How could I not come to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat on my first trip to Southeast Asia? Of course, it’s a checklist destination, but it’s a rather big, fat, and heavy box in any bucket list.
Not to mention, it’s the perfect final puzzle in my ideal trip itinerary, which has my big three: jaw-dropping ruins, stunning scenery, and authentic culture. It fits perfectly between the charming, foggy mornings of Luang Prabang and the splendid drama of Thailand’s Krabi cliffs. Of course, it had to become one of the brightest flags on my travel destinations map.
After the cultural shock of Luang Prabang airport, which felt like a time machine into the Soviet past, Siem Reap was more like coming back into the developed world. A much better-developed, modern airport with efficient, well-organized border control, and many more people in uniform around us. If Laos feels like a run-down collective farm, Cambodia feels like a modern high-security prison. The system was very well aware that it was running a gateway into the most important Southeast Asian destination, and it was determined to excel. Again, passport control was fast, taxi pick-up was smooth, and the ride from the airport delivered iconic views of palm tree silhouettes against an orange-yellow skyline, powdered by the famous Cambodian wetlands evaporation mist. The postcard was delivered immediately upon entry.
Entering Siem Reap was just as expected: chaos of bikes, tuk-tuks, and food stalls spilling onto every surface. All this made you feel grateful that you are not the one who is driving.
Our Marriott hotel was towering over the surrounding chicken coop as a palace.
Normally, when you stay in historic places, you are paying for the atmosphere and proximity to attractions. But if you want a certain level of comfort, you would better stick to your big, well-known hotel chains… and we did appreciate it after a few days in the authentic cultural place.
After settling in, we asked the receptionist for a restaurant recommendation, and apparently, all the Western tourists are channeled to Channarey Tree. So we used Grab and got a remorque to transport us there. It was our first time on this type of transportation, and Channarey Tree was rather impressive with its rich decorum. And just like that, it did feel like a carriage got us from one palace to another, and we got into some kind of unchanged kingdom.
The kingdom did have its treasures. Not just was the food great ( we never had a bad meal on that trip), and the mango sticky rice sauce tasted like a potion, the tableware was rather fascinating for me. I did hear about Cambodian ceramics, but I was afraid I would not find the time to shop for them. So, the plates in Channarey Tree were worthy of a royal table. Beautiful glaze and gentle watercolor. I asked a waiter to bring me a manager and explain that I wanted to know the price of the plates if I bought them. He looked scared and surprised. Quickly ran away and came back. He told me that a plate would cost me one dollar.
One dollar.
However, I should take them so no one would see them. Wow.
Should I take one or two? How am I going to pack them? They were heavy, gosh, they were cute. And imagine how many stories they would bring to every celebration table! As we were finishing our royal dinner, some uneasy thoughts started crawling into my head. Why so secretive? I would be willing to pay 20 times more and not to hide them. Oh well, I would better forget that idea and not get anyone into any trouble. They did try to accommodate me, but you know what? I would rather be a princess that night rather than a treasure hunter, so our remorque carriage carried us away to the city full of magic lights.
The morning in our palace was more revealing about the local resort scene. It was overwhelmingly more American - it was a Marriott after all, and it had some Mexican-Caribbean all-inclusive feel to it. The only difference was the Buddhist monks chanting in a nearby temple. And instead of the shoreline, Angkor Wat was still waiting for us.
Or was it really? Our tour guide was waiting for us in the lobby (he was in a uniform too) and him and a driver took us to the archeological park, but as we approached there the traffic stopped. Oh, no. The Angkor Wat International Half Marathon took place on the very same day, and no one bothered to tell us about it in advance.
All the morning plans to get to the temples early were smashed, and we found no better plan than rescheduling the tour for the next day. We asked the driver to drop us off at the Angkor National Museum, which I thought was smart. I had a rather big gap in my knowledge of this part of world history.
The museum was educational, but disappointing at the same time. Having a world-class attraction like the Angkor temple complex, the exposition showcasing it was falling way behind the modern world museum trends. I imagined how engaging and interactive all the information could be displayed if the country were willing to invest more into this magnificent national landmark. But right now, all the wealth of information could work better for historians, scientists, or someone writing a thesis about Khmer history or literacy. Everything was informative but tiring, which led us to appreciate the comfort of our hotel again, where we ended up spending the afternoon before the sunset at the temples.
I refused to participate in the sunrise at the Angkor madness, not being a fan of mass assembly tourist events. Though the sunset would be a smarter idea, I was wrong. Our guide recommended that we visit Phnom Bakheng Temple for the sunset, and we could not see why not. The temple was beautiful, and stepping on the stairs for the first time did give me the feeling of the moment I was waiting for way too long. Age-old sculptural forms, dark moss on the intricate but imposing curvings. Hypnotizing.
But again, the mass madness of reserving the seats more than an hour in advance for the sunset and sitting on the rather hot and humid terrace was not something I dreamed about imagining Southeast Asia’s wonders. Although we did get our portion of dramatic views and beautiful photos. Going back in town, we also got a portion of the crowds, chaos of remorques and tuk-tuks refusing to deal with Grab customers, and the portion of happy and cheerful marathon runners thinking we were one of them. The kingdom or not, it did have its own realities, and we were ready for the better one.
The next morning, an air-conditioned carriage picked us up and brought us to the site. The guide was local, who lived there for his whole life and could walk there with his eyes closed. so we got there around 8 am, when there were almost no people, and the light was perfect. I could not take my eyes off the sun rays hitting the stones and creeping into the tall galleries. I wanted to stop those enchanted moments and immediately fell into my usual trap with too many photos, and saw the strange thing happen to my phone.
While approaching the galleries, the screen turned blurry, then it went dark, then after restarting, it came back with a white, bright, thin line across the screen. The phone was cracked. But I could not see it in the case and ended up telling everyone that the gifts from the cosmos did it to my phone. Apparently, Hindu gods did not want me to take too many pictures of them.
I couldn’t fully document it, couldn’t fully capture it, could only be present in it…and maybe pray if I knew how.
Of course, the architecture is magnificent. I don’t know any other ancient ruins that would be so impressive. In Angkor, the jungles are also taking over the ruins, making it even darker and more haunted. What impressed the most were the bullet marks on the walls. The Civil War battles happened right there. Our guide told us that he lost his mother and his sister in that war. We were standing in a ninth-century temple that outlasted a dozen kingdoms, and it had bullet holes in it. That was not history at a distance — that’s history with a face and a name and a personal cost, delivered quietly between explanations of Hindu cosmology.
We managed to see a lot in one day: the grandeur of Angkor Wat, the monumental faces of Bayon, the terraces of Baphoun, creepy jungles of Ta Phrom. The intricate bas-reliefs of the Royal Crematorium. We were surrounded by Hindu gods and Buddha sculptures everywhere we went. The stone ornaments showed Khmer love for intricate detailing in every material humans could touch.
We were surprised by how vast the temple complex was. Walking from one temple to another was not possible. Having a driver who was opening all the doors for us was an unexpected detail. I did not understand why the guide could not drive us himself, but maybe the uniform was making him a person of a different class, and having a cooler in a car made us feel like real VIPs, or some royalties during a state visit. We were still in a kingdom after all.
I still had hopes to find some treasures in that kingdom, and we did check the pub street on our last evening. It was close to the night market, and the amount of mass-produced Chinese souvenirs was overwhelming.
I did like a graphics card and a painting shop. Picked a couple of stone faces. The girls started claiming that they go to the temples and draw them themselves, and pointed to their “brother”, who was sitting there trying to paint something. They told me the cards I was holding were acrylic paint. I went through the whole stack, the paint was not acrylic, it was watercolors, but my painters were not aware, and the “brother” clearly did not know how to paint, but I was envisioning the cards on my bedroom wall, so that haggle did happen, and the stone faces did follow me to Texas. They look like they have always meant to be here, and my room finally looks complete. Just like any Southeast Asian itinerary is complete with visiting Angkor Wat.
The two days in Siem Reap were intense. The magic kingdom, the uniform efficiency, the contraband plates, the gods cracking my phone. Did I feel a little out of place, like Alice wandering in someone else’s kingdom? Maybe. It all seems like it was a dream or something that was not real, but the stone faces on my bedroom wall tell me it was.
