A Long Way From Zero
Trip Start
Feb 04, 2007
1
16
107
Trip End
Mar 09, 2008
Siem Reap, Cambodia
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Surprise #1 came in the form of one of the world's most disreputable consular and border services turning in a most honourable performance. Border officials here are renowned for slippery practices: however, not only did they not try anything, they had a clearly posted gmail message from their Foreign Affairs Ministry advising that the visa fee was all inclusive, and that absolutely no additional fee was leviable. And if you understand just how remote the border post we were at actually is you will understand our surprise at this being so lovingly, clearly and centrally posted up. Because nobody is checking. (Bear in mind we got rorted by the Cambodian Embassy in Bangkok though, so we aren't that clever)
O Smach - yes a great name for any town - is remote. This is land of great names: they had a military spokesman here called Am Rong who never figured out why he lacked credibility wth the West. But I digress.
The border is mostly for townsfolk to cross the river and go to the Thai village on the other side. The office for people travelling with passports (i.e. not just border passes) has a hammock in it, and there was genuine disappointment in his face when he got up to find we had already bought our visa earlier. Not "there goes my bribe" surprise, nor "I woke up for nothing" surprise, but gut wrenching emotion that one less transaction is one less chance to win Border Guard Employee of the Month.
Once across the border, the world changes and reality sets in. There's no bus, nor train, nor really anything. There's one taxi. And he knows it.
In summary, we had an elongated and animated discussion with some frank exchanges of views and no repression of emotion. Lots of doors slammed, tapping on the boot to retrieve backpacks, and a long walk back toward the border which, all of us knew, we couldn't cross again as we had a single entry visa. And yes, as we got closer and closer to a border we couldn't cross (carrying all our possessions of course) there was a hushed conversation of what exactly we were going to do next. Then like the parting of a Red Sea the market economy emerged before us.
In short, we learned that taxi touts basically take turns on the tourists to create 'shortage'. No other driver will speak to you while you are engaged. But once we got within 20m of that border post again, we were fair game. Battered Toyota Camrys emerged from behind trees and over hills. Now we had five choices :). We settled at US$25 for the trip - they had started at a hundred.
The 250km trip to Siem Reap was an adventure in itself. To say there were potholes is to falsely create the impression that a road was ever there. Some "dips" are a metre deep. Some rocks - in the middle of the road of course - stick two feet up. And of course they combine excellently: rocks in dips, dips after rocks, you name it. But our driver had traversed this road many times, and never dipped below 70km/hr on this one lane-ish, winding, wooded, goated road that doubles as the local kids' playground. And without doubt, we emerged with newfound respect for the good people at Toyota, because we never really felt a bump, and still can't figure out how this could possibly be so.
Passing through northwestern Cambodia is to see life at its most basic. Houses clustered together in fives and tens - and it was noticable that in every cluster was a political office. You see the Cambodian People's Party name in a formal professional form around a hundred times in this journey. Its a brave call to advertise that you're in charge given the infrastructure we traversed: we figure the stock answer must be that the road will be flat soon enough, as soon all the holes must join up... any day now.
As such, our expectations of Siem Reap were moderate. They were lowered further by reports from other travellers suggesting Ankhor was a little bit too Lego in scale and presentation. We were wrong.
Siem Reap does tourism well. They haven't turned the place into Las Vegas (excepting a main road where 40+ Hyatt/ Holiday Inn/ Le Meridiens have been corralled). They have abandoned the local currency and ATMs dispense only US dollars. But they understand quality, and service, and competition means prices are frighteningly good while added extras are high. We are eating ridiculously well: Cambodian food is not spicy but is still very tasty. It does give pause for thought that while a combination of refugees and emigres has given us many Asian tastes in Sydney, not too many Cambodian folks got away to the free world. Lok lak and amok are national dishes that are worth seeking out, even if you have to come all the way here to do it.
The Cambodians lived through their own crazy (but at least brief: 1975-79) incarnation of Maoism. Pol Pot declared that it was Year Zero and that all history was to be forgotten. Children were put in charge as they were unburdened by the past. Its sounds crazy, but in the modern world its apparently still possible to profoundly bugger up the train system for 10 years and then credibly say "there won't be any more problems if i'm reelected". So here we don't point any accusatory fingers.
In modern Cambodia, the children are still very much in charge - they have learned English and are the most stellar salespeople you will meet. Not pushy. Not aggressive. Just brilliant. A 13y.o. girl offers us a menu at Ankhor and can handle any objection: 'Not just us who are expensive madame, everyone trying to rip you off the same amount' (defuse the obvious, if minor, price uplift grievance); 'all the same food madame, but our kitchen busy, so food good for your stomach - with others, well, who can be sure' - accompanied with a small shrug and a coy look away from us, creating doubt about going anywhere else. We stayed with her, and she barked orders to mum and dad slaving in the kitchen, who dutifully brought the meals almost all the way to our table, where they were deferentially handed off to her. And at 9:00a.m. with the tourist surge abating she headed off to school.
Even boys selling books in the street have a good patter, with at least a little variety "Five dollars good price for book. Plus then you get some peace and quiet". Claude was struck by a young girl (about 8y.o) selling trinkets who, on finding we were Australian, paused for just a second before turning to Claudie and saying 'gday sheila, gday cobber' - perfectly enunciated through a thick accent.
Crucially, the temples of Ankhor (there's about 70 of them) surpass all expectations. They're imposing. They're mostly well restored and all well maintained. They have variety. And they are open in allowing you to clamber up them, understanding that the heat and verticality of the structure are natural barriers. Some of those we climbed were red hot to the touch as we attempted to descend them. Like the pyramids of Egypt they carry some risk to ascend, and on the top of Ankhor Wat itself most overhead conversations focused on trepidation about how on earth we were going to get down. Rapidly, if one isn't careful.
Aside from the sheer majesty of Ankhor Wat, Ankhor Thom is a walled city providing completely different ruins. There is Bayon, with 200 faces carved into a temple structure so you are always being watched. There is a The Elephant Terrace - a 350m long veranda where the god-kind could review parades. You get a huge sense that this was one heck of an empire: this was a million person city in 950A.D. (Civilisation ultimately collapsed due to overdevelopment ironically - so its the biggest most magnificent temples drawing people in today that caused it to become a ruin in the first place).
Most of the temples are continuing to fall apart. Construction methods 1000 years ago were pretty good, but as the ground shifts the towers start to lean - hence it is gradually becoming more of a ruin, not less of one. The Japanese Government is investing heavily in some very delicate and clever restoration where they pull them apart brick by brick, lay a new foundation out of sight, and carefully reassemble the stones with hidden steel inserts. They showcase their technology to do this with lasers and satellites and its truly amazing. The Chinese Government - still desperate to be a regional power - has been allowed to restore one, but no lasers and satellites for them. They have applied all the same techniques and sensitivity applied in the Cultural Revolution and pretty much just fired a pebblecrete gun across one. There is even a guestbook where you are allowed to leave comments thanking the Chinese for their contribution which makes for hilarious reading as contributors point out in bold and capitals that China is not renowned for its skills in preserving culture and how about they just leave this to somone else. Anyone else.
Next stop was Ta Prohm (Claude's favourite): completely unrestored as the forest (its not really "jungle") was too far advanced across it. 50m tall trees grow out of the roofs of stone atriums/ atria and roots push out tonnes of stone blocks. And for younger readers ("Bert"), yes, they filmed Tomb Raider here.
The final temple worth a mention is Baphuon. The French started restoring it in 1918, clearly with not a lot else to work on at the time. It fell down entirely in 1925. Repeat the cycle again in the 1940's and 1950's - as walls fall and are put back up. Then they took it apart brick by brick and... yes, in fleeing the Khmer Rouge in 1975 the university forgot to take the "how to put it all back together again" document and in the Khmer looting that followed it didn't survive. Its quite pointed that the Japanese a restoring most of the monuments but the French Government have been left to figure out Baphuon, and not being allowed to play with anything else until they fix that one. And in the reconstruction that we saw there (its an active worksite) there seemed to be a surreptitious attempt to ignore the thousands of bricks on the ground (getting a little overgrown) in favour of "just bugger it, we'll build them a new one". There was a lot of brand new sandstone craned into place and being carved and not much attention paid to the pieces they already had.
We expected little from Cambodia, we were mostly just hoping to avoid having Angelina Jolie trying to adopt Claude. But for us, this has been a huge highlight. Sleeping options are plentiful and excellent, the dining phenomenal, and the historical proportion is yet to descend into anything Disneyesque. Development economists and everyone who donates money to the third world would do well to realise that an educated, thoughtful and increasingly (relatively) wealthy population is emerging less than 30 years after a quarter of the population was killed by a crazy Maoist. Its a story someone should let the Chinese in on, maybe redirecting the pebblecrete guys as a first step.
_ _ _
Wow! Angkor Wat took my breath away. I'm not sure if my expectations were lowered just the right amount by the tourists we met in Laos who had just been and said that they "weren't sure what all the fuss was about". It is sensational! Nowhere on our journey so far have I maxed out my camera memory and battery together at the one location. I took more photos yesterday than I have all trip! But looking through them, I can't do the ancient city any justice [but I'll still have to post a few (or more) when I finally get to a cybercafe with both a USB port AND a working connection].
Arriving at dawn was spectacular and probably added to the build-up - but at 4:30am we were bright eyed and bushy-tailed ready to go. [If only our driver was awake at that time too.... he came a bit later.. "ooops"]. I stupidly thought we would have the place to ourselves getting there at that time, but there was a sea of people before us and I couldn't believe they had all made the 5am trip. Angkor Wat was spectacular! The steps to climb the top were so steep that you needed to crawl on your hands and feet to ascend. We noticed that the huge crowds at the bottom, became a small-ish group of tourists by the time we reached the top. Suddenly I could take photos without a million heads in shot.
Fear of heights in any language has the same few facial expressions. I learned very quickly what "oh my gohd, how on earth are we going to get down?" sounded like in Japanese, French, German, Cambodian, etc. Advice to the tourists who stood atop the stairs, sweating and peering over the edge like "I think the Eastern steps are the least steep and seem to have a banister" were met with lit-up eyes and genuine, spluttering thanks.
Each of the sites we visited on our 8 hr escapade was spectacular and so different from the last. Half the excitement was that it was like we were on a long, (hot) bushwalk through the jungle and we were stumbling accross these ancient ruins for ourselves. [Yes, I know we did it by moto-tuk-tuk but there was LOADS of walking too]. Ta Phrom was like a Dali painting with majestic ancient ruins, strewn sandstone blocks and sleepy tree roots that had spent hundreds of years piercing through the brickwork. Parts of this one looked like a giant candle had burned and melted atop the ruins. I thought for sure my travel photography career would kick-start with this visit - however looking at most of the shots I took, I'm lucky I get so much enjoyment from Marketing. [That ones for you Kim ;) ].
Ankhor was incredibly beautiful and a real highlight!
Understandably it is putting Cambodia in a great light. We haven't been here long, but every meal has been amazing, we are staying at a fantastic $6 a night guest house (with a communal DVD player so we can sit and watch movies together - funny the things you take for granted) and the Angkor temples have far surpassed anything I could have expected.
Bring on Phnom Penh.
