Siem Reap and Such

I got myself stuck in Siem Reap for five nights, enjoying the companionship of fellow travelers. The plan had originally been to spend one full day here, allowing me to see the nearby ruins of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, before spending two full days traveling to Saigon in Vietnam and meet a friend who lives there. My plans were foiled by the fifty cent draught pints and my realization that this place required more than one day to enjoy.

My first full day in this place I wandered around aimlessly with an Aussie traveler that I met on the boat from Battambang, Zoe. We met a couple British couples that night and spent a few hours enjoying the area known commonly as "Pub Street". These were some real quality people and I enjoyed hearing about Rob's travels in Cambodia five years prior and his reflections on how things had changed since then. The travel industry has really taken off in the last half decade, and many of the paved roads connecting the cities were not even asphalted until a couple years ago.

Day two here was also quite mundane. It was enjoyable to me and full of experiences that wouldn't be justly conveyed in a blog post. The next morning, Zoe and I rented some bikes for the day and rode the six kilometers north to Angkor Wat, supposedly the largest religious structure on the planet. Braving the hordes of other tourists, we crossed the bridge over the huge moat and entered the West Gate of the man-made island. We explored the bas-relief outer walls of the temple and concentric square structures of the inner temple.


We later rode on to Angkor Thom, the city just 2 km north of the wat. Some several hundred years ago, this was a Khmer city of about a million people, filled with wooden homes and other structures surrounding the rock temples. The wooden structures have long since collapsed and decayed, and all that now remains are the stone buildings, the most impressive of which is the Bayon, a huge square temple filled with huge sculpture of faces built into the walls and apexes.


Seeing ruins always feels a bit tedious to me. At a certain point you begin to wander around dumbfounded, knowing full well that the rock structures you are seeing are all wonderful and grand, but failing to be able to muster any enthusiasm. I tried to picture the great civilization that once stood here and see the rows of houses and crowds of city dwellers, but I seemed to fall short.


However there was one final places that did bring about a sense of wonder in me. We rode on to the ruins of Ta Phrom, another temple structure from the 12th century or so. Archaeologists chose this particular ruin for a different project. Rather than clearing away the trees and foliage that covered all these places when the French first "discovered" them, and repairing the damage that had been done by the centuries, they instead left the place relatively untouched. As a result, there are centuries-old trees growing over the walls with tentacle-like roots grasping the sandstone blocks. The bas-relief walls are colored by moss and there are blocks lying haphazardly about.


What I loved about this ruin is that it was truly a ruin. It was not cleared up and rebuilt for the tourists. Seeing the work that nature had done to claim this place back into the jungle gave me the truest impression of the years that had passed. It made me ponder what our own great cities and man-made wonders will look like once they have been 800 years since abandoned. I've heard that some parts of Detroit are already being reclaimed by the elements. Satisfied with ourselves, we pedaled slowly back to town as a thunderstorm ominously rumbled behind us.

My last day in Siem Reap was another lazy one. I bought my bus ticket to Phnom Penh for the next day, March 9, where I would meet my sister Lauren. I met back up with the two British couples that I had befriended three days prior. We saw a traditional Khmer show, a sort of musical with all types of masks and costumes. The performance was done by the children of one of the many local orphanages for donations. I was pretty impressed by their acting and dancing skills. After the show the kids eagerly practiced their English with us and we were infected by their joyful nature. It was nice to get a glimpse of kids being kids here, as most encounters with Cambodian children have been with the ones that sell postcards or trinkets for some hidden boss that collects their earnings.

After one more stint on Pub Street, I went to bed, happy with my stay here. And then it was on on to the capital the next morning to see the familiar face of my sister. And that's where we now sit, safe and sound.