Indiana Jane and the Lost Ruins of Ankor Wat

  Siem Reap, Cambodia
Friday, November 17, 2006

Hunter and his brand new hat.

Sweating profusely. I've never really known what those words mean until now. Cierra's gotten worried about me a few times as we've stumbled around Siem Reap and my face develops a force field of water so thick you'd swear the sweat itself is sweating. I can't feel it, however, and I don't feel it until it actually starts to run off my face, or until I touch my own face and surprise myself by soaking my hand.

No need to shut the door.

When the French arrived here in the 18th or 19th century (forgive my vague sense of history, I've been baking in a cheap hat all day) and subjugated Cambodia, I wonder if the knowledge of Angkor Wat and the other Khmer temples' existence would have made them hunger for ownership of the land even more, or would the immense task of reclaiming these treasures from the jungle have scared the conquerors away from their plunder? Nevertheless, they did take over Cambodia for a time, discovered these ruins, and set about the work of beating back the cotton trees and strangler figs that were prying the great stones of these temples apart over the span of centuries.

Carvings.

We've spent the last 3 days exploring what ruins we could, built from the 9th to the 12th century. The stonework at these sites just blows you away. Stone buildings that in their size dwarf anything you've ever seen, but in the minutest detail have been lovingly carved with individual markings. Each door frame, each pediment tells a different story.

Angkor Wha?

Angkor Wat itself is the largest religious building in the world, and it's still used as a temple today. But what we didn't know is the entire area is pockmarked with temple ruins. The Khmer empire was based right here, with cities of over a million people at a time when London housed just 300,000. A great civilization swallowed up by the invading Mongols, and now everything but their temples is gone, owing to their law that only Gods could live in houses of stone.

Ta Prohm

I think our favorites over the past few days include Ta Prohm, where the French chose to protect the building as best they could, but also preserve it in the state of partial ruin. You enter by crossing a moat on an ancient causeway, where the thick roots of ancient trees have upended the sandstone blocks as if they were made of Styrofoam. Inside, buildings are slowly being strangled by the roots of these giant monsters, and the piles of rubble all around make it a real maze to navigate. The whole place feels like Indiana Jones may come running down the hallway at any time, a giant boulder in close pursuit.

We spent 2 hours on a tuk-tuk (that's a small 2 seater wagon hitched to the back of a motorbike) to get to a mountain stream area where the Khmer artists actually carved their religious images on the bottom of a stream. This was truly amazing, as the carvings were done nearly a thousand years ago, and you'd think they'd have worn down to almost nothing by now, but they're still almost pristine in many areas. I thought the trip out there might kill us, however.

When we told our driver where we wanted to go, he hesitated and said the road was difficult. Cierra used the tactics she usually reserves for me and acted all disappointed that he couldn't do it. Oh, no, our driver said, we can do it, it's just difficult. Ok, says Cierra. We can handle it.

What followed was a 45 minute rodeo ride. We crossed 3 decrepit wooden bridges, forded 2 rivers and hit about a million potholes. I thought for sure that we'd crack the axle of that poor tuk-tuk, but the only thing that got cracked was my noggin on the roof of that compartment after a particularly vigorous bump. After that, I spent the remainder of the ride holding on for dear life, trying to prevent a second concussion.

But we survived that one and the ride back, and now are left only with amazing memories of these monuments in the wilderness. I would spend more time detailing these places, but better writers than I have written whole books on the subject. If you can, pick one up, or better yet, get out here yourself and explore them for real.

We leave in the morning by bus for Thailand!

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Ahhh... Third world travel agents. It's so much fun booking transportation with them. Cierra says to the travel agent, "We'd like to take the bus to Ko Chang. When will we arrive there?"

She sizes us up quickly. Her eyes dart up and to the right as she makes up a number. "Ummm... 3 or 4 pm."

"Ok." We know this is a lie. It'll take nearly that long to get to the border. But it's a nice story, and we'd like to know how it ends. "Will the bus have air conditioning?"

"Oh, yes", she lied. Well, technically this may not have been a lie, because the bus that rolled in the next morning an hour late had at one time been equipped for air conditioning. The little vents were in the ceiling, there just wasn't anything coming out of them. We had to make use of the larger vents, called "windows", to the right and left of our heads. This plan worked really well as we careened down the bumpy dirt highway, as every passing car left a handful of reddish dust strewn across our hair and faces. By the time we changed the flat tire on the bus, squeezed the passengers from another bus onto ours (theirs had broken an axle, suprise, suprise), and bounced our way to the border, we looked like a bunch of bushmen on a group tour.

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The Root of the Problem

A final note on Cambodia. For those of you planning to travel to Cambodia, you may be wondering whether you should change your dollars to Riel at the airport, or maybe with a local bank branch. The exchange rate is around 4,100 Riel to one dollar. But my suggestion is just, don't. Inexplicably, everything is priced in dollars. American dollars. We made the mistake of changing money and getting their country's currency, and then literally, every time we were buying a loaf of bread, we'd have to pay in riel at whatever disadvantageous rate that shop was giving us that day. (They have one rate for paying them, and another for giving change, so that every shop takes an additional cut.)

It's like, have a bit of pride, people. The riel is your currency, how about you price in that. Also, you're either a bakery or a currency exchange, not both. If you're not happy selling me your bread at the price you post without taking a bite out of me in the exchange, then raise the stupid price.

Moly Crap!