Cambodia

June 2022

I’m in Cambodia!

I’m here on a whim – I wanted to stay in Thailand longer than my visa-on-arrival duration, so I booked a quick side trip to Cambodia to break up my Thailand trip.  My plan is to fly into Phnom Penh, make my way to Siem Reap and the Angkor Archeological Park, then back to Phnom Penh and fly out, in 21 days.

In 2008 Danny Yee and I visited Phnom Penh and Angkor Wat here.  I recommend reading this before moving on.

I booked into Dara Reang Sey Hotel, a hotel that has come down in the world in the decades since it was built; no lift, spacious but old-fashioned rooms, plumbing antiquated but functional.  Here’s a view of my room, at $US25 a day:

It’s in the old part of town, just two blocks from the river, a block from the Old Market.  The balconies between the rooms are not separated, so it’s possible to exit a room via the balcony, move between the balconies, and enter another room via another balcony.  Here’s a view from the balcony:

I had hoped to get a boat to Siem Reap, but they were not running due to COVID19.  Instead I caught a minivan to Siem Reap, and checked in at the Glow Inn Hotel in the city centre, at $US18 a night.

The Old Market (below) is a short walk from my hotel:

A view of the butchers’ stalls:

The Old Market includes a wet market, and stalls where you could eat; I ended up eating breakfast there every morning.

The real reason for coming to Siem Reap lies in the Angkor Archeological Park.  Here is a view of just part of the Park:

There are a lot of temples to see, but I have been to Siem Reap several times before, so I visited only a few.  This YouTube clip is an overview – there are many, many more:

Angkor in 2022 – a travel guide to Cambodia’s ancient temples

The only first-hand account we have of ancient Angkor was written by 周達觀 (Zhou Daguan):

“… the Chinese envoy, Zhou Daguan, who visited Angkor in 1296–97 and wrote A Record of Cambodia: The Land and Its People after his return to China. To this day, Zhou’s description of the royal palace, sacred buildings, women, traders, slaves, hill people, animals, landscapes, and everyday life remains a unique portrait of thirteenth-century Angkor at a time when its splendors were still intact.” (https://silkwormbooks.com/products/a-record-of-cambodia)

There is a translation by Peter Harris which is very good.

I hired a sort of tuk-tuk – a motorcycle with an attached two-wheel carriage, like this.  I think the French call this a ‘remorque-moto’.  Here’s a photo:

The jungle in the Angkor Archeological Park is dramatic:

I asked my driver to let me off in front of the South Gate of Angkor Thom.  Across the moat there is a representation of ‘churning the sea of milk’:

“the Devas sought Amrit, the elixir of immortality from the depths of the primordial ocean. The Devas had to join forces with their mortal enemies, the Asuras (Demons) to churn the cosmic ocean and bring the Amrit to the surface – who agreed to do so in return for half of the reward… To churn the primordial ocean, Mount Mandara was used as a churning rod and the snake-king, Vasuki as the churning rope. The Asuras held the head of the snake and the Devas held its tail and they pulled his body alternately, causing the mountain to rotate and the ocean to churn.  When placed in the ocean, Mount Mandara began to sink, so Vishnu, in his second avatar as the tortoise Kurma came to the rescue and supported the mountain on his shell. The colossal tug of war continued for a million years before the gifts of the ocean were revealed.”  (https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/the-churning-of-the-ocean-of-milk/#:~:text=The%20churning%20of%20the%20ocean%20of%20milk%20is%20a%20momentous,Amrit%2C%20the%20elixir%20of%20immortality.)

The location was quite picturesque:

The South Gate is topped by several giant faces with an enigmatic half-smile, as in the photo below.  I believe archeologists don’t know who the faces are.

I remounted the ‘remorque-moto’ and drove through Angkor Thom, past the Bayon temple (below):

We drove to a different gate, the Gate of the Dead (below):

The road to it wasn’t sealed, and the Gate itself is an atmospheric ruin, even though the location is a few hundred metres from a busy road:

I climbed up to the wall for a different angle:

Finally, we stopped at Spean Thmor (below), once a bridge over the Siem Reap River.   Flooding has pushed the river east of the bridge.

More to come.