Angkor

Watching the sun rise over Angkor was just a breathtaking sight. As I stood there with all the other tourists who could be bothered to get up that early, we watched from across the pond as slowly the sun rose over the 5 towers of Angkor Wat. It was everything I had imagined it would be and more. I guess I hadn't imagined the local cafe owners shouting 'hot coffee' in the background as they touted for customers to serve them hot vietnamese coffee for breakfast. But otherwise it was calm and serene as we all watched the colours of the sky over Angkor change and as soon as the sun was up, the temple loomed majestically over us. Inside the temple, there walls all around were carved with the figures and stories from the myths of Ramayana and Mahabharata. Originally a complex of Hindu temples, it was then taken over by a Buddhist king and then once again returned to Hindu kings. After walking around Angkor Wat, the 'jamboh' a cambodian version of the tuk tuk, took us to Angkor Thom. And this was more stunning than Angkor. The towers of Bayon, the main temple in Angkor Thom are covered with 49 Buddha faces. One of the faces is the one used on the Cambodian currency notes. After walking around this complex we went to the temple of Prea Khan. Now this was what I had pictured in my head. This is how I had seen Angkor on a Tv documentary and decided that one day i had to see it. When I fist saw Angkor in a documentary, it was the French,always the adventurers, who were trekking through dense forest vegetation and they discovered all these boulders with carvings and slowly the whole sight of Angkor was discovered. Before i went into teh Angkor complex, I imagined I would be trekking through dense forest treks to find myself suddenly standing in front of towering temples thousands of years old. Instead it is all very civilized, there is an official entrance where you buy the 2 or 3 day pass which requires a photo. They even have a camera man on sight taking the photo for you if you don't already have one and then you travel via motorbikes or jamboh's or even cars along dirt roads and at some point even tarmaced roads to get to the Various temples. But Prea Khan is stunning because it's the jungle temple. It's where they shot tomb raider and the temple stands untouched. There are huge trees spurting out of the temple walls and roof, roots, hundreds of years old causing havoc to the structure of the temple. We spent the next two days walking around the various temples, always as we entered a temple, there would be a whole group of kids tring to sell us bracelets and water and other crafts that they had made. These kids are really sassy though. It's amazing how much they have absorbed from hanging around the tourists all day. extremely intelligent, they have an answer for every question and their ability to speak the basics in any major foreign language you asked them to, just amazed me.
Having fulfilled my dream and roamed around Angkor for 2 days I was ready to get back to Phnom Phen and them towards the south of CAmbodia from where I would enter Laos. But we deided to stay in Phnom Phen for a few days. We met a dane who had been staying there a while and knew the place well enough to show us around. And there is nothing better to have someone who knows the place show you around it. So we spend the weekend getting to know Phnom Phen. We walked along the riverside and spent the night sipping cocktails along the front which is lined with bars. We saw bats in the middle of the day, hanging from a tree right in the centre of town at one of it's main junctions, walked through the markets, and went to the backpacker area near the lake where we saw the sun set. But the time I was most grateful for having Jacob, the Dane, around was when we visited Tuol Sleng, a former Khmer rouge s-21 prison, not just for the history of it but just as moral support. The prison is actually on the sight of what used to be a secondary school and later also had a primary school next to it. From the outside it looks like all the other regular schools in Phnom Phen, except withhout the kids in white and blue uniforms and the playgrounds full of motorbikes and bicycles. This school houses photo upon photo of the millions, literally, of victims of Pol Pot and the Khmer rouge regime. They documented their crimes so well that these records now provide a light on the horrendous side of humanity. The classrooms with small cells built in them, and the chains still on the floor, are just a horrible place to be in. The graphic pictures and explanations of the torture carried out there is just emotionally scarring. And we were only there for half an hour. Imagine having to live through a regime like that....it's just unimaginable. And I guess still we don't learn and people carry on with wars all over the world. How can people be so greedy for power that they have no qualms about treating people worse than humans?
The prison is somewhere everyone should visit once in their lives.....seeing it in person just brings home the reality of human nature when it seeks power and control.