We arrived on Easter Sunday evening. Touch, a driver sent by the Indra Angkor Hotel, picked us up in his gold-embroidered tuk-tuk, the majestic red and blue flag bearing the solid image of Angkor Wat waving behind us off the back. We passed a few well-lit, sprawling luxury hotels and then got into a more humble, populous neighborhood where we left the paved main road for a torn-up side street with a gravel trench through the middle, our street for the next four days, Smiling Circuit. I always find it interesting to see a new place for the first time after dark; a lot of its mystery remains well into the light of the next day. In the case of Cambodia, the juxtaposition of joy and pain, beauty and tragedy, that we found in the life stories of most locals we met there, has caused that sense of mystery, of having so much more to learn, to persist in me weeks later. [To that end I've since read and would recommend The Gate by Francios Bizot; I've watched and would also recommend First They Killed My Father, the story of Loung Ung.]
As we walked around town that first night we saw families dancing and drinking beer in open home courtyards, a few people setting up sleeping pallets or hammocks under mosquito netting in tucked-away corners off the paths, but mostly a rollicking night life along the stagnant, buggy Siem Reap River. Food carts and little red plastic chairs congested the park walkways; lighted footbridges led across the river to an enticing handicraft market piled with shining woodcuttings of the temples and colorful lightweight clothing in a variety of patterned textiles. We walked down Pub Street just to see if it was as loud, blaring, and strobe-lit as Khao San Road in Bangkok and confirmed that it was. We wound up instead at a small cocktail bar, Picasso, where we made friends with Bob, a retiree who lives part-time in Kansas City, MO, and part-time in Siem Reap. Bob has traveled extensively through Southeast Asia. There was so much to discuss that we talked well into the night and ended up meeting again two days later for conversation over drinks at a couple of stylish locales he recommended, Miss Wong and Barcode.
At 11am the next day we reunited with Touch and hired a local Angkor Wat guide, Tirat, to take us on a 7-hour circuit of the temple complex that would end with the sunset atop Phnom Bakheng. For those familiar with these temple visits, we started out on the "Big Circuit" but eventually changed it up to save Angkor Wat for another day. Instead on that first day we saw Pre Rup and East Mebon (10th Century Hindu Temples to Shiva), Ta Som, Ta Prohm of Tomb Raider fame, Bayon of the smiling faces set within the Angkor Thom gates, and Ta Keo of the many stairs (so many that they sparked Tirat's fear of heights and he uncharacteristically waited for us below). Carved murals on the walls of Bayon illustrate the story of the Khmer and Chinese alliance to defeat the conquering Muslims. Time capsules of everyday life, they also depict the construction of the temple and the elaborate party held to celebrate the victory. Most of the Angkor complex temples were to Hindu deities, especially Shiva and Vishnu, but in later centuries incorporated the Buddha and other elements of Buddhism. Life-size statues of lions and elephants, symbols of royal power, feature prominently across most temples we saw. Many elaborately carved mantels and columns show the apsara, a female fairy-like spirit whose graceful winding motions have given form to the traditional apsara dance of Cambodia.
Learning about the temples with Tirat
Sunset at Phnom Bakheng
A lot of the temples have been in the process of UNESCO restoration, often with the sponsorship or in collaboration with other nations like France, China, and India. In fact, Tirat spoke highly of the French. In his opinion, although they colonized Cambodia for 100 years, they invested in studying and preserving the temples, contributing French-style architecture that still stands in the cities today, and helping Cambodia win back provinces it had lost to Thailand. Tirat was not so favorable towards the Chinese, in his eyes a constant threat who supported the Khmer Rouge and the devastation they wrought. Tirat was about ten years old in 1977, when two years after the rise of Pol Pot, the regime killed his father ("they were killing all the teachers"), as well as all five of his older siblings. I was a bit surprised Tirat volunteered this information because Bob had mentioned the night before that in all his time in Siem Reap the local people have been reticent to discuss what happened in their recent history. Tirat, though, was direct: "Pol Pot killed half his people." When we asked if the Khmer Rouge, once defeated, faced reprisals, he said not really -- in the international court high level officials were sentenced to jail for war crimes and many of them died in prison or eventually at home in poor health. Pol Pot himself, he claimed, was murdered by his own body guard. The official record states that Pol Pot died of heart failure while serving a life sentence for his crimes.
We were standing together at the entrance to Ta Som when we had this conversation. I'm not sure what sparked it, but it may have been that we'd just passed what would come to be a common sight around the temples -- a raised, shaded wooden platform where musicians sat playing for tips. When I'd asked about the style of music Tirat had drawn my attention to something I'd completely missed at first glance: the musicians were survivors of land mines from the Khmer Rouge. All were missing limbs and unable to do other jobs. Taken together with Tirat's own story, I was left with a desolate question: how do people go on after such devastation? Later that evening Tirat would share that of his fifteen or so close friends from his adulthood in Siem Reap, only about five are alive and well today. When I asked him why he thought so many had died young, he said it was from disease caused by too much drinking. On the other hand, in terms of Tirat's personal life, he said he is very close with his surviving sibling, a younger sister. "She did really well," he said, "she has five kids. I only have three." The population of Cambodia is now just about 17 million after a relative low in 1979; Tirat repeatedly mentioned the 17 million mark with pride. How do people go on? They have children. They work hard to give them a good life.
Certainly the festivities around Khmer New Year, celebrated April 14 - 17, were a sign of the good life. Along the Siem Reap River the next day, we passed through elaborate decorations and food tents in preparation for the massive party. The decorations were so captivating to the eye -- 3D 5-pointed stars in multi-colored cellophane, almost like structured balloons with more of a stained glass look in the daylight and a pulsing glow by night from the lightbulbs placed inside. These were strung across walkways or doorways and interspersed with colorful streamers. The effect was extremely lively and joyous.
Later that day we participated in a Khmer cooking class with a local family. The first stop in the class was to a local village market, where Sorya, our guide, talked us through market infrastructure: it sells local and imported products from early in the morning til about noon; then it closes at heat of day for a rest and re-opens from 3 - 6/7pm when most people go to get their next round of food for cooking. We saw a fish stand where women were hard at work hammering the heads of fresh-caught, still wriggling bar fish, then grasping their subdued bodies to descale them with a scraping tool. There were flies simply covering everything, to the point that Sorya, who'd just finished saying that the bar fish is what we would be eating later in our fish amuk, said, "don't worry -- we get yours from the supermarket." Other typical products she pointed out in the market were donuts of fried flour in palm oil, sticky rice wrapped in banana leaf, and lots of vegetables.
From there it was back in the tuk-tuks to the family home, on stilts over a cement floor open garage that had been converted into a demonstration-friendly kitchen with long dinner table on a raised platform. Out back they grew their own produce, nearly all of which we used to cook our meals: oyster mushrooms, kaffir limes, fish leaf, eggplant, tomatoes, lemongrass, long beans, and basil (not "Thai basil," Sorya said, "Cambodian basil." She winked; it's the same plant but not imported from Thailand and therefore definitively not Thai). The space was pristine and we entered barefoot. All participants chose their own set of four courses to prepare. I did the green mango salad with dried fish, pineapple fried rice, fish amuk (the national dish of Cambodia, pictured at left), and sticky sweet potato dessert. The cooking itself was a super efficient process facilitated by our instructors having pre-peeled pre-proportioned most of the materials, and the meal was delicious.
A trip to Siem Reap is not complete without touring the primary temple, Angkor Wat -- three stories of towers, murals, and perimeter pathways on a massive scale. It was an added bonus to see the temple right up against the Khmer New Year, since the majority of visitors seemed to be Cambodians in town for the holiday, rather than foreign tourists who, some might say wisely, avoided the heat of this season. The grounds were full of the elaborate decorations we'd seen in town and apsara dance rehearsals were happening, so we got to check that out too amidst the floating dragons, colorful paper flower displays, and giant chess boards decking out the area.
Our final activity in the four-day whirlwind of Siem Reap was making a visit to Kompong Khleang village off the Tonle Sap Lake. We went with a Community First tour led by Saro, a native of the floating migratory fishing village. On the way, we stopped for bamboo sticky rice, a food I now dream about. A mixture of rice, black beans, coconut milk and palm sugar is shoved down into hollow bamboo and then stoppered on top with a bamboo leaf plug. The stick is placed on an open grill to cook. Once the outer bamboo has turned from green to tan, you peel its hard outer layers down and pull out the plug to expose a compact mass of tasty soft, sweet rice that has gained a thin skin from mingling with the bamboo. So, so good! So good, actually, that the demand for this stuff keeps in business about thirty stands, spaced just ten feet apart from each other along a section of the main thoroughfare between Siem Reap and the Tonle Sap.
Kompong Khleang is a crowded village entirely built on stilts. The main industries are fishing, smoking the fish for sale, and rice farming. Families have many children; the average is 6. Their way of life is very much influenced by the wet and dry seasons. Kids too small to swim well in the high water of the rainy season simply don't go to the local school because it is too much out of the day of this laboring community for the parents to boat them over. To assist with this situation, the foundation Saro works for, Bridge of Life, operates a community primary school right on site of the fishing village so the primary aged kids don't have to commute. He showed us the classroom, in the house of the teacher who is instructor by day and fisherman by evening, which educates 44 pupils right now, ages 6 - 8. The proceeds from the trip we were on go back to help fund the school.
Next, we went on a boat ride out to the enormous Tonle Sap. I was very eager to do this because my co-worker had recommended it to me after his visit to the area. We were going to see Tonle Sap in the dry season, while he'd seen it in the rainy; the water changes ten meters across the year! In the dry season the river along which Kompong Khleang is situated is a small trickle. The community actually gets its water from a pond in these months so as to preserve what usable waterway the river can provide out to the lake. At its deepest, this thoroughfare for all of the commerce of the community was only about a meter, and our boat driver had to stop and unstick his motor tail repeatedly, clogged by clumped trash or plants in the limited water. Eventually, though, the shallow river opened to the enormous Tonle Sap. We watched the sun set over a horizon of seemingly endless water while Saro told us more about the people who live there. The edge of the Vietnamese floating village was visible as soon as we entered the lake from the river. There were floating homes, some with four to five dogs walking about. We learned later on in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam, that the dogs deter crows from the fishing haul. All around us boats hauled fish and produce.
Comments