Angkor What? - Fish with Wings

11 Mar Angkor What?

Posted at 00:14h in Blog, Personal, Travel by Mallory 1 Comment

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Angkor Wat

Cris, Feli, and I arrived in Siem Reap after dark. We headed for Chill Backpacker Hostel, where Feli had stayed previously, and met up with Cris’s friend from Brazil, Atamar. We ended up staying across the street for $3 per person for the night and pre-rented our bicycles for $2. We also grabbed some groceries so we could picnic at Angkor instead of paying for overpriced fried rice. The plan was to go to bed early and get up before sunrise. The getting up early part we still accomplished, anyways…

We left our bags at the hostel and hopped on the bikes, excited and ready to go. We rode all the way out of town to the entrance checkpoint, and…we were turned away. Shit!

Wah, wah, waahhhhh…

We had read online that you could get single day passes at any of the gate entrances, but apparently that information was outdated. We had to either ride or get a tuk tuk back to town to get tickets, then return. We opted for the tuk tuk so we might still have a chance to see the sun rise. It was 8$ split between the four of us, and he went as fast as he could for our sake, bless him. We got lovely pictures taken at the office to be printed on the $37 ticket (practically a visa!), and rushed back to the gate, then pedaled our asses off to the first temple: Angkor Wat.

We had wanted to do the hill hike for sunrise, but since we were behind on time we decided to go to the more popular reflection pools. We parked our bikes and walked across the bridge past the first temple gates and into a large courtyard thronged with tourists. It was incredible how many people were there, waiting patiently for the iconic image of the sun rising behind the temple spires. We had a picnic breakfast and took lots of photos, then followed the mass pilgrimage into Angkor.

It was stunning. Indescribable, really. Photos can’t do it justice. It is not only the sheer size of the place, but the attention to the minutest detail. There were shallow sketches carved into the wall with great dexterity and care…and 900 years later they are still there! And still beautiful. It was interesting walking through the corridors and imagining it full of monks and royal visitors, eating and sleeping, praying and sweeping the floors, rather than foreign tourists touting cameras, posing in door frames, and making faces at the monkeys. Imagine the full glory and grandeur from such a place in its prime!

I actually became fully overwhelmed by the sheer mass of people that I waited outside for my friends to finish touring. I’ve heard that the crowds are less in the afternoons. We grabbed our bikes and moved on to another temple (I have no idea what the name was, I’m googling these as I’m typing and can’t find it), and then spent another long time at Bayong. This one was so cool with all of the stone heads, but there were so many people it was making me crazy.

We had a picnic of canned mackerel sandwiches then went to Preah Khan, which was thankfully not crowded at all and I could fully enjoy it. Everything was overwhelmingly beautiful, but the heat of the day was starting to get to us. We loaded up for our last stop at Ta Prohm and took the bike path through the woods. I think may have been my favorite part of our tour :D. We were exhausted when we arrived, but it was so sick! I mean, Tomb Raider was filmed here, sure, but the trees! The treeeeees!!! It’s astounding to me how nature can overtake any foreign object we create and drag it back into itself.

It was a long ride back to the city and we rushed to get our bags together, rinse a bit of sweat off, and grab a snack before making it to the bus stop to Sihanoukville. It was one hell of an exhausting day, and I wish we had had more time to see some of the less popular temples, but I am so excited that I had the chance to experience the famous Angkor Wat. Some places are popular for a reason!

Interlude: See what I thought of Koh Rong!

Phnom Penh

So! Back to the (near) present. I arrived in Phnom Penh just after dark. [Note to fellow travelers: When the bus stops for lunch or dinner break on a long journey, eat wherever the driver eats. In every country these have been some of the most delicious meals. They really know where to find the good stuff.] It’s been a while since I’ve been in a really big city. The bus was stuck in nose to butt traffic for over an hour on the way in! Also, I’m not certain there are any official lanes here…It varied from two to four lanes based on how small the vehicles were and if there were gravel lots on the side of the road. Then they would temporarily become another lane. It was utter madness! Anyways, I found Central Towers Hostel close by the bus stop for $4 a night, and since it seemed to be the only place around I went for it.

In the morning I immediately went out to find a phone charger. I’ve been without for about a month now, and I needed to get serious. I found one with a thicker casing around the wires and I’m hoping it lasts me (fingers crossed!). There is a large market square just outside the hostel and I had the most wonderful time walking through watching people throwing fish and live lobster from one bucket to another, all the colorful fruits, the delicious smell of fried foods, and piles of unusual looking salads and other treats. I tried sweet palm fruit in salted milk, pork rice porridge, and some weird fried dough balls in a sweet salty sauce. I already couldn’t wait for breakfast! I was just too full to eat more!

Tuol Sleng

I spent most of the day doing research and chores I’ve put off since I hadn’t had much use of my phone the past week, but later in the day I walked to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, which is preserved from the cruel Khmer Rouge regime that lasted from 1974 to 1979. It was $8 for a ticket with audio tour. I HIGHLY recommend getting the audio tour. It made such a huge difference. While some audio tours explain the same things that are posted on a sign, this one was incredibly in depth and shared several personal stories of victims and their families. I had thought that an hour and a half would be plenty of time to tour the small area, given I got there at 3:30 and they close at 5, but it was a close call and I would have liked to have a little more leisure time to take it all in.

The Khmer Rouge was a short lived but incredibly harsh dictatorship that hammered down on the spirits of the Khmer people. They were originally a revolution against the Khmer Republic at the end of the Vietnam war. When the Khmer Rouge took over, the people were happy – they thought that they were saved from the American bombings and the war and that their lives were about to improve. But quite literally the same day they came into power the KR started moving people out of the cities and putting them into hard physical labor camps with barely enough food to survive. The leader, Pol Pot’s, ideal was to bring the people back to their roots before technology and education in a communist setting, though of course the favored persons received more than the layperson. Old, young, sick, or well, even monks – all were put to work and millions died. Tuol Sleng, or Security Prison 21 (S-21), was a highschool, and one of many schools and temples that were made into prisons for torture and murder.

The pressure in this space is palpable. There are photos on the walls of the few victims remaining that were found brutally murdered, still strapped to the iron torture beds. It’s overwhelming, and I nearly dissolved into tears multiple times. To think that people could do these things to another person, whether innocent (as most of these victims were) or not. It makes my heart ache, and I’m starting to tear up again just writing about it. Terrifyingly enough, this didn’t occur that long ago. Some survivors of the regime are still in prison and investigations and cases are ongoing. I wish I had the time to visit the killing fields as well, but I didn’t plan accordingly. Honestly, I think the emotional effort of visiting both places in a single day would have been difficult anyways.

I was glad to have the refreshing walk back to the hostel to wind down. I went to bed early after packing and the next morning went back to market to explore again! This time I tried two different fried sesame balls for .25c (best things EVER, I love them so, so much!), and a sandwich with papaya salad for less than $1. I also got some spiced peanut things that ended up being hard as a rock and not so great 🙁 . Anyways, I checked out of the hostel and nabbed a $7 tuk tuk ride to the airport. I am now en route to Malaysia where I wait for my friend to arrive next week, and we are off on a fancy holiday! More about that next time 😉