One of my four favorite places on our trip was Angkor Wat. The 160 square kilometers of intricately carved temples kept me mesmerized for the four days we explored the ruins. One of the days we rode out to Bantay Srei. Read and laugh below.
Subject: Cambodo-Cross 2000
Date: November 20, 2000
Hey Everyone-
Having a great time in Cambodia. We were at Angkor for 4 days and now we’ve descended in on the gun-heavy city of Phnom Penh, and as far as I can tell, I hate it. Siem Reap was wonderful, warm, open people, breathtaking temples, good food, with a small town feel. This place seems to be hell on earth. Crowded, muddy (it just rained), lots of creepy guys trying to get you to take a ride from them (I am sure they are just trying to make a living, but en masse, they are somewhat threatening), in essence, this place is a skanky hell-hole. The only redeeming quality I am aware of is this internet cafe, which I plan on living in until we can get the hell outta here.
Air-conditioned, free water, an oasis smack dab in Hades. (Just to clarify, Angkor did not have any of these amenities, but because it was more village-like and remote, it was so much friendlier.) We had a little guesthouse snafu today because the place where we intended staying had construction (rocks busting other rocks) going on at all hours and our rooms were right above it. After 4 days of temple and ruin viewing, we wanted to rest in Phnom Penh, and then move on to Saigon in a few days. We were obviously wearing Bad Idea Jeans when we made that decision because this place is anything but restful. This place is about guns and hookers, all traffic and seediness.
By the time we got out of the taxi we had 7 new friends who wanted to take us to the Killing Fields monument, to the Royal Temple, anywhere we wanted to go. Rumor has it that for a price, tourists can shoot up wildlife with AK-47s here. Yikes. Anyway, the following is part of an email that I sent to Eleanor earlier today, but I thought I would excerpt it and send it to everyone.
For our last night at Angkor (in Siem Reap) we decided to hire moto-taxis to go see Bantay Srei, allegedly one of the most beautiful temples in all of Angkor. It was supposed to be a 16 km ride (40 minutes) out of town, and we tried to hire a taxi to take the 3 of us, plus one friend we met along the way, Susan. We talked to one guy who said that a car could not make the trip because the roads were too bad, and another said a moto-taxi (basically, you ride on the back of some guy’s small motorcycle) could not make the trip for the same reason, so we decided to go the cheaper route and take the moto-taxi. The ride would be 5 dollars each so we agreed, got on our bikes and set off for Bantay Srei. Once we were out of the main tourist area, we came upon a village. Riding by on the bikes I saw a small child riding a huge bike with a tiny monkey riding on it’s head, oxen, water-buffalo basking in mud, pigs, a Cambodian-dwarf child, chickens, tiny shack-like homes (some with tvs), a young guy playing with a BOOMINH sound system, loads of children (who would run up to the road to say “hello” to tourists on the way to the temple and “goodbye” when they leave) villagers carrying bushels of wood on the back of their bikes and various ages of workers (no child labor laws, I suppose), all transporting rocks of varying sizes to different locations on the new road.
There were also several political party encampments out there (FUNCINPEC and Cambodia People’s Party) and of course I imagined that we were somehow being taking up on this mountain not for sightseeing, but to be shot, possibly tortured and killed. Cambodia is seeing more and more tourists, but it’s still a somewhat dangerous place to visit, remnants of Kmer Rouge brutality. I’ve been told that police often change out of their uniforms and moonlight as bandits. Anyway, the drivers kept driving on what seemed to be a 3 phased road: paved, moto-cross track and endless red dirt. Over the previous 3 days in Cambodia, I became addicted to riding on the back of a motorcycle, where you can see what is going on and feel like you are a part of the hectic environment, rather than simply observing it from an air-conditioned box. But this ride was possibly the worst mode of transport I’ve ever experienced. And it was 3 hours total. The driver, who had obviously never been on this road, hit each deep pothole with glee and when I would ask him to slow down he did the Cambodian equivalent of “yeah, sure honey…shadduuupp”!”, complete with a placating hand wave. We sped along like this for a whopping hour and a half. Each time we hit another pothole, I would curse a new person; the driver, Charlie, the other drivers, the other people we were traveling with, God, my parents, George W. Bush, Celine Dion, etc. At one point I just started hanging on like I was riding a buckin’ bronco, one arm attached to the back of the seat and one waving up in the air. I almost fell off the bike approximately 40 times. I’m sure I squealed like true western princess each time we hit another pothole, but pretense and bravado had fallen off the motorcycle miles ago, so I really didn’t care. By the time we got to the glorious temple, we all had a thin layer of red dirt covering our entire bodies, with only a clean strip where our eyeglasses rested. I could give a shit about the divine temple, as I was trying to figure out how to feign an illness so life-threatening, that a comfy helicopter would have to come and rescue me and all my friends. I was also trying to figure out how to deal with a brain-damaging head injury, in case one of us was thrown from our death-mobiles on the way back down. Tourniquet to keep the brains in, fashioned out of Cambodian scarves? Duct tape?
Anyway, after 1/2 hour speed tour of the temples, (oh, yeah, there’s Shiva, ooh, look at that serpent, nice garuda, etc) we mounted our death-mobiles and sped off down the hill. The descent was easier because it was getting dark so the drivers slowed down a bit. Plus, I had gotten used to “riding bronc”, so it was little more peaceful. And I knew that the drivers were not going to torture us and/or kill us, they just wanted the 5 dollars each for the trip. We saw an amazing sunset on the way down, as well as some interesting cloud formations. About 1/2 hour into the journey back, the interesting cloud formations turned to heavy rain. I couldn’t see the road (which was key in anticipating the potholes) because my glasses were wet and dirty, so I just shut my eyes and hung on, occasionally looking back to make sure we were still all together.
We were drenched within seconds. The drivers kept on toward our destination at the bottom of the mountain and we surprisingly made it there in tact, despite the caked on dirt and bruises on our asses. It was one of those experiences that I only enjoy once I am safely writing about it from a known location, at a later date. I’m glad I went, even though if left to my own devices I would’ve opted for a 4 wheel drive multi-purpose vehicle with dual airbags, but I probably would not have been able to witness a monkey riding on a child’s head.
Bye for now…
