Early Saturday Morning I caught an Air Cambodia flight from Phnom Pehn to the only other city with an airport in Cambodia, Siam Reap, which is only about 15 minutes from the Angkor Archeological Park. We flew over the Tonle Sap which many think is the reason that the Mekong (somewhere between the 8th and 15th largest river by various accountings) is the second or third most biodiverse river. In the rainy season the river connecting this huge inland lake to the Mekong flows backwards and the lake grows dramatically, flooding huge tracts of wetland and woods, providing a totally unique, enormous, annual terrestrial nutrient subsidy to the Mekong. .
I had booked a $19 hotel that got good ratings on Trip Advisor…but still, a $19 hotel in Cambodia when neighboring hotels were going for $200 had me a little nervous. But the Angkor Pearl was great. No frills, but nothing disconcerting. I’d say it was about 80% of the value for 10% of the price.
One of the best parts was that they sent a tuk tuk to pick me up at the airport, and then the driver offered his services for the weekend. You see, there are iconic images of Angkor Wat that could make it seem like an isolated attraction. But the ‘ruins’ and not-so-ruins are spread over the countryside, with the shortest circuit clocking in around 17 km. So you have to hire a tuk tuk or car and having an airport pick up was kind of like an ‘interview’ where I could get comfortable with Theon’s driving and English to the point that I was satisfied that we would be able communicate and was happy to hire him (which came in at $40 for 2 days).
I got in around noon and we went to Angkor Thom, saving the iconic Angkor Wat for sunrise the next day. Angkor Tom was the capital city during what seems to be the golden age. According to one of my guide books the city had a million people at a time when Paris had 25,000.[1] Angkor Thom featured the basement ruins of a palace (that covered acres and must have been mind blowingly enormous) and a couple impressive temples.
But by far my favorite structure was the Baylon temple, which featured 54 towers with faces of the Buddha projecting in the four cardinal dimensions, creating the unsettling sensation of a matrix of attention. Everywhere you looked, the look was returned…repeatedly. It was simply the most unique ancient structure I have encountered. While I was there the monsoons rolled in and the rain pouring into the temple and rattling the surrounding rain forest created an atmosphere that was a totally original experience.
___________
[1] One of the temples in Angkor had three times that many people working in it
No comments:
Post a Comment