Cambodia

I'll start this entry how I started the others... at the airport, a beautiful pagoda looking airport that was nice and tiny and blessedly hassle free. 

We loved our hotel, the Golden Butterfly Villa. They greeted us with sweet iced tea in a cool silver cup, and sweet sticky rice, and roasted bananas. This was the moment we had been waiting for, sticky rice!

 

Immediately setting out to try Khmer food, we were so pleased...it was DELICIOUS. Then we went to the Cambodia circus, which is a training school for the kids there. It was so funny and fun, and it is for a good cause. It was more story based, so it wasn’t Cirque du Soleil or anything, it was just the happiness of these teenagers seeping through that made it so amazing. Then we went to sleep to wake up early for our tour to the archaeological parks. 

First we went to a temple called Bayon, it is known for the many faces of Buddha/the King at the tops of the pillars. Man, it was so beautiful, and truly surreal! Lots of cavernous areas, but also quite crowded. The carvings depicted a lot of interesting scenes of war set against common life, even with Acrobats and Elephants and such. We found out later that there was even a scene of the Vietnamese army getting defeated and eaten by crocodiles lololol but we didn’t see it. I called Vinh a "champa" for the rest of the trip. 

We walked around the Angkor Thom complex, including a temple where supposedly the King had to climb the steps to the top where he was compelled to sleep with a snake woman every night, or so the story went to early explorers. If she ever didn’t appear, it meant he was about to die. 

One site of interest was the terrace of the Elephants and the terrace of the Leper Kings, where they think they might have cremated the royal family. 

 

We went to have a nice lunch and after that, we went to Ta Prom, also known as the Angelina Jolie/Tomb Raider temple. This was fun to wander around, the trees are literally growing into the temple. When the temples were forgotten, the jungle just overtook the area, and they decided to leave it that way. 

Then we went and got ice cream to cool off at the Blue Pumpkin. By the time we made it to "actual" Angkor Wat, we were really tired and hot, but it was very beautiful, and we enjoyed looking at the carvings. My favorite was the Churning of the Milk bas-relief. Its a long story, but the churning of the waters basically created these angels, which is where the Cambodia and even Thai female dancers you know of came from, you may know them as the dancers that do the cool hand symbols movements. Turns out each of those hand symbols has a specific meaning. 

Then we watched a documentary om Angkor Wat while sipping Lotus Blossum tea and went and got a massage.

The next day we took it easy. We slept in and had a nice pineapple pancake breakfast. Then we went to get a water blessing by a monk at the Wat Po temple. Basically it is a blessing where they throw water over you, and speak about an incident in Cambodia history where the King threw water over the different peoples and it was lucky. It is a standard part of a wedding here, to do it just prior to the wedding. He talks about all of your enemies will become friends, you will have a happy life, and to be loving and tolerant to all — but he says this all in some ancient Buddhist language so we didn’t understand a word of it. :)

Then we went to this artisan crafts store where we learned about silk making, etc.  The kids are chosen by a charity — the leaders go to very poor villages and set up coconuts and ask the kids to draw the coconuts, and then the most talented ones are taken to the school where they learn these different arts and the sale supports the school. That was really interesting. I wish we could have bought more stuff there but because it is all handmade, it was pricey! 

 

That night we attended an Apsara dancing and dinner show (I mentioned these angels above). I guess during the Killing Fields era, these dancers were mostly killed because anything that made Pol Pot mad was killed. So they are trying to recreate the dance culture from the rare survivors and the carvings on the temples. It is really sad, almost everyone we met here had tragedy in that era.

Kbal Spean and Banteay Sprei were absolutely stunning, I especially liked the waterfall/river even though it was a bit of a hike to get there, it was all shaded and very peaceful. They carved these figures into the stone during low water season, and they believed that by running over it the water would be made sacred. 

We also went to the Landmine Museum and that was really sad. :( But I did get a piece of jewelry made out of a dismantled landmine. They use the money to help some orphans that live next to the museum. The story of the man who started that place is so inspiring!!! He basically use to arm land mines for the Khmer Rouge, now he battles against them and works to disarm them. 

We also took cooking class. We learned how to cook a traditional Cambodian curry dish called Amok. So good! And we made a green mango salad and cane sugar sweets to go with it. MMMMMMM. 

 

After that we went to a spa for a three hour rest, including a facial and a body scrub with mango and honey. The massage was AMAZING. I felt like a new person walking out of there.

The next day we rode bikes around to some of the smaller less crowded temples.Biking back toward the hotel we finally stopped at the Killing Fields. They literally have skulls in this monument for people to see. So sad, but honestly, I don’t think the park did the tragedy justice. The plaques and other explainer plaques were super run down. :(

 

Overall, I think Cambodia is definitely one of the most remarkable places I have been in the world, truly the people there are incredible. They have suffered genocide in recent history, and you can see the scars on the land and the people... but I feel they are like phoenixes rising from the ashes. And I can't wait to see what Cambodia does in the future.