The Wandering Nerd

The Wandering Nerd April 17th, 2008

Angkor Wat - Day 1

We’d rented some bikes the night before and after a short training course for Tim on how to ride a bicycle we were prepared to head off to Angkor Wat in the morning. Yes, I said a short training course on how to ride a bicycle - I was a shocked as you are. I thought all British children had to learn how to ride a bike by order of the Queen or something. Ride a bike, constantly do upper lip exercises to maintain stiffness, learn the approximately eleventeen thousand different types of tea and tea preparation, and learn to say ‘wossname,’ were, to the best of my knowledge somehow bred into the stock back when the Anglo-Saxons took over back in 1207 AD. That was when General Cornmeal won at the battle of Haystack fighting back the Norwegian menace let by Ghengis Kahn…I think.

I kinda’ feel bad for Tim, in this case not due to any of his genetic or national failings. This time it’s just that the boy has something evil inside of him. Something dark and virulent living in him. I think he may be a portal to another dimension. This observation is base on the noises emanating from the WC periodically - I briefly thought it was just the WC in general, but there have been a number of them and the only consistent factor is Tim entering one. Ya see, when Tim goes into one there follows a short interval of peace. I should note that I’m not idle during this time, I use it to quickly build a pillow fort somewhere in the room as far away from the bathroom door and then begin huddling under a blanket praying to whatever deities I haven’t yet pissed off, which is to say not bloody many. After the few moments of blissful silence, a sound which can only be described as the muted bellow of a Lovecraftian horror rattles the door - hell it rattles the door and tries the handle in some cases. Then is the sound of someone moaning low. Eventually Tim emerges, looking haggard and beaten saying, “It is done…” In the way one would as though he’s spent a night shouting “The Power of Christ compels you!!!” and throwing holy water on some young girl - he’s into that. Now I’m not one to take gastronomic distress anything less than with the utmost of the serious respect that it deserves…well not when it’s my distress, but someone else’s? That’s when the hilarity en-sooos. I believe things are getting better, I’m not going to ask too many questions for fear I’ll get answered…in detail, and he’ll probably use some of those big British smarty warty words, something really abstruse that I’ll probably have to look up.

We’ll leave Tim’s bowels for now - I know how disappointed some of you are, but we have so much time and so little to do. On to Angkor!

The plan was to get up early and get up to Angkor in time for sunrise, when we both woke up at the stroke of noon, the plan seemed to need an overhaul of the scrap variety. At that point there was no reason to rush, so we stopped in a little restaurant next to our guest house serving Khmer food, as well as some good old fashion central European dishes. Nothing like some good German brats, potatoes and sauerkraut for lunch before heading to the biggest religious site in the world, eh? They also have one of the stranger drinks I’ve seen, the call it a To Phan Punch, it’s a beer, with pineapple juice and grenadine. Very strange, not bad at all, quite tasty, but very very odd.

The six kilometer ride up to Angkor could have been timed better however. I mean we were pedaling in the blistering part of the day. I’m going to go with saying it was awfully close to 40c (104f). We sculled about 3 litres of water each in less than an hour. It was actually a rather pleasant ride, once you realize the only chance of survival you have on Cambodian roads is to simply ignore the madness around you and press on. I learned that watching a little old lady puttering along. The traffic just flows around you. We made it up to the complex without incident, though Tim did claim to have been violated by the bicycle seat at one point. I was thinking a little bit of pluggage would be good for the guy, but kept the thought to myself. I was having a rare moment of being kind.

I’ve been hitting so many Bhuddist temples lately I was having a lot of trouble telling what wat was what - I’ve been waiting to use that for a while now. But when it comes to the grand poohbah of religious construction, nothing beats Angkor Wat. It’s actually a complex of dozens of temples scattered about the region, today we just hit the main one, over the next two days I’ll be outlining some of the others, but today is all just for the big guy.

The whole thing is surrounded by a giant moat, with a stone bridge - the main entrance - facing west, and a land bridge to the east for the wheeled traffic that supports the place. The whole complex is massive:

The outer wall, 1024 by 802m and 4.5m high, is surrounded by a 30m apron of open ground and a moat 190m wide. -wikipedia

That’s a total of 876928 square meters (217 acres) of religion and it was originally completed in 1150 AD. When Europe was still in the grip of the dark ages the king of Angkor just whipped this up for Vishnu. Like ya’ do. Cambodians have a massive respect for the site, and rightly so, but they’ve gone a little mental with it at points. In 2003 a rumor was spread that a Thai actress had said that Angkor Wat belonged to Thailand, what to do? Clearly a riot is in order! Cambodia and Thailand have an interesting little history, the land around here has changed hands more time than Olsen Twins. The name “Siam Reap” actually means “Thailand Defeated.” Heh, now that’s just comedy.

As architecture goes the place is truly massive, though any sense of serenity or reverence is pretty much lost except for one tiny section of the temple - about 5 meters square - where we saw some people actually paying their respect. The rest is mainly ruins, the site is in the process of being partially restored by a German company, I guess it helps to keep them occupied so they don’t try to take over the world again.

To the north of the compound there exists a long stretch of the common touts and vendor stalls I’ve become used to along the way. Upon walking out of the inner square we were immediately set upon by children selling books - which I wasn’t interested in - or trying to get us to buy water - which by that point I very much was. After purchasing a bottle of water some woman tried to get us to sit down in the middle of all this mess.

“Thanks, but no, I’m looking for a bit of piece and quiet.”

To which she replied, a bit too evilly with, “I sell you peace and quiet, two dollars! You pay me and I leave you alone!”

Ahh…capitalism at it’s finest.

Ladies and gentlemen…and the other 98% of my audience, I give you Angkor Wat:

there is nothing i need
except the function to breathe
but i’m not really fussed
doesn’t matter to me
-kaiser chiefs

• Cambodia