siem reap. cambodia. february 10th – 14th. 2009

The temples of Angkor. So many photos. The sweltering sun of Cambodia. I have been drawn to this place for a long time. Riding our bikes on the road through the jungle, it feels in some inexplicable way like coming home and I can’t take my eyes off Angkor wat as we ride along the water towards the entrance. It is a strange kind of awe, I touch the stones of the bridge crossing the moat to the temple and we spend hours here. So many details, textures, entrance ways, carvings and it is true, one day exploring the many temples would not be enough. The beyond, its complex, sunrise, sunset, Ta Prohm, bonteay srei and many other temples, it is amazing how different they each are. 3 days, and the heat. there was only so much we managed to see. We lingered most where it was quiet, rushed the spectacularly restored temples that were crowded and it makes one contemplate, art, life, quiet, the environment, the 1000’s of people who were involved in creating this place. It is hard to spate the suffering they endured, the labour that would have been demanded to build these temples. Then Cambodia’s recent past is all too fresh in the mind and it is hard to know how to feel. But these people persevere and these temples, monumental, are still standing, and there is something in the ability to endure against all odds.

I have separated our time in Siem Reap into two different stories. I didn’t feel they would come together as smoothly as they would on their own. We ventured only in to the town for dinner and the next day’s supplies, it is a town built for tourists and both restaurants and hotels range from backpacker haven to the opulent. We forgo the latter; explore the middle ground and the former. Aside from the temples, our greatest interaction here is with the children. I have told of our first encounter many times, I hear this boy’s voice clearly still over 1 year later. It is about 10pm our first night in town and we wander the city centre a bit after dinner. A boy walks up to me and says  ‘where are you from?’ (Canada) ‘ I like your hair’ (thanks.), ‘bracelet?’ (no thank you!) he is maybe 10 and he makes me laugh, while fully realizing just how sad this is in the same moment.  the next day, in front of angkor, I tell another boy of similar age that I will buy postcards from him maybe on the way out and hours later he comes running when he sees me. I keep my word while telling the other kids who surround me ‘no thank you!’ a girl his age catches me with my own words when she comments ‘but you said you didn’t need the postcards and you are buying them’ and I realize that I have to be careful what I say, because many words hold no meaning here, and these are children who know little of the politics that create poverty and shouldn’t be made to feel like no one cares. The next morning some teenage girls try to sell us water while we are waiting for sunrise at Sras Srang. Like many of the kids here, they are charming in their approach, they don’t pester, but persist. I have already bought a bottle of water from one girl, another is trying to get Stephen to buy some. As we already have water with us, he asks her for a coffee instead. When we are leaving, she asks again and explains that she got him the coffee from someone else, so he hasn’t given her anything. He buys an even bigger bottle for even less money than mine, and the weight of how little they even understand what they are doing or saying makes it all even sadder. I am not trying to diminish the motives of Stephen or in any way of lives of these children by telling these tales, just retelling an important aspect in our experience of Siem Reap. It strikes me how being understood through a lens of such narrow focus can sometimes lend to you seeing yourself that way too, then maybe you didn’t before and how the lens somehow overshadows accountability, equanimity  and honest exchange.

laurel's siem reap photos on flickr

stephen's siem reap photos on flickr

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