Wat's Up? A Dream Come True.

Angkor Wat is a site O. and I have dreamed of visiting for most of our lives. I can remember as a kid seeing pictures of these fantastically overgrown temples in the middle of the jungle and thinking that I had to go there some day. So our being here is really a dream come true for both of us.

It's taken a while to put this post together because of the sheer volume of photos and also because we didn't have them all. On day one of our two days in the area, as I started to take pictures of the temples, I realized that the camera battery was almost depleted. Luckily, we were with our friends Justin and Jyoti, who just happened to have scheduled their Tet vacation in Angkor Wat for the same few days as we did. So after we got back to Hanoi, we downloaded some of their photos to supplement ours. Their photos are marked with a (J).

The spires of Angkor Wat tower over the trees of the surrounding forest.

The temple is surrounded by a huge moat that served as a water source as well as protection.

On the first day we decided to visit four of the lesser temples,
Preah Khan, Neak Pean, Ta Som, and Ta Prohm since Justin and Jyoti
had already visited the main temple complex the previous day.

The setting is more forest than jungle. It has a much more park-like
feeling than Tikal in Guatemala.

The first of many depictions of gods and demons wrestling with the
five or seven-headed naga. This motif is repeated endlessly throughout
all of the temples in the area.

Garuda is everywhere, too.

There are at least a dozen major temples in the area in various stages of decay or restoration.

The temple of Ta Prohm is one of the most overgrown. It's the one
you've probably seen in photos. Several scenes from
Lara Croft, Tomb Raider were filmed here. (J)

The next few pictures show how the roots of trees are slowly becoming one with the ruins.
(J)

For obvious reasons, this one is called the Snake Root.
(J)

(J)

(J)(J)

Some of these trees are massive.
(J)

We stopped for lunch and much needed refreshment. (J)

P. found a feline buddy. Unlike in Vietnam, the cats in Cambodia
were friendly and not semi-feral.

P. & O.

O. Gets a Massage. By Fish!

After another six-hour bus ride, we arrive in Siem Reap, the city closest to Angkor Wat. As a major tourist destination, Siem Reap has upscale hotels and great restaurants, aggressive hawkers and beggars.

We found a nice, inexpensive hotel (the white building in the
center background) just off the main street.

O. had wanted to try the fish massage for a while, and
with a pitch like this, who could resist?
(Click to enlarge the compelling copy.)


You put your feet in the pool and the fish swarm to eat all the dead skin. It tickles.

The happy customer sports baby-soft, practically callus-free feet.
Definitely a unique experience.

Click here for more photos of Saigon and Cambodia.

P.

Exploring Phnom Penh.

The main way to get around as a tourist is by tuk-tuk. Though it is quite warm, there's a cool breeze in the open passenger compartment, so no air-con is needed. The view's better than from a cab, too.

Some tuk-tuks are decorated and have their names painted on the side.

O is ready for a tour of the capitol.

Wat Penh dominates a hill in the middle of town.

Near the wat, there are lots of stands where you can buy floral offerings.

And birds.

Also, there are monkeys.

The wat itself is a Buddhist shrine, but there are many subsidiary shrines
to various deities. Many are crowned with vivid LED halos and auras.

Sunset from the balcony of our hotel.

Later we went to dinner at a restaurant overlooking the river,
where we were treated to a performance of apsara dancing.
We would see the carved representations of previous
performances on the walls of the various palaces and
temples in the Angkor Wat complex.

P.

S-21. Genocide and Fraternity Pranks.

Beautiful, tranquil, horrific.
This former high school was the site of many of the worst tortures of
the Cambodian genocide: S-21 prison. Saloth Sar (aka Pol Pot) was a
former school teacher who decided that the entire Cambodian nation
needed to be re-educated. By torturing, then murdering anyone
who was educated in the old ways. Just wearing glasses was enough
to mark you as an intellectual to be liquidated. S-21 is now a museum
dedicated to educating the Cambodian people about this ugly episode.

The rules and regulations by which S-21 was run. (Click to enlarge.)
The classroom/torture chambers have been left pretty well they way they were
when the prison was shut down. There are many graphic photos of the victims in
death, as well as walls of mugs shots of those arrested and condemned.
After a stay at S-21, the inmates were taken to the killing fields just
outside town and executed by bludgeoning. There's a museum there
as well, but we were too depressed after this tour to go there.

The waterboarding exhibit is part of the display of the tortures the
Khmer Rouge used to force false confessions from their victims.
This evil practice is torture when employed by evildoers like the
Khmer Rouge, but enhanced interrogation, or even the equivalent
of a harmless fraternity prank when duly authorized by
our freedom-loving government.

Here's the actual board and water can used. The display calls the practice
torture, but what does a primitive third-world country know, lacking
as they do the sophisticated legal expertise of John Woo and Dick Cheney.
As part of the political settlement designed to reconcile the country,
many of the worst actors of the Khmer Rouge were brought into
the government, where they remain today. Very few were ever tried
or punished. Pol Pot died in exile, unpunished and unrepentant.
I believe this is called looking forward, not backward.

The sign forbids laughing on the premises.
It's hard to imagine anyone wanting to.

P.

Up the Mekong to Phnom Penh.

The next morning, we get ready to embark on the express boat up the Mekong into Cambodia.

We are met at our hotel by a band of bicycle rickshaw drivers ready to shuttle us to the boat.

It's a mad rush through the morning traffic. My driver had
to screech to a halt to avoid some pedestrians, then after berating them,
had to pedal hard to catch up.

The streets are bedecked with Tet decorations.

Chickens are being bought and killed.

The river is busy with people going about their daily routines.

As we proceed upriver, we see evidence of a more traditional, slower-paced way of life.

After about two and a half hours, we reached the border crossing into Cambodia.

It looks and feels very different from Vietnam. More like a cross between Thailand and India.

And suddenly we can't even read the writing, much less understand the language.

The farms we can see from the river seem more primitive and poorer than those in Vietnam.

We can see the roofs of many temples and wats from the boat.

And people washing their cows.

After six hours, we at last see the spires of Phnom Penh.


As we get off the boat, we are greeted by a horde of insistent hawkers
and beggars, as well as what turns out to be the first of many, many
sculptures depicting gods and demons in a tug-of-war with a
seven- or five-headed naga. Renditions of this scene from the Vedic
episode known as the Churning of the Sea of Milk can be found
all over Cambodia.

So, unfortunately, can the hawkers and beggars.

P.