It took us most of the morning to cover the 90 hot and dusty miles between Kompong Thom and Siem Reap. We shared the wide road with bicycles, with horse-drawn carts and with impossibly overloaded carts drawn by motorbikes, many carefully hung about with straw-cushioned terra cotta pots, blackened streaks on their plump sides. The houses we passed were mostly wood, with some bamboo sections, but unlike in Lao, most roofs were of corrugated iron or tile. Rectangular ponds in front of the houses held the monsoon rains for future use, but now, in the dry season, the water was a lurid shade of acid green, made no more palatable by the occasional stand of water lilies. The thought of bathing in it, much less drinking it, made me shudder. Of course, I could afford bottled water.
Siem Reap is busily expanding to serve the tourists flocking to visit Angkor -- with multiplying hotels, guesthouses, restaurants, Internet cafes, souvenir shops and used-book stores. It is, however, still a manageable size, with friendly people and a big market (also full of souvenirs) and really, with Angkor on the doorstep, why would you spend much time in town? Although the marquee site is Angkor Wat, it is only one of many buildings gracing the site of what was once the city of Angkor. Even with two full days of sight-seeing we had time to visit only a few of the 40 accessible temples that rose on 77 square miles between the 9th and 14th centuries C.E.
I am not going to launch into a detailed description of Angkor and its religious symbolism: there are plenty of those around. I will say that it is truly a must-see sight, that two days is not enough and that the photographs don't do it justice. I will mention that I spent the entire two days with my camera hanging from my wrist instead of taking it out of my pack when I needed it, because I needed it all the time -- with the result that I couldn't use my right hand for the next two days. And I will note that while Angkor Wat itself is breathtaking -- not only for its soaring towers and perfect symmetry but for its exquisite carving and its 900 yards of bas-reliefs depicting Hindu myth and story -- my favorite memory is of the Bayon at dusk, with an almost full moon rising beyond the dark, brooding faces that form its towers.
If you can possibly get there, go. Go soon -- its already overloaded with tourists. Go even if Angkor is all you can see of Cambodia, although that would be a real pity and I don't recommend it. Go with a guide, at least initially -- if for no other reason than that the guide should know how to avoid the worst of the crowds. I'm going back, I hope, and for more than two days.
It was early enough in the dry season for us to reach our next stop, Battambang, by boat across the Tonle Sap and up the Sangker river. Later the water would be too shallow, even for our flat-bottomed wooden boat -- in the previous three weeks the level had dropped 10 feet, and trees were emerging from the blue waters. Partway across the lake we encountered a pelican floating on the surface and one of the boatmen went over the side to wrestle it aboard. The boatman said that the ethnic Vietnamese poison the birds to make them easier to catch, and we were all relieved when we delivered the big white bird to a wildlife refuge office where a ranger fed it sugar to make it vomit up the poison. We left it feebly flapping its black-tipped wings.
The wide waters of the lake gave way to narrow passageways defined by small trees, only just wide enough for two boats to pass. I couldn't figure out how our boatman was navigating -- occasionally a weather-worn piece of cloth drooped at an intersection, at one point there was length of string edging the line of trees, but in general I saw nothing but apparently identical openings to apparently identical waterways. The boat developed a transmission problem, and we limped along for some miles before stopping at a waterside repair shop. The river had widened, and ten minutes later we took off for the last stretch into Battambang
Cambodia's second city has a big (for Cambodia) population, but a small town feel. Wandering around town to admire the French-colonial architecture I found a children's playground where strings of fairy lights brightened slowly turning merry-go-rounds with plastic horses and bicycles fixed in wire cages. For some reason I have yet to discover, French-era buildings in Cambodia tend to be painted yellow -- not necessarily a bright yellow, but not a color anyone would mistake for cream either. The building occupied by the (closed) Tourist Office, an almost aggressively perfect cube, followed the pattern, as did the Governor's Residence, safely crouched behind its wall and gates, guarded by a couple of cannon and more of the ubiquitous lions.
Again, there was plenty to see outside the town. Steve, the Intrepid tour leader, gave us a choice. We could take a minibus to Wat Ek Phnom, Phnom Sampeau and Wat Banan, getting back to town in the early afternoon. Or, we could take motos to the same places, adding a cross-country bike-ride and a trip on a train called the "Bamboo Express". It was no contest: we took the motos.
Wat Ek Phnom offered a crumbling old temple and a brightly painted new one, along with some very photogenic kids. At Phnom Sampeau we played with a rusting field gun and stood in silence inside a killing cave, where victims had been pushed through a hole in the ceiling. And at Wat Banan we hiked up yet more stairs to be rewarded with some 11th century carving and a good view over the countryside. But the rides made the day.
We traveled over 60 miles on the bikes -- as passengers -- at first on main roads, but later on side roads through fields and villages, and in the villages the people came out to greet us. As our cavalcade of eleven bikes sped by in single file, the adults waved and the children reached out to touch hands and give us flowers. It was totally unexpected, and the closest I imagine I will come to feeling like royalty.
The Bamboo Express was even more unexpected. During the Khmer Rouge years train service was suspended, but the need for it was not. So the would-be passengers designed their own train: a wooden frame with bamboo slats and a low railing fore and aft resting on two two-wheel axles and powered by a small motor and a single belt. After we recovered from our surprise we climbed aboard and arranged ourselves on the slats. Eleven travelers, three locals and a motorbike just fit on one platform, and we took off down the single line at speeds reaching 40 m.p.h., sounding like an airplane.
We slowed to allow cows to clear the line. We stopped when we met another "train" coming the other way -- its passengers hustled themselves and their baggage off the platform, and it was disassembled and out of the way in less than a minute. It was a crazy, wonderful, way to travel, and with the wind blowing through my hair and an unobstructed view of the setting sun gilding the paddy fields, I was enchanted.
Next day we were back to more prosaic transport -- a plane to Phnom Penh and a chartered bus to the dilapidated seaside town of Kep. The plane ride was enlivened by the sight of rice fields tinted green, brown or purple by the morning sun, and even more by the sight of the plane's wheels, one of which sported a bald tire. The bus ride was simply long and hot, on poor roads. The guesthouse in Kep was a bad news/good news place -- the bad news was no AC, the good a row of hammocks by the sea, strung under sturdy bamboo roofs.
Kep itself had fallen on very hard times. Only a few dirty and decaying buildings, trees growing through them, held memories of a once fashionable resort. As a place to eat seafood and laze by the water Kep still had plenty of possibilities, but we moved on the next day to Kompot, bigger and busier and better-endowed with hotels and restaurants. I have seen estimates at www.mekong-protected-areas.org that 100,000 domestic tourists visited Kompot in 2001, but only 1,250 foreigners, the main attraction for the foreigners being Bokor -- or Preah Monivong -- National Park.
Once a fine metaled road wound up the 3,500 foot escarpment behind Kompot, but, like King Norodom's summer palace and the French hill station it used to serve, it had succumbed to time, neglect and war, and the mini-minibuses we were riding fared better where the road had altogether disappeared instead of jolting over the remnants. The shell of the summer palace perched on the very edge of the plateau, but we could catch only tantalizing glimpses of the Gulf of Thailand through the drifting clouds below us. At this point I stayed with the buses, while everyone else took off for a two-hour hike. Even if walking conditions proved to be better than those for the previous group, who had been mired in leech-laden mud (they did), I wanted time alone with the Popokvil waterfall. Persistent wasps eventually drove me from the lower levels of the otherwise attractive falls, just as the hiking party arrived on the flat rocks at the top for lunch.
Perhaps because of their isolation, and the height of the plateau, the buildings at Bokor hill station, where we spent the afternoon, had fared better than those at Kep and instead of trees, the intact outer walls of the church and casino were clothed in orange fungus. The French, and later Cambodian, high-rollers had stayed in style -- the casino's patio had views to rival those at the palace, and its bedrooms, some with bay windows, boasted en-suite shower rooms. The stairs were sound, some of the floors still tiled, but it was an eerie, wind-swept place with no echoes left of light and laughter. I was glad enough to leave.
December 25th we drove to Sihanoukville, a major port and tourist hangout, and settled into wooden chalets with views over Victory Beach but no AC. I spent the rest of the day doing absolutely nothing (well, nothing but reading) in preparation for the night's feast. Everywhere in town was booked solid, but Chez Mari-yan, where we were staying, came through with a wonderful "barbecue" feast. They provided endless plates of squid, shrimp, beef, pork and chicken, flanked by French fries and salad, and we cooked the meat over spirit lamps -- a Cambodian fondue. The (French) wine flowed and nobody missed the traditional turkey.
Before the meal we exchanged gifts -- back in Siem Reap we had each drawn one name from a jar, and then shopped for a present costing less than $3.00 US, an amount that went a long way in Cambodia. I gave two good-sized "rubbings" of apsaras from Angkor, and received a woven bamboo tube full of peppercorns and a card of handmade paper inset with apsaras painted on fabric. Dawn Rooney's guide to Angkor, available in bootleg copies throughout Siem Reap, describes apsaras as "celestial nymphs" and "sensuous, graceful females" and the ones dancing on the walls at Angkor Wat are all of that.
Boxing Day (December 26th for the non-Brits) I lazed on a boat instead of around Chez Mari-yan. After a whole day of swimming, snorkeling, eating and gazing at the islands, we spent the next morning on the beach, before leaving for Phnom Penh and a farewell feast. The down time was a welcome end to a fast moving trip around Cambodia, and also as preparation for the endurance test I faced when I started home on the 28th.
I was reluctant to leave -- despite the obvious poverty, I had enjoyed Cambodia and the Cambodians more than I had expected, but I had used all the 90 days allowed by my Malaysian Airlines pass. The flight from Phnom Penh to Kuala Lumpur was uneventful, but then I endured 23 hours on a packed Boeing 777-200 with far more than its share of crying children. Next time I'll know not to fly between Christmas and New Year's Eve.
I had a lot of fun, thanks for traveling with me.
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