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I couldn’t make it past 3:30 this AM. At some point this is going to be a problem. But 6 hours or so and an afternoon nap is keeping me fairly current on sleep I guess.
We meet up with our fellow travelers in the lobby. Everyone is on time, which is nice. And what’s this? The wayward souls missing from last night. They’ve just arrived (but their luggage hasn’t) but they’re ready to head out with us. They’re troopers. Apparently, the trip went wrong right off the bat. They were delayed leaving Boston and never caught up.
I should mention at this point, that one of our fellow travelers, who sadly, but I suppose not unexpectedly, is from Philadelphia, seems to have no filter on the path between her thoughts and her mouth. And her thoughts tend to the unpleasant or at least self-centered. Best of all, she blares them out in a loud voice (possibly because the older friend she is traveling with does not hear well, but I’m not so sure it’s not just the way she always talks). She doesn’t seem to monitor the fact that other people may be talking when the need to speak kicks in. Or that she might want to think about whether what she has to say is better left unsaid. It’s already annoying and we haven’t gotten far yet.
We are issued portable headsets. And unlike on the European tour, it didn’t take 20 minutes for people to figure out how to turn them on and set them to the right channel. While definitely an older crowd, they aren’t quite as feeble as many on the Europe tour were. Not that there weren’t a few questions but impressive nonetheless. I’m glad we have those because I like to wander and take photos while listening to the guide talk.
We head back to Angkor Park, this time to Angkor Thom the capital city of the Khmer Empire. The stop for park passes is in a different spot. I guess there are two of them. This is clearly the main one. We all have to file in to get our pictures taken but it goes pretty well.
The first stop in the park was the Baksei Chamkrong temple. It’s about 9am and the light on it is beautiful. And since the guide wanted to tell us the whole story of Buddhism and Hinduism surrounding the Angkor temples, there were lots of opportunities for pictures. This one was made of sandstone so it was a lovely orange color in the morning light.
One interesting point he made was about the stairs and why they’re so steep. First off, structurally they act a bit like flying buttresses and hold the place up. But spiritually, it requires concentration to climb them and not fall off, so it focuses the mind as you make your ascent or descent, which is kind of cool.
Then it was a long-ish walk to the Bayon Temple. It’s a nice park-like setting and gives you a feel for the scope of the place. But it’s hot so a bit of a slog. Bayon is pretty amazing. It was the state temple of Jayavarman VII and apparently this guy was a bit of a megalomaniac. It has 54 towers each with 4 faces (you do the math). And each face was of him!. Big, although not as big (in square footage) as some we’ve seen. But easily the most impressive so far. Much more crowded too. A different experience with a guide than on your own. Some of the folks seem a bit dicey on the stairs and the walking. But this *is* the more active tour (did I mention we’re the youngest ones by far?).
We drove on to Ta Prohm. This is the temple they used in the movie Tomb Raider. It’s been long enough since we’ve seen it that it was not immediately recognizable but it certainly has the feel. This one has been left to the jungle. In theory anyway although renovations are happening. What I really think they mean is they are letting the strangler fig trees that have attached themselves to it continue to grow. It’s very cool looking. It’s more mossy and lichen covered too, giving it a Lord of the Rings feel (at least in my mind). It’s much more ‘open’ than the others. It’s not clear if that’s by design or if the roof has collapsed. But I liked it a lot.
By this time my shirt is soaked with sweat. No dry spots except at the ends of the sleeves as one of our fellow travelers pointed out. (Wonder why I don’t sweat on my biceps…). But it does prevent having to go to the bathroom regularly. I sweated through my pants too, even my calves. Fun.
We had lunch in town at a nice place. The waiters all were wearing Frank Sinatra style hats (very hipster). Bob pointed out that all the men were sitting at one table, which was me and two other guys (plus our guide). I hadn’t really grasped until that moment that the tour is 13 women and 3 men. There are lots of widowers. I guess that stat about men dying younger is really true.
The meal was family style. Chili chicken, beef skewers, steamed vegetables, soup and salad. Khmer food. Spicy but tasty.
We were supposed to go to the Land Mine Museum today but it was closed because of ‘an incident’. When the guide initially mentioned that I could tell that most of the people in the bus (including me) assumed some sort of terrorist act. But it was a kitchen fire. They had closed the museum to investigate. A sad commentary on the state of the world. But anyway, we couldn’t go. So we went to the War Museum instead. Without having seen the Land Mine museum I’m guessing the War Museum is much lower end. It looked like someone’s backyard who had collected old rusted equipment from the war. But it was an interesting display of land mines and a discussion of the problem. 10 million mines were laid (and only 5 million people in the country at the time). And there still are about 4 million left. They maim or kill people regularly (i.e. 2-3 times a month!). They are difficult to find and clear for a variety of reasons. The jungle has grown up over the years. And soil has built up over time as well, so the primary problem at this point is not stepping on them so much as digging (for farming or whatever) and hitting them. There are various organizations working to clear them, which is nice. Spurred by Princess Diana which is also nice.
The really insidious thing about land mines is that many of them are designed to maim rather than kill. In the logic of war, it causes more damage to injure someone (presumably to the point they can’t fight anymore) and force 2 or more other people to remove him from the battlefield, plus other people to try to save him. I.e. it’s much more resource intensive and still takes a soldier off the field.
We were ready to call it a day but one more museum. The Angkor National Museum (or something like that). As we’re driving there the guide says it will be 1.5 hours. Philadelphia lady blurts out “Are you kidding? I’ve never spent 1.5 hours in a museum in my life”. This throws the guide for a bit (as well as the rest of us) but to his credit he recovered nicely and came up with a solution whereby people could leave on the half hour as they wanted. It turns out she was the last one out of the museum (although just ahead of us) after 1.5 hours. It might be time for her to shut up. In fact, we were in one of the galleries and there was a “No Loud Noise’ sign (with a circle and red slash, you know the ones). She was yelling at her friend about something and I almost pointed it out to her but lost my nerve. The time may come though…
That particular gallery was the Gallery of 1000 Buddhas. And it was as advertised. They were everywhere, large and small. All four walls were filled floor to ceiling with little glass cubby-holes with a Buddha in it. You couldn’t see half of them because they were too high up. They were donated by various people or groups around the country. But not to worry, there is no lack of Buddhas everywhere else as a result. I’m pretty sure a day didn’t pass without seeing at least a few.
It was too late for Marion to eat so I had dinner in the hotel restaurant myself.
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