Hello Cambodia: Siam Reap!

Cambodia has knocked me off of my feet. It's one of those places you know so little about that your expectations may as well not exist for their insubstantiality. Even so, I am not prepared for how completely my heart has opened and I have embraced this country. Every sight, sound, and experience has been a mountaintop one.

Having remembered the envy that I felt in Fall 2000 when my friends talked about their time here, I chose to buy an extended 3-day tour of the Temples of Angkor. It included ten temple tours, including Angkor Wat, as well as a boat tour at Tonle Sap. Even as I sent in the form to purchase the trip, I didn't know what I was buying. With an ignorant insousiance, I figured I'd read up later in preparation for the trip and all I'd see and hear. No such luck. I crammed a bit of history on the great Khmer civilization that ruled for thousands of years here and the Khmer Rouge, and I thought I had been pretty successful at it, until I came to visit and realized that I'd had the barest of knowledge of the topic of study.

Lessons Learned:
- Cambodia is a democracy now. It used to be a communist country.
- Cambodia is a Kingdom. It has a king, but he's a figurehead.
- The Cambodian language is Khmer.
- "Angkor" means city. "Wat" means temple.
- "Siam" means Thailand. "Reap" means defeat.
- "Sous Sday" means hello.
- In less than 4 years in power Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime executed/starved 25% of the population. There are now 15 million people living here. 3 million perished.
- The "killing fields" is a bit inaccurate in that executuions were perfomed in fields all over the country. There was no formal place where these executions were performed. Bodies are still being found.
- "Naga" the Serpent King/God, is carved all over the Khmer, Hindu, and Buddhist Temples here. He is a protector deity to the Khmers. Many of the temples were built as early as 800 A.D. as Khmer temples and then Indians arrived with Hindu religion and Buddhism from the Chinese/vietnamese. Many of the temples were built as one thing and now exist as another.
- "Apsara" is the celestial dancer. She's pretty fierce.

We arrived in Siam Reap, the nearest city to Angkor. We started or temple explorations with Ta Promh, the "tomb raider" temple, nicknamed for the film that was shot there. The entire complex was overgrown with vines and trees, left unrestored, both because of the structural instability of the place without the root systems and also to give the experience of the French that arrived and explored the jungle to find the many ruins of Angkor (which itself holds 300 temples). Technically, we only saw/explored .03% of what's actually there! It was so exhilirating and exciting to clamber up, down, around and under broken pillars and cave ins. I must have taken a million pictures there alone.

Next we visited Angkor Wat until sunset. Surrounded by a large moat, with outer and inner temples and courts, Angkor Wat is a lot to take in, and I'm not sure I've even assimilated everything that I've seen. There are no words to describe my disbelief that such a place could be built largely by devoted volunteers working for the price of good karma (FREE) with no heavy machinery, no balances, no cranes. Many of the stones were too heavy to transport over land and were floated to the construction area! I also can't believe that a people that never mastered the flying buttress built so many arches. These are "false", in that they don't curve, but it's still amazing that they made a way to complete these projects and sustain their huge society.

We ate dinner and watched some dance performances. The Cambodian woman performing a dance in the traditional style was amazing. Her balance and flexibility rivaled any ballet principal as she balanced largely on one foot, bending her leg behind her back. Her hands seemed double-hinged, rolling and folding back and forth continually against the wrist. I was getting sore just watching her. I remember thinking as I watched the dance, the beautiful costumes and folk stories, that a great evil had arisen and greatly damaged, almost destroyed, this beautiful and rich culture. I sent up a prayer then and there for God's blessing on them, God's covering of protection. I prayed for their spirits to be healed. For peace to abide. Interestingly, it already does... of all the places I've visited on this voyage, without exception, Cambodia is the most serene. I have a sense here that the people have found contentment and peace on the strength of their gratitude, their deep joy of living, alone. Maybe it is their lesson to the world (aka me). South Africa's was forgiveness and reconciliation. Over time, I have come to believe that each nation has one great thing to teach the world. I'm gradually making it my mission to find out what each one is, even America's (currently have no idea).

Angkor Wat at sunrise is not to be missed. Chris was right! (Thanks man:) I felt blessed just to watched the colors change over the building, snapping ineffectual photo after photo. After breakfast, we ran the gamut of temples, hitting Angkor Thom, Bayon, Baphuon, Terrace of the Leper King, and the Elephant Terrace. I remember we had just walked away from Bayon, where many people had taken advantage of elephant rides around the temple (I refrained to save 15$ since I'd already ridden them in India). We stopped so the guide could tell us a story. I was standing on a high rock and looking at the sky, at hole in the thin canopy that the grove of trees made. Right then, the gentlest of breezes blew... and I felt it. Holiness. I was at my exact center. God was there. And I knew that I loved this country and always would. I

After lunch, the tour continued to Pre rup, East Mebon, Ta Som, Neak Pean, and Preah Khan. At this point, I'm sure that anyone would agree that a person should and would be "templed out", but even though it was ridiculousy humid and hot (I had 8 different sweat/grime layers on my skin; like a fossil record of the day) but I wasn't because each of the temples that we visited, was absolutely different. One had giant buddhas, another had a lake inside and we had to cross to the temple of a long balance-brdge made of 2x4s. It was a great day. After dinner, I went with some students to the night market, where I proceeded to do my level best to single-handedly beef up their GDP!! I've never felt so good about blowing money -- it was my pleasure to put money in the hands of the new entrepreneurs (at a reasonable price of course).

This morning was another early rising, but no regrets. We took a short drive down to Tonle Sap, a HUGE lake on or around which half a million people live. We saw houses on stilts on the way to the docks where we caught a motorboat ferry for a tour of the lake. It was amazing. I and some of the more intrepid students climbed onto the roof of the boat to catch great views and take amazing pics. It was an entire society on a lake, complete with restaurants, schools, autoshops, pool hall, etc. Little kids paddled by in large galvanized tubs. Some other sights included floating rafts of steno torches like the ones used in buffets and a weird net slapping system of clearing the nets of the fish they catch, which are as small as sardines. It was another world entirely from our own, although I was vaguely reminded of the people that live in houses on the edges of Lake Ponchartrain and the bayous (everything makes me homesick -- it's a disease!).

Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the amazing guide we had from Destination Asia. Khet to the round, handsome Khmer face of many of his countrymen, but what struck me most about him was his spirit. Projecting outward through his voice, constant smile, and gentle sense of humour was one of the most serene spirits I have ever met. There is a place inside that I imagine is quiet and still, and endless wellspring of the deepest and strongest joy. The kind born of the divine. I am not sure of his religion, but he knows God, that much is certain. As a man in his late 30s, he is not technically a survivor of the Khmer Rouge genocide, but he is ceratinly a victim, and his testimony during our ride home from Angkor on the second day touched everyone who heard it very deeply. As a child, he has no memory of the oppression of slavery or field work, but it was 6 or 7 years before he met his two older sisters and father, who made their way home from the fields after the Khmer Rouge fell from power. He has an older brother that they believe died during that time (no proof -- never returned home, body never found or identified). He clearly recalls tagging along with his father through killing fields at 7 years old, searching through piles of bodies, the stench unimaginable, looking for a face he'd never seen, but whose loss he felt all the same. In lieu of a burial, they wrote his name on a piece of paper and threw it into a grave. Even as I write this, tears are on my cheeks -- I too know the pain of missing family members in the wake of disaster. There is NO comparison between the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina and the genocide of the Khmer Rouge, but pain is pain, and loss is loss, and in this, he is my brother. I'll make a vow here and now to remember his family in prayer.