How Much Happy Do You Want?

4/8

It's always surprising to me when I actually do what I say I'm going to do, so the fact that I actually got up, ate breakfast and left the guesthouse early felt rather shocking.  My headache was almost completely gone, and after how little I'd done for the past few days, I had tons of energy so I decided to walk over to Tuol Sleng (the former high school that had been turned into a torture/prison under the Khmer Rouge) and see it and pay my respects.

The only problem with this plan was that, despite the horrors that occurred here, I could think of little besides the wildly crass and inappropriate jokes about torture and high school that I wanted to make.  This urge was not helped by the fact that the signs kept referring to Pol Pot and his "clique" and that part of the main things used for torture had previously been part of their P.E. program (a series of ropes, presumably previously used for climbing, that were used to turn prisoners upside down and dip them into filthy (like, portapotty filthy) water). 

It was actually really sad though and while I'd thought it even more at the Killing Fields yesterday, it really did make me consider the horrors of war and man's inhumanity to man.  At the same time though, it made me remember that there are things worth fighting for (Tuol Sleng was largely populated with political prisoners) and that the people who are fighters have to fight.  Once again, I'm getting all convoluted and confusing my original point and making it sound hard and bad in a way it isn't, but that's life. 

There was a series of photographs of the prisoners and some of what they went through.  Many of them were mugshots or otherwise uninteresting, but I did really like this one.

 

Another thing I was forced to consider was the inaction of other people and countries.  Several of the signs said things to the effect of "so that it may never happen again" and similar, which made me think: a) haven't we heard this before? (In regards to the Holocaust, in particular,) and b) how are we still allowing this to happen now?  And it is.  I'm thinking of the situation of the Sudan in particular, but any instance would do.  I don't even really mean this in an accusatory way; obviously I'm not doing anything to help the situation there either, but just that it should perhaps make us think.  Maybe as human beings, we really aren't made to think of much besides ourselves.  I'm not some exemplary example of a person; the truth is that unless I saw something as likely to immediately affect me, I probably wouldn't go far out of my way to stop it, even when I do understand that it's a terrible injustice.  That's a hard truth to accept.

On the other hand, there are those who are true idealists and try to really solve the problems of the world.  Don't worry though, Tuol Sleng showed how those people just sucked and are enablers as well.  In what was actually the most interesting of their exhibits, the curators had collected a series of photographs taken by a Swedish man who'd been a serious Vietnam War protester and had been part of a very small party allowed into Cambodia under Pol Pot's rule in an attempt to show how well his extremist Communist revolution was working, and showed his comments from the time and his thoughts now.  It was really interesting and helped you to understand more how people can let themselves believe what they want to believe.  His thoughts seemed foolish and naive, and I couldn't ever imagine myself being weak-willed enough to believe in any of it.  At the same time, it made me a little bit sad and perhaps wistful because I also couldn't ever imagine myself [being young, naive, passionate] believing in a cause that strongly, and sometimes I wish I could.  Believing just seems so much easier sometimes.

So either you're cruel (strong) and uncaring or you're kind (weak) and foolish.  Either way, or even if you're something else, what I learned today (and really knew already,) is that you still suck.  Hope that helps!

One thing I have to add however, was that part of these exhibits and my experience in Cambodia in general left a really bad taste in my mouth in its anti-Americanism.  I'm not suggesting here that everything going on in that period in our history was perfect or even that we've always done such a great job regarding foreign policy, but the anti-Americanism here just felt harsh and a bit unwarranted, especially since the previous French war was completely, COMPLETELY, ignored.  It felt like propaganda, and Cambodia is one of the most corrupt countries in the entire world. 

Wooo, okay, breathe now.  After that, my day really did get much happier.  I went over to the National Museum and looked around at all the cool stuff (and some of it was really was very impressive, like the intricate wood creation that was a shed).  After that, though, I was starving, and my whole day went to pot.

Technically speaking, marijuana is illegal in Cambodia, but kind of barely since it's widely used in traditional medicine.  At worst, even if you got caught, it would be a minor fine (like $20-$50 tops) and probably more of a bribe fine than an actual one, so it's pretty gentle, unlike Singapore or Malaysia.

Every once in a while I enjoy a bit, but really rarely.  Most of the time, it just really doesn't appeal to me.  Part of this is because I don't want to pay for it, part of it is because usually when there's pot, there's alcohol, which I prefer, and part of it is because when I get high, the one stereotypical aspect I follow is the munchies route: I will eat 5,000 calories in an hour when I'm high.  So basically, I only smoke (or imbibe) pot about once a year on average.

All the same, it's probably been over a year since I have, and, if you add in the fact that there's actually a restaurant that serves it here, it's almost inevitable that I would get high.  Happy High Herb is a chain, and in Australia anyway, they sell only a legal alternative.  In Cambodia, it's Happy High Herb Pizza, which apparently they've been serving since 1994.  I was embarrassed ordering it- I won't lie- especially when the (very sweet) waitress asked me "How much happy do you want?" and I said "Not too much, I don't want to get high" and she suggested medium, which I agreed with.  So I had a supreme-style pizza, which was decent, not great, and felt just a little calmer, though not high.  Here's the ground-up pot:

So after that, feeling calm about time and well, most things in life, I went over to see the Silver Pagoda.  There were actually several temples to see, some of which were really very cool.  Unfortunately, photographs were mostly forbidden and I was a bit disappointed to see that even in the Silver Pagoda, which is famous because the floor is made of silver tiles, the best parts were covered.

I walked over to the Foreign Correspondent's Club for their "famous" Happy Hour, which was nice to see, but made me slightly consider how nearly all Correspondent-type clubs are super Western or Colonial style oriented.  It was nice, though, but I eventually headed back over to Metro Cafe again looking for raspberries, after visiting this temple:

At the bar, I studied their menu and this seemed to offer an even greater concentration of raspberries, even though it was non-alcoholic.

It was ridiculously amazing.  I ate it halfway with a spoon, and I don't care that I was in a bar and eating my drink like a three year old, it was crazy good.  Afterwards, I headed back to my guesthouse and hung out there before leaving at around 8:30 for my 11:55 p.m. flight.

I think I may have made Cambodia sound like a kind of crappy place, and while it certainly wasn't my favorite, and was very hard, I don't want to leave it without admitting that Angkor Wat was incredibly, blow-your-mind awesome.  They call it the "8th Wonder of the World," as do many other places, but I think it's one of a few places that truly deserves that title, it really was incredible, impressive and amazing.

The Killing Fields

4/7

I still had a pretty bad headache today but I had to get out and do something, both because I was leaving tomorrow and because I was feeling restless and claustrophobic in the guesthouse.  I decided I could at least go see the Killing Fields (Choeung Ek Genocidal Center) and the Russian Market since they were the farthest out.  I hired a tuk tuk to take me out and started wandering around the fields.  They're actually very peaceful, not just a decent memorial, but truly calming.  Butterflies flitted over the mass graves and birds chirped on the boughs of the Killing Tree.

The main shrine was filled with skulls and other bones and what was interesting (in an admittedly very morbid way,) was how in some cases you could tell what they died from (gunshot wound, beaten, etc.)

The Russian Market was okay, interesting but not as cool as the guidebook had made it sound (mostly by saying that this was where the clothes from nearby factories like Hurley or Abercrombie & Fitch ended up) so I just wandered a bit, got a pair of pants mended and then walked back to the guesthouse.

Actually, I did buy a korma (a traditional, and still in constant use, Cambodian scarf) simply because of part of the history I'd read.  Several of the guidebooks had recommended getting one, just generally, but I'd been able to resist until I read about the group of Northeastern Cambodians who had really, seriously, resisted the Khmer Rouge, and who were branded by being forced to wear blue scarves.  My guidebook didn't clarify if these were korma or not, and I doubt it has any meaning to anyone anymore, but I just loved the idea; of fighting for something you truly believe in and never giving up, even when there's no sliver of hope, and of fighting just to fight, because you have to, because there's nothing else to do.

Meh...Headache

4/6

I'd planned to get up and start really doing my touristy stuff today but when I woke up I had a killer headache.  It felt like a combination between a migrane and a hangover but wasn't quite either.  It couldn't be a hangover because I had literally not drank a single drop of alcohol the day before, and it couldn't be a migrane, because as miserable as it was, I didn't have any particular sensitivity to light or sound, and the one time I have had a migrane before, I did have that sensitivity.  I took a couple of Tylenol with codeine and it seemed to help for a while mid-morning, but then the pain returned.  I didn't want to eat anything- just the idea of food sounded terrible, but I considered that with how much Coke Light I've been drinking lately it could be caffeine withdrawal so I went to the balcony and had a Coke Light and a demi baguette of garlic bread.  It didn't help enough and I spent the rest of the day in bed, getting up just once more to eat something for dinner.  I got fried rice, and it was fine, but I still didn't want to eat, so I forced myself to just eat the chicken so I'd at least have some protein.

*I made it to 20,000 words with this post- I wish my book were going this well!

Creepy Cambodian Men

4/5

Today I did almost nothing just because I was lazy.  My guesthouse has everything I need: reasonably fast working WiFi, my private room with bathroom with Western style toilet AND toilet paper AND soap, and a balcony restaurant with Coke Light, decent (though not great) food for a reasonable price and beer.  There was no reason to leave, so I didn't.

Everyone (my guidebook, other travelers, another guidebook) keeps telling me that the Cambodian people are so great and they're not.  They're not bad, and save for the creepiness of the men, I don't have much to say against them, but they're like anyone else.  Which pisses me off.  People are the same everywhere and that's fine but I'm getting really sick of guidebooks pulling superlative crap.  What's worse is that after reading how great they were in the guidebooks, I was annoyed to find that they were as human and normal and unspecial as everyone else, which would have been fine, but since I'd been told they were so wonderful, I actually got a bit upset with the Cambodians, which of course, is insane.  I'm really starting to hate guidebooks.  Not everywhere has great food/is beautiful/is exciting.

Cambodian men are by far the creepiest I've encountered so far.  After considering the issue for some time, I've decided that it's likely that that's related to the fact that they've had less time to adjust to tourists.  Until about 1998, Cambodia was pretty much a no-go zone as it was extremely dangerous, and they were targeting foreigners as late as 1994!  So even though they've had twelve years to adjust, foreign women are still relatively novel, as compared to Thailand, for example.  Anyway, they're really creepy.  They stare inappropriately and one guy on a motorbike followed me around on my bicycle until I lost him.  And yes, I'm sure he was following me as I tried stopping in the hope that he'd keep going.  He stopped, and started again, only after I had.  Fortunately it was during the day on main streets in the center of Siem Reap, but it was still creepy.  Even when I was entering the country, the guard who arranged my visa asked me if I had a boyfriend and even before I said no, just looked me up and down and continued to stare at me the entire time I was waiting.  I even remember that I had another example, but of course now I can't remember what it was.

Disappointed by Food, Faith Renewed by a Mojito

4/4 (Sunday)

I didn't want to do anything too stenuous today and since two guidebooks I consulted both said that you could see everything in Phnom Penh in two days and I had five before my flight to Korea, I wasn't going to rush myself.  The O'Russey market was close to me so I decided I'd get something to eat nearby then go look around there for a while.  It was nice, but not particularly fascinating or memorable, just like my lunch.

For a while I went back to my guesthouse and wrote and planned but I got restless and remembered that I wanted to go to Romdeng, a restaurant that specialized in gourmet Cambodian food, where I could try tarantula, a Cambodian delicacy.  I'd seen a special on it, as it was part of the Friends NGO, which trains the cooks and helps Cambodians learn skills and get work, and the owner of Chamkra, the vegetarian restaurant in Siem Reap, had recommended it, so I was really looking forward to it.  I walked around for over thirty minutes looking for the restaurant and cursing them for not having a better sign until I finally found it and noticed that they did actually have a decent sign- I just couldn't see it because the lights were all off.  A sign said it, and all the other Friends franchises- about half of the recommeneded places to eat in Phnom Penh, were closed from April 2nd through April 19th for the Khmer New Year.  I was pissed, not least of all because Khmer New Year only lasts from April 13-15 and I hadn't seen anything, ANYTHING, else that was closed because of that.  I know it was silly, but I'd just been really looking forward to this and so felt incredibly let down and disappointed.

I was so upset I almost went straight back to the guesthouse, but I was hungry so I decided that I'd just get some food then head back.  Instead I ended up wandering over to Metro Cafe, an expensive (for Cambodia,) but very nice bar.  Their menu was actually intriguing so I got peking duck roll bites, which were okay, and more excitingly, a raspberry mojito.  It wasn't perfect, but it was a very acceptable version- as good as I'd expect to get in any major city.  I've been craving raspberries lately so this made me feel much better about life and I pepped up.

The Night Market here was only on Friday through Sunday thus this would be my last chance to see it, so I walked up to it, bought a dragonfruit to have for breakfast and walked around.  A stage was set up and four teenagers; two girls, two boys were singing.  They were really bad.  Their voices just couldn't seem to do anything- I've heard elementary school choirs that sounded better.  I walked away pretty quickly, bought a present for my Stepdad and left the Night Market.

I strolled by the Tonle Sap lakefront to the point where it meets the Mekong River (not nearly as far as that makes it sound) on an esplanade that was halfway destroyed by constuction, and halfway a lovely, broad, well-lit boulevard with flags.  I walked down that part, past the Royal Palace and bought this from a woman selling them off the street. 

Several people on my bus had eaten them so I knew the right way to do so, though the seller opened it for me anyways.  It's basically part of a bamboo reed halfway filled with a strange, heavy rice mixture.  More than anything else, it tasted woody.  I ate a few bites to make sure I didn't want it and then threw the rest away.

Royal Palace

Angkor What?: Went There, Did That, But Didn't Get the T-shirt

4/3

Last night after my massage, I went out looking for something to eat and somehow the restaurant that looked the most appealing to me was called Fiesta! and yes, it was "Mexican" food. I put Mexican in quotes because in most of the world you can't really get anything truly resembling Mexican food at all.  It was about what I expected, though I have to add that it wasn't any worse than "Mexican" food I had in London or Paris. 

Across the street was a bar called Angkor What? that had a kind of clean-dirty theme; fairly dark with dark yellow walls covered in graffiti by customers, ranging from names to countries to insults to declarations of love, and naturally, profanities.  It was cool though, and they were playing surprisingly good music, including a lot of punk, which I always forget that I really do like, so I grabbed a beer and started doodling on a wall in between a heart with S + M written inside and scrawlings about a trip by some Aussies.  After writing several bits of nonsense, I noticed how cool the bar shirts were and considered buying one until I saw the sign that said that you got one free if you bought two jugs (which are pails of mixed alcoholic drinks, like rum and coke, with about 4-5 servings in them).  I briefly considered this but I didn't want to get drunk, and I couldn't morally buy a shirt when I could get it for free if I bought alcohol- that just goes against everything I believe in, in life.  So I left, shirtless save for my plain v-neck shirt, a bit disappointed I hadn't gone out there previously to get the shirt.  Oh well.

The next morning, at 7 a.m. I caught a van which took me to a bus, which took me to another bus and, after several stops and five bumpy hours, I was in Phnom Penh.  I found a guesthouse with WiFi, checked in and chilled out there for the rest of the day.

Shocked and Disgusted- Seriously, Don't Read This

4/2

As I may have said before, I'm not easily impressed.  The flip side of this is that I'm also not easily shocked, but today I saw something that really did shock me and almost made me throw up.

I'm staying one extra day in Siem Reap to get caught up on some writing and do some planning and errands.  I dropped off my laundry ($3 at $1/kilo), arranged a massage for tonight by Souk and went to the Old Market to get something to eat and buy a bus ticket  I was slowly looking around, found a place with noodles that looked good, ate some with a fried egg on top for $0.75 and started looking around at the other food, still a little bit hungry.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IS A VERY GRAPHIC DEPICTION OF A FISH BEING KILLED QUITE GRUESOMELY.  READ AT YOUR OWN RISK WITH A PLASTIC BAG NEARBY.

Past the vegetables, rice, cicadas and grasshoppers (?) available for sale by the kilo, were the stalls either built into the market walls or set up on the long metal cafeteria-style table.  Filled with chickens, live crabs, giant prawns, fish and women shelling thumbnail sized shrimp, it was interesting to look at, but I'd seen those all when I'd been there the day before.

What I hadn't seen before was the people with stalls set up on the ground.  Their food was kept in, and separated by, large metal sheets, the kind you'd find in an industrial kitchen.  Only one woman here, in between two other women selling vegetables, sold fish.  Nothing extraordinary about that until I noticed that they were still alive.  I don't know how, since there didn't seem to be any bucket nearby that they could have just been dumped from, nor were they in water, but somehow they were definitely still breathing.  You could watch their gills flare out and in as they gasped for water but remained dry.

One brave fish attempted escape and flopped about 10 inches into the air and over into the green leaves of a vegetable sellers tray.  Unfortunately for the fish, the woman just picked up its squirming body and threw it back into the sheet with the rest of the writhing black fish.

A shopper came up and must have asked for a fish just as I was passing by and I saw the fishmonger grab one at random.  It was also still wriggling but she held it tightly in her left hand, obviously practiced.  She then quickly brought the flat side of a small meat cleaver down hard on the fish's head with a dull "Thwack."  A second later, she did it again.  "Thwack."

It convulsed as if having a seizure with larger twitches.  Back and forth it vibrated rapidly for several seconds.  This wasn't the flopping of a fish out of water but something far worse and just so obviously unnatural.

I could not look away.  I'd always thought that was a silly phrase, cliched and overused, especially accompanied by the words car crash or train wreck.  I don't know that I've ever seen a train wreck, but I've seen crashes and have always been able to look away easily if I wanted to.  With this fish, I could not stand to watch but I'd simply lost the ability to move any part of my body.  It was horrifying.  Just writing about it makes me feel nauseous all over again.

This part was the worst, though it was over after about 3-5 seconds; as soon as the woman held the fish up at an angle and used the blade to cut halfway into its head behind its cheek, it stopped moving.  Hopefully it was fully dead as the woman cut into it's head on the other side, a bit of bright red blood contrasting with the bright white meat of its muscles, and began to descale its carcass.

Finally I could go, which was fortunate as I was worried I was going to throw up.  As I got out of the market into the street I felt a bit better, though my appetite was gone and my stomach continued to feel slightly strange for hours.  Then I began to wonder why it had bothered me as much as it did.  It was certainly disgusting but I'd seen gross things before, including animals killed in front of me.  I decided that this had upset me so much because it was so unnatural and made so little sense.  Why hadn't the fish all died out of water?  Why couldn't she have just chopped the head off in one go?  And why, why, why did it have to quiver like that- that was truly creepy.

Okay, though, enough of that, I'm off to my massage.

Sunrise: It's NEVER Worth It

4/1/2010

Because I'm the most incredible person who's ever existed, I woke up and got up at 4:30 a.m. this morning, just to see the damn sunrise over Angkor Wat.  Everyone told me "Oh- it's incredible- all reds and oranges," and "I'm really not a morning person, but it was awesome and totally worth it."  Everyone lies.  It was okay once I got to the right spot, the sun did look kind of cool half yellow and half red, but it didn't illuminate the clouds or sky around it with any color and it was not even remotely, slightly worth waking up that early for.

A bit annoyed, I headed out for the other temples I wanted to see.  First I went into the huge Angkor Thom complex.  This is the gate I passed through:

You may not be able to see it well here, but those are good soldiers pulling a snake.  Around a mountain.  In order to churn butter to make a god or demon immortal, but Vishnu intercedes, and some apsara dancers (nymphs) appear.  It's a long, convuluted story but it is interesting, so if you happen to have a lot of time, here's the wikipedia link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samudra_manthan

Past the South Gate, I rode on to Bayon, a large temple.  When I got there there was one tourist couple taking photographs but it was otherwise empty.  They left shortly after and from about 6:30 to 7, I only had to share the temple with a man praying in front of Buddha.  This was even more exciting because this is one of the important "must-see" temples and I was worried it would be overrun with tourists.  It was also awesome; walls of four to five foot faces looked down at me with empty eyes and smiles crooked from centuries of abandonment and vandalism.

Eventually, the hoards of tourists did come to Bayon so I left to see the next temple, Baphoun.  It's been described as the world's largest jigsaw puzzle because when they rediscovered Baphoun, it was mostly in pieces and it's still under serious construction today.  Around the back, once I could actually figure out where it was, a giant reclining Buddha was built as one of the walls of the temple, which was kind of cool to see.

From there, I went to the Terrace of the Elephants, which was just adorable.

Then the Terrace of the Leper King (great name, no real story):

Then Phimeanakas, which was not particularly interesting and full of rude Western European tourists.

I was starting to get really grouchy and exhausted and decided that I really needed something to eat and drink so I looked at the nearby tents and didn't see any set up as restaurants and was just about to give up when one of the several people shouting "Cold Drink?" at me, added in "Something to Eat?"  I stopped and looked again at her tent area.  There was no kitchen or restaurant and definitely no menu.  She offered noodles and I asked for rice, upon which she offered to make fried rice.  She only had beef, not chicken, but it was good enough. 

After I'd eaten most of it and downed a Coke Light and half of a giant water, she started asking me questions.  I gave a few basic answers and she started telling me about her life.  She had seven brothers and sisters, was married with one year old son and was 23.  One of her brothers had died and her mother had died three months later.  I asked her if she thought that her mother had died of a broken heart, hoping that she'd understand that I didn't mean it literally.  She did, and nodded.  She told me all about the upcoming Khmer New Year and what people did for that: esentially ate a lot and spent a bunch of time with family and friends.  Unfortunately, as she explained to me, it was a big holiday, but a private one (like Christmas or Thanksgiving) so I probably wouldn't see much.  Later she told me about Khmer weddings; she said that they were very colorful and lasted at least two days.  I can't remember everything now, I can't even remember her name, but she was very interesting to talk to.

In my former bad mood, I'd considered skipping Preah Khan, a temple that was supposed to be very interesting, but was somewhat far away, and in the opposite direction of town and the way I wanted to go.  Now refreshed, I decided I could do it so I set off.  As I said previously, I didn't feel hot when I was actually on the bike so it was a lovely ride out.

On my way to Preah Khan, I passed South Kleang, North Kleang, Tep Pranam and the Preah Pithu Group but just rode up to or by them without stopping or taking any pictures because they just weren't that exciting.

Preah Khan was another huge complex but it was originally set up as more of a village with a temple inside and a sort of minor fortress wall around.  It was cool, though the only really interesting thing about it was its size.  But wait, actually, there was one other really cool thing about it and that it had a double storied library (I think?).  Many of the temples are tiered but this was the only one I saw with two usable floors.  Anyway, there was a ladder on the ground next to it- just a simple, metal construction ladder, but it looked good enough for me so even though I knew it was foolish, I propped it up against the second level and went up and walked around the old columns.

Baksei Chamkrong was another of those random temples that isn't supposed to be anything special, but just happens to be on the way to/from something else.  It was nearly noon by this time so most of the tourists were gone for the time being because it was just too hot for them and no one was at this particular temple.  It had a ton of steps to climb up to the top, which I always like because it makes me feel adventerous and like I'm doing something cool and different, even though I realize I'm actually not.  I found a slightly shady spot at the top and sat there for a while.  I meditated briefly, mostly because I felt like my intuition hadn't been as strong as usual lately and meditation is supposed to help.  It was okay (the meditation, not the temple- which I thought was really neat).

The last temple I wanted to see was Phnom Bakheng, which has a great view of the city and some of the other temples and is supposed to be a great spot to watch the sunset, but you have to walk up a very steep 2-3 km hill/mini-mountain.  At sunset they have elephants available to rent to take you up there which I would've done but they weren't there at the time so I had to walk/climb.  At 12:30, it was so freaking hot I almost died, and I was sweating like crazy- it was hard work, though I did better than I would've expected, especially since I haven't been running or exercising as much as I usually do.  Once I finally got up the mountain, I had to climb a series of steep stairs, though the view and the complete lack of tourists made it worth it.

I stopped and got a coconut milkshake and it was so good that I had another.  Enjoying my bicycle ride on the way back into town, I passed these kids and I just had to take a picture because even though it's hard to see, that's the moat around Angkor Wat but they're just having fun splashing around.

That afternoon, I did a few errands and then went to Seeing Hands, an NGO supported massage parlor where the masseurs are blind, to get an hour-long massage for $5, plus a $2 tip for Souk, my masseuse and said I'd come back the next day.

P.S. I saw something today that was described as a "Stretchy Fur Preventing Nipple," What was it really?
A baby bottle top.

Temples, Temples and more Temples

3/31

Today I did actually manage to get up at 6 a.m. and ride my bike through town and out to the temples.  The traffic in Cambodia is odd.  It's not so horribly busy, and surprisingly, most people do seem to actually pay attention to the traffic lights BUT they drive in whatever direction they want to.  People are generally supposed to drive on the right here, but motorcyclists, who are the worst drivers here anyway, seem to ignore this and drive into oncoming traffic whenever it suits them.

Once I got out of town onto the road towards Angkor Wat, however, the trip became quite enjoyable.  It was already pretty hot out (85* or so) but as long as I was riding, the heat didn't bother me, likely because of the wind.  Whenever I stopped to look at a temple though, I just started dripping liters of sweat.  I started at Prasat Kravan, a relatively uninteresting but often visited temple with carvings of Vishu and Lakshami (sp?) in the brick walls:

Then I headed over to Bat Chum, which was quite cool, and since it was slightly out of the way there were no other tourists there so it seemed much better than it was.

On my ride back to the main road, I passed tons of rice paddies, a family with a small daughter who waved enthusiastically, a few people also riding bicycles carrying straw brooms into town, and a group of maybe 20 elementary school aged boys in school uniforms, also all on bikes, who seemed thrilled to see me and shouted and waved until I passed.  It was an odd little experience, like being in a somewhat rural part of Cambodia, yet while inside their foremost tourist attraction.

Next, I went to Banteay Kdei which was especially neat as it was done in the Bayon style of temple, which I hadn't seen yet.  As I walked in I was accosted by several people, mostly women and children, trying to sell me postcards, guidebooks, handmade jewelry and scarves.  I ignored them, which really is the best thing to do, even though it sounds mean, but one of the girls, Tong, followed me this time, and I'm not quite so rude that I can ignore someone trying to have a one on one conversation with me.  She asked where I was from and I told her the United States.  Proudly she told me that Washington D.C. was the capital.  I later discovered that this is what every child in Cambodia will tell you when you say that's where you're from and one little boy even asked my state and knew Sacramento was the capital!  Regardless, I started chatting with her a bit, because she was charming and I couldn't quite help it.  She told me she wanted to give me one of the handmade bracelets for free and I told her "No thank you," so many times that I started to feel bad so eventually I took it.  I knew this was a scam and that my guilt would force me to buy an overpriced postcard from her on the way out, and she knew this, but for this one time, I just couldn't help myself.  So I did take the bracelet, which was probably worth about ten cents, and on my way out, I did buy a postcard from her for $1.  It was okay though, because she knew, and I knew, and she knew that I knew, and I knew that she knew that I knew that it was all a scam and that I just felt guilty and wanted to help her out, irresponsible as helping children in this way really is.

 

Right across the street was Sras Srang, so I went over and took a few pictures but it was extremely boring as most of the temple was underwater.

I bicycled over to Pre Rup which was a "temple-mountain," which is a temple that's built upward.  These type of temples sound like a pain in the ass, and they are; tons of steps so steep your pants will split, but the reason is that it's supposed to remind you of the mountain the guy had to climb in their branch of Hinduism.  (Can you tell I'm getting lazier and lazier and more forgetful with this blog?)  Anyway, this was yet another style of temple and the interesting thing about it was that it was made of three different types of rock: brick, sandstone (which is much harder than our or Australian sandstone, by the way) and lava rock.

The next temple was East Mebon which is very similar to Pre Rup:

Across the road from East Mebon were several tented shops and restaurants.  Even though it was only a bit after 10 a.m., I'd been bicycling and climbing temples for four hours already in the heat, which by now was extremely hot, so I decided to take a break of sorts.  I wanted to go out to Banteay Srei because Chris and Amarita and all the guidebooks said that even though it was much father away (something like 25 km from East Mebon, 37 km from the city of Siem Reap,) it was fantastic and amazing.  So I planned to take a tuk tuk out there and on the way back, see Banteay Samre which wasn't supposed to be that fantastic but wasn't too far out of the way from the road.

Unfortunately, all the tuk tuks (meaning all three of them) in front of East Mebon were already in use by visitors so I asked around and finally made a deal with a woman to get a motorbike ride roundtrip for $7.  The only catch was that I had to wait for her brother to get back, as he was the one who would be driving me since he was a cop so he wouldn't be stopped and asked to pay the extra fee.  That was fine, so I bought a water, waited about 10-15 minutes and then we set off.  We had to stop to get gas, which most motorcyclists buy from the side of the road where vendors keep the gas in various one liter bottles: liquor bottles, water bottles, Pepsi, Coke and Sprite bottles.  There are normal gas stations here, mostly used by cars, and the prices aren't that different, but this is just how it's done.  I actually took this picture in Phnom Penh, but it's the same thing.

Banteay Srei was different from the other temples, for one thing, it was quite pink.  More importantly, its carving were more detailed and better preserved than any other temples in the area.  There were many tourists there, which was annoying, but it was still nice to look at.  Overall, though, I didn't care for it that much.  I could see its value and admit it was exquisitely done, but for whatever reason it didn't do anything for me, though retrospectively it does seem pretty incredible.

Banteay Samre, however, was awesome.  I was the only tourist there, save one British couple who asked me to take their picture and took mine in exchange.  It wasn't just its emptiness that was cool, but it had walls so high you could actually feel lost or like you really were exploring without even the temple itself as a guide.  I really did feel like Lara Croft now, so I had to jump down from steps unnecessarily and slow- fake run through part of the inner portico.  It was stupid, but fun and it made me laugh.  At myself.  By myself.  In an ancient, empty temple.

So after all that templing, I was rather tired but as I bicycled the 45 (or was it an hour?) back into town, I got some of my energy back.  I went to the phone shop and while the guy was trying to make it work, I watched his two year old son eat duck embryo.  I wish I'd gotten a picture and had even considered it at the time, but was too embarrassed.  It was very strange to watch, not just because of what he was eating, but because of the meticulousness that he ate it with.  Using a tiny spoon, he'd scrape a bit out of the egg and move it from the egg holder dish to a plate with pepper and pepper and basil, then combine variations of the three.  It was simply a bizarre thing to watch, especially because I think he was trying to engage me in a water drinking competition- I won because I finished my bottle.

After getting my phone working and relaxing at my hostel for a while, I rode out to my Aunt's hotel and from there we took a van out to the dock to go to Chong Kneas, the floating village.

From the first view of the latte-colored lake, I knew it was a bad idea, the $15 charge for a boat, that went directly to a corporation (as even shown on the ticket) just confirmed that.  $15 is a lot of money in Cambodia, especially for a crappy should-be-15 minute boat ride.  Had I not been with my Aunt and her friend, I would have simply turned around and gone back, but as it was, I got on the tiny boat with the loud engine on the coffee colored water. 

As if I needed any confirmation of my previous judgments, the faces of returning tourists we passed were proof enough- of several boats we passed, I only saw one person smiling.  There was none of the happy chatter you usually hear on tours, just depressed silence.

After about seven minutes on the sputtering boat, we stopped.  Our inept Captain had steered us into the bottom of the river.  To be fair, it was very shallow and quite narrow, but none of the other boats had any problems.  Amarita later said that she'd noticed that he had bloodshot eyes and liquor or beer bottles under the seat, but I didn't see these.  We had to get on another boat with other tourists to go around, and when we finally got to the village, it was deeply, horribly depressing.

It was interesting, in a way.  I can't deny that, it's just that it was interesting in the worst, most horrible, disgusting way ever.  Being in Cambodia, with the extreme poverty and landmine victims, is difficult enough, but this was even worse.  Things you didn't ever want to think about, and didn't ever want to be true (like the fact that they drink, cook with, bathe and defecate all in the same water) were true.  Ethnically Vietnamese, the people of these floating villages seemed stuck in a disgusting type of poverty, the disparity of which I'd never quite seen.

Getting to their tourist point and reading the information signs just made it worse.  They were communes with literacy levels much lower than equivalent groups on land, desperately poor and dying at every moment.

After all that, we didn't feel terribly happy and managed to just walk around the Old Market for a bit longer before saying good-bye as they were leaving for Phnom Penh the next morning.