We then spent some time walking around the area and noting some of the differences between Cambodia and Thailand: they drive on the right side of the road here, more motorbike drivers/riders wear helmets here (they get a $10 fine for not wearing a helmet), the main currency is the US Dollar (San says the gov’t chose to use our currency because it’s relatively stable, but some people still use the Cambodian Riel), and most everything is slightly more expensive. Otherwise, it has a similar “feel” as Thailand because of the shack-type markets, chickens and dogs running/sleeping in the streets, and the food is very similar.
San and Yun were at our hotel to pick us up bright and early on Wednesday, as promised. We visited several places, including Angkor Thom, Bayon Temple, Baphoun Temple, Phimeamakas, the Leper King statue, Elephant Terrace, Ta Prohm temple, Angkor Wat, and Phnom Pekheang. San was a wonderful guide and a genuinely nice person, so we’ve really enjoyed being with him. He knows everything there is to know about each of these places, including the length, width, and depth of the moats. He’s really an impressive guy!
Angkor Wat was our favorite temple on Wednesday; it’s a 900 year-old temple that took 400 years to build. It’s huge and ornate with thousands of carvings all over the walls. San pointed several out and told us the stories that were carved. Many were about battles between God and the Demons, where God would hold a snake on one end and the Demons had the snake by the other end. Other carvings just showed everyday life of the time – people playing with their children, cooking, fighting, fishing, dancing, etc. Some carvings depicted hell at the bottom, earth in the middle, and heaven on the top.
Today the guides picked us up at 8am again (actually we looked out the window at 7:30 and they were already here, waiting for us). We drove about an hour out of the city to see a “floating village”. That village and the one we drove through to get there were the poorest places we’ve ever seen. People lived in poorly-made wooden shacks that were set 10 - 12 feet off the ground because it floods in the rainy season (September). The houses weren’t stilted on 4x4s or even 2x4s though – they had used small tree trunks or even limbs, so the houses looked frighteningly unstable for the most part. Most didn’t have doors, so we could see straight through them to see that there weren’t walls or rooms, just hammocks, plastic chairs, maybe a bed, and lots and lots of children and babies. “No family planning here”, San said. As odd as it may sound though, it wasn’t a pitiably poor place. We didn’t feel sad or sorry for the people because they seemed very happy and seemed to have everything worked out the way they wanted. The children were all smiles and loved to wave at us. One little girl melted my heart when she put her hands to her mouth a blew us a kiss.
The floating village was literally a village built in the largest lake in Southeast Asia. People either live in houses stilted over the water or on wooden boats with tree limb roofs over them. There was even a floating school, church, and markets. We mostly just looked around in awe, and many of the people looked right back at us with mutual curiosity. We passed one boat that was *filled* with people, mostly teenagers. They all stared at us like we were the first white people they’d ever seen! One girl’s jaw dropped when she saw us and then she and the others just continued to stare and smile as we floated past.
We then headed to the oldest temple here, the temple where an Indiana Jones movie was filmed. Of course, Jeremy was ecstatic. It was a super cool temple and one of few that hasn’t been restored at all since it was found. Most of it was in ruins where the ceiling or walls had fallen over the years. There were piles of sandstone blocks all over the place. San asked us if we wanted to “rock and roll”, meaning get adventurous and climb through the piles of rocks to get around on the inside of the temple, which of course we did. There were only a few other visitors there and that added to the mystique of the place. It was really still and quiet and a tiny bit creepy, and we loved it.
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