Our initial plan was to explore Borneo for a while and work our way through Indonesia but we had to alter that plan due to the onset of the rainy season. It can get rather complicated trying to keep track of each region’s rainy season, especially since each country may have several different weather patterns within it. What’s wrong with a little rain? This isn’t the gentle drizzle of Portland. I’d like to think that I’m capable of enjoying a place regardless of the weather but in reality that can be a real challenge when it rains like this. It can be almost as difficult when it’s 100 degrees with no breeze and your lungs are full of dust. It’s worth it to try to plan around the seasons.
We still intend to travel through Indonesia but that will have to happen later. Instead, we got a flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia. The various temples at Angkor Wat are pretty impressive and we were also interested in seeing other parts of Cambodia. Cambodia is in an interesting place right now. They’re emerging from a dark period of their history and they seem to be embracing their cultural and national identity and welcoming foreigners to more of their country. It’s growing quickly and will likely be very different ten or twenty years from now. To start out we got a comfortable room in Siem Reap for almost a week and explored the temples.
What’s not to like about a bunch of thousand year old temples in various states of decay covered with intricate stone carvings? Huge buildings spring from the ground within a matter of weeks in our modern world but to build something like this without industrial machinery is mind-boggling. Every pound of stone was dug from the ground and moved with human (or animal) energy. Every bit of surface was sculpted by hand. It really is beautiful but it’s also possible to overload the senses. It’s fun to imagine these places when people lived in them. What did these buildings look like when they were just built? What sorts of rituals took place here? What were the cities like? How did the people dress? How did they see the world? At this point it’s all just gray stone but if the Cambodia of today is any indication I’m guessing this was a colorful place.
I was particularly impressed by Ta Prohm and Beng Melea because they haven’t been restored to the same extent as the other ones. They’re not the largest but they have massive trees and jungle vines growing all over the them. Somehow it’s also comforting to see human civilization crumble and be recycled back into the Earth by the jungle. That will probably be us someday.
Siem Reap is a surprisingly fun town. There are huge numbers of tourists going there for the temples and there’s plenty of nonsense that goes along with that but the locals were very friendly, there was really good food, and I still felt like I was in Cambodia. In some popular tourist destinations the local culture can get squashed and watered down by big development, foreign investment, and the sheer number of tourists. It’s not necessarily a bad thing if the locals are truly benefitting from it. Somehow Siem Reap seems to maintain a genuinely Cambodian feel and I could easily hang out there much longer even without the temples.
jim@snorkelbandits.com