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Rat Race

After our first day of temple touring we knew that we needed to change tack. We had visited the 3 most famous ones in the heat of the day with full sun washing out our photos. Plus we felt like we were being herded from place to place in a mob of other tourists. I mean, they were beautiful temples, but we knew we could have more enjoyment with a different approach.

We opted to start our day 2 in the mid afternoon for less heat, softer light, and fewer people. We also did the ‘Grand Circuit’ in the opposite way of what is typically done. Our strategy paid off: we had the chance to see the temples at our own pace, feeling the unique personality of each. We could linger in the shade, take time to look from different angles, and be more mindful of the experience.

At one point our tuktuk had trouble driving on the freshly graded road, so RobO had to help out.

There is a small temple surrounded by water.

We finished the day back at Bayon, the temple with the faces on it, in the golden light before sunset.


We took a ‘temple break’ day where we cycled out to my watermelon family, had massages, and visited a restaurant with a pool.

Then, contrary to our previous lessons, we got up really early for the obligatory sunrise at Angkor Wat experience. Tourists elbow each other as they jockey for the perfect position, intent on getting the infamous reflection photo. I heard a tourist telling off a group for ‘saving someone a spot’ in the 5th row. Another tourist may possibly find a photo-bomb of me flipping the bird as she took a gloating picture of all of the people standing behind her. The antithesis of a serene sunrise experience. Here’s the shot you’ve been waiting for:

As always we rebounded and hit our stride again, visiting 2 peaceful temples bathed in the morning light. One of my favourites was Banteay Srei, the ‘lady temple’ with it’s intricate carvings in pink stone. We timed it perfectly, leaving just as 6 tour busses unloaded.

Our final stop in Cambodia was a visit to the Apopo Centre. They are an NGO that trains rats to sniff out land mines. Sadly, there are still between 2 and 4 million live mines in Cambodia. The rats can search an area in 2 hours that would take humans about 2 days. We got to see Zila the rat do a demonstration. She and the other 28 found almost 300 land mines in 2018! If you’re really interested you can check them out on Facebook or YouTube, and you can even adopt a rat.

Tonight the adventures continue with a flight to Vietnam.

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Cambodian rendezvous

After 5 flights, 2 days and 4 hours of sleep I finally made it to Siem Reap, Cambodia, where DawnO was waiting for me outside the airport. We went back to our hotel so I could unload my bags and we headed out.

We decided to take a boat tour that took us up a river through the Chong Khneas floating village and out into Tonle Sap Lake. It is currently dry season so the water is low enough to expose the stilts that each house is built upon. In the wet season the water rises up to meet the main floor.

The end of the tour was spent on a floating restaurant out on the lake viewing the sunset. Not a bad start to the holiday.

The next day we decided it was time to see some temples. We bought a 3 day pass and hired a tuk tuk driver through our hotel to take us on the small circle tour of temple which included Angkor Wat, the capital of the Khmer Empire.

The above picture was taken moments before I had a game of tug-of-war over my container of potato chips. I’m still not a fan of monkeys.

The next stop on our tour was Prasat Bayon. This temple was built in the early 13th century and features many intricate stone faces.

Or last stop on the tour was Ta Prom, which was used as a filming location for Tomb Raider. It was interesting to see how nature had embraced the temple’s structures over the centuries.

Today we will continue on our temple tour. Stay tuned for more from Siem Reap.

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Perspective

If my younger self was looking at my past few days, she likely would have been bored. My current self has been content to relax and sit with the ebbs and flows of Cambodian rural life.

Each day I have walked to the village. When my watermelon stand family sees me, they immediately pull over a chair and invite me into the fold of their lives. The women cluck amongst one another, stitching and tending to customers, often with babies on their hips. The children come to translate occasionally. A brief description of my unimaginable life. I’m not sure that they understand what snow is. 30 hours of flying to get here? They shake their heads and pass around snacks.

School children ride by and, seeing me, start asking their well practiced script of English questions: What is your name? Where are you from? How many brothers and sisters do you have? How old are you?.

In the evenings I’ve been mesmerized by the stories from my homestay family. The dad, Maden, is like a cat with 9 lives, surviving the Khmer Rouge, living on the streets, falling victim to human trafficking and slavery on a fishing boat, a harrowing journey through Thailand to get back to Cambodia, and 3 bouts of malaria when guiding in the jungle. He had a vision of creating this rural homestay. He said that the neibouring people laughed at him. He has built it, and we have come. His next plan is to start a tree farm to grow saplings of fruit trees to give/sell to the villagers.

One day I went on a tour to 2 different farms. The crocodile farm was much more than I expected. There had to be 100 000 crocs sunning and mud bathing in concrete tanks. I learned that they sell the crocs for their meat and their skin (in Siem Reap I saw ads for Crocodile skin purses). Maden had told me that a few years ago during a flood the crocs got out. I could not comprehend the horror of this until I saw the scale of the farm.

The second was a silk farm. As I learned each step of the process my brain exploded. One cocoon can make about 400 meters of silk thread, thin as a spiderweb, which are added together to make a specific thread count. The thread is then intricately wrapped like tie dye and dyed so that a specific pattern is formed when woven. For an intricate pattern it can take 4 days to weave 1 scarf. Just like ceramics, I think once the process is understood the large numbers on the price tags makes much more sense.

My inner explorer is ready to move on. Next stop is Siem Reap for some temple touring with RobO!

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Cambodian Village Life

I left Canada right as the temperature dropped this winter. There was about a 60 degree improvement when I arrived in Cambodia so it felt pretty nice to replace my sweater and shoes for tanks and sandals.

My first stop was Hariharalaya, which is a 6 day yoga and meditation retreat just outside of Siem Reap. This place is pretty special as it is integrated into a Cambodian village, which meant we had traditional foods (made vegan style) and experience with Cambodian culture, dances, and music (some better than others… there was a wedding nearby that blasted really bad dance music 24 hours per day for 5 (!!!) days). The retreat was similar to others that I have done, with a set program of daily yoga, meditation, and spiritual teachings. Where it stood above was in the options for ‘free time activities’: a zen garden for rock stacking, a little gym to practice slack lining and hula hooping, bikes to use to explore the village, an art room with instructions for mandala rock painting, and an extensive library, to name a few. This was, I think in part to make up for the strict digital detox for the 6 days. Even though I don’t believe I’m addicted to my phone, this sure helped me to see patterns of turning to electronics when ‘bored’.

My open air room:

I felt great during the retreat and am happy that I chose to start this 6 month vacation with a ‘reboot’ to living a simple, more mindful life. Some highlights:

– connections with new friends around the world (with more places to visit!!)

– getting closer to my bucket list goal of being able to hula hoop for 2 minutes straight. I did a twice daily training regime and got up to 15-25 seconds (inconsistently, but great progress nonetheless)

– feeling comfortable with integrating a daily practice now and when I get back to real life

Following the retreat I headed west of Siem Reap to stay at a real Cambodian homestay I found on Air BnB. My room is VERY basic but has the necessities (mosquito net) plus a great little porch with a hammock. This is the 2nd place I’ve stayed here where the sink drain isn’t connected to anything underneath (ie. my feet get wet when brushing my teeth), but it’s got a western toilet and a ‘refreshing’ bucket shower.

I was going to wait until I left the homestay to publish this blog, but today I had an incredible experience that I wanted to share. After a delicious Cambodian breakfast I decided to walk to the little village nearby to explore. I wandered the tiny market, then was standing near a watermelon stand watching life unfold. The family who owns the stand invited me to sit with them in the shade. I sat for a long time observing the women cross stitching, children riding home from school (often 3 per bicycle), the ice truck delivering huge blocks of ice to each home, families Jenga-ing a week’s worth of groceries and 4 people onto a scooter. I found that because I slowed down to experience the moments, I was able to see so many intricacies of Cambodian life.

The watermelon stand family then did charades to indicate that they wanted to share their freshly made lunch with me. They served small bowls first to their religious altar, then a large bowl to me. The mom stood and watched me eat the (delicious if I didn’t think about it) fish head lettuce wraps and huge portion of rice. I was humbled that these people who don’t have much were so generous and welcoming to me.

I’m looking forward to a couple more days of village life before I meet RobO in Siem Reap on the weekend.