The alarm woke us up at 4:15 AM and we both reluctantly rolled out of bed. I thought to myself, “this better be worth it.” Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not an early morning person. We started getting ready and, like clockwork, at 4:30 there was a knock at the door. The hotel’s room service starts at 4 AM because, as we were going to see firsthand, Sunrise at Angkor Wat is a big deal. We ate some croissants, drank some juice, chatted with my girls on Skype and then headed out to meet our guide.
Vibol was as vibrant as ever. His early morning enthusiasm got us a bit more excited to see what all the hype was about. We jumped in the van and started the 10 minute ride to Angkor Wat. Since Angkor Wat is the most impressive of all the temples it’s where everyone goes to watch the sunrise. We arrived at the front gate and it was still pitch black. That didn’t stop kids and women from running around trying to sell bracelets, books, water, hats, etc. We jumped out of the van, fought off the sales people and made our way through the front and second entrances to Vibol’s favorite sunrise spot along a small pond just before the temple. The pictures show a ton of people around where we were,,, I wasn’t able to get photos of the 100s of people we passed at other areas as well. I couldn’t believe how many people were there. And, they say this is the off season.
As we walked up to the pond a young lady came over offering free chairs if you buy water for $1. Vibol mentioned that we would be there for about an hour which made the decision to spend $2 on 2 chairs an easy one. We sat down, setup the camera and waited. We snapped a few photos as the sun started coming up; they turned out okay. I wish I had a full size tri-pod with me because it was fun to change the camera settings and see the different picture outcomes. The sunrise itself wasn’t the best according to Vibol. The sky was missing the reds and the oranges that normally accompany sunrise. We thought it was nice and we were happy we did it. Check…
After the sun was sufficiently up we set out to explore Angkor Wat. We walked through the last gate and then made our way up, down and all around this immense temple. Katie and I were very impressed with all the carvings and the attention to detail. Each rock used to construct this massive temple was brought from a quarry more than 30 miles away. This was all done in the early 1100s which makes it even more impressive. After exploring Angkor Wat the tiredness from waking up at 4:15 caught up with us. We asked Vibol to take us back to the hotel for a bit which he was happy to do.
Back at the hotel we napped a bit, caught up on some emails and Skyped with my parents. At 9:30 we went to breakfast and then met our guide at 10 AM. We had accumulated a ton of stuff on our trip up to this point (mostly clothes) so we asked Vibol to take us to DHL so that we could ship it all. WOW! $545 to ship 60 lbs of stuff. We guessed it was worth it considering the hassle of dragging it everywhere and paying the surcharge on each flight (last flight was $68). I’m guessing Cambodia is a very expensive place to ship from; we regret not shipping from Vietnam. After DHL we headed to the airport for a quick (very quick) helicopter ride.
Our Australian pilot took us up in a Robinson R44. It was amazing to fly over Angkor Wat and then to see the slew of other temples. In hindsight it was the way Katie and I would prefer to tour; quick 1 minute briefings on each temple with a quick flyover ;-) Honestly, I wouldn’t trade climbing around at least 1 or 2 temples for anything but the aerial tour is a must. From the air you really get an idea of how big Angkor Wat is and how many other temples there are. We had to be at 1500 feet over Angkor Wat because the local authorities are worried about noise upsetting the people and the temple. This is amazing considering they let people climb all over every part of the temple. The detailed inscriptions on the walls aren’t protected from the thousands of people that climb around them, poke at them, etc, etc. I couldn’t believe it.
We were up in the air for 5 to 7 minutes before returning to the airport. We said thank you to the pilot and off we went. On the way back from the airport we swung in to the war museum per my request. The history of war is much more interesting to me then the temples or the Buddhist religion. Not that those aren’t interesting but after seeing Angkor Wat the other temples aren’t much different (or as they say here; same same) and we’ve had 2 weeks of instruction on Buddhism so we understand that as much we’re ever going to.
The war museum was much different then what I expected after visiting the Buddha museum the day before and the war museum in Saigon. The Buddha museum is a 2 level complex, 60,000 square feet, etc etc. and the war museum in Saigon, besides not having AC, is what you’d expect to see in any major city museum in America. This museum was completely outside on a small property; I’d guess it was about 30% to 50% of a football field. The entrance / ticket office was someone’s house complete with beds (which is about all the homes around here have). They collected our entrance fee of $3 per person (US) and we drove in to the small parking lot.
We were greeted by a very nice guy (his name was hard to pronounce) and he went right in to showing us around. We were the only ones there and from the looks of it they didn’t get many visitors. We walked around the museum looking at some old equipment they dug out of the jungle. Everything was very old and mostly just a shell of what it once was. After looking at some of the equipment we were brought to the gun section. Like the machinery, the guns were beat up, rusted, etc. They had a good selection of SKS assault rifles which was neat to see since I have one of my own (mine is in MUCH better shape). The AK-47s, AR-15s, and all of the other old guns are very much what you see on TV when they show riots in faraway places. Old school stuff……
The gun display was neat but the really interesting yet very disturbing part of the tour came during the landmine demonstration. We walked alongside a roped off garden of sorts with a warning sign “Mines.” He assured us the mines were harmless but the funny thing was,,, we couldn’t see any mines. He walked through the garden and started uncovering mines and trip wires. Wow. We see people trip mines in movies and TV shows but this was no joke. These mines were once the real deal. Lesson for everyone: If you’re ever with me in a real mine field, stay far away because I’d be tripping them all.
He took us to another hut and showed us each of the different landmines and how they operate. Some are designed to take out just your foot, some just up to your leg, some pop out of the ground then explode cutting your body in half, others shoot shrapnel, some shoot lead shot and the list goes on and on. He showed us the two mines that affected his life. Before getting in to that I think it’s important to explain how bad the mine situation is in Cambodia.
Like I mentioned before, this guy Pol Pot (short for Political Potential) took control of the government in 1975 after the Vietnam war. With everything else going on in the world (America retreating, Vietnam recovering) nobody paid attention to Pol Pot. From Wikipedia: Pol Pot became leader of Cambodia in mid-1975.[2] During his time in power, Pol Pot imposed a version of agrarian collectivization, forcing city dwellers to relocate to the countryside to work in collective farms and forced labor projects, toward a goal of "restarting civilization" in a "Year Zero". The combined effects of slave labor, malnutrition, poor medical care, and executions resulted in the deaths of approximately 21% of the Cambodian population.[8]
He killed anywhere from 2 to 3 million people from 1975 to 1979. In 1979 Vietnam came in to liberate Cambodia from Pol Pot. They drove him from power and pushed him to the far north and west part of Cambodia. Pol Pot fought to defend his rule of the northwest parts of Cambodia from 1979 until 1998 when we died. Part of his strategy was to plant mines all through the area. Not just a few, he planted anywhere from 10 to 20 thousand mines. Once we became aware of the problem we couldn’t walk around this town without seeing people with missing feet, missing arms, missing fingers, etc. We even saw a number of mine victim groups playing music on the side of the road for money. I spent so much time writing about this guy because nobody really knows who he is or what he did. It happened during my lifetime which makes it so hard to believe I never even heard about this.
With that said; the museum guide showed us the two mines that affected his life. The first was a pineapple looking mine that he picked up when he was 6 years old (he is 32 now). The mine had already been disarmed but the trigger mechanism was still active. The trigger exploded and took with it 3 of his left hand fingers (down to the knuckles). The second mine he showed us looked like one of those Playstation Portable games. It was about 6 inches wide by 4 inches high and about an inch thick. When he was 10 he was out with his friends in the woods when one of his friends tripped a mine like the one he was showing us. His friends were killed instantly but, from 60 feet away, he got shrapnel in his eye and his hip. He was in tears telling us this story; it was very sad. It made Katie and I very sad for him while at the same time making us feel very blessed for the freedom and peace we knew growing up. The next person I hear complain about their life is going to get slapped.
We said our goodbyes and, even though we couldn’t pronounce his name, we felt a strong connection to our new friend. We gave each other hugs, said our goodbyes and headed off. Our next stop was the Jungle Temple near the Angkor Wat temple. You might wonder why we opted to do another temple given our philosophy of “once you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all.” Vibol, our guide, explained this was one of his favorite because of the massive trees that have since grown through the temple and because it’s where they filmed Laura Croft’s Tomb Raider. By the way, the people here LOVE Angelina Jolie. Our guide even named his first daughter Angelina Jolie. The Jungle Temple was amazing, beautiful and sad at the same time. It was a huge temple like the others (newer than Angkor Wat) but in a horrible state of disrepair. These huge trees have grown from the foundation and have torn the rocks apart. After a quick tour of the Jungle Temple Katie and I wanted to see am authentic Cambodian village so we moved on.
On our way through the park we came across another temple. We didn’t stop at this one but people were crawling all over it. We saw from the car that the stair cases in this thing were just about vertical. I asked how many tourists end up at the hospital after falling down the stair cases from all these temples. He said on any given day you can go to the hospital and just watch them come in with broken arms, legs, heads, etc. I know he wasn’t lying.
The villages we saw were in the main temple park (the park is huge) and they didn’t seem as remote and poor as I pictured. Don’t get me wrong, this whole place is very poor but still, not what I pictured. Either way we figured we would stop along the road and look around. Further, we had this water bottle / water filter that Passport Health sold us which we never even came close to needing; we thought we’d give it away. As soon as we got out of the van women and children ran from every direction (literally ran) asking us to buy their stuff. Everything was a $1,,, loaded with singles (a great suggestion from Carrie and Michael) we bought as much of the stuff as we thought we could bring home. We gave away our water bottle/filter and then had to fend off the rest of the folks as we made our way back in to the van and out of the village.
Back at the hotel we grabbed a late lunch before heading to town. This hotel had the best “western food” which made us feel right at home. We jumped in a Tuk Tuk and off we went. The Tuk Tuks at the hotel are the nicest we’ve seen. The Tuk Tuk drivers in town have to wear helmets so at the hotel the drivers cover their helmets with safari hats;;; very classy. We walked around for a bit but quickly realized how tired we were. Per another Carrie and Michael recommendation we went to a local spa and had a 90 minute treatment. I had a massage while Katie had a body wrap / massage combo. With both treatments and a bottle of nail polish the total bill came to $72. I can’t believe how cheap the massages in Asia are. Cheap for a classy place (I’d compare where we were to a 4 star SPA) --- a hole in the wall costs $2 to $5 an hour. Nuts!
After the massage,,,, and feeling great, we walked downtown. There is a restaurant called The Red Piano that everyone was stopping at to take pictures. Not just that night but the night before as well. We figured we’d go in to see what all the hype was about. The place was empty because drinks cost $2 vs $1 or .50 cents everywhere else. It turns out that Angelina Jolie use to eat there while filming her movie so everyone loves it. After a few drinks we walked around a bit more, haggling over cheap stuff at the night market. After we loaded up on more knick knacks we made our way back to the hotel for a night swim. The hotel greeted us with two glasses of red wine and the customary cold wet washcloth. We wiped our faces, grabbed the wine and headed to our private pool. After a nice swim we were off to bed. We had to wake up early the next morning for our departure from Siem Reap for Phuket….. more to come….
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