Andrew Turco - A year in Cambodia

Well, I’m happy to say that I succeeded in making it to Angkor Wat pre-dry season and pre-tourist season. The two happen to be the same seasons for the most part, not without coincidence I don’t think. It’s now the beginning of November, which means that the rainy season is actually coming to a close, although I have to admit that I’m actually a little bit sad about it. The weather’s getting drier and breezier, and it’s nice not to have to be ready for a sudden downpour at any second. But at the same time, the rain gives everything a nice shine, and everything’s so lush right now. Plus, it breaks up the otherwise consistently sunny weather. Especially photographically, I’m feeling the pressure of trying to get as many photos in as I can while the colors and textures around me are so rich as a result of everything being wet. Even the dirt roads throughout the city take on a great deep reddish-brown hue when they are wet.

But anyway, I was happy to make it to Siem Reap and the Angkor Temples before the rainy season did finally come to a close. I felt a need to get there soon, but I have to be cautious when I’m here about remembering the true popularity that Cambodia is becoming as a place to visit. I obviously get the biased perspective of feeling like everyone is all of a sudden coming to Cambodia. I see tourists or other expats in town and get the sense that everyone traveling to Asia is coming here. Of course, I have an unfair sample bias, and I have to remind myself that the people I see around me are a very, very small subset of the general population. To most people, Cambodia is still a far off place with a complicated history that still has many mysteries and unknowns. But having said all of that, I wanted to go to Siem Reap fairly early in my time here because it really does seem as though it’s becoming a must-see on many travelers’ lists. The feel of the sites are bound to change, and people have been discussing how it’s already been changing over the past couple of years simply because there are more people visiting.

Siem Reap, which used to be a virtually non-existent city, now sports numerous luxury hotels, cheap guesthouses, tuk-tuk drivers, and “charming tourist apartments,” as one billboard claimed. Brendan’s boss, who runs the Phnom Penh Post and has been here for a good twenty years, remembers going to Angkor Wat alone, or at least only with body guards. The temples and the area in and around Siem Reap used to be a stronghold for the Khmer Rouge after they were thrown from power but before Pol Pot died in 1998. The area was still not considered safe at the time, and tourism was far from thriving. In this context, Brendan’s boss had the chance to see the temples almost completely by himself. I have to be honest in saying that I really don’t think I would have enjoyed the solitude if it was required that I have body guards shadowing me, but I have felt this urgent need to see the sites before they become more developed. I’m sure they’ve changed, but fortunately, it’s still possible to walk all over them, and it’s still very possible to be at a temple entirely by one’s self

Angkor is becoming a must-see destination for good reasons. When I saw the temples, I had the same feeling that I had when I saw Teotihuacán outside of Mexico City and as I’d imagine I’d feel seeing the Taj Mahal or Machu Picchu. All of these sites have the feeling of being a wonder of the world and of being a significant world heritage site. The Angkor site is more than just Angkor Wat and actually fills square miles upon square miles of land. They are these absolutely incredible ancient stone structures set in the jungle, and every time you think you’ve seen them, you go further down the roads that cut through the area and see infinite more. I spent two days at the sites and easily could have spent more time. Mel generously hosted me during my stay since she is doing her research one of the villages there, and she was originally going to take me on her motorbike to see some of the more removed sites that we’d have all to ourselves. Unfortunately, something that came up at work prevented her from having much free time, but I used a tuk-tuk to get around and was plenty busy sticking to the main sites.

These are some of the highlights: Angkor Wat is the centerpiece, said to be the largest religious building in the world. It’s the one with the five coned towers (usually appearing as three from most angles). It was incredible, huge, and ornate, and though there were many people at the site, it was still possible to see parts of it on my own with no one else around. Also, monkeys travel some of the surrounding paths. The Bayon is another one of the well-known sites. It’s the one with the huge heads carved into the sides and towers of the temple. It wasn’t one of my favorites, as I actually liked the way the same giant head carvings appeared in the stone entryways set into the wall that surrounded this whole section of what used to be the old city there, but it was obviously still impressive. The Tomb Raider temple, not actually known by that name in historical records, contrary to popular belief, might have been my absolute favorite. Actually called Ta Prohm, this one felt the most exotic. I happened to get to it just as a five-minute drizzle was passing through, which gave the site a mystical quality and also cleared most other people out. Although it’s been cleared significantly since the state it was in when it was “rediscovered,” this is the site with the giant trees growing in and on top of the temples and is one of the sites that still really makes you feel as though you are stumbling upon it in the middle of the jungle. Finally, Phnom Bakheng was another favorite of mine. Although I simply climbed up and didn’t indulge, elephants are available to ride up this single hilltop temple, serving as a reminder that elephants used to be the means of exploring the Angkor complex during most of the twentieth century. At the top, it was great to be able to see out across all of the surroundings and even to be able to see distant mountains and Lake Tonle Sap, the huge Lake in the region whose river feeds into the Mekong right at Phnom Penh. The sunset was great from up there.

At the top, I also ran into some monks and their students, who wanted to practice their English. In general, I was surprised by how much less accustomed the people in Siem Reap seem to be to having lots of foreigners around in comparison to the residents of Phnom Penh. I think it must really be the result of there being so many UN workers here in Phnom Penh in the early 1990’s, which somewhat influenced the attitudes of residents in Phnom Penh. Though there are many tourists that come through Siem Reap, my using the little bit of Khmer that I know seemed to impress every vendor I interacted with, and they usually asked about what I was doing here in Cambodia and tended to treat me much better and take a greater interest in me than many of the people here in Phnom Penh. Additionally, the monks and their students were simply waiting at the top of Phnom Bakheng in the hopes of running into a native English speaker and getting to practice their English with him. They were very excited to see me, especially when I sat down to talk with them. Phnom Penh perhaps just has a more urban feel, and it took some getting used to to let down my guard.

On the bus ride back, I had an empty seat next to me, a blessing for a six hour ride back, yet as soon as we got under way, a rather large Khmer man came from the seat behind me and asked if he could sit next to me. I instinctively said yes but was then seriously contemplating showing him the fact that there was a completely empty set of seats just one row further in front of me and that we really didn’t have to cram in together. He started chatting with me, and his English was great. As with many situations here, I’ve had to learn to put down my guard and acknowledge that many people actually are just being friendly and aren’t necessarily trying to sell me something or make me uncomfortable. In an exchange that’s not too uncommon here but would weird me out if it happened in New York, we exchanged phone numbers and he insisted that I call him the next time I was in Siem Reap so that he could show me to some of his favorite temples that fewer people know about.

All in all, that was my adventure to Angkor. I was pleasantly surprised by how Cambodian the temples still feel, even though they have become the country’s number one tourist attraction. From the monks who wanted to practice their English to the Khmer people picnicking around Angkor Wat at sunset, the sites still manage to be frequented by Cambodians. At first, I was hesitant to ask people I met about their favorite sites because I assumed they couldn’t afford the steep admission fees or that they would have written off the site as only for tourists, just as I have never been to the Statue of Liberty as far as I can remember. But many did have favorite temples and spent quite a lot of time inside. Cambodians get free admission, and the fact that the temples are spread out over such a vast area means that there are communities and villages scattered throughout them, places where people still live. So although there are many small buses and tourist vans that pass through the temple roads, it’s also not uncommon to see a motorbike pulling a trailer with a pig on it for dinner to one of the villages. And at sunset, nearby residents used the fields next to the temples to run around, sit, eat, and relax. I was refreshed by the fact that, though it’s becoming a major tourist site, it still felt very untouched and natural and that I got to see it now before it continues to evolve.