Angkor Wat Temples, Cambodia

I had seen pictures of Angkor Wat in National Geographic magazines and in the World Wonders Travel books at Barnes and Noble. I had biked with Steve and our newly encountered Korean friend for three days from the capital of Phnom Penh.
Finally at 5:30 a.m. on July 1st, we meet with Charlie in the center park in front of the large Buddha temple. The day before at our hotel a Tuk Tuk (motor-cart) driver told us that biking to Angkor Wat would be "sad tour" because the bad Vietnamese come with large clippers and steal any bicycle. We had showed him our multiple U-bolt locks and he said that the bad Vietnamese clippers cut any lock. Only with him in his Tuk Tuk could we have a "happy tour." "I give you discount for only 60 dollar for happy tour. No bad Vietnamese and no lose your bicycle with happy tour," he said. We smiled politely. Now at five-thirty a.m., we meet Charlie in the park, ready to see the famous ancient ruins ourselves, ready to fight off any bad Vietnamese! In comparison to the crazy traffic in Phnom Penh, the traffic leaving Siem Reap is relaxed with a wide shoulder. Biking without the extra weight of the packs on the side of the bicycle is easy. The road is flat, the sun is still resting, but my skin still glistens with a light layer of sweat. A row of vendors parked outside of the town hospital provides us with a chance to buy a few snacks to prepare for our adventure. Charlie and Steve buy some bread and I buy a bag of peanuts for just under a dollar. We pedal in silence, each one of us taking in the scene, photographing the details in our minds. I remember the barefoot children running along side of the road with baskets of bracelets and postcards. Men pushing carts full of pineapple and mangos. Women behind carts of steaming rice and chickens steaming hot on rods. The children yell out in English, "you buy from me, sir! Three for one dollar! Postcards, you buy from me, one dollar!" Last night, a lady approached me cradling a baby boy. She looked up at me with her deep pleading eyes shaking her empty bottle. In Kalamazoo, a good test is to offer food to the begging people. Most times, they refuse and demand money. Here, the people accept the food. I motioned for her to follow me into a corner store and offered to buy her a can of baby formula. In Cambodia, everything is fairly expensive in comparison to the wages that people make because nearly everything is imported. Just a small can of baby formula cost seven dollars. She was so happy and thankful for the formula. However, when I left the corner store, a pack of beggars were waiting for me. Apparently, they had seen me help the lady and thought that I would help all of them too. I felt overwhelmed, sad. I smiled at them sheepishly and walked away with all of them following me until I could hop on my bicycle and escape. Cambodia really overwhelms me with the extremes of poor and rich. So we keep on biking on the first of July until we reach the official entrance booth of Angkor Wat. While driving/riding on the road around and up to the ruins is free of charge, there is a twenty dollar charge to carry a photograph card in order to actually enter and explore them. While we hope that the twenty dollar charge goes towards preserving the ruins, it is quite possible that it actually goes towards the corrupt fund to buy government officials new Lexus! The paved road is narrow and the towering trees hang over the road providing us with welcomed shade. Then all of a sudden, there it is! The scene depicted in so many photographs.. the main temple of Angkor Wat is in front of us. Fat monkeys climb on the rock walkway, aggressively approaching the people, like stray dogs, they beg for food scraps (with preference to fruits rather than meats). Their bellies are like inflated balloons from being overfed from the hoards of tourists that pass through each day. We use the map to guide us from temple to temple and surprisingly it is quite a distance in between the temples ranging from two to five miles! If we hadn't brought our bicycles, it would have taken us too long to walk between each of the temples and we would have had to pay the expensive taxi/tuk tuk rate! Tucked behind trees, ruins and more ruins and each rock is intricately, delicately, carefully carved with lions, elephants, people... We park our bikes by a tree and lock all three of them together. Time of the present is lost while we explore the time of the ancient, climbing up and up the rock stairs. While I enjoy being able to see and touch and feel the ruins as close as I wish, I feel that allowing each tourist to climb with freedom all over the ruins will destroy them. I remember exploring Chichen-itza (spelling?) ruins in Mexico and also Machu Picchu (spelling) ruins in Peru and all had wooden stairs leading up to them or ropes at least blocking people from actually touching the carved details. Here, people can just touch anything as they please. Nature boasts its strength as the tree roots overcome the rocks. It becomes a war with nature and man's creations-- nature winning as the trees slowly strangle and break up the carved temple. The expansiveness of the Angkor Wat leaves me without words to paint a picture. From five thirty a.m. until six p.m. we wandered the maze of the ruins and only saw a portion of them. Carved rock temples built to tower over the jungle are like dots spread out across a page. A modern paved road connects all the "dots." Along the road, there are vendors and children selling everything from rice, to spicy/sweet curry soup, cola, post cards, bracelets, tea, and coffee. Children climb the temples and pop out of each and every nook and corner, "you buy from me post card?"

And I end this post with a question to you.... "you write to me email?" We love touring, experiencing, feeling the world and all the people, cultures, tastes, smells, temples, details that it has to offer. And we equally love the simplicity of hearing from our friends and family...