Campuchia!

Tuesday
Like all Solis road trips, this one started well before dawn. I woke up around 230 to be ready for the 330am bus to HCMC that might show up as early as 3am. While I got ready, a pair of provespa scoped out my room. Does this happen every night or is it a recent development? I always feel a little apprehensive about the natural world overtaking my room when I'm gone for the weekend, and I wondered whether I would come back after a week and find out that I'd become a hive queen. It turned out that Trang had to go to the city as well, so we sat together on the bus. I may have been lacking my full faculties, but we were not lacking conversation topics, and we chatted the whole way.

I made it into the city at 5am. Then I just had to find a place to wait until all of the bus companies opened and I could get a ticket to Siem Reap. I watched the sky lighten and the park swarmed with early morning exercisers. Around 545, things started opening, and I started looking for my ticket out of Vietnam. I stopped at one company, and waited twenty minutes to ultimately be told that they only went to Phnom Penh, and not all the way to Siem Reap. I kept on looking. I walked in and out of a bunch of bus offices. A xe om driver overheard me asking about buses to Cambodia and followed me around shouting 'Campuchia!' and telling me he could take me somewhere that would take me there. I was going to give up and take the 630am bus to Phnom Penh and try to figure things out from there, when I ducked into one last tour company. Success! A bus to Siem Reap would be leaving at 730. I bought my ticket, bought some snacks, and waited to get on the road.

A thirteen hour bus ride might sound overwhelmingly long, but it went by quickly. We stopped at the border crossing and stopped twice for meals, so it was punctuated with enough breaks that it didn't get monotonous. For the most part, the Cambodian countryside looked just like the Vietnamese countryside, except that the fields featured a lot of Cambodian palms, and the people were generally darker. I finally made it into Siem Reap at around 8 and took a tuk tuk to my hotel. My tuk tuk driver, Vi, was an English student and managed to convince me to hire him as my driver for the rest of my stay.

Wednesday
The next morning, Vi met me at my hotel and I presented him with the must-see list I had made for myself. Using that as a guideline, he mentally composed my three day itinerary on the spot, and I put my touring in his hands. Our first stop for the morning was Angkor Thom, an ancient capital of the Khmer empire, within whose walls there are several temples. The first one I saw was Bayon, famous for being covered in faces. It was one of my favorites. Early on, I was joined by Gary, another solo traveler, who proclaimed himself my photographer. I had been gearing up to be alone all day, so his company felt like a bit of an intrusion, but not so much so that it was worth the effort to try and get rid of him.

If you look closely, you'll see that this pile of rocks is looking at you

One of the faces up close

Courtesy of Gary

We made our way to the next series of temples inside Angkor Thom. Gary was wearing a tank top so he wasn't allowed in. He then made the poor decision to give me his camera so that I could take pictures for him while he sat and waited. I proceeded to spend the next hour and half at the temples. I met a Frenchman, who gaped at me and tried to replace Gary, and an Italian couple. It was nice to be speaking Italian to someone other than myself, for a change, and I gave them advice for their upcoming trip to Vietnam. 

Baphoun

The top level of Baphoun

The top of Phimenakas

Inside Preah Palilay

By the time I made it back to where Gary sat waiting, Gary wasn't sitting there waiting anymore. Did he think I had stolen his camera? Did he just give up and go on without his camera? How was I going to find him and give him his camera back? I didn't want to sit there waiting for him for the rest of the day. I decided to retrace the path and see if he had somehow been allowed in. I hadn't gone too far when I heard shouting. It was Gary, from inside Baphoun. We reconvened and it turned out that he didn't think me a thief. Rather, he thought I might have fainted. I got guilted into quickly re-doing the whole circuit and then Vi, my tuk tuk driver, helped me make a quick getaway.

We went to a few more temples, most notably Ta Prohm, which is famous for the trees that are devouring it and for the fact that it was featured in the Tomb Raider movie.

Victory Gate of the Angkor Thom complex

Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm

The most amazing tree in Ta Prohm, took my breath away

After that, it was lunchtime. I tried Cambodia's famous amok, a coconut and curry soup, and my first of several different Cambodian beers. I took my time enjoying the meal and the shade before going back to the temples. I only saw a few more before heading back to my hotel to rest.

Local beer named for the first temple I saw

Fish Amok

In the evening I took a walk to the market and was lured in by a restaurant with a buy one get one free happy hour and extensive beer selection. I had an ABC Stout, which I had tried in Laos, and delighted in the superior taste of a dark beer. I followed up with a Thai Pilsener, Chang. I walked for a while more until Vi picked me up to take me to a dinner dance show featuring Apsara (traditional) dances.

Thursday
I was supposed to be on vacation, yet here I was waking up before dawn yet again. But with good reason. I was going to watch the sunrise at Angkor Wat.

Good morning, Angkor Wat

Watching the sunrise watchers

While we were watching the sky lighten, a rogue piglet appeared out of nowhere and began pillaging a couple's to-go box. Even with the silhouetted architectural marvel and the reflecting pool, it wasn't the most picturesque sunrise I've ever seen. The best part of the experience was being there early enough to beat the rush of tourists, because even though there were a fair few there for the sunrise, the wat was big enough to make them feel like a sprinkling of ants, and they were nothing compared to what would come later. I took advantage of being alone, and took my time. I found places to just sit and look, or sit and watch. It wasn't my favorite wat of the trip, but it's sheer size made an impact. Every time I thought I was almost done I would find a whole wing or floor or courtyard that remained to be seen.

From the outermost point of the wat

About halfway in

Near the innermost ring

Following monks to the very top

Reliefs I almost missed because I skipped the first floor at the beginning

Apsaras covered the walls

I ended up spending almost four hours at Angkor Wat. By the time I left, around 930, it was overrun with tour groups and I was happy I was leaving and not arriving. It was finally time for breakfast, and then headed to Banteay Sray, which was about 30km away from most of the other temples. We stopped at Pre Rup on the way.

Details

Banteay Sray is quite small compared to all of the other temples, and for this reason it is often referred to as the women's temple. It is known for its incredibly intricate carvings and pinkish stones.

Banteay Sray

There were even matching red dragonflies around

It was definitely a unique temple among all of the ones that I saw. It was also incredibly commercialized. There was a gift shop, a cafe, and a nature trail on the grounds around it. On the way back, I went to East Mebun, Ta Som, and Preah Khan. It was a good thing I'd seen some distinctive temples, because I was starting to feel like I was just taking pictures of piles of rocks.

East Mebun

Top of a gate in Ta Som

The other side of the gate

Preah Khan was being restored

and being taken over by trees

Finally, almost twelve hours after it started, my second day of touring drew to a close. I rested for a while, went back to the market and had another new beer, and then Vi picked me up to take me to dinner. I'd told him I wanted to try some real Cambodian food, not just the stuff available at tourist restaurants around the temples. He took me to a street covered in food stalls, told me locals ate there but that we wouldn't, and then took me to a restaurant. No! At least it was a restaurant for locals, rather than for tourists. It was dark and his English wasn't good enough to explain the dishes, so I don't really know what I ate, but it was pretty good.

Angkor draft

"The inside of a cow"

"Kitchen with mango glories" (Chicken with morning glory)

Friday
I didn't see as much on Friday because I went to a temple over 60km outside of town. For increased speed and convenience, Vi took me on his motorbike instead of in the tuk tuk. It was a long ride, almost two hours, but my several trips with Violet had given me the necessary endurance to go the whole way without stopping. Our destination was Boeng Melea. It was similar in layout to Angkor Wat and other concentric ring temples, but it was quite overgrown and also quite collapsed. There were some wooden walkways for the casual visitor, but everything was fair game. I spent a good deal of time clambering around on this temple that, in some areas, really was just a pile of rocks. I felt like I was in a video game, and that if I stood in any one place for too long, the stones might start to fall away from beneath me. Luckily, that was not the case, and the precarious looking piles were made of blocks of rock that weighed several hundred pounds, and my weight was unlikely to shift them.

After a slightly unusual lunch of pork, mango, and fried egg, I hit one more temple, Bakon, before calling it a day. I added two more beers to the list that evening.

Looking down from the sixth (top) level of Bakon

Overall, it felt surreal to be able to easily jaunt over to a faraway country -- far away from home home but closer to Vietnam than driving from one side of Texas to another. It was similar enough to Vietnam that it didn't really feel foreign in that way, and everyone I encountered spoke English, so it didn't feel foreign in that way either. With the number of people swarming the most popular temples, it was easy to forget just what a rare experience I was having. As always, I was mistaken for a fellow Cambodian or at least neighboring Asian. One shopkeeper told me that I looked Cambodian in my face, skin, and build, and claimed that she would give me a good price just for looking Cambodian. Vi told me that if people saw us together they would probably just think I was his girlfriend rather than a client, though that might have been wishful thinking on his part. Now that I am back, and apparently tanner, Trang has told me that I look like a Cambodian girl.

Next stop, Phnom Penh!