Quik Thinking

If you ever end up visiting Siem Reap, make sure you know what the capital of Madagascar is. Outside every temple are a gaggle of impressively multilingual and endearingly cute kids whose extracurricular activities seem to consist of selling trinkets to tourists. Some of these are even worth buying. As always, however, you need to bargain hard. And these kids employ a unique angle in their bargaining tactics. After you make a counteroffer to their initial wildly inflated price, they will lay down a challenge. If you can name the capital of Madagasar, they'll sell you the trinket at your asking price but if not and they can name the capital of a country you choose then you must buy it at their price. And, believe you me, they've spent far more time than you have memorizing capital cities.

At one point we were leaving a temple after being wheedled by these kids when our tuk-tuk suddenly encountered a parade of elephants walking down the street. It took us a while to pass them and while doing so we could see random people feeding bananas to the elephants as they went. And then, as suddenly as they'd appeared, the elephants vanished behind us as we sped away.

Another random cool thing we got to see required taking a different form of transport. We piled into a motor boat and went down a river into a lake to see what is known as the floating village, a collection of houseboats stationed some distance from the shore. In the midst of these was a fish and crocodile farm. Apparently he crocodile farm used to be a cash cow a few years ago, fetching $100 per croc, but in recent years the value of a croc has dropped to just $20.

One evening we visited the famous night market in Siem Reap. As far as I could tell, it just had even more of the same stuff we'd seen already. But May fell in love with a t-shirt that had a picture of a chicken on it. Sadly, the shirt was too small even for her. Not one to let such minor hiccups get in her way, May bought the shirt anyway and even put it on. I took a photo for posterity. Speaking of inappropriate, we found a place that serves do-it-yourself barbeque, via one of those little cooking devices at your table. In the heat of Cambodia, that turned out to be the worst way to eat a meal. But I guess that's why they can offer a buffet: nobody can put up with the heat long enough to eat very much.

We kept seeing these places that offered to let us soak our feet in a tub of fishes that would eat away our dead skin. Intrigued, we decided to give it a shot. They normally charge $3 for 15 minutes but we got them to let us have 2 people in for 5 min each for a total of $2 instead. The fish were quite ticklish but they did work and our feet looked considerably better at the end. While we were sitting there, they guy running the joint realized that having us laughing as we sat there in full view of the street was good for drumming up business so he let us stay for a lot longer than we'd paid.

For most of our time in Cambodia we shied away from the really sketchy food for fear of getting sick. But on the last day we decided that we should go for it. That turned out to be a great idea as the sketchy resaurants has delicious food that was much cheaper than the stuff geared towards tourists. Some of it was similar to what I'd had in Malaysia and other things, like eating raw flowers, were entirely new. And nobody got food poisoning out of it.

The other thing we'd been meaning to do before we left was get a massage in the traditional Khmer style. May opted out but Kim and I found a place that offered an hour of full body massage for just $4. It proved to be an excellent use of our money as both of us emerged feeling relaxed and refreshed. Right after our massages, we met up with May and set of for a buffet and traditional Khmer dance performance. Unlike the barbecue, this buffet was incredibly good and easily worth the $7 it cost us. The dancing was a treat as well and an amazing way to end the trip.

One of our few regrets about this trip to Cambodia was that we did not shop around for the best price when hiring a tuk-tuk driver for the 3 days we spent visiting temples. Our driver cost us $25 apiece while we were able to find others offering the same service for as little as $40 regardless of how many people we had. 

In the airport on our way out, I was pleasantly surrised to discover that they offerend free wifi at the boarding area. They also had a suggestion/complaint box for people to leave feedback about their airport experiences. The box was made of clear plastic so I tried reading some of the notes. One of them complained that a Customs official had tried to exract a bribe at night! We never encountered any such issues ourselves, fortunately.

In fact, my only beef with the Cambodian airport system was that they made us all get off the place for 15 minutes when we made a brief stop at Phnom Penh and then put everybody through a security check as we got off the plane. Of all the times to put people through a security check, that has got to be the most pointless one! Clearly if we'd boarded the plane already then we must have cleared security. I cannot fathom what they were they expecting to find. Worse still, by the time we cleared security, it was aleady time to reboard the plane and we didn't really have time to even use the toilet!

On our 2nd day in Cambodia we woke up at 5am to watch the sun rise at Angkor Wot. By the time we reached it, there was already a substantial crowd of tourists gathered there in lawn chairs. On a whim, May thought it might be a good time to visit the temple itself without being bothered by anybody else. That turned out to be a stroke of genius that would prove useful for the rest of the trip. By starting very early, we found ourselves with nearly two hours of relatively uncrowded time at Angkor Wot.

The temple is extremely large and is currently under renovation by groups from a variety of countries: Japan, Italy and Germany; the entire axis from the 2nd world war, interestingly! Despite its size, even the surfaces of walls are covered with intricate designs. Some of them have scenes from the Mahabharata, which is not even part of the local culture any longer!

When we were done with the temple, I was quite hungry and decided to eat a young coconut, only to discover that, unlike in KL, not all coconuts in Cambodia have flesh in them. Meanwhile we were besieged by a horde of children hawking postcards. At 10 for a dollar, they seemed like a pretty good deal so we all bought some. Only later did we discover the subtle scam behind this seemingly innocuous enterprise. But the kids were fun to talk to and seemed to know a surprising number of languages!

Our next stop was a 1500m hike up a hill to see stone carvings near a stream that date back to the 10th century. There were also many butterflies at the top, drinking salt from the moist earth. After descending and eating lunch, we headed to another temple that had awesome statues of monkeys and then finally we went to yet another temple to watch the sun set. 

Hitting the temple circuit early had worked out so well that we did it again the next day to see Angkor Thom. Although we were the first ones there, our idea wasn't unique as a few other tourists did show up shortly after us. Even before entering the temple we could see the giant stone heads for which the temple is famous. Upon walking inside and up to the top, we found many more such heads, some better preserved than others. There were also a multitude of stone lions scattered around the temple. Somewhat removed from the giant stone heads were a collection of small temples buiult in honour of the king's 12 wives. They're nowhere as interesting as the heads and I would't have visited them if they hadn't been near the toilet.

Also nearby is an enormous stone statue of a reclining Buddha. It's currently under rennovation following centuries of neglect and wear but it's still possible to discern the outline of the face in the wall. Interestingly, this is the second time it is being rennovated; it was previously rennovated in the 16th century, when it was four hundred years old. Perhaps it will need to be rennovated again in four centuries...

A little further up is the elephant terrace, which was built as atonement by the losers of a war in which all the Cambodian king's elephants perished. The terrace has a few different types of elephant statues but it also includes a maze containing a five-headed horse and a seven-headed naga.

We began our final day with a visit to the jungle temple, so called because it has become overrun by large trees that dominate the stone structures as they slowly desroy them. The sight of centuries old trees crushing even older temples is so remarkable that the Fench restoration authorities decided to avoid restoring this particular site to its original state. Apparently the trees are the result of birds droping seeds on the roofs of abandoned temples. The seeds slowly grew into trees with their roots growing downward around the walls and enveloping the structures.

After that we went to see the hall of dancers, whose ruins depict dozens of dancing figures, both carved into walls and as frestanding statues. Kim took her cue to strike up some awesome dance poses before we ended our temple tour with the oldest building we'd seen yet. This one was constructed in the 10th century with brick instead of stone and has stood up to the ravages of time far better than any of the more recent temples, although it's also far less interesting as it lacks the cornucoia of stone carvings that add character to the other ruins.

While Singapore may have the best airport in the world, Siem Reap certainly has one of the prettiest ones I've seen. And they have a quaint assembly-line Immigration system that is rather amusing to watch; you give them your paperwork (passport, arrival form, photo and money) at one end and then watch the package make its way down the line until you get a stamped passport back at the other end. They don't actually ask any questions of tourists, much like Malaysia. Confusingly, nobody actually looked at the customs form we handed them and nobody even asked us for the health form we filled out.

We were all set to find a tuk tuk and take it to our hostel but I had evidently asked for an airport pickup because there was a guy with my name on a placard waiting for us. Pleasant surprise! He told us his name was Moon and he would be taking us to the hostel, which he did, giving us a chance to observe traffic in Siem Reap. It's a bit crazy, despite not being particularly congested, because people frequently drive the wrong way down the street but nobody seems to mind! On the other hand, their intersections are pretty impressive; they have a countdown for vehicles during both green and red lights plus a crossing guard and a traffic cop.

Our hostel was large and spacious and, although we had to go up two flights of stairs to reach our room, it had a fascinating view of a crocodile farm. The sole downside was that the bathroom had no separation between the shower and everything else so it took skill to avoid soaking our clothes while showering. Come to think of it, the bathroom I had while growing up was like that too...

We'd been thinking of taking a nap to make up for waking up at 3am but the hostel owner, Mr. Bun Kao, offered to show us a rice padi at no charge so we took him up on it since none of us had seen one before. After a substantial tuk-tuk ride, we ended up in a fairly secluded village and the driver brought us to his parents' home so we could meet a real Cambodian family. His mom is a schoolteacher and his sister was using a laptop to do her homework. It had a Japanese keyboard but she was writing in a Khmer typeface. She later told us that she was studying to be an acountant, although she had originally wanted to be a nurse but had to abandon that dream because nursing school was too expensive for her parents to afford as they had other children in university too. The family let us pet their oxen, one of whom was a very friendly calf that loved having his neck scratched.

During this time, our tuk-tuk driver's dad had been yoking a pair of oxen and when he finished he had us get on the cart and began heading toward the rice padi. Kim had a bit of an adventure getting onto the ox-cart because it took off before she was ready and then she had to chase after it. I think that ox-cart ride was her favourite part of the entire trip.

The rice padi was exceedingly bumpy because the soil had formed into hard clumps and we lacked pneumatic tyres, let alone shock absorbers. It was better than a wooden roller coaster. During the ride, our tuk-tuk driver explained to us that, unlike most people, his family kept a resovoir of water that allowed them to have 3 rice growing seasons instead of the tradional single season. He did admit, however, that the two irrigated by water from the reservoir did not produce rice that was anywhere near as good as that grown in the main season. He also told us that a day labourer typically earns $3 per day for harvesting. But apparently everybody owns land in Cambodia, although some people have more than others, so nobody goes hungry because they always have their own rice to fall back on. And people usually help each other harvest their padi fields as well.

As we rode along we spotted some birds fishing in the scant remnants of what had once been an enormous field of water but had now been reduced to a tine stream and some muddy patches. At one point, the ox-cart driver stopped in the middle of the stream and proceeded to splash water on the rumps of his oxen, who had recently become in need of such a wash. Kim, sitting right behind the oxen at the time, was treated to an experience that I am sure she wil treasure forever. I even got her a little bronze ox as a momento of the occasion.

On the way back from the rice padi, we stopped by another villager's place, where a bunch of people had gathered to hang out for the afternoon. They were drinking rice wine and were delighted when May and I agreed to try some. They also offered us pickled cucumbers, which May and Kim enjoyed, but I had to decline on account of my Invisalign, the purpose of which bewildered them. Some of them were salting snake-fish for future meals and let us watch the process. Overall, it was a lovely experience because they were no less curious about us than we were about them and nobody was trying to sell us anything.

One of the villagers was an English teacher and he was explaining to me why they grew little other than rice for sale. Apparently they grow a few fruits and veggies but only for substenance because the prices offered for them on the market are too low. But he also told me that when people want to <em>but</em> fruits or veggies from the market, they are quite expensive. Sounds like the traders are profiteering! Another interesting insight from this discussion was that, although only Cambodian nationals are allowed to own propery, Koreans have increasingly been buying up property by putting it in the name of a Cambodian girl whom they marry. At least it gives her leverage if they mistreat her because she's always the legal owner of the property.

Our driver's family had us over for lunch while some random dogs looked on. The food was not too spicy, except for one dish they called cheese, which is actually made out of fish. I asked whether they sold any white rice and was told that here was no market for it, probably because it doesn't keep well. After lunch I go a haircut at the village barber, who offered to give me a shave as well for just 5000 riels ($1.20). What he hadn't realized was that my hair is so stiff it required him to use a second razor blade halfway through the process!

So far we had discovered the locals used US dollars for most transactions but switched to Cambodian riels for smaller values instead of using US coins! When I used an ATM, I disovered that it only dispensed US dollars. I guess the locals don't use them!