Siem Reap

Subtitled: Bike Tours Are Somewhat Less Fun with a Bruised Tailbone

Siem Reap (literally, "Defeat of Thailand") is a town that seems designed to cater to the millions of tourists who arrive each year to visit the temples of Angkor.  And it's quite a nice one.  Being members of the catered-to population, we had a very pleasant stay.  The only downsides I experienced were not specific to Siem Reap, but general tourist trap issues: the omnipresent feeling of being ripped off, whether warranted or not; a discomfort with the strict division of people into two noticeably separate tiers (the locals, who are serving, and the tourists, who are being served); and a lingering sense that it's not a "real" place, whatever that means.  

We spent our first full day on a bicycle tour that began by viewing the sunrise over Angkor Wat, the largest of the hundreds of temples in the Angkor complex.  Unfortunately, it was too cloudy to see much of a sunrise, but getting an early start was still beneficial: the temperature was lower and there were fewer people.  The temple itself (see above and left) is magnificent, impressing on both a large scale (the enormous structure) and a small one (the attention to detail manifested in the ubiquitous carvings).

Only after we'd spent quite a bit of time exploring Angkor Wat did we begin the "bicycle" portion of the "bicycle tour."  I usually really like bicycle tours: its an environmentally-friendly, exercise-heavy method of sightseeing that strikes a good balance between seeing more places than you can on a walking tour and having a more personal experience than a bus tour.  Regular readers may recall, however, that I landed heavily on my rear when I fell coming down Kilimanjaro.  Despite the length of time that had passed, it was still uncomfortable to sit down quickly or to sit in certain positions, which made riding a bicycle somewhat awkward -- especially because we were mostly riding on dirt trails packed with tree roots, potholes, and other unavoidable obstacles that made the ride bumpy.  Sitting on the very back of the seat helped for a bit, but eventually caused its own pain problems (I'll spare you the details).  Further, the pain had secondary effects: it's difficult to concentrate on steering under those circumstances.  

Discomfort aside, the tour was fantastic.  After we left Angkor Wat, we visited the Bayon (see right), a Buddhist temple known for its many "face towers," carved to show four enigmatically smiling faces looking in each direction.  Strangely, one empty enclave within the inner temple contained a "no entry" sign, but the other empty enclaves contained no such signs.  We asked our tour guide why: apparently, there used to be a statue of Buddha in that particular enclave, but there had been an incident of some sort and the statue was gone.  We speculated that it had probably been stolen, but further research revealed it had actually been broken by a Dutch woman visiting from New Zealand (where she lived).  Apparently, while visiting the temple, she heard the voice of a goddess telling her that the Buddha statue "did not belong" in the temple and took it upon herself to remedy the situation.  Woah.

After the Bayon, we cycled over to the "Tomb Raider" temple, Ta Prohm (see left), which was probably my favorite of the day.  The visible ease with which nature, in the form of tree roots, can wreak havoc on what people spent so much time and arduous effort to create reminded me of Ozymandias -- "look on my works, ye mighty, and despair."  Additionally, the place managed to satisfy all the adolescent romantic fantasies about discovering a lost civilization in the jungle that I'd forgotten I'd had.

In short, it was really cool.

Suckers for punishment, we'd also signed up for a bike tour for the following day.  This tour had a different focus, however, bringing us through the gorgeous Cambodian countryside and taking us kayaking around one of the floating villages on the Tonle Sap.  

We first stopped at a Buddhist temple to learn a litttle about life in the monastery; apparently it is quite common for Cambodian boys to spend some time as monks during their early teens.  We then went on a (walking) village tour led by a representative from Husk (http://www.huskcambodia.org/), a nonprofit organization dediccated to improving the lives of the poorest families in a few target rural villages.  Most Cambodian people (a little under 80%) still live in rural areas, so it provided really important insights about how most of the population lives.  As an added bonus, the organization appears to be a really good one that employs many innovative and interesting ideas.  For example, they've helped some families plant "vertical gardens," where recycled PVC pipes are used as planters for herbs and vegetables.  The benefit of doing this instead of more traditional gardening is that, during the rainy season, the pipes can be elevated to a higher shelf when it floods.  I also found their method for building community buildings, such as schools, very interesting: they use discarded plastic bottles stuffed with garbage as insulation.

The undisputed highlight of the tour, however, was an unplanned event.  As we started to approach Tonle Sap, we passed a long procession of trucks, tuktuks, motos, that were all stuffed with people.  One of the trucks was playing music on big external speakers so loudly that there were serious feedback problems.  When we arrived at the waterfront, our tour guide explained its purpose.  I didn't fully understand his explanation, but I think he said it was a procession to celebrate the return of children from the monasteries, in which the community was proceeding to the monastery to give tribute and thanks.  The procession caught up to us at the waterfront and continued celebrating there.  Several women descended from the trucks and began dancing to the music with a couple large puppets -- paper mache heads over long robes that covered up the person standing underneath (see left).  One woman came over and, despite the language barrier, somehow conscripted me into joining them.  I even learned a couple of the distinctive hand movements born from Cambodia's long tradition of apsara dancing.  Despite my complete lack of ability, it was really fun, but there were a couple things I didn't fully understand.  For one, they women seemed fascinated by my upper arms, often squeezing them and talking and laughing with each other.  Perhaps it's because I was inappropriately clad in a sleeveless shirt (oops, but in my defense it was really hot!), or because I was tan, or because my arms were bigger than theirs.  For another, they all seemed to get a huge kick out of leading me to the people-puppets and then flipping up the puppet's robe to reveal the person's legs beneath.  Go figure.  All told, the experience was unique and we felt extremely fortunate to have witnessed it -- even the tour guide was using his phone to record a video.

We left the celebration and boated over to one of the floating villages on Tonle Sap, where we switched to kayaks and paddled our way through a short floating village tour.  The houses are kept afloat using huge bundles of bamboo, which need to be replaced periodically. It strikes me as a fascinating, but difficult, way of life.  I did really love seeing so many kids out and about just being kids; most children we'd seen up to that point had been tasked with selling us various souvenirs.  Here, however, we saw children playing and driving boats (some of the boat drivers looked scarily young).  One little boy (see right) was an absolute ace at steering his bucket, a difficult task if you want to go in a particular direction and not just spin in a circle.

We'd so impressed our tour guide with our bike riding ability on the first day that -- despite the tour group being made up of only the two of us -- he called in extra help for the second day.  So we were joined by a second "trainee" guide on our second trip.  This wound up not being to my benefit; he rode behind us and noticed all of my bicycling incidents.  Only one was of any note: at one point we were making a turn and I eventually realized I wasn't turning sharply enough and would probably hit a tree.  Panicking, I gripped both brakes with all my might.  The brakes were in remarkably good shape: the bike stopped immediately.  

I did not.

I'm not entirely sure how I got off the bike; I know I didn't fly over the handlebars.  But I didn't fall off either.  I just found myself standing next to, but a little in front of, the bike (which did fall).  I imagine I probably managed some sort of jump to the side or similar move.  The trainee guide couldn't stop laughing, though, so I'm sure it was an incredibly graceful dismount.

For our last day, we opted to hire a tuktuk to take us to a few more temples and the land mine museum.  The highlight of our second temple tour was Banteay Srei, also known as the "Lady Temple," primarily because it is extraordinarily well preserved.  It's small, so it lacks some of the grandeur of the three we visited on our first temple tour.  Still, I think I'd prefer something like it -- dainty and intricate -- if a temple is ever built for me (I hope y'all are taking notes).  It feels a bit odd to call the landmine museum a "highlight," but it was by far the most interesting and effective site we visited that day. It's (unsurprisingly) incredibly sad, not least because of the large role that U.S. foreign policy played, both directly and indirectly, in causing the problems on display at the museum.

After a brief dinnertime excursion to pub street and the night market, we tuktuked to the airport and left Cambodia.  A few closing thoughts: Cambodia is a beautiful country full of lovely people, who have been, at worst, brutalized and, at best, criminally underserved (to put it mildly) by their government.  The country has a fascinating if depressing history, and I'm very glad we took the time to go beyond Angkor Wat and the Killing Fields and see a bit more of such an interesting place.