Siem Reap, Cambodia 11/28/06

Siem Reap, Cambodia 28/11/06
Angkor Temples

It’s a partly cloudy day, which almost makes the heat and humidity bearable. For a second I almost forgot how much I am sweating. I’m even taking it slow. Normally I would be running up the steps of all these temples and climbing on any section that didn’t have a “Do Not Climb” sign posted but it’s just to hot for that.

I have been here for 3 days and this is my third day exploring temples in the Ankor Park. My German friend, Manuel, arrived here a day before I did so he had already made housing arrangements and lined us up a tuk-tuk driver to take us around the many temples. So when I got off the plane I met my driver, Nat, waiting with my name on a sheet of paper. It was a short ride to the guesthouse, threw my pack in the room, and less than an hour later I was on top of the ruins at Phnom Bakheng watching the sunset with probably a thousand other tourists.

Yesterday was the full day. Seven hours of climbing ancient stones and marveling over each carving. You explore one for as long as you like then back to Nat and the tuk tuk and it’s off to another. Well it’s not really a tuk-tuk but that’s what they call it. It’s just a motorcycle/scooter with a two wheeled chariot seat attached to the back by a post factory installed trailer hitch. It’s actually quite a bit nicer than the tuk-tuks I have been riding around Bangkok.

Yesterday afternoon we finally hit the big one, Angkor Wat. It was beautiful and larger than life. Walking up to it, along the long stone bridge, through the main gate, which is impressive by itself, you can’t stop staring at the picturesque domes of Angkor Wat framed in the middle of the horizon. The whole complex was designed in balance from every angle with architectural highlights in just the right spots. They designed a perfect photographic monument thousands of years before a camera could take advantage of it.

Of course since then the cameras have been making up for lost time. Now there are thousands of them attached to a tourist each. Some even doubled up. Today doesn’t seem as bad. Manuel left this morning so maybe most of the other tourists have moved on too. I love meeting new people but given the option I will almost always choose to be off of the standard schedule and route.

It’s a cool feeling to be alone walking through thick woods, sweat dripping from your face, the high pitch siren of cicadas overwhelming your senses, as you approach the dark, crumbling, ruins of an ancient temple. I felt like Indiana Jones in a baseball cap.

Each one is different. There are large buildings and tunnels while others are like a Pyramid. Some are just wide-open plazas. Others are fighting a long war with the encroaching jungle and it looks like they have been losing for hundreds of years. These were actually my favorites, specifically Ta Phrom.

I love a good tree. I have always thought they were natural works of art. More impressive than anything that a human hand could create. The trees at Ta Phrom only reinforced this thought as I discovered a huge tree wrapping and devouring walls and stones in every direction.

After three days of exploring ruin after ruin I am reminded of a saying I heard often in Thailand, “Same, same, but different”. (Actually I saw it more than I heard it as it’s plastered on a thousand different t-shirts, and hats, ironic I know.) In Angkor, after awhile you don’t even know what to take pictures of. Every angle is a great shot but probably a shot you have already taken a hundred times.

My time has not all been spent doing ancient cultural exploration. You can’t live in the past, right? I have had a great time hanging out in Siem Reap too. Cambodia uses U.S. currency. They have their own but like in other very poor countries it’s more desirable to get the more stable Dollar. In Thailand things are cheap but I was constantly converting things back to Dollars when I first arrived. After about a week you just get used to the Baht and roughly know what’s cheap and what’s really cheap.

Here in Cambodia, with no mental conversion to do, it is almost painfully obvious how cheap things are. When a pint of cold beer costs 50 Cents I feel bad just ordering a single one, lucky for the people around me. Our room is a whopping $12 per night. It has a kicking AC unit, two big comfy beds, hot water shower, a fridge, and a TV with HBO and Cinemax! It’s a good thing I was able to split that $12 with Manuel for two of the nights so I could afford such luxuries.

In all seriousness these things make me feel more sad than lucky. I don’t feel like I’m getting a deal I feel like I’m ripping them off. As a result I’ve been throwing around Dollar bill tips like I was a gangster in Atlantic City.

My Republican friends shouldn’t worry. I know it’s still business and no matter how little they charge me there is still a profit margin. This morning I haggled for a late check out, so I cold shower after a day at the temples. I negotiated down to $3 from $6….and then tipped him a $1.

There is a great line in the Backpacker cult classic novel, “The Beach” that sums up the same conflict that I have. “I get confused between feeling that I shouldn’t haggle with poverty and hating getting ripped off.” For me, there’s a friendly war going on inside my head and I don’t know who is winning.

On my first night in town Manuel and I wandered the very dark and confusing blocks into the heart of town for dinner and drinks. As we turned the last corner, finally arriving at the small center of bars and restaurants, we immediately ran into an English girl that Manuel knew from Bangkok a month earlier. East Asia is getting to be a real small place.

Her name was Kay and she and her friend Carrie, joined us for dinner. Dinner evolved into beers, which digressed into buckets, and then imploded at kareoke at 2 a.m. It’s weird traveling with people that don’t know you, people that don’t know what you are capable of. I know a lot of music but even by U.S. standards I would say I am just above average on music recollection. I have many friends that are much better than me. But to 3 foreigners, at least 7 years younger than me, after a few drinks in a Cambodian Kareoke room; I looked like a lyrical savant.

At this point I will say thank God for alcohol! Without it I don’t think I would have laughed and handled the next events as well as I did. Upon leaving the kareoke room we had paid for our drinks but the rest of the group said we didn’t need to pay the room charge that was also listed on the bill. Kay and Carrie said “The girl on the way in said it was free. That’s why we came in here.” Sure, I’m just a follower tonight.

Well the waiter didn’t seem to think we were right and as we were making our way through the maze of dark hallways to the final exit it wasn’t a girl that stopped us. It was three guys that were soon backed up by four more guys dressed like they shopped at the same store as Fidel Castro.

Part of the brain said, “Whoa, this is bad!” but thanks to that good ol’alcohol my prevailing thought was “Oooo, this is going to be interesting!” The girls were unfazed. They just kept arguing with the waiter and then the manager. Girls always are that way in situations like this. Manuel and I on the other hand were dead silent looking at the guys in fatigues and trying to figure out how our fun night had quickly turned into a stand off in a Cambodian kareoke bar.

I stayed quite for what seemed like forever. I wasn’t moving or saying anything and neither were the Cambodians so that seemed like a good way to stay. Finally my mouth spoke before my brain could stop it. “How much money are we talking about?!” I shouted over the arguing girls. The manager looked at me and said “$8!”

Luckily my brain regained control by this point because the mouth wanted to say “Are you F$(@&ing kidding me?! Here is $10, we gone!” But like I said the brain was working and before my hand could reach into my pocket I had this thought. When there are almost 10 people in a stand off at 2 a.m. over $8 you do not want to be the cocky American that pulls out a money clip, searches through the $20’s for a $10, and in a condescending way drops it on the counter. It was back to standing and staring for me.

For all the differences in the world there are many more similarities. Apparently to a Cambodian, two drunk, girls arguing the same point over and over again is as annoying as it is to a Western guy and not even worth $8 in Cambodia. He waved his hand and said something in frustration. The infantry walked away and we walked out the door quickly and quietly. A block away we laughed our heads off. Thank God for alcohol!

We were just a block away from Kay & Carries guesthouse so we walked them to the door and said good night. Then I turned to Manuel and said, “Do you have any idea where we are?”

The businesses were all closed now. The paved streets were not in sight. Random lights on shacks provided nothing recognizable in any direction. Manuel looked around at these things and answered the way I knew he would “No idea!” ….and there were still no worries from either of us.

We wandered around for several blocks; nothing. We finally found a tuk-tuk and jumped in. We told him the name of our place and all we got was a blank stare. Worse yet, it wasn’t a language barrier. He spoke English and understood us. He just had never heard of the place we were staying and neither had any of the other drivers that he asked. I kicked myself for forgetting my standard little note with my current hotels name and address on it, usually a standard procedure for me before heading out in a new town. No problem, we’ll just give him directions.

The next hour was filled with random sparks of confidence. “Oh, that tree looks familiar. I know where we are. It’s just up here on the left!…..OK, maybe not.”

There is a great scene in the movie Say Anything where John Kusak has to drive a drunk guy around the suburbs of Chicago all night until he recognizes his house. I don’t think our tuk-tuk driver had seen the movie, and I didn’t try to explain the similarity to him, but that is pretty much how our night ended. We eventually found our place and it might have been the funniest $3 I have ever spent.

It’s time to go now. I have one more temple to see and Nat is waiting. Probably wondering where I am since this temple isn’t that big. I don’t think I’ll tell him that I’ve just been sitting here documenting drinking stories.
MJF