Soju Diaries: Cambodia: Angkor Wat

Over the weekend Joe granted me the “privilege” of being a “guest author” on his blog. He built it up like he was bestowing upon me some impressive honor, but in reality he set a goal to finish blogging about Cambodia before we leave for China, and he is feeling slightly burned out. His solution: bring in Sami to finish the job while assuaging her ego in the process. He tried to sell me a bunch of crap about how I know more about the temples and history of Cambodia than he does. Blah blah blah. Whatever Joe. A word of warning- I probably won’t spend the entire time trying to write about farting, poop, and food, so if that is why you tune into Joe’s blog, you may not find me as entertaining.

We spent our final two days in Cambodia touring temples. We toured a total of 12 temples during our week in Cambodia, and 10 of those visits took place in those final two days. Scheduling two consecutive days of temple visiting was a mistake on my part, and temple fatigue definitely hit us hard, especially considering that the temperature was close to 100 degrees. Thank goodness for the camera because by the end of the second day my brain was completely overwhelmed and I could barely remember which temple was which.

We started the two days with a visit to Angkor Wat, in my mind the most impressive of all of the temples we visited. I booked a group tour so we would have a guide to provide us with information as we visited each temple. Unfortunately, I could barely understand a word our guide said. I can understand Konglish (Korean English) very easily, but I have a very difficult time understanding Indian English and Cambodian English, to the degree that it can be embarrassing. Luckily, Joe was more adept at deciphering what our guide was saying, so every now and then I would ask him to translate. Interestingly, Joe is not as good at understanding Konglish (he will tell you he is, but really, he isn’t).

I guarantee I can't understand a word he is saying.

As we walked along the path leading to Angkor Wat we were greeted by monkeys of all shapes and sizes, just chilling in the grass. At that point, Joe turned into a 10-year old boy. He gets so excited about animals, monkeys in particular. He of course wanted to play with the monkeys, but when the monkeys tried to steal his sunglasses things got a little tense. I tried to capture this moment on camera, but I got too excited and fumbled the camera. By the time I had things under control Joe had managed to retrieve his sunglasses and the monkey had moved on to shinier pairs of shades.

Moments before the monkey stole Joe's shades.

The detail in Angkor Wat is incredible. Almost every inch of its surface is covered in ornate carvings. It is staggering to consider the amount of manpower that went into constructing it, and even more staggering to contemplate the time and effort spent carving Hindu imagery all over the temple walls. As a history teacher, I was shocked at how accessible everything was at Angkor Wat. You can view almost every inch of the temple and there are few limitations on what you can touch. A couple of years ago I visited Mount Vernon and toured George Washington’s home. The tour was the worst I have ever been on. I felt like I was being herded through the home as quickly as possible, constantly being reminded not to touch anything. The experience at Angkor Wat was just the opposite, but the extreme accessibility of the temple was almost disconcerting. It is rumored that the Cambodian government has considered closing it off to the public in an effort to better preserve the ancient structure, but hopefully they will instead consider limiting the areas that people can view and encouraging people not to touch the walls and carvings that are slowly eroding.

Traditional Khmer apsara dancer.

The walls are covered in carvings like this.

Crazy tourists like him need to be stopped!

There was one area of the temple that I was almost prohibited from viewing. Due to the extreme heat I wore shorts and a t-shirt that day, forgetting that I read online the importance of covering your knees when you visit the temples. Luckily two members of our tour group offered me their long-sleeved, button-up shirts, and I was able to construct a skirt and gain admittance to the only area of Angkor Wat that is restricted. It was a little annoying to constantly have to readjust the “skirt” and make sure my knees were covered, but overall it was worth getting the full Angkor Wat experience.