KP in KL

After many months without a single blog, due to my lack of what I thought would be interesting stories to share, I’m back. 11:57pm here and it’s been a steady routine for my brain to really kick in and start running like a hamster on a wheel once the sun goes down and almost always at about the time I lay my head on the pillow to go to sleep. I think about random things in no particular order, with no particular story line or reason. One subject that I reminisce on often is our trip to Cambodia. Paul and I took a trip to Siem Reap, Cambodia about 2 months ago, and I never did write about it despite the fact that it is one of the best memories I have from our time in SE Asia, and one that will be well remembered over all the mishaps, misadventures, and apartment plumbing problems I dealt with. So as I sit here wearing my “I heart Cambodia” shirt, I’ve decided to put my fingers where my mind is.

On a whim Paul and I booked a trip to Siem Reap only 5 days in advance as a weekend trip to get out of the city. Cambodia was never on our top ten list of destinations, but it happened to be the least expensive flight out of KL on Air Asia, so we decided, why not. With a Friday morning arrival and a Sunday morning departure, we made a list of all the things we wanted to pack into two days and had no qualms about it being too much to handle. After all, we had been immediately initiated into the “well seasoned, pack a week’s itinerary into a day” travel group on our very first night abroad in Taipei just a year before.

Down the highway we went, just as fast as a moped with driver could pull a buggy with two overgrown Americans while cars and tuk tuks with lighter Asian loads buzzed past us. We passed people of all ages leisurely peddling their old bicycles bare-footed, who had no problem sharing the highway with the much larger cars and trucks who would just toot their horn as they passed. As we headed closer into the town center, the stores and strip center like buildings were basically small huts or shacks with tin roofs, but apparently do alright as there were many people hustling and bustling getting ready to start the day. We finally reached the very center of town where our historical colonial French hotel was we realized the center of town was just as small and quaint as the towns Paul and I were never able to find a place for a pit stop on the long drives to Lubbock.

Siem Reap is one of the top tourist spots in SE Asia due to the many ancient temple ruins. We wasted no time and joined the masses by taking the quiet drive through the tree lined road to the Ankor Wat area. I decided there is no better way to travel around Cambodia than by tuk tuk while the wind blew through my hair and I could smell the oncoming rain. Fresh air is something that KL seems to be lacking. We ventured into one of the Ankors and took a few pictures while the sweat from the humidity and stagnant air in the temple had me glad I brought a sweat rag. Just as we were starting to find our way around this ancient stone temple we were bombarded by a security guard who forcefully offered to take our photo with my camera. He then proceeded to tell us the history behind Siem Reap, the temple, each room in the temple, and practically every stone in the temple. For a good ten minutes we followed this guy around, hoping he wasn’t going to run off with my camera. After several failed attempts to get the camera back and escape the history buff, Paul finally pulled out ten US dollars and the guy shut his mouth and let us be on our way quicker than he even came upon us. With my camera in hand, we learned a few things. Don’t let anyone take our picture, don’t stand around for the start of any history lessons, and always carry small change to buy off the ravenous history buffs. I’m pretty sure Paul made his day buying his silence with the $10 bill. That’s more than the security guard’s daily wages.

Thera took us to Ankor Tom, where the movie Tomb Raider was filmed and we were in awe of the splendor of the massive trees whose roots were almost eerily crawling over and strangling the temple ruins. When we made it out we were surrounded by a large group of children with twin girls probably about 5 years old who looked up at me with their big brown eyes and in unison repeated “3 for one dollar, 3 for one dollar,” holding up beaded bracelets for me to see. As the older boys attempted to capture Paul’s attention with musical instruments we finagled our way through the group of children until we found Thera and his tuk tuk. The twin’s sales pitch suddenly took on a more desperate tone as they whined “four for one dollar! Five for one dollar!” I badly wanted to give those little girls $5 dollars for one bracelet, but I could tell these were just the first of many hoards of bracelet selling children we would encounter I told myself I had to be strong or else we would leave with no money at all, so we drove away without a single bracelet.

3 hours and a few temples later we made it to the biggest temple of them all, Ankor Wat. Apparently it used to house some 9 million people within the walls of the city and it was a bustling metropolis in its day. Before we entered what used to be the large city gate after crossing over the moat, we tried to quench our thirst and humidity fighting bodies by buying an ice cream from one of the ladies who basically had an ice chest built on her bicycle. They were almost like large push pops, but without labeling or sealed packaging of any sort. They simply had a single piece of plastic wrapped around it which was fastened with a piece of tape. Paul unknowingly bit into his ice cream on a stick with the plastic on it and the ice cream lady laughed. I’m not sure if it was just the heat, or what, but that was some of the best ice cream either of us have ever had.

So we crossed the stone bridge over the moat, went through the city gates and came across the remains of the ancient city of Ankor that was almost like a building within a building within a building, and acres and acres of land within the city walls. We were both taken aback by its expansiveness. Finally we made it to the very center building and walked through the old hallways to the corner doorway where we sat down to take a break. The entire building was built probably thirty feet above ground on top of a base of stone steps. We looked out over the acres of land while our feet rested and caught sight of a small Cambodian boy laughing and walking around with some other tourist. He spotted us perched up in the doorway and like a spider monkey crawled up the old stone steps to meet us with such ease you could tell Ankor Wat was his daily stomping ground, likely here on his mother’s attempt to get anything she could from tourist as her way of making a living. After the little boy, who was probably no older than 4, made it up the huge uneven steps with the sun beaming down on his back, he came and sat next to me and let out a big sigh, while fluffing his buttoned shirt at the neck to relieve the heat. I had no water to offer him, so I took off my hat and fanned him with it, which prompted him to let out two more sighs. Paul said hello to him and asked his name and age, but the boy didn’t understand a word Paul said. I took out my camera and snapped a few photos of him.

When I showed him his own photos on my camera screen he let out a surprised laugh and slapped his small hand on the camera. Paul taught him how to give a high five, and the three of us sat and rested our feet together for a few minutes and we enjoyed each other’s company. We decided before we continued our tour of the building to give the little boy a dollar since we didn’t have any water or candy or anything else that would be of value to him. He took the dollar, and his smiled revealed his four top teeth black and rotted down to the roots. The little boy folded the dollar in half and stuck it in his shirt pocket with his empty candy wrapper. As we left Ankor Wat, following us the boy would peak through windows and doorways until he could no longer see us, waving with both hands in the air and a big smile on his face yelling, “Bye Bye! Bye!” Even though his mother was there, I wanted badly to take him home with us.

At this point we were exhausted and drained from the heat, with empty stomachs. Thera drove us back to town where we chose to have lunch at the closest restaurant to our hotel which happened to be none other than Mexican food. Sounds crazy. I know. But it was actually really really good. Or it could have been the fact we hadn’t had Mexican food in 6 months we forgot what it should taste like. We had a hard time stopping the dollar tacos, so we each had three and laughed at the surprise on the waiter’s face when he saw we cleaned our plates. I think he’s not used to seeing the relationship American’s have with food being put into action. As we sat, we bought a painting from a boy with one leg, a book from a man with one eye, and gave two young children some money to go home because they were hiding from the policemen across the street who takes their money. Afterwards we decided to get showered and take a quick nap to re-energize us for the evening. The quick nap at 4pm turned into sleeping until the next day. So much for our packed itinerary.

The next morning we started the day off on 4-wheelers or quad bikes. We decided to take the quad bike tour through the country side to see more of Siem Reap than just the city and temples. We passed men plowing their fields with the traditional old metal plow tied to the back of water buffalo and looked out over endless rice patties as the sun came up over the horizon.

We made our way further out of town in a single file line, with the guide on his moped in front of me, and Paul behind me eating my dust quite literally. Our first stop was the Cheras Orphanage where we got off our quad bikes and got the grand tour of the orphanage grounds by an orphan boy who excelled at his English language lessons enough to be the official tour guide of the orphanage. We were greeted by a classroom full of young children who stood up and with a heavy Khmer accent, together said, “Hello visitors, how are you?” we responded and they asked, “Where are you from?” We told them the “United States” and the conversation ended there because that was as far as they had come in their studies.

We saw their pig farm and one room bedroom for all 40 orphans where they all sleep on the concrete floor with no a/c or fan. The orphan boy told us it was okay though because they are used to the heat. We were told by the teachers, who were actually students themselves not even high school age that it was okay to interrupt the class, so we passed out a piece of candy to each child there and each would say “sank you” and bow their head. Paul started the candy give away with two pieces each then realized we were running low and switched to one per child. With the one pot wood burning stove, I wondered if they just eat rice at every meal. There was no refrigerator, pantry, or food in sight.

The quad tour took us down the red dirt roads through several small villages with houses built on wooden stilts. As we passed by you could hear the excited shrieks of children and see them scrambling to make it to the road before we reached their house. The always shoeless, usually shirtless and many times completely naked children would run out to greet us waving wildly as we passed. We would stop and give them each a sucker and they would run back from the road and wave goodbye as we passed. Paul is obviously the generous one and again started by giving out 2 per child and we ran out of candy much sooner than we planned. We made a pit stop at the town market where the stores were literally a row of tiny old shacks with tin roofs and no a/c or electricity. Paul had to duck his head to get in, but he managed to find a few more bags of suckers and we continued our candy giving spree.

After running out of candy for the second time we headed back where we started. In the heat of the noon sun overhead burning our forearms, we road through the rice patties back to the tour starting point. We were completely covered in red dust and Paul insisted I drove the quad at a snail’s pace, but we both agreed the experience of being able to interact with the people of Siem Reap was well worth it.

After more Mexican dollar tacos, Thera drove us to the floating village where we took a wooden boat with wicker chairs in it out to a village on a lake where the people anchor their houses and move with the rise and fall of the water level. Our boat was ambushed by another boat which sped up directly next to us, and a boy not even school age hopped from his boat onto ours while they were both moving, and offered us a box of cokes. Paul pulled out a Sprite and the boy said, “one dollar” so Paul gave the boy a dollar. With the money in hand the boy jumped back onto his boat and the father drove the boat away and disappeared just as quickly as they had come. The boat driver took us to the village store where we hopped off the boat onto the floating grocery store. Paul bought a box of 25 packages of instant noodles to take to the village orphanage while I stood on the porch by the water and watched a shirtless boy grab a net and swoop a large fish out of the water almost like it was second nature.

We hopped back on the boat and headed to the orphanage that doubled as the village school. School had just ended for the day so the children were running around playing with a soccer ball in and out of the building, onto the porch, jumping over the water to the porch next door and back again, all without giving the water a second thought. As soon as Paul and I walked into the school building a young girl jumped in my arms and a small boy tugged at Paul’s shorts and motioned to be picked up. We took a picture and everyone was smiling.

As we started to leave we were again bombarded with two boats; one on either side. Both boats had women pulling at the edges of our boats literally begging, “Please, one dollar, please.” The woman on my side was pregnant and had a young baby sitting next to her in the boat. The woman on Paul’s side had a toddler sitting near her on the boat. Paul gave her his coke, which she opened and immediately gave it to her child who started gulping it. I had no cash on me and before I could get any money from Paul the boat driver was pulling away and the pregnant woman looked up at me with her arm outstretched with one last attempt but gave up, defeated as our boat pulled away. Her freckled face is one I will always remember.

We ended the night with a dinner and traditional dance show that Thera suggested and a trip to the night market where we each purchased an "I heart Cambodia" t-shirt for $5. Up with the sunrise the next morning, Thera drove us back to the small airport and thanked us for giving him a job for the weekend. As we boarded the plane I couldn’t help but think this trip was full of unexpected surprises. It left me with my eyes and heart wide open to the people of Cambodia and their poverty. It was an experience I will forever be grateful for and one that so clearly highlights the abundance of blessings I have in my life. While writing about my thoughts usually clears them from my head, I know Cambodia will be one that continues to play in my head at midnight for years to come.