Lady? Tuk-tuk?

Lady? You want tuk-tuk? I make special price for you! Not today? Tomorrow then?
Lady? You wanna buy a scarf? Lady? You wanna by postcards, 10 for $1...
Lady? You wanna by bracelets? 5 for $1...ok 10 for $1...ok 15 for $2...
Lady? Cold water? Lady breakfast? Lady...? Lady...? Lady...?

Welcome to Cambodia!

All I knew from Cambodia was its dark past, the cruel things people did to each other here...I arrived in a sunny friendly country, with mega polite people, always with a smile, also toward each other. It gets me wondering how superficial that smile is, or whether Cambodians really succeeded in moving on. Today I heard the first reference to killing fields and the Khmer Rouge, I've been here for more than four days.

The last three days we have been busy visiting the temples of Angkor. Driving around in a tuk-tuk, or rather being driven around has become one of my favorite ways to pass the time. The rather warm and humid air turns bearable while sitting in a tuk-tuk, you can look around and never get bored, things don't go by too fast, but also not too slow and most of all...it gives the real Asia feeling!!! We had a very nice driver: Bun who brought us everywhere we wanted. The first day we visited the old city of Angkor Thom with the beautiful Bayon Temple. After that we visited several other "smaller" temples, gazing, mouth open around every corner. The heat and all the new impressions and the prospect of an early morning made us dive into our beds early. The next morning came at 4.00 o'clock as we wanted to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat. Although it was cloudy and there was no actual visible sunrise it was beautiful to discover Angkor Wat as it got lighter. The other positive part was that there was barely a soul inside the walls at that time. Angkor Wat is impressively big, though other temples are at least as beautiful and less intimidating :) I kept wondering how it had looked in its full glory, but somehow that seems too much to imagine...it must have been magnificent!!! (If only I had a time machine!)
When it got really warm (9.00) we got back into the tuk-tuk and Bun drove us to the Tonle Sap (Lake) which would become a special though also a bit uncomfortable experience. Vietnamese immigrants, landless and jobless, inhabit the so called floating villages on this lake. In the dry season, when there is not much water, the villages are concentrated on the lake, but in the wet season (now) the water in the middle gets too deep and they move their houses/boats to the fringes of the lake. This means that they change places and thus also neighbors at least twice a year. From the anthropological perspective I thought this is incredibly interesting and I could immediately see many possibilities for research there...but from the tourist point of view I felt terrible...sitting in a boat, being navigated past all these houses I felt like a big intruder, staring into peoples houses and into people's lives, into what I consider people's privacy. I had not really been prepared for that...
Still, it was impressive to see how these people organize their lives on and with the water. Floating goose cages were the max I thought...but also floating fish nurseries, floating toilets, floating everything!
At the end of the day we climbed a mountain to see the sunset around the temples of Angkor, something a considerable number of other tourists had done as well...

Yesterday was my favorite day! We went to a temple farther away, which means: longer in the tuk-tuk! :) just that would have made my day...but it got better...somewhere half way we had a leaky tire...Bun kicked us out of the tuk-tuk and went looking for a new tire. You might ask yourself why this is good, but it meant we had to walk for 20 minutes and that was an entire new way of being in the countryside of Cambodia! Everybody greets you with a questioning look, children wave and shout "hello" and you have time to look around, and see that ox carriage you would have otherwise missed...it made me feel like taking a month to hike to Phnom Penh (though that would be a little warm...)
We then went to a beautiful little temple called Banteay Srei. Though very touristy as well I enjoyed looking at the rich and beautiful reliefs in the red sandstone.
But the best part was Kbal Spean. The river Sien Reap runs through this mountain before getting to the temples of Angkor and the village. In some far distant past people carved gods into the stones in the river, making the water holy before it gets to the temples. It was a beautiful hike, rewarded by beautiful reliefs and the freshness brought by the closeness of the water.

After another nice tuk-tuk ride we got off again at Angkor Wat to cast a last glance at a, once again, practically deserted Angkor Wat, it was beautiful!

Today we have a day of rest, which we really need after three days of getting up early and ignoring the warmth, exploring temple after temple... tomorrow we retake the streets to see some nice stuff in and around Siem Reap and I think that wednesday we will make the journey to Phnom Penh, in search for the awful remains of Cambodian history, the remains that here seem to be silenced by the magnificence of the past before 1975...

This internet connection is too slow to upload photos, so that will follow as soon as possible...

Australia seems already a world away, although you all seam already much closer to me (in time and in space)!

Much love from a warm and sticky but beautiful and impressive Cambodia!