Cambodia Cambucha: Siem Reap

Since I was a little kid, I have wanted to visit Cambodia. I have always felt that it is important to see and experience things in person to really understand them. That’s one of the reasons I have traveled so much. When I was little, there was a Disney Sunday night movie about a Cambodian family who escaped from Cambodia and came to America. The opening scenes where they were escaping by climbing under barbed wire in the pouring rain was so visceral it stuck with me from the age of 7 or 8 years old and in the back of my mind, I always planned to go to Cambodia and learn more about what had happened there in the late 70s.

So, when my friend Joy was studying at the YWAM School of Biblical Studies, I planned to go visit her and see the areas that were depicted in that movie. Of course, I had been working a lot, so I decided that this trip also needed to be relaxing as well. To that end, we booked hotels with swimming pools in both Siem Reap and Phnom Penh and had very low expectations of doing a lot of sightseeing. Just one or two things per day and lots of rest and swim time!

Not sure how much any of you know about Cambodia or its history leading up to and including the Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot in the late 70s, but lucky for you, I am a total nerd and took notes on my tours! So, here you go. Get ready for some fascinating and disturbing history. But first, some pictures!

https://plus.google.com/photos/109430283840665434428/albums/6142344491184073393?authkey=CM3w1MXnwYOHRg

Day 1, April 11

The trip got off to quite an interesting start with my flight arrival. Usually when you are flying into another country, they will give you an arrival/departure card, unless you are flying into your home country, then you just get a customs card. On our flight from Bangkok, they didn’t give us one, and I thought it was a little weird, but then I thought that maybe because of the ASEAN alliance, you didn’t need to do one for Cambodia. WRONG! They just totally failed as an airline and didn’t give us the needed paperwork. So, we all get to Cambodia, it’s about 9pm, 95 degrees with sweltering humidity and we walk  from the plane to the terminal to go through immigration. I get up to the desk and give the man my passport and visa and he’s asking for the arrival card, showing me an example. Of course, I don’t have one, so I’m trying to tell him that they didn’t give us one on the plane and he says to go get it at the visa counter. As I pass the people behind me in line who were on the plane with me, I ask them all if they got this form, and of course nobody did.

Whenever traveling, I always keep an ear out for people speaking English just in case. I go over to where the visa line is and a Cambodian man is stuffing visa application forms into slots. There are a couple people in line with American accents, so I ask them if they got that form, and they only have the visa form. So, I enlist their help and we ask the man stuffing forms if he has that form. He’s super rude and is like “NO! THEY GIVE YOU ON PLANE!” to which I politely respond, “Well, that is usually true, but they didn’t give it to us today.” And then he yells back “THEY GIVE YOU ON PLANE! YOU ASLEEP, YOU DON’T KNOW!” to which I was really annoyed. I was like “Um, actually, no I was reading a book, not asleep and none of these people got it either, gesturing to the entire line of people from my plane.” He’s like “THEY GIVE YOU ON PLANE!!!” and just walks away. “OK, that went well,” I say to my fellow passengers. So, a group of us go up to the visa counter and tell them the story. He says we have to get it from the man at immigration, but I inform him that the man at immigration told us to come get it from him. To which he says “He must help you! It is his job! Tell him he must help you! Make him help you!” I’m like “………yeah, how exactly do I MAKE a government official help me?” So, me and the mini group of passengers head in that direction, and on the way we see another American guy who previously did not have the form either suddenly have the form. He tells us that there is some guy from the airline wandering around handing them out. We finally find the guy after wandering around ourselves and get our forms, share a sigh of relief and return to our previous groups. I get in line again and this poor French couple ahead of me has to leave the line with bewildered looks on their faces also. I point out to them the man with the forms and we share a moment of frustration. Finally I get to the immigration desk with everything I need and get the entrance stamp. Luckily, my bag was just coming out when I got to baggage claim and Joy had come with the tuk tuk driver to meet me, so it was a lot less stressful getting to the hotel than I had worried! Our room was nice and air conditioned so we spent a few minutes catching up and talking about our plans for the week and then crashed.

Day 2, April 12:

First day in Siem Reap. Our hotel includes breakfast, and we are not talking your average continental breakfast, oh no! We get a full eggs, bacon, toast, fruit, juice and coffee breakfast. Actually, you can choose from 5 different breakfast options! What a great place! (It’s called Villa Um Theara if you ever decide to go to Siem Reap.)

We decide to go to Joy’s friend’s church that evening at 6pm and plan to meet Joy’s other friend Jenni for lunch at a local restaurant. We decide to visit a floating village between lunch and church. After breakfast, we go for a little exploring walk and upon our return meet our tuk tuk driver from the night before and his friend, who happens to be the tuk tuk driver that Joy used last time she was here 4 years ago! Small world! He agrees to be our driver for the remainder of the stay and it works out great!

We go to meet Jenni and have some delicious Cambodian food: fried pork with mango, chicken with garlic and a local soup. Yum! Also, coconut water for hydration. J After lunch, our driver thinks that we don’t have time to go all the way to the less touristy floating village, so he offers to take us to the nearest one. Man, what a mistake. We should have just gone back to swim for the afternoon.

We thought it would be a cool floating village with all these houses connected and a community floating on the lake, like in places in Thailand, but it turns out to be basically a hug construction site, because it’s not rainy season, so the river is low and they are digging all along it to make it deeper. It’s 2 hours in a private boat that is so loud you have to scream to be heard over the engine. The driver is 16 but looks 12 and the guide is 21 (I think) and is actually from this village.  We drive around this lake, driving past individual houseboats and eventually stop at a tourist trap with about 30 crocodiles in a 15 foot cage.  Everything they have is stuff we have in Thailand, so we don’t buy anything, just get back in the boat and bemoan our loss of $22 for this joke of a trip. We get back to the hotel, change quickly and head for church.

Church is way out of town at this cool resort type place and is full of teens and people in their early 20s . It’s part of International Christian Fellowship and it’s amazing! I wish we had church like this in Thailand for our teenagers to go to. They play awesome worship songs with the words in both English and Khmer (Cambodian language), followed by a short sermon, given by Joy’s friend, which was a complete surprise! Then more fun worship music and finally dinner all together. Such a lovely service, I wish they could come create something like that for Thai teens who are too old for kids services and get bored when forced to listen to adult services.

Day 3, April 13:

Angkor Wat! We get up suuuuuper early to make sunrise at the famous temple. We collect our breakfast from the reception, nice pastries and donuts, and meet our guide and driver. Thankfully, Joy’s friend from church has a friend who is a guide who agreed to take us even though he is on holiday. So nice of him! On our way out, we meet another couple heading to Angkor as well, and consider inviting them with us, but there is not enough space in the tuk tuk.

We get to Angkor Wat while it is still dark, but already over 90 degrees, and get our tickets, then follow our guide into the massive structure. We get to the edge of a lake (severely diminished due to the fact that it is HOT season. Have I mentioned that yet? It is HOT ALL THE TIME). He parks us next to the water to wait for the sun to rise and goes to get his own breakfast. The sky gets lighter and lighter and I take a bunch of pictures and I’m like “Ok, are we good? Can we go?” So we find our guide and he says “The sun is still asleep. It is not sunrise yet.” I’m like “yes, but look, it’s so bright already.” He says “But the sun. It is asleep. You must wait for the sun to wake up.” So we go back to our spot and wait some more. Finally, the sun rises and it’s awesome and we take more pictures, and then I say “OK, the sun is up. Now can we go learn some history about this place?” The tour guide laughs and leads us to a spot where we can sit and listen about history. YES! My favorite part of ancient sites!

History lesson time:

-Angkor means “holy city” and Wat means “temple”. So, Angkor Wat is the specific temple inside the holy city of Angkor.  Angkor was the capitol city from 802-1432 AD. From 1432-1860, it was abandoned when the capitol was moved to Phnom Penh. It was discovered in 1860 by the French invaders who realized its importance and started restorations of it so that people could come visit.

-Cambodia has the same type of Buddhism as Thailand. From 1863-1953 Cambodia was a French colony. In 1908, the French created the Angkor Conservation Project and started getting donations from many countries to restore the buildings. Most of the temples are still in the process of restoration now. Most of the temples collapsed or were destroyed during the civil war in the 1970s. In 1992, it was listed as a World Heritage Site. Each temple gets funds from 3 places for restoration, one of which is Cambodia itself.

During the 47 years that Angkor was being built, there were 44 kings. It was actually built when Cambodia was a Hindu country and was the largest Hindu temple in the world. They considered the king to be a reincarnation of God himself. In the 1220 century, Cambodia converted to Buddhism, so they altered the carvings and things to reflect Buddhist stories. When they changed back to Hinduism, they altered the carvings again, and yet again when they converted to Buddhism once again in the 16^th century.

The wall is 1035 meters long and the moat around the outside is 1.5km long and 1.3 km wide. It’s made of sandstone and limestone. There are 9 towers at the main building. The main tower represents the mountain of the universe and the surrounding towers are the mountain range. The path on the way to the west gate is like the rainbow bridget connecting earth to the realm of the gods (like Thor!). The temple was made to honor Vishnu, the Hindu goddess. The Nygra is a god that they made statues for as well. He is a cobra with an odd number of heads. Vishnu had 10 incarnations including Rama and Krishna.

Angkor Tom is another of the buildings on this site. It means “Big Capitol.” It is also surrounded by a moat. It holds a Muslim area that was built in the 12^th century.  The gates to Angkor Tom are decorated with 4 faces. The bridge has demon and god decorations, 54 of each, all holding the body of a snake that runs along the bridge to the temple. Legend says that the gods and demons use the mountain as a pivot and run the snake around the mountain to generate the ocean and make it holy water so the gods could become mortal.  (Don’t ask me, I took British Lit in high school, not mythology.) Originally, there were 54 towers, but now only 37 remain intact. This temple used to be the mausoleum of King Jaiyawaramun 7 (a very important Buddhist king from 1181-1220) This temple is being restored by Japan and UNESCO.

When restoring the temples, they take them apart stone by stone and number each stone so they can return it to the right place. If a stone is missing, they replace it with a new stone. They reassemble it like a jigsaw puzzle.

Each tower at Angkor Tom represents one province so they are different based on what that province is known for. The king believed when he passed away he would be a Buddha, so the faces on the towers represent both the king and Buddha.

The last big temple we visited was the one from Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie. It is super awesome cause it has these ginormous trees growing down over the tops of the building. The building was there first, and then nature started taking it back. It’s pretty incredible to see in person.

All in all, it’s about a 6 hour tour and we are exhausted from walking and the heat, so we head back to the hotel for some swimming, reading and sleeping. That night, we meet up with Mike and Nicole from HUG Project who are also there for vacation and enjoy some delicious Cambodian cuisine of amok and something with a lot of ‘L’s in it . Then, we walk around the night markets looking for anything that is specifically Cambodian and not finding much other than t-shirts! Most of the stuff is the same as they make here in Thailand. We DO find a great import store with lots of delicious Aussie candy and drinks!

Day 4, April 14

Today at breakfast, the couple we saw at Angkor Wat yesterday sits with us and we share about our experiences at the temple. Sadly, they got ripped off by the taxi who took them, and they didn’t even have the luxury of the taxi following them through the grounds like we did, they walked everywhere! The couple are Samara and Jean from Brasil, so we discussed the World Cup, the upcoming Olympics and their time in France while Jean was working on his PhD in neuroscience. Fascinating stuff! We invite them to join us for a free tour of the silk farm before they leave to head back to Brasil that evening and they agree. We spend a fun day learning all about silkworms and each other’s lives. So, science time!

We learned all about the life cycle of the silkworm. The only thing I remember is that the male and female have a 72 hour sex romp and then the male dies while the female builds a cocoon. How about that?

Each cocoon has 400 meters of fine silk inside the cocoon and more silk attached to the outside. The silk from outside the cocoon is what is used to make raw silk and the inside of the cocoon makes fine silk, the super soft stuff that is really expensive. It takes 80 cocoons to make one strand of thread for weaving. They put a bunch of cocoons in boiling water to make the silk come out, then they pull the strands out and thread them onto the spindle to refine them to the point they can dye and use the silk for weaving. The silk is woven using looms and shuttles that shoot across the loom. It’s amazing to see the different patterns that they make. They dye the silk before starting to weave and when you look at the silk, it’s dyed at different lengths so that when you weave it together back and forth on the loom, it makes a pattern. The guy couldn’t really explain how they knew where to put the different colors to create the pattern they wanted, but I am sure it’s pretty intricate!

They use natural things to dye the silk: Red comes from curry and resin, yellow from wood from a jackfruit tree, coconut shells make brown, and the best is that rusty nails mixed with wet leaves creates black! It takes two hours to dye the silk before it can be used to weave.  I had this great idea that I would buy something for my mom from here, but WAY too expensive!

After the tour, we head back in the tuk tuk and discuss going to see the New Year’s festivities at Angkor Wat but without paying for them. I think we didn’t really understand how to do it though. Apparently, we could have gone inside to see concerts and whatnot, but we thought we would have to pay for it, so instead this is what happened: After we get back from the silk farm, we are craving Mexican food and while we are eating (not half bad!), one of Joy’s friends walks by with her boyfriend and we convince them to come to this party with us. So, after an afternoon swim and sleep, we meet up at the main street to grab a tuk tuk and head to the site. We end up just outside the moat, hanging out on a wall while the Prime Minister gives a speech on a float below us. We can’t actually see him but we can see all the cameras and it’s very exciting. There is evidence of partying happening all day, but at this point, it’s all ended except for the obviously loud concerts inside the Wat. There is a really cool photography exhibit that we check out before getting the 411 from a local that we need to buy a lantern to float on the moat. So……it’s just like Loy Krathong in Thailand! Awesome! We get lanterns and after the speech by the prime minister is over, we wade through the crowd to float our lanterns and take some cool photos.

It’s at this point that Joy’s friend realizes her wallet is missing! We retrace her steps to the lantern place and have them do an announcement for her wallet, but no luck. So, we get some pork sandwiches on delicious French bread and head back to the tuk tuk waiting for us. So glad we got to experience this tradition, but I would have loved to go inside and jump around at a concert. Oh, well, next time!