just that quickly he ran back the way he came. We were all wondering where he had come from and then we saw a man motor up to our boat and saw the kid jump from ours to his - nimble as you please. We were not going slowly either. Amazing. These kids are fearless and quick footed – I imagine they’ve been doing these things their entire lives and will do so until they are no longer cute enough to sell or beg. I’m not sure what happens to them after that.

As the light faded, we could see the lights coming on in the houseboats. Most of the light was the flickering of tv sets. That was a little odd to see considering they are living on water. And then it was scary because it made you think about how electricity is pretty much just tapped from any old pole to anyplace they want it with big bundles of wires dangling everywhere. Hmmm… water and pirated electricity. An uneasy mix.

We ended up docking a bit shy of where we started and by that time it was quite dark. A bunch of kids came running down the ramp wearing headlamps, presumably to guide us back up. Our bus was waiting for us there and the kids crowded around trying to sell us something. We all just climbed back on without looking, but Shane, our tour leader, stopped to see what they had. He came on to the bus laughing and showing us what he had bought – it was a souvenir plate that had his picture in the center. $3. He was so impressed with their ingenuity that he just had to buy it. The rest of us got a good laugh looking at the various plates and Jeff ended up buying one that had a photo with both of us in it – me walking behind him as we came down the gangplank. I don’t imagine we’ll even make it all the way through SE Asian before the thing has broken into a dozen pieces. Perhaps we’ll manage to get a photo of it posted so it’s preserved for posterity.

Rita