At Cambodia's Angkor Wat, prattling guide, press of humans detour search for wisdom

http://www.dallasnews.com/

via Khmer NZ

Saturday, August 21, 2010


Story and photography by THOMAS HUANG / The Dallas Morning News
thuang@dallasnews.com

ANGKOR WAT, Cambodia – He came to Angkor Wat seeking enlightenment.

He prayed that the spirits of the Khmer kings would whisper wisdom, nudging him out of his midlife drift.

He hoped that the apsaras, the celestial dancers in bas-relief murals, would fill his faltering heart with hope.

He wished that Garuda, the bird-man of Hindu myth, would carry him skyward to behold the fields below, and the forests with a horrific past.

Instead, he found Vithou.

Vithou, in his late 20s, looked no older than 14. A wisp of a mustache shaded his upper lip. When he smiled, I couldn't tell whether he was grinning or scowling. Like most of Angkor Wat's tour guides, he resembled a Boy Scout in his tan shirt and dark slacks.

I had just checked in to the Hotel de la Paix in Siem Reap when he approached. He told me that I could hire him through the hotel's tour desk. I asked him to take me through the temples for the next two days. It was a snap decision I would come to regret.

Dreams had brought me here. Last year, while on an elliptical trainer at the gym (literally running at a standstill), I flipped through a National Geographic. The photo spread mesmerized me. I wanted to see the five spires of Angkor Wat, the best preserved of a thousand temples in Angkor, the capital of the Khmer kingdom, established in the ninth century. It was the largest pre-industrial city in the world, home to as many as 1 million people.

By the 14th century, the region was abandoned. Theories of the kingdom's demise range from disease to Thai invaders. Some scholars think Angkor got too big for its own good, its infrastructure failing the population. Others hypothesize that the inland city became obsolete when the sea trade grew in importance.

Whatever happened, happened. Jungle swallowed the temples. Centuries passed. Cambodians say they never forgot Angkor. But the rest of the world didn't take interest until 1860, when a French naturalist named Henri Mouhot came upon the ruins. Archaeologists hurried here, but then came years of conflict, and then came the Khmer Rouge regime and the genocide, and then came civil war.

While some temples in the Angkor Wat compound prohibit climbing, others welcome tourists to clamber up and down the ruins.

He had risen before dawn to tour the temples with Vithou. He wanted to see the sandstone walls in the pink light. But they were joined by hundreds of other tourists, all elbowing one another to take the iconic sunrise photo.

He had wanted adventure in his life. Out of vanity, he had hoped to impress his loved ones. Instead, he couldn't keep the Korean tourists with their floppy hats out of his camera's view.

Then there was Vithou with his sad story. He had grown up in Siem Reap, watched it blossom from dusty village to a mecca of five-star hotels. His parents had wanted him to become a Buddhist monk; he spent a week at a temple, but it wasn't for him. He got a desk job at a hotel (blessed be the air conditioning), but was ousted for some unstated reason. He ended up as a tour guide.

The sweltering day arrived. They clambered up and down the ruins. They visited the Bayon in Angkor Thom, with its serene carved faces. They entered Ta Prohm, with its giant trees sprouting from piles of stone.

Tourists gather to photograph the sun rising over Angkor Wat. The temple complex is Cambodia's national symbol and appears on the country's flag.

An Italian girl in a sarong emerged from the shadows. She wore lacy gloves, taking photos with a long lens. She was from Milan, and he imagined her as a romantic figure from a modern-day A Room With a View. But she would not return his gaze.

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Vithou was a cross between Eddie Haskell of Leave It to Beaver and Chucky, the doll from the Child's Play movies. Like Haskell, he was ingratiating, but always playing the angles. And like Chucky, he wouldn't leave you alone.

He wouldn't stop talking, or touching my arm, even when I wanted to absorb the sacred nature of the temples. He kept telling the same stories. And yet he wouldn't answer my questions, including one about why the Khmer Rouge hadn't wiped out Angkor Wat.

He brought me to a breakfast place and expected me to pay for his meal. He kept telling me when to take photos and when not to. "I can take whatever photo I want to," I finally said, annoyed. In a dark temple, as we crouched down to look at a stone figure behind some rubble, he pulled me forward. "Please," I said, "don't pull me."

The final straw came on the second day of our tour. Several times, he grimaced, rubbed his stomach and asked me to take him out for fried rice. I'd had enough. I asked the driver to drop him off at the hotel.

The giant trees growing out of the ruins have made Ta Prohm one of the most photogenic and popular temples in Angkor.

As we said goodbye, I still couldn't tell whether Vithou was grinning or scowling.

Suddenly, I asked myself: Why do I think I'm any better than he is? My heart began to soften. Here was a young man who was trying to make the best of his situation, trying to make as much money as he could to help his family.

Why should I resent his behavior?

Since when had I become the arrogant tourist?

He came to Angkor Wat seeking enlightenment and adventure.

Instead, he left with questions.

That night, in a car speeding south to Phnom Penh, on a road once plagued by bandits, he looked at the moon, full and low in the sky. The moon was sacred, too, and he wondered whether any of his loved ones were gazing at her right now.

An angelic face peeks out from the roots of a tree growing over a temple

He felt so far removed from them, and he wondered how he had created this geography within his own heart.

When you go

GETTING THERE

You can fly to Siem Reap from several Asian cities, including Ho Chi Minh City and Bangkok. There's also a short flight from Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, on Bangkok Air. Siem Reap, the gateway to Angkor Wat, is about three miles south of the main temple.

If you like the water, you can take a boat from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap via Tonle Sap Lake. The trip takes several hours and costs about $35. If you're on a budget, you can make the trip on a bus for as little as $11. If you do so, guidebooks recommend bringing earplugs, because the Cambodian pop music played on the buses can get loud.

FINDING A GUIDE

I booked my guide through my hotel's tour desk for a pricey $40 per day. You can probably do better by checking out the tour companies near the Old Market. Guidebooks also recommend Diethelm ( www.diethelmtravel.com) and Exotissimo ( www.exotissimo.com) – top tour operators, but also expensive.

My advice would be to bring a good guidebook on the temples and see them on your own, unless you're the kind of person who enjoys every single anecdote about King Suryavarman II. If you'd really like to get a guide, try hiring him or her for just a day and see whether you get much out of the experience.

VISITING THE TEMPLES

Entrance fees for Angkor Wat are $20 for a one-day ticket, $40 for a three-day ticket and $60 for a one-week ticket. The temples are open from 5:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. I'd recommend a two- to three-day visit, including seeing the main temple at sunrise one day.

When you visit Angkor Wat, you'll see groups of pilgrims, such as these Buddhist nuns.

The area containing the major temples, including Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm, Banteay Kdei and Preah Khan, is about 16 square miles. You can hire a driver for about $25 a day, or a tuk-tuk (a cart pulled by a motorbike) for about $16, or a motorcycle taxi for about $8.

For a view of Angkor Wat at sunrise or sunset, enter the front of the compound, walk about halfway toward the main temple and make a left or right onto the fields. Even if you go early, you'll probably be competing with a crowd, but that's your best chance at a great photo.

Many of the temples are undergoing restoration, so you'll find certain sections closed to visitors.

Cambodia is hot and sunny, so hit the temples early in the day. Bring a small backpack with bottles of water and wear sunscreen and a cap.

To get the most out of your visit, it does help to be physically fit. Climbing up the steep steps of several of the temples, clambering around the ruins, just traveling from temple to temple – all of it can get grueling, especially in the heat.

WHERE TO STAY

I enjoyed staying at Hotel de la Paix (Sivutha Boulevard; www.hoteldelapaixangkor.com), a modern, stylish place with art deco and Khmer influences. The favorite part of my room was the large marble bathtub, which I would soak in after a full day of touring the temples. A journalist friend also recommended Viroth's Hotel (0658 Wat Bo Village; www.viroth-hotel.com), chic and affordable with only seven rooms.

WHERE TO EAT

I had good meals at several places across town, including Khmer Kitchen Restaurant (just north of the Old Market), the Sugar Palm (south of the Caltex gas station), the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Angkor (Pokambor Avenue) and Viroth's Restaurant (246 Wat Bo St.). At most of these places, you can get the traditional tastes of pomelo salad and amok, a dish of fish steamed in bamboo leaves with coconut milk and curry.

If you have an opportunity, try Khmer barbecue with a group of Cambodians. I had the pleasure of being invited to dinner one night. We cooked our meat and vegetables in a central hot pot and drank Angkor beer from what I can only describe as a lemonade dispenser.

OTHER SIGHTS

If you're tired of the temples, the Angkor National Museum is a nice respite, and it's air-conditioned. You'll find a room with 1,000 Buddha statues and a model of the main temple. Strangely, amid the statues I met a guy from Toronto who told me he was a big Dallas Cowboys fan. "But," he said, "they'll never make it to the Super Bowl with Tony Romo."

The Old Market is in the heart of town and is a good place to buy souvenirs and T-shirts. You can haggle with the vendors to your heart's content.

OTHER TIPS

The Caltex gas station (also known as Starmart) in the middle of town on National Route 6 is a good all-purpose convenience store. You can get coffee and croissants there, and there's an ATM inside.

While the riel is Cambodia's official currency, U.S. dollars can be used anywhere in the country, and most of the ATMs spit out dollars.