THE HEART OF THE KHMER EMPIRE
(KHMER TALES PART 7)
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Okay, was my last e-mail a little too negative? I'm feeling better today, but I still think Battambang was the dirtiest most unpleasant place we have been in Laos, Thailand or Cambodia! On the other hand, Siem Reap, Kampong Thom, Phnom Penh, Takeo, Kampot and Sihanoukville have been real pleasures.
This e-mail covers 1/23 - 1/31. I know it's late in coming, but internet is scarce, slow and expensive in Cambodia. We actually just left Cambodia today (2/11) and are heading toward Bangkok, but are spending tonight in Trat, Thailand. 1/23 Finally, we get to see Angkor Wat. Or, at least, a part of it. Covering an area of over 1000 square miles, the place is huge. Much bigger and more densely built than any ruins I have ever been to. I had expected it to be packed with tourists, but probably in part due to its size, it really isn't. Over the next week, we end up sharing many of the ruins with just a few locals and some birds. Even though it's hot here, you can always find a cool, shaded place on the stones inside the ruins. We rent "motos" (100 cc Honda Dreams) or more precisely, motos and drivers to see the ruins. "Hop on the back of the moto and leave the driving to us". Motos are the typical way of getting around. From what we can tell, no Cambodian ever walks. There are moto drivers waiting at just about every intersection for a fare. It is not uncommon to see an entire family on a moto (mom, dad and two or three kids). Women in skirts ride side-saddle with their sandals dangling on the tip of their toes, just a few inches above the pavement (and manage to look very graceful doing it). There are many right side drive cars in Cambodia and in Battambang city, people drive on the left side of the road. Outside of Battambang and everywhere else I check, people drive on the right side of the road. Maybe this is due to the proximity to Thailand? I don't know, but it's a little unusual. Of course traffic in general is a bit unusual. Many major intersections have no stop lights and no rules, except, 1) don't hit anyone and 2) the bigger your car the more right of way you have. I'm not sure what happens when two Land Rovers cross paths. To take a left turn, some drivers turn into the left-most lane (yes, the on-coming lane) and drive along slowly, then cross over to the correct lane when traffic allows. Of course, you can drive the wrong way on a one-way street as long as you keep to the side and don't drive too fast. I suppose that is the key to why we don't find riding motos or being in cars too scary - no one drives too fast. Okay, end of tangent and back to the ruins. We saw Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Banteay Srei, Roulos, East Mehbon, Ta Prohm, Phnom Krom and on and on dating from the 8th century to the 12th century. I can't possibly describe all the ruins and don't want to try. Suffice to say, we spent 2 days looking at ruins, a day off and 2 more days looking at ruins. We could have spent many more days, but 4 seemed about right. We got to see the major ruins and a number of minor, less touristed ones. They are in all different states of disrepair and the effects of time, the jungle and looting can be seen everywhere. We purchased 7 day tickets for $60, an enormous amount of money for Cambodia, but well worth it - if some of the money goes to protecting and restoring the ruins. Many ruins have evidence of added structural supports to stop them from tumbling down. We see work being done, but at the same time, so much more is needed to protect and restore the various structures. Many international teams - Italian, German, Japanese etc. are working on a variety of projects. Either the work is donated or else contracted by UNESCO. The plan is that the entrance fees will start paying for this and the ruins will be improved and further deterioration prevented. Unfortunately, from what we see and hear in Cambodia, it is just as likely that the money will be siphoned off into someone's pocket. The bas-reliefs carved in sandstone are incredible in terms of their size, beauty and condition. In Angkor Wat, there is a bas-relief gallery of 4 walls, each over 100 feet long and 12 feet high, depicting various historical and religious events. All carved in sandstone. Can you imagine how long that must of taken to do? The Khmer seem to have been more ambitious than the Incas or Mayas but were not as advanced in their building techniques. The Khmer did not alternate bricks (staircase pattern), they just stacked them on top of each other. This made for a much less sturdy wall since if one brick becomes dislodged, all the ones above it topple. The scale of the ruins is much larger than other cultures in terms of square footage, but not height. The highest tower is about 213 feet. Mayan or Egyptian pyramids are much more monolithic and Egyptian ones are considerably higher. The Angkor ruins have many different levels with chambers and hallways inside. Most of the ruins are constructed as increasingly smaller and taller squares within squares. Each smaller square is raised above the level of the one outside it. The steps to the top of the temples are quite steep. The rise is between 12"-18" and the tread is quite narrow, usually less than 6". This is very similar to many Mayan pyramids in Mexico. Like the Mayans, the ancient Khmer must have had interesting physiques. Hmm. maybe they are related, I better alert the anthropologists to this theory! So, we got to see Angkor Wat, one of the major goals of this trip. We managed to take lots of photos. We hope at least a few of them come out. On a day off from viewing ruins, we walk toward the edge of Siem Reap and saw an interesting transformation from town to rural village. Less cars and motos, more bicycles, people seemingly shocked to see foreigners. More houses without running water and cows, pigs, chickens etc. in some yards. We see a sign pointing to a mosque and decide to check it out. As we get closer to the mosque, we see a number of women with scarves wrapped around their hair. These are the Cham - a Muslim minority in Cambodia. It seems as if they live in the poorer section of town. There is more litter scattered here - maybe they don't have regular trash pick-up like in the tourist areas? Near the mosque, a young man asks if we would like to see inside. He shows us a big, tile floored room with a number of small rugs (2'x3') scattered about and a partition created with sheets hanging from rope. The women pray in this partition. On the wall are written the 5 times for prayer for today and tomorrow (do these times change daily, based on sunrise/sunset? I'm not sure and couldn't get an answer.). We visit the "Vietnamese floating village" on the Tonle Sap lake. These are Vietnamese fishermen who have lived in Cambodia for many years. They have formed a floating village that goes up & down with the level of the lake. The level changes over 25' between the dry season and the wet season. The village consists of boats or houses on boat hulls floating in various channels on the edges of the lake. We saw entire general stores in a boat, a floating pigsty, gardens, chicken houses, a fish farm (isn't that cheating for fishermen??), boats with TVs and antennas, a boat full of fruit with a boat to boat (not door to door) saleswoman paddling it, kids playing with an inner tube, a church and a mosque. This is one of those things that when I read about it, I figured, "who cares", but afterwards was very glad to have taken a boat tour through it. In some ways, it was reminiscent of what I saw of life on the Amazon. Walking around the markets, we see many software CDs, music CDs and DVDs for sale. The prices are between $2-$4. Most are high quality pirated copies. Copyright laws don't seem to mean too much here. You can buy Windows ME, Windows 2000, Microsoft Office all for $3. The DVDs are copied from legit DVDs and are therefore the same high quality. However, some are actually bootlegged from the theater. Someone sits with a camcorder in the theater and records the whole movie. It is then made into a DVD and sold. The quality on these is not so good and sometimes, you see people walking in front of the screen etc. We have found the level of English in Cambodia is much higher than Laos or Thailand. Many Khmer take an active role in learning English. A number of people have asked us for help with English language textbooks they are working on (of course, we know what "sounds" right, but not why it is right, so we are not so helpful). This, in turn, allows us to have much more interesting conversations and ask more questions about the government, elections (which are Feb. 3rd), politics, life etc. 1/27 Our last day in Siem Reap. Next stop is Kampong Thom. Last night, we checked with a travel agency on a bus to Kampong Thom and were quoted a price of $7, assuming we were not brought to the travel agency by a moto driver. Today, I checked at the hotel and they quoted us a price of $10. We went back to the place that quoted us $7 and someone else quoted us $6. We bought tickets for $6 and they say $10 on them. Just an example of how fluid prices are and how large commissions are in Cambodia. 1/28 A 4 1/2 hour bus ride to Kampong Thom. There is major construction on the road. All the bridges and water sluices are being replaced. Once that's done, I guess the rainy season won't damage the road as badly and they can actually start paving it. The ride isn't too bad, but it is still 4 hours of being bumped around with your entire body airborne once every 20 minutes or so. However, the bus is much more spacious and comfortable than a pick-up, so we view it as luxury travel. When we get to Kampong Thom, the bus, which is going to Phnom Penh stops for lunch right in front of a hotel. So, not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, we get off the bus and find a big clean room for $5. Kampong Thom is a provincial capital but still a small town and clearly off the tourist route. More silent stares than shouts of "hello, hello". The town is comparatively clean with a nice park on the riverfront. More importantly, I found these great peanut brittle candies in the market! We are being a bit more careful about where and what we eat, but Kampong Thom seems reasonably hygienic. They bring the silverware and chopsticks to the table in a glass of boiling water. First time we've ever seen that. We have arranged moto drivers to take us to see a pre Angkor ruin - Sambor Prei Kok. It's a long, dusty ride to get there, but we are prepared: surgical masks, Khmer head scarves and sunglasses. Our faces and heads are totally covered, but when we get back, we still have dust all over. Sambor Prei Kok is interesting, but a little hard to appreciate without a guide or guidebook. It's from the 7th century, about 200 years before the early Angkor ruins. The most interesting part was to see the improvements that Angkor had over these in terms of building and decoration. The shapes of the towers and building methods were similar, but the construction was brick with stone lintels and door sashes. (Angkor was almost totally stone). The bas-reliefs were much simpler and less detailed. The overall layout of a particular courtyard was almost identical. There were just hints of some of the very common features in the Angkor era ruins (false doors and false windows with stone columns). For the afternoon, we went to a popular, local, weekend hangout - Santuk mountain. We get there and are immediately met by three small girls with fans - our self appointed tour guides. There are about 800 steps to the top of the mountain and we had personal fanners the whole way up. At various points along the way, they told us how many steps we had climbed and took us to good viewpoints. The surrounding areas are all flat plains - mostly rice paddies in the wet season. At the top there is a Wat and over 40 Buddhas carved in stone in various caves and stone outcroppings. They are numbered and it's sort of like a game - can you find all the Buddhas? Not wanting to ride the motos in the dark, we started down about 1 hour before sunset. As we headed down, we saw 20-30 monkeys running around. It looked like they were coming out from hiding and reclaiming their mountain now that all the people were gone and evening was approaching.Happy Chinese New Year.