As I think I mentioned in an earlier post, many of my friends and my kids had taken to calling this next chapter of my life my “mud hut fantasy.”  I have to confess that while I have certainly seen and now visited many such dwellings, life in the city of Siem Reap is quite a ways from that — and I feel a bit spoiled.  Tonight, for instance, I pedaled up the street to a local coffee shop that advertised gelato, and was quite pleased to discover not only good gelato, but good coffee, air conditioning and free WiFi.  So it is from there that I typed most of my blog entries this evening!

On top of that, when I came out, I saw that it had rained fairly hard while I was inside.  The parking lot attendant had turned my bicycle around so I could head straight out, and he had wiped off the seat so it was dry for me.  If it makes anyone feel better, the road home was really wet and muddy with lots of puddles, so I did get some mud splashed up on my feet and legs…..

As I’ve started to travel several kilometers outside of the city of Siem Reap in the last few days, I noticed that many of the shops had a rack of rather disreputable looking bottles full of yellow-ish liquid.  Asked someone today what it was… gasoline!  While there are very familiar-looking gas stations in the city itself, gas can be had by 1- and 2-liter bottles as you go farther afield!

One of the things I started to notice very early in the day was that the heads had been cut off of many of the Buddha statues.  Over the centuries, they have been stolen both to sell in and of themselves and because there was gold hidden within some statues.  While some of this happened earlier, the vast, vast majority were destroyed and sold by the Khmer Rouge.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of touring several of the temples in the Angkor Wat area with Kanha Reath — and while (per below) the temples were amazing, I think the best part was getting to spend the day with Kanha.    She is the owner and lead tour guide for Angkor Journeys (awarded a well-deserved 5 stars from TripAdvisor), and also a JWOC scholarship student graduate.  As a matter of fact, she was one the original students that my friend, Jane, sponsored.  Kanha not only runs her tour company and provides incredibly informative and fun tour commentary, but she also teaches in public school here.  She is one of JWOC’s many tremendous success stories, as well as being another of the truly genuine, warm and engaged people I keep getting to meet from all across the JWOC family.

Don’t worry — I’m not going to even try to provide a travelogue on Cambodian temples here!  If you’re looking for that, there are certainly a ton of great guidebooks, websites and pictures you can check out.  And I also know that many of you have been here and seen it for yourselves.  So, I’m going to just share a few impressions and photos of each of our main stops.

Angkor Wat

The most famous of the temples, of course.  This was one of the ones originally built for Hindu worship (5 towers, tall, fairly ornate, and all oriented upwards toward the gods).  Other of the temples were originally built for Buddhist worship (typically simpler architecture and design).  But since the prevailing religion shifted back and forth multiple times, in many of the temples there is a mix of both Hindu and Buddhist influences, including carvings and statuary.  One example that Kanha showed me was of Buddha statues where the heads had been removed and replaced with Hindu artifacts (see separate blog post for more about Buddhas and their heads…)

Angkor Wat Construction

Angkor Wat is truly a world endeavor at this point as it is under the oversight of UNESCO, having been named a World Heritage Site in 1992.  Apparently one part or another is consistently under construction as they continue with restoration efforts, and scaffolding crops up here and there as you walk through the grounds.  (After 5 years in New York, that made me feel right at home and I almost didn’t notice it at first!).

The current project is being undertaken by Germany, but this has been going on for decades.  India sponsored several projects in the 1980’s and 1990’s, and Kanha pointed out repairs that had been done by the French in the 1920’s — re-attaching an entire gallery/corridor, stretching the full length of the temple, that had fallen away.

Ta Prohm

Three of the other temples we visited were built by the same king, Jayavarman VII, one of the most powerful kings of the Khmer Empire (1181-1218).  In addition to the temples, he also built roads, schools and hospitals across the Empire and is widely revered by the Cambodian people for his impact and compassion.

At this point, the Ta Prohm temple may almost be most famous as the “Tomb Raider” temple. It is an incredible place as the jungle has come in and overgrown the ruins, and the trees are almost more amazing than the temple itself.  What was a challenge to wrap my mind around was that I was standing in a place where I was looking at and touching 300-year-old trees… which were “young” in comparison to the almost 900-year-old temple they had engulfed.

Jayavarman VII built this temple to honor his mother, and there is a room in the middle where her statue once stood.  There are many holes all up and down the very high walls of the room where once upon a time jewels were put to honor her further.  You could stand there and almost imagine how exquisite it would have been when the sun shone down into the room.

Preah Kahn

No pictures for this one(!), but thought it was worth mentioning as Jayavarman VII built this one to honor his father.  Also had a central room for his statue with walls to hold jewels — but the holes in the walls were smaller than the ones for his mom!

Bayon

This is the main temple in Angkor Thom, the walled capital city built by Jayavaraman VII close to Angkor Wat.  It is located in the exact center of the city — and is most famous for its many, many “faces”.  Originally 4 each on each of 54 towers throughout the temple. Very cool… and just a bit creepy!

War & Genocide in the 20th Century

One last comment.  There are so many places in conversation and in what you see almost everywhere you go that bring home the horrible and lasting impact the Khmer Rouge regime and civil war in the 2nd half of the 20th century had on this lovely country and its people.  Two things of particular note during our temples tour.  The bullet holes in columns at the front of Angkor Wat.  And at Ta Prohm — the fact that for many years people were afraid to come near it because the Khmer Rouge had at one point used it as one of their bases and mined all of the area around it.  Even once the mines were cleared, people didn’t believe it was safe, and one of the reasons that the government allowed and encouraged Tomb Raider to film there was to convince them it was safe…

While they keep telling you that not everyone here obeys traffic signals, I haven’t actually felt that it was any more dangerous than NY City streets – perhaps even less so.  Gotta be vigilant both places, but people are nicer here and they drive slower!  

They do have a totally cool thing with traffic signals at major intersections though… Huge countdown clocks so you never have any question about when it’ll be your turn to go: 

Or how much time you have left to get through the intersection: 

That said, weirdly enough on lesser intersections with lights, there doesn’t seem to be any “green light” at all.  There’s just “red” and the absence of red….

“Markets” are big in Siem Reap.  The main part of town is called Old Market — full of restaurants, bars and shops for tourists and locals alike.  There are several “Night Markets”, so-called because after-hours trade was almost non-existent prior to 2007 — these are primarily targeted at visitors and feature traditional Cambodian handmade products, food and entertainment — open from 4pm to midnight.  The Phsa Leu Market, where I bought my bike, is a bustling commercial center, with mostly local clientele.  And then there are the ultra-modern Angkor Market and Lucky Mall.  As I went to buy my bike and then pedaled around town for the afternoon, it was incredible to experience the gamut of market environments that coexist so seamlessly.  Here’s a bit of a tour of two ends of the spectrum:

We’ll start with the most traditional and local, Phsa Leu Market.  In addition to bicycles, you can get pretty much anything there — but do be careful to dodge the Motos that seem to drive everywhere, even into the narrow aisles between the stalls in the indoor section of the market!  The range of goods available pretty much covers everything you’d find in a department store, full-on shopping mall, and a grocery store.

The toy and handbag departments:

The gold and fine jewelry section;  

Housewares…. 

Toiletries & Cleaning Supplies…

Lingerie… 

The shoe department… 

No, really, I said the SHOE DEPARTMENT! 

And there’s also a ton of food stalls and shops.  I’m only including one here (the meat section!) for several reasons.  1) You’re probably getting the gist of this and I don’t want to bore you. 2) There will be an interesting comparison coming below, stay tuned!  And 3) I frankly don’t know what a lot of the food was.  I’m going to ask the tour guide I’m going out with (a former JWOC scholarship student) if she’ll walk me through Phsa Leu one afternoon and tell me what it all is!  

One thing that really struck me funny as I walked by one of the stalls was a guy and his two sons riveted to WWF (in English) on the TV as they waited for customers.  Since I refrained on making a comment about women and shoes above, I’ll refrain from saying guys are pretty much the same everywhere… Ooops, did I say that out loud?  ;^)  

So, after about 10 minutes of bike riding, I’ll take you into the Angkor Market and Lucky Mall.  No, this isn’t the neighborhood Safeway, though I can see how you might think it was!  (Note the meat section at the end!)

It’s fascinating how these two places — and a full range of businesses in between — seem to so comfortably co-exist as the hundreds of Motos, bicycles, tuk-tuks, cars and trucks purposefully criss-cross the city full of people getting stuff done…  I think I’m going to like hanging out here!