Happy endings: Day 7 (10/12): Siem Reap, Cambodia

Day 7 (10/12)

Up early, 5 o'clock, and Sam takes me to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat, the most iconic and popular of the temples at Angkor. It features on Cambodia's flag.

It's immediately obvious this is the main attraction in Angkor. Well, the main attraction in Cambodia really. I walk along the path over the moat, through the gates. It's dark. The temple in the distance, at the end of the avenue of palms, is but a silhouette.

"Hi! How are you sir?"
I can't see his face. I can't see anyone's face it's so dark.
"Ah. OK, thanks."
"Best place to see the temple at sunrise is from the left. Go left from the path, because the sun rises from the right."
"Alright. Thanks."
He's walking next to me down the path, but seems friendly.
"I'm not guide, I have a shop. If you want drink or breakfast later. Come to me. I have shop number 1, my name is Tiger Woods, cause he's number 1!"
"Ah, OK"
"Bye sir. Remember, number 1, Tiger Woods!" and he leaves me to walk on towards the temple.
I hear behind me "Hello madam. How are you? Best place to see sunrise is from the left..."

I go to the left - like Tiger Woods told me - and find a spot near the edge of the lily pond in front of the temple among a continuously growing throng of tourists and an ever increasing hum of movement, chit chat, and the clicking of cameras.

I won't deny, what is happening in the background there, the silhouette of the temple slowly changing, the reflection emerging among the pink waterlilies in the pond, the details of the temple appearing on the facade - a temple which was described by a 19th century French explorer as "a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michelangelo. [It] might take an honorable place beside our most beautiful buildings...[and] is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome". In itself, it is sublime, and I feel honoured to be standing here taking in its increasingly-illuminated beauty. No wonder all these people are here.

But among the snaps of cameras, the background noise, and the supremely unwarranted flashes ruining our night vision (do they think the flash on their 60 dollar point-and-shoot is going to illuminate a 10-storey temple 100 metres away? Like football fans not turning off their flash in an enormous stadium), as the sun rises, not only the ancient relief of Angkor Wat comes to light, but so do the tank-top sunburns (mine included), fisherman's pants with elephant motifs, silk scarves sold to tourists who weren't told they needed to cover their shoulders, and Angkor Wat t-shirts flogged at the entrance (worn by one guy loudly proclaiming to his friend in an american accent 'god, this place is destroyed, it's sooo touristy').

There's almost a music festival vibe here. No one really knows each other but are sharing and participating in a common interest. They dress almost as if they were at a music festival, except the band t-shirts are Cambodian beer tank tops or Angkor Wat shirts, the festival costume are the sarongs, beads, and silk scarves. Nothing they would wear outside of this context. South East Asia on the backpacker trail is like one big Maffesolian neo-tribe.

And all the while we're all ignoring the poor Khmer guy, forced to flog shit at the temples because he's not allowed to work his land here at Angkor, laminated-menu in hand asking 'you want hot coffee? Breakfast? Come to my shop, number 007, my name is James Bond".

"Piss off James Bond, I want to view one of the great monuments of civilisation through my viewfinder so I can show my friends and family at home wonderfully underexposed photos as evidence I was here."

Okay, maybe I'm being too cynical and I could also be guilty of being a bit of a hypocrite (nothing new) and selfish (as charged), but all of this really makes it hard for me, and everyone else, to enjoy this moment as I think it should be enjoyed. Why don't we stand in mute reverence of this sublime monument for a couple of hours, hands (mostly) off our technology? Be moved, feel humbled and contemplative. Please.

"Hot coffee sir? Breakfast? Shop number 8, my name is Lady Gaga."

The sun has risen enough for me to decide to walk on over to the temple itself and explore and marvel at its 5 million tonnes of quarried sandstone and thousands of square metres of intricate carvings. It really is - in this word's true sense - awesome. And I spend a while walking through its corridors, clambering up its steep steps, and gazing upon the bas-reliefs, full of stories of conquests and battles, and mythical Hindu sagas.

"[Angkor Wat] is of such extraordinary construction that it is not possible to describe it with a pen, particularly since it is like no other building in the world. It has towers and decoration and all the refinements which the human genius can conceive of." - António da Madalena

A man appears from a recess, lit incense sticks in hand. He passes them to me as if giving a gift.

"For your good luck sir."
"Ah, thank you."
"Here, put them in this pot", he gestures to a pot of sand at the foot of an orange-cloth draped Buddha.
He shows me how to bow three times to the Buddha "for your good luck".
He then flips open a silk napkin, under which are two 10 dollar bills.
"For the monks, they sleep and pray here and need donations."

Goddamn! Another scam!

I put down one dollar and quickly leave. I find these incense-givers in every temple, catching the vulnerable and gullible. One more scam on my list to watch out for.

I choose not to eat in temple grounds, where it's overpriced and aimed at tourists, but where the tuk tuk drivers and monks eat. It's 7.30 in the morning and there's a big group of locals, tuk tuk drivers waiting for their customers to come out of the temple, and monks, watching an old Jackie Chan film on one small old cathode-ray television. All laughing. I am too.

"You need a guide for the temples, sir? I've been working here many year. I can tell you all about the temples and the carvings. Not all the information in the books sir. Just a little bit of money, help out my family sir."

Sam takes me around to the next stop on the 'must-see' Angkor route, Angkor Thom, once the capital of the Angkor kingdom. Here I find the temple of Bayon, with its famous serene faces, bathed in golden sunlight this early in the morning.

"Guide book to the temples sir? 3 dollar. No? It has all the information in here, sir. OK. For you, 1 dollar."

Here, sitting out the back of Angkor Thom, looking over the pool constructed many centuries ago for the leader's wives to bathe in, I get a glimpse of serenity, the first since, well, I can't really remember, not for many months at least. Birds are singing in the forest, and briefly there's a short halt in the stream of visitors.
Then, an English girl tells her friend as she blindly walks past the 900 year old temple behind me, 'I bought a white t-shirt, but it went yellow, can you believe it? I had a purple t-shirt I could have worn here, but I left it in the hotel!" Her friend laughs at this.

I need to find peace and quiet, too much noise and chaos so far. But I had to see these temples and I'm glad I've come. But I can't wait for my sojourn down to the seaside, might even consider going to a temple for meditation at some point on my trip.

On I go. It's hot now and Sam's waiting to take me to the next stop.

Many tourists from all over are here (in fact, the number is considered to be dangerously unsustainable when it comes to the conservation of the temples). Not just young backpackers, but big tour groups from China, Japan, South Korea, even Russia. I tell you what, Chinese, Japanese and Koreans give Russians and Latvians a run for their money when it comes to ridiculous posing for photographs. I think Russians beat them all by a nose, though there's not much in it.

The Russian-speaking Khmer tour-guide waves a Soviet 9th of May flag around so he doesn't lose his group. Ummmm....yeah. OK.

I walk through the 'Tomb Raider' temple, as the locals call it when talking to tourists. The temple features huge, majestic trees almost as if living in unison with the temple, but the trees are ever so slowly taking over this man-made monument, roots spreading further out, grasping and heaving the stone blocks carved by hands which have long turned to dust. The tree cover creates a cool micro-climate here, and the forest birds sing.

The trees and their cool relief make me think how it's such a pity (to put it mildly) that Cambodia recently has systemically deforested most of the country.

I also marvel at the amount of man-hours gone into quarrying, transporting, carving, and contructing these temples. I am no fan of any form of superstition or religion, but it truly can be amazing (but mostly disastrous) what humans are capable of when fueled by faith and superstition..

A boy - he looks maybe 3 or 4 years old - comes up to me, tugging my sleeve. "Here, sir, you buy postcard? Look, postcard. of temple. Ten for one dollar. One dollar. Look, one, too, tree, fooour, five, six, seven, aight, nigh, ten."

I walk past a folk group of landmine victims. There's one out the front of many of the temples.

I notice many people riding rented bicycles from temple to temple. I had read it was possible, if not a little tiring. But I would have saved a lot of money, and I hate the feeling you get when you know you've been ripped off, it's hard for me to shake. Bloody Ra told me it was near impossible to see the temples by bike. I'm calling bullshit on that.

Almost every single block of stone features intricate carvings, figures, faces, creatures. I keep on getting reminded why this place has become touristy, these temples really are magnificent.

After one or two more stops I'm templed out for the day, and my patience is wearing very thin what with all the peddlers and hawkers and kids tugging at your arm and women walking with you for 5 whole minutes trying to sell you a scarf.

Sam takes me back to the hotel, I have a splendid afternoon nap (it's only just past midday but I've been at the temples for seven hours), and a swim - the first, I realise, in about five months. How I missed swimming.

I go out for dinner, there's a middle-aged Australian man with a tattoo on the top of his head. He's dining with his very young Khmer wife and her child.

Cambodians do as Latvians do, with a huge choice on their menus, of which they're only good at making two or three really well. You just have to know whats worth ordering, and, of course, I rarely do.

Montezuma has sniffed me out. It was bound to happen.