Siem Reap Day 3: All Templed Out With No Place To Go
It's a strange thing this temple-whoring. After a while, you start to realise that you've seen so many temples (and actually many aren't even temples, but it's a generic word, like tupperware or anti-disestablishmentarianism, used to describe all manner of big fuck-off old buildings) that you get feelings of deva vu at a temple site you KNOW you haven't seen before! Presumably, it also works in reverse: you could visit a temple for the second time and experience no deva vu, utterly convinced that your viewing of this monumental monument is entirely virginal.
This morning, I got yet another tuk-tuk driver (as Kim had to take his daughter to hospital) to schlep me around. I decided to do the Ruolos group of temples, as they were just about the only things I hadn't seen yet, and then breeze through Ta Prohm, before heading back to the hotel for lunch, which was really an excuse to escape the glaring sun. All this heat was starting to make me feel positively menopausal, and I'd cottoned onto the concept of hiding out in the air-conditioned sanctuary of my hotel room watching bad bad bad movies on the TV while the sun waved into way through the prime heat hours. Good plan Batman!
So, Rulous..? Rulous kicks all kinds of butt. Well actually only one of the three temples kicks butt; the rest are mediocre. Yes, I'd started the reach the point where I'd seen so many temples, I could evaluated them in any number of exciting categories (like a beauty pageant judge, I am), such as form, shape, accessability, size, degree of crumblement, number of loud Americans flocking about being loud and American, etc. Lolei and Preah Ko are more towers than temples, although Lolei is surgically attached to a real-life, honest, gen-u-wine Buddhist monastery. I thunked this was impressive until we got to Bakong, the biggest of the three Rulous temples, and then i saw what a real surgical attachment to a Buddhist monastery was like. This one was so authentically Buddhist, it even had actual Buddhists milling about doing Buddhisty things, like playing auspicious music and making sure the florist had put up all those pretty little flowers. The whole site is also surrounded by giant fuck-off palm trees, the likes of which residents of Southern California would experience the fauna-ic equivalent of penis envy over, and a river/moat thingy. Very atmospheric. I'm going there tomorrow to watch the sunrise, before heading out of Temple Town back to the land of Taiwan...
Bakong is a 5-tier pyramid, so I quickly scuttled my way to the top tier and decided to work my way around each tier and then descend to the next level. The music was wonderful! Granted, it wasn't no Britney Spears hit single or anything, but what can you do!?!?! In fact, I might go so far as to say that the experience was perfect...but one small incident spoiled it for me.
Let me step back a moment: the people of Cambodia are extremely extremely poor. Everywhere you go, you will find people begging for '1 dollar mister' or wanting you to spend your casholah on any number of useful things, like a set of 10 postcards of all the places you'll visit while you're here, or, even more useful, the Lonely Planet guide to Cambodia, again for just 1 dollar. Saying 'no thank you' doesn't make the people go away, nor does a firm 'no'. If you decline the offer to buy the book/cooldrink/bracelet/flute, they will say something like the following [ps translated out of Tourist English into proper English by some random English teacher: 1) you buy one later, 2) you buy 2 for 3 dollars, 3) you buy one for your driver, the list goes on. I have generally been very polite to the Bodians pestery ways, certainly more polite than I've seen some tourists being, and have been very content to give my Hello Kitty badges out to the children...
On about the 3rd tier (which really is of no importance but I felt it was worth orientating my readers spatially, and helping to give them a context, so 3rd tier, got it?, okay good), I was approached by two deaf girls, one of whom was probably really deaf. She pressed a yellow flower into my hands, which I stupidly took. Then she insisted I give her a dollar. I declined and tried to give the flower back. Next thing I know, the other girl is placing a ring made out of a daisy she'd plucked from the ground (3 petals still mercilessly clinging on for dear life) over my finger as a deal clincher. I was too dumbstruck to speak. What a gesture! 'How sweet' I figured. 'Here comes the bucks' they thought. Well, after all that second-hand foliage, I could hardly not give any money, so I whipped out a dollar, raring myself to go now. But the two girls weren't satisfied with one dollar between them and wanted one each. Anway, it was all rather awkward and, I felt, very unnecessary. They never did get that second dollar...
Then it was on to Ta Prohm, where parts of Tomb Raider, starring Angelina Jolie, were filmed. Turns out I'd been there before, as my Spidey sense tingled away the moment Mr Tuk-Tuk dropped me at the stone temple gate, but I figured, if I don't go back, what exactly am I gonna do for the next 4 hours? So I temple-whored through Ta Prohm again and actually found some new parts I hadn't spotted before.
The trouble with Siem Reap is that once you get templed-out, there's precious little else to do, except take in a massage, shop, read and eat. I opted for the shopping, reading and eating options, with a little powernap thrown in for good measure.
I tried to get a hot-air balloon ride over Angkor this afternoon but they were closed 'due to wind'. Lame excuse, I felt. A light breeze would surely enhance the experience. Besides, the basket was encased on all sides by metal caging so that's that lawsuit nipped firmly in the bud. Will try again tomorrow morning. Finally, I soaked up the sunset at Angkor Wat, figuring that if it was considered a good site to watch the sunrise from, the opposite should be true too. And verrily, it was...
A final aside: a request from one of my loyal subjects, er I mean fans. Laura Jankelson has inquired about the food. Traditional Khmer cooking is very similar to Thai and Vietnamese. The three countries all sit together like awaiting trial prisoners, plus, back in the day, they invaded the living shit out of each other, to the point where borders between the countries have changed so much over the centuries. So, look out for lots of curries with coconut, fried rice dishes (which are all the rage in Taipei, so I avoided), meats and veg with ginger (which I've sampled twice and loved both times), that sorta thing. The food is however quite greasy, which I guess would explain all the rice (to soak up the saturated and poly-unsaturated fats).
This morning, I got yet another tuk-tuk driver (as Kim had to take his daughter to hospital) to schlep me around. I decided to do the Ruolos group of temples, as they were just about the only things I hadn't seen yet, and then breeze through Ta Prohm, before heading back to the hotel for lunch, which was really an excuse to escape the glaring sun. All this heat was starting to make me feel positively menopausal, and I'd cottoned onto the concept of hiding out in the air-conditioned sanctuary of my hotel room watching bad bad bad movies on the TV while the sun waved into way through the prime heat hours. Good plan Batman!
So, Rulous..? Rulous kicks all kinds of butt. Well actually only one of the three temples kicks butt; the rest are mediocre. Yes, I'd started the reach the point where I'd seen so many temples, I could evaluated them in any number of exciting categories (like a beauty pageant judge, I am), such as form, shape, accessability, size, degree of crumblement, number of loud Americans flocking about being loud and American, etc. Lolei and Preah Ko are more towers than temples, although Lolei is surgically attached to a real-life, honest, gen-u-wine Buddhist monastery. I thunked this was impressive until we got to Bakong, the biggest of the three Rulous temples, and then i saw what a real surgical attachment to a Buddhist monastery was like. This one was so authentically Buddhist, it even had actual Buddhists milling about doing Buddhisty things, like playing auspicious music and making sure the florist had put up all those pretty little flowers. The whole site is also surrounded by giant fuck-off palm trees, the likes of which residents of Southern California would experience the fauna-ic equivalent of penis envy over, and a river/moat thingy. Very atmospheric. I'm going there tomorrow to watch the sunrise, before heading out of Temple Town back to the land of Taiwan...
Bakong is a 5-tier pyramid, so I quickly scuttled my way to the top tier and decided to work my way around each tier and then descend to the next level. The music was wonderful! Granted, it wasn't no Britney Spears hit single or anything, but what can you do!?!?! In fact, I might go so far as to say that the experience was perfect...but one small incident spoiled it for me.
Let me step back a moment: the people of Cambodia are extremely extremely poor. Everywhere you go, you will find people begging for '1 dollar mister' or wanting you to spend your casholah on any number of useful things, like a set of 10 postcards of all the places you'll visit while you're here, or, even more useful, the Lonely Planet guide to Cambodia, again for just 1 dollar. Saying 'no thank you' doesn't make the people go away, nor does a firm 'no'. If you decline the offer to buy the book/cooldrink/bracelet/flute, they will say something like the following [ps translated out of Tourist English into proper English by some random English teacher: 1) you buy one later, 2) you buy 2 for 3 dollars, 3) you buy one for your driver, the list goes on. I have generally been very polite to the Bodians pestery ways, certainly more polite than I've seen some tourists being, and have been very content to give my Hello Kitty badges out to the children...
On about the 3rd tier (which really is of no importance but I felt it was worth orientating my readers spatially, and helping to give them a context, so 3rd tier, got it?, okay good), I was approached by two deaf girls, one of whom was probably really deaf. She pressed a yellow flower into my hands, which I stupidly took. Then she insisted I give her a dollar. I declined and tried to give the flower back. Next thing I know, the other girl is placing a ring made out of a daisy she'd plucked from the ground (3 petals still mercilessly clinging on for dear life) over my finger as a deal clincher. I was too dumbstruck to speak. What a gesture! 'How sweet' I figured. 'Here comes the bucks' they thought. Well, after all that second-hand foliage, I could hardly not give any money, so I whipped out a dollar, raring myself to go now. But the two girls weren't satisfied with one dollar between them and wanted one each. Anway, it was all rather awkward and, I felt, very unnecessary. They never did get that second dollar...
Then it was on to Ta Prohm, where parts of Tomb Raider, starring Angelina Jolie, were filmed. Turns out I'd been there before, as my Spidey sense tingled away the moment Mr Tuk-Tuk dropped me at the stone temple gate, but I figured, if I don't go back, what exactly am I gonna do for the next 4 hours? So I temple-whored through Ta Prohm again and actually found some new parts I hadn't spotted before.
The trouble with Siem Reap is that once you get templed-out, there's precious little else to do, except take in a massage, shop, read and eat. I opted for the shopping, reading and eating options, with a little powernap thrown in for good measure.
I tried to get a hot-air balloon ride over Angkor this afternoon but they were closed 'due to wind'. Lame excuse, I felt. A light breeze would surely enhance the experience. Besides, the basket was encased on all sides by metal caging so that's that lawsuit nipped firmly in the bud. Will try again tomorrow morning. Finally, I soaked up the sunset at Angkor Wat, figuring that if it was considered a good site to watch the sunrise from, the opposite should be true too. And verrily, it was...
A final aside: a request from one of my loyal subjects, er I mean fans. Laura Jankelson has inquired about the food. Traditional Khmer cooking is very similar to Thai and Vietnamese. The three countries all sit together like awaiting trial prisoners, plus, back in the day, they invaded the living shit out of each other, to the point where borders between the countries have changed so much over the centuries. So, look out for lots of curries with coconut, fried rice dishes (which are all the rage in Taipei, so I avoided), meats and veg with ginger (which I've sampled twice and loved both times), that sorta thing. The food is however quite greasy, which I guess would explain all the rice (to soak up the saturated and poly-unsaturated fats).