Cambodia is for Lovers

July 9th, 10:20pm - Siem Reap, Cambodia

First of all, let me dedicate this day, this part of my travels, and so much of the happiness I feel right now to the people I've met in Cambodia. Every single one has been friendly, welcoming, warm and smiley. Now, on to the blog...

3 plane rides, 2 buses, countless taxis, 8 days and one bike ride later, I arrived at the Angkor Wat.

See the 2nd to last paragraph for the coolest(grossest) thing you'll hopefully read on this blog.

Dan and I rented some bicycles from the hotel and biked our way there, which is an awesome way to travel. The tuk-tuk rides (little motor bikes with seats) look decently fun, but nothing beats a bike for getting into the land and exploring everything at a leisurely pace. My bike was extremely rickety, but like my car, full of character. I named the bike Penelope in honor of my car (which is also named Penelope), and set off to the Angkor Wat around 11am after an American breakfast of scrambled eggs and bread.

One observation that can only be fully appreciated about Cambodia through biking is that Cambodians are simultaneously insane and the best drivers in the world. Whilst mere mortals cringe and cower at the small gaps Cambodians fit themselves in, driving their scooters with 2 adults and 2 kids on one seat, Cambods charge forward into the traffic, usually weaving into sidewalks on both sides of the street when necessary. Dan and I stayed the hell away, on the correct side of the street hugging the sidewalk, marveling at this spectacle.

The Angkor Wat is magnificent. Not really much I can say that goes beyond this. Only 25% of tourist revenue, according to Lonely Planet, goes to the preservation of the Angkor complex (its $20/visitor, so $5/visitor to preservation). You can see that more money is needed because the structures are decaying in many places and very unsupervised. On the bright side, it is the low tourist season here, so Dan and I had many places to ourselves, unbelievably, for hours at a time. Being on bikes meant we also found some places that weren't very well trafficked, which added to the cool factor. I'm going to be adding pictures to my flickr and facebook sites soon, and when I do I'll suggest checking those out. Until then, I'll just say that you can walk over, under, and through anything you find around the temples, and that the whole thing is pretty amazing.

The people of Angkor are an experience in themselves. It is impossible to go to any of the major tourist sites without being badgered by the cutest, saddest kid you've ever seen. And another. And another. They ask you if you want cold water, want postcards, recite facts about the US (if you're from there) and generally try to stay in front of you as long as possible. There are food stalls all around, which double as beds and living furniture at certain places. However once you sit down and eat something, the Cambodian hospitality becomes immediately apparent. Though they have very little, it is gratefully and happily shared, and everyone from children to grandparents smiles, laughs, and nods when you try to say hello and thank you in their language (Khmer). They join you into their games (kind of like jacks, throwing a ball up in the air and picking up sticks off the ground with the same hand you catch the ball with) and wish you well on your trip.

By the time we wanted to go back, we had traveled very very far afield from the normal tourist route. Biking back along towards Siam Reap were hundreds of Cambodians, cows, roosters, chickens, ramshackle dwellings and smiling children, motorbikes, cars, but no white people. We stopped in a couple small dwellings that were a bit scary because of their remoteness and lack of infrastructure, but everyone was very friendly. All of the kids and many of the adults gathered around us to say hello and practice their English, and smiled and laughed. I want to thank my dad for teaching me to be open to people everywhere, especially during a trip in Jordan last year.
By the time we had passed out of the Angkor complex we had about 10 kilometers to go, it was dark, and we were on rickety bikes worthy of Mary Poppins. But we were jazzed as hell, because it had been an awesome awesome and intimately cultural experience. But wait, it got better!

Biking on the highway (which we had to take for about 3-4 miles) was really cool because most of the vehicles were open air and had lots of people and kids in the back. The roads are also filled with lots of people on motorbikes. Nobody goes very fast, and we high-fived people and said hello to everyone. We passed a huge gathering on the side of the road, and pulled over to investigate.

It was a dirt soccer complex, with lots of adults watching children kick a soccer ball around on a whole bunch of fields. This was in the real backcountry, absolutely no white people, and we felt extremely lucky to stumble upon it. There was a line of food stalls, offering up all sorts of interesting looking things. We had beef on a stick, and some kind of shellfish that reminded me of a periwinkle or clam (I've heard the best thing to try in a situation of questionable hygiene, in a foreign country, is the shellfish). Dan walked a little bit farther away and yelled something back that sounded like, "Hey, theres a cockroach!". When I asked him what I meant, he clarified: "There is a bowl of cockroaches!". Sitting next to one of the stoves at a stall was a bowl of cockroaches, just like we would stack a bowl of salad ingredients. Next to the bowl of cockroaches was a bowl of crickets, both of which were nice and fried up.

This is the part where my mother closes her eyes and thanks god she raised a sensible kid who has some wits (oops, failed there). Happily, its also the part where she nods approvingly and smiles at the adventure her son is having, even though its scary. I ate the cockroach. Then I ate the cricket. Let me repeat... I ate the cockroach. Then I ate the cricket. Very crunchy and not really flavorful, but the residue stuck to the roof of your mouth :). Dan and I raised our crickets/cockroaches each time and cheersed like beers, and laughed and smiled at the incredible experience. We each bought a beer from the vendor (Black Panther beer, a local one) and biked off with beers in hand, onto the highway, towards Siem Reap, in Cambodia, people smiling, cockroaches and crickets consumed, on our rickety bikes, feeling like the luckiest people on earth.