I don’t know how I’m going to do this. In fact, its been almost a week since I’ve been climbing over the ancient ruins of the Angkor Temples and I haven’t written yet for three reasons: one – I’ve been busy; two – Chiang Mai lacks internet as a standard room amenity and three – I’ve no idea how I’m going to do this.
Da da da, da da daaa,
Da da daaa, da da da da
Da da da, da da daaa,
Da da daaa da, da daaa da, da daaa da da…
(Its very hard to hum the theme song from Indiana Jones on a blog. I’m not going to give the theme song from Tomb Raider a go.)
You can barely swing a cat in Cambodia without hitting a temple aka Wat. And Angkor Wat will blow your socks off – or in our case, our Chako’s. Imagine, you’re a French botanist out walking one day in the jungles of Northern Cambodia and you just happen to stumble over this rock…and then another one which throws you off kilter and you smack your head on this huge wall? And then the vibrations caused part of the wall to collapse but can you imagine how it would be to discover an entire lost world? Not a lost civilization mind you and of course Cambodian farmers drove their ox carts past this enigmatic thing every day but what is difficult to fathom is that give or take 100 years ago, the outside world had no idea this ‘lost city’ even existed in the first place! And archeologists still think there could be other undiscovered temples in Cambodia – not likely anything quite like Angkor Wat itself but doesn’t that just scream adventure? Throw away your unbelief people! Untouched places do exist! Doesn’t that just make you want to pack up your jeep and go on some sort of temple safari deep into the jungles where no one has ventured for many years…oh yeah…not since the Khmer Rouge covered the ground with land mines. Yeah…Cambodia is one place you don’t want to get off the beaten track (too much – you gotta live on the edge a little right?).
You can do Angkor in a day. But you’ll always wish you had more time. You’ll always be saying, “When we go back to Angkor, we’ll ride bikes…take the hot air balloon…take better photos...” all in an effort to somehow come up with a way to see the whole thing. Because its amazing to think that people built this with their own bare hands. Angkor is the pride of Cambodians. Even though its disintegrating fast (yes get on a plane and go see it now), Cambodians remain in awe of how its survived many wars. Its on their flag, their beer and their list of places to go if they haven’t already been there. Angkor Wat itself I’ve heard, is the largest temple structure in the world and from experience, I can tell you it’s a sight for sore eyes. This human-made monstrosity, struggling now against nature, a silent war which it is losing quickly. Now the outside archaeologists have stepped in and Angkor has more of a fighting chance at living till at least my children can go see it.
So as we watched the pain-staking job of restoration going on, it was with an almost guilty conscience that we climb over ruins and walked in areas that would have given health and safety officers re-occurring nightmares for the rest of their lives. When we got to Baphuon, I couldn’t help but think of the times I’d tried to complete jigsaw puzzles only to have one of my younger siblings mess it up. The French take care of this one and it’s restoration had to be suspended with the fighting. When the French finally where able to get back in, they found many of the pieces they’d so painstakingly laid out and knew where they were to go in the ‘big picture’ where once again strewn all over the place and some, gone completely. I’d have throw in the towel right there!
For me I found interesting the mix of religions. It seems the Khmers (Cambodians) started Hindu and then progressed to the country’s now ‘chosen’ religion, Buddhism although it appears to have a little of both mixed it. More than slightly confused I would say.
We rented a little tuk tuk for the day and our driver drove us around, telling us what he knew in his limited English. He picked us up at 4:30am (hey, you only live once and I don’t know when we’ll see a sunrise over Angkor Wat again – hundreds of people apparently felt the same way cause Angkor Wat was packed) and waited for us to climb all over the theme park of the ancient world. We were bombarded with the children selling trinkets -- I told one little girl I had no extra money to which she replied, “I don’t believe yooou…no money, no honeyyy…” Which cracks me up because that’s what the prostitutes tell the stingy sex tourists. What that had to do with buying 50 straw bracelets I’ve no idea.
When they teach the children English, they (whoever ‘they’ are) teach them to do the ‘poor little me’ whine really well. As we learnt from our friends though, the best way to help these kids is to invest in the specific organizations that are dedicated to help them. Due to the time restraints of our crazy road trip, we were unable to spend much time with the local Cambodians but as God would have it, we met up in Thailand, of all places, with a friend from years ago who does relief work in Cambodia and has invited us back sometime. Its hard to not get frustrated with having postcards and cheap trinkets thrust in your face from the time your tuk tuk parks till you get to the gate of the temples but one has to constantly remind one’s self that these kids are just trying to make a living too. And besides that, the coconuts are rather refreshing.
Jason, contemplating how many of these pillars he could smuggle out in his back pack and sell on the black market...don't you think they'd make great lamps? A real genuine Angkor artifact!
So George Lucus, I’ve been to the temples of doom and I’ve fabulous new angles for your next movie. I’m like Harrison Ford and Angelina Jolie combined...just call me Lara Croft, hey?
