Dave, Gretta, and Indiana Jones--Cambodia I

We arrived in Siem Reap, Cambodia, on the sultry evening of February 27, 2012.  The Angkor Palace Resort had the feel of a French or English colonial hotel, with dark wood floors, ceiling fans, plantation shutters on the windows of our bedroom, and a huge, dark wood bed covered with white sheets and shrouded with mosquito nets.  There was even a wooden “cage” elevator between the floors, and an immense, azure pool fringed with tropical plants and flowers and a broad wood deck.  The cocktail menu included “Governor’s favorites.”

Dave and I walked towards the city center in the evening.  Hundreds of motor scooters zipped along the streets, carrying both single men and women and families.  The names of businesses were written in both English and Cambodian, and US dollars were used freely as currency. There were many mobile phone shops and scooter repair businesses, tending to the needs of the upwardly mobile.  It seemed like a third world place rushing into the future. 

We saw some strange street food in Bangkok, but one food stall in Siem Reap stopped us in our tracks.  It served heaping platters of fried insects.

We’d seen the temples of Angkor Wat so many times—in Michael’s compelling photos, in Indiana Jones movies, in travel photos for iconic places.  That familiarity made it even more of a thrill to see the temples in person.  Our guide, LaMon, gave us a half-hour description of 300 years of Angkor kings, and then we were off down the long, dusty lane to Te Proup, the first of the temple sites.  We passed a band playing Cambodian instruments.  “They are land mine survivors,” LaMon said, and we slipped a few notes into their donation basket.  The man in front was blind and several others in the back had lost a leg.

TeProup was left in mostly natural state, to show tourists the restoration process.  It was featured in “Indian Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark,” with its huge roots curled around ancient carvings and structures. We straggled through long, dark corridors, up irregular steps, and through plazas strewn with fallen statues and carved blocks.  I passed an old woman sitting by a statue of Buddha, half-hidden in a dark alcove.  I slipped a bill into her collection plate and she tied braided yarn around my wrist for good luck.

Our next stop was Angkor Thom, the ruins of the 11^th century royal city built by a Buddhist king, after a string of Hindu kings.  We climbed steep stairs for several stories to look over the area, and we walked around the outside of the temple, as John pointed out scenes of everyday life in the 11^th century—women cooking, men hunting, the king sitting on his throne.  Our camera was new and we had the settings wrong, so very few of our pictures of Angkor Thom turned out. 

After a much-needed mid-day siesta at our hotel, we finished the day with a visit to Angkor Wat itself, the classic Khmer Hindu temple.  It is so much a national icon that its image is printed on the national flag.  The temple is decorated with depictions of Hindu myths.  We learned from LaMon about the “churning of the milk” that created the earth, as well as stories of Rama, Shiva, and Lakshmi.  There were long corridors with the walls completely covered with carvings of myths.  And, of course, monks were among the respected sightseers.

In the evening, we sat on our hotel patio looking out at the pool, as we ate Cambodian specialties, such as curried seafood served in a pineapple shell.