Siem Reap

This isn't really a post.  I mean, it's a post because it shows up in the blog, but I'm not really going to do proper justice to anything that I write about.  I'll mention some things that I don't have photos for (yet), and other things that I have tons of photos for but which merit their own separate posts.  Also, I'm tired and need to get my beauty sleep before tackling the temples tomorrow morning. 

The big news of the day?  We're in Cambodia! 

On the tarmac in Siem Reap; prop plane that brought us from Saigon in the background

We got up at 4:00am this morning to catch the first flight from Saigon to Siem Reap.  The flight went super smoothly (which I'm starting to think might have just as much to do with lower standards as with organizational skills -- when I ran a full water bottle through security, the guy pulled it out, looked worried, and told me to "try to drink it" before I got on the plane, which surely cannot be the right answer) and we landed a little after 8:00am.  Our driver met us on the other side of customs and drove us to our hotel in a tuk tuk.

We had the entire day ahead of us, but we decided to give ourselves a quasi down day before heading out into the heat and sun of the temple ruins.  Instead, we explored the city. 

The first impression you get of Siem Reap is flat, muddy jungle.  The landscape is green and muddy brown.  There are puddles and rivers everywhere, and they're the same color as all of the unpaved roads.

 

 

Given the views from the airplane and Cambodia's reputation for being significantly behind Vietnam and other countries in the region in terms of economic development, I expected to find a seedy third-world town similar to what I've seen in Central and South America.  But it's actually a pretty little town with a surprising amount of charm and personality.  The chocolatey river that runs through town between the two paved streets is lined with large shady trees and graceful street lamps (most of which don't work, but hey, they look good).

 

 

We also found a couple of pagodas, which are totally different from the pagodas we saw in Vietnam.  Still Buddhist, but a very different aesthetic. 

 

But there are plenty of peculiarities, too.  For example, the city (and the country, I think) uses almost exclusively US dollars and is oddly expensive.  Also, most addresses we've seen simply say what road the establishment is on -- and, of course, there are basically zero street signs to tell you which street you're on.  More numerous (and much less helpful) than streetsigns are the photos of someone I assume is the queen or some other perfectly coiffed political grandmother (I admit I haven't finished reading up on Cambodian politics) posted around town.

And then there are numerous loudspeakers blaring what may or may not be political messages and/or hot tunes for a city-wide dance party.  They're super loud (unpleasantly so) and we haven't been able to figure out what the point is. 



As we walked, we shopped.  In contrast to Vietnam, where I wasn't inclined to buy much of anything that I saw, there's a lot here that I would love to bring home.  There's kind of an artsy vibe here -- probably a combination of the indigenous culture and the enhancements that come from the tourist economy -- and let's just say that I did a little stimulating of that economy. 

Right off the bat, I bought art.  Real art!  From an art gallery and everything.  A friend of mine had recommended the McDermott Gallery, which is a fine art photography gallery featuring images of the Angkor temples.  I thought they were gorgeous and was about to buy a handful of reproductions when I thought I might as well ask about some of the originals.  Turns out they were less expensive than I'd feared and easier to ship than I'd hoped (the gallery essentially takes care of everything, and the cost is built into the price of the photo).  I didn't buy one of the gorgeous hand-developed, limited-run photographs, but I did purchase an original photograph from a fine art gallery.  (Which I'm delighted to say is my very first foray into buying "real" art.  I've always wanted to buy real art from a gallery, but I've always been intimidated or lacking in funds, so this was a fun step for me.)

Here's the photo I bought.  You can't actually see it, so you'll have
to wait until it's delivered to my US address.

I also still bought a few of the smaller prints.  Because when am I ever going to be back here?

I also bought silk.  Oh, silk!  Can I just say that the silk here is AMAZING?  There's a complex of artisanal workshops here that focuses on training and employing local people (many with handicaps) in the traditional crafts of woodworking, stone carving, silk making, etc.  Vanessa and I walked over to the compound to see the workshops and take a tour of the silk farm. 

While waiting for the silk farm tour to begin, we wandered through the shop and I about died when I saw all the gorgeous silk textiles.  Such beautiful colors and patterns!  Theen we went and saw the silk being made -- from worm to finished product, right before our eyes.  It's a fascinating process, and I'll write more about it later; suffice to say that seeing how silk was produced (and seeing the people and the dyes and the looms that produced the textiles that I saw in the shop) only convinced me more that I needed more silk in my life.  I may or may not have spent more than I ought to have spent on pillow covers that I may or may not have any use for back home . . .

Luxurious skeins of died raw silk

Of course I didn't take any photos of the silks I actually
bought (they're all vivid pinks, yellows and oranges). 
But here's a photo of the green and blue collection
(a.k.a. the Amanda W. collection).

After making our purchases (yes, I'm not the only one who got silk fever), we walked over to a restaurant called Le Tigre de Papier and took a cooking class that had been recommended to us by the Chilean couple that we'd met on the Tour of Incompetence and Irritation in the Mekong Delta.  We each selected two traditional Cambodian dishes that we wanted to prepare, and then our instructor walked us through each step of the preparation, from market to cutting and dicing to final plating and presentation.  This is another thing that I want to write more about later, but for now I'll say that it was great fun to see how the recipes worked, and all of our efforts turned out really well. 

Look how official we are!

I'm mashing a mixture of vegetables and chilis to make a
dipping sauce for spring rolls

After dinner, we returned to the hotel and got massages. That's right, 60 minutes of full-body massages complete with scented oils (I had the "invigorating" scent with lemongrass and eucalyptus). Parts of it were heavenly (like when she massaged my neck and shoulders and put a hot towel at the nape of my neck. But I'm not gonna lie, other parts were kind of stressful! I'm not the most relaxed of souls, and I'm also kind of ticklish, so it was all I could do to stay calm and not start cracking up and giggling and/or kicking uncontrollably when the masseuse did the deep flesh massage on my thighs and rear end. Still, now that it's over, I feel great -- very relaxed and ready for bed.

Speaking of bed, that's where I need to be right now. We got very little sleep last night, and we've got a big day ahead of us clambering about among the ruins.  More to come!