Clinging to My Sanity: The Angkor Complex

Sunday, January 25, 2015

The Angkor Complex

Our wariness was growing as we left Luang Prabang. We didn't want to leave; we all could of used another day or two there. I'd like to go back and just do a bike tour of Laos. But we had some of the most amazing ruins in the world to see, so onward we went.

Arriving in Cambodia was a $hit show, worse than that of Laos. The visa is basically an employment program, and they have ten people sitting there to process them. Of course, they also stop everyone to have you fill out a health form. They take the visa fees in dollars, and we'd brought a bunch but also spent a bunch (you can pay for many things in Indochina in dollars, and a lot of prices are quoted that way). What we hadn't realized was that Cambodia uses dollars almost entirely (small change is given in rials). So as we shelled over our last dollars for visas and the cab to our hotel, we fretted about how to get more. We laughed at the irony of getting rials from the ATM and having to change them to dollars at a bank. Until we went to the ATM and realized that they only distributed dollars, because that was what the country used.

We cabbed it to our hotel, only to realize later that the hotel would have picked us up for free. The cab driver offered us his services as an Angkor driver, and we tried to ask him how much he charged, but he couldn't understand us and answered a different question. At the hotel, too, the receptionist had some trouble communicating with us. Now, you know I'm not one to complain about people in other countries not speaking English... but if you work in tourism and English is the lingua franca among tourists, it would really help to speak English. We asked the receptionist about a tuk-tuk to Angkor; there was some nonsensical interlocution, and eventually, we reserved a driver. The next day, a couple of Chinese guests were trying to explain to him that they wanted to check in rather than check out.

The hotel itself was pretty awful. It was in the shadow of a nicer hotel, which probably explains the rave reviews (the rating was mixed up with those of the main hotel). We'd gone for mid-range throughout the trip, but all the mid-range was sold out by the time we booked for Siem Reap, and, given the high ratings, we opted for this very inexpensive place. And we got what we paid for. The three of us were in a cramped room with one functioning overhead light and a shower that drenched the entire bathroom. It's typical for showers to just be showerheads in the bathroom, with the water draining into holes in the floor if not an actual drain, but in other places you could turn on the shower without soaking the entire bathroom. It was fine, I guess--it was what it was--but it compounded our wariness.

We hadn't really figured out what we'd do in Angkor. We'd done well thus far by winging it, i.e., showing up at a place with a vague plan and seeing where our wandering, combined with local suggestions, would take us. I nonetheless tried to get my head around the Angkor complex, but my head is not that way; I couldn't understand it until I saw it. Jay also looked at the books, but also struggled to know what was what. Rick was even further out there ("so, what's this Angkor thing? Is that, like, the main attraction here?"). Over dinner at Peace Cafe (Jay noted that this trip took him to the hippy-dippiest places ever), we tried to come up with a basic plan. Luckily for us, the tuk-tuk driver for the hotel was awesome (and this almost redeemed everything else about the hotel). He asked us if we had a plan, and when it was clear that we didn't, he just took us around to where he thought best. The next day, I added some places. But it worked out really well.

None of us knew what to expect. I'd always wanted to go, but I didn't quite know why. Jay loves ruins, so he really, really wanted to go. Rick... well, we've covered him. So we pull up, get our tickets, and reach the moat and one of the gates of Angkor Thom. And our minds our blown.

First, Bayon. It was amazing but overrun, and one of the cultural minders made me take off my hat for "security reasons" [read: Cambodian hatred of all things Vietnamese.] Later in the day, I'd get a Cambodian hat, which didn't offend the authorities (neither did the baseball cap Rick was wearing or Jay's sunhat).

From there, the Terrace of the Elephants

And the Terrace of the Leper King.

On a different note, here's a tuk-tuk driver resting up between temples, and then, the guys in our tuk-tuk.

Those are the stairs of a random temple we climbed; I don't remember the name. And, out of order because blogger isn't cooperating, here's the water outside Neak Pean.