May 20th 2014
I am finally here. I cannot believe I am finally here. After 40+ hours of travel time, I am about to land in a place I have never been before, don't know much about, and was never really sure I'd ever see. It is finally starting to sink in and feel real. It didn't feel real when Jana and I first started to discuss travel plans; it didn't feel real when I made the decision to quit my job and travel; it didn't feel real when I purchased my plane ticket; it didn't feel real when I was saying goodbye to my friends and family, and it didn't feel real during my first or second flight; but now it is finally starting to feel real, five minutes before the plane is going to land. Here we are: Cambodia.
The first thing I notice when I step off the plane is the humidity. It hits me like a brick wall. If it's this hot at 11 o’clock at night, how hot will it be through the middle of the day? The second thing I notice is that there are about a thousand thoughts racing through my mind. Will it be easy to get my visa? Will I need the local currency to pay for it? Did my luggage make it here? Did Jana make it? Will the transportation I arranged to get me to the hostel be waiting? What will our $6.50 a night hostel really be like? What is this vacation going to be like? What will the culture be like? Will I enjoy my time here? Is the food going to make me sick? You get the idea: the list really just goes on and on...
As the passengers all find our way into the airport, the visa process begins: I hand my passport to a desk agent along with $20, step aside, wait while different people examine my documents, and it takes about ten minutes for me to get an official approval. That's it. I now have an awesome looking, one-month, single-entry visa to Cambodia in my passport, and I can continue on my way. I step outside and realize it's a smaller scale of what goes on at every airport. Taxis, buses, cars, and people are waiting for their friends or relatives. There are security guards, people holding up signs, and tuk tuks (every airport, right?) waiting right outside the door.
I see a man who is holding a sign that reads “Nicolle Novak”. He asks me in broken English if my name is Nicolle Novak and whether or not I am staying at the Bliss Villa Hostel. I say, “Yes,” make my way over to his tuk tuk, throw my bag in, and off we go! It was my first tuk tuk ride and it’s an experience I’ll never forget. Since a tuk tuk is open to the outside, I’m able to see everything that is going on around the city. I knew Southeast Asia would be very different than any other place I've visited before, but didn't quite know what to expect. Halfway through the ride, I realize I couldn't keep the smile off my face. Here I am, in this place that is totally foreign to me, riding a tuk tuk, knowing I'm on my way to see my sister. I try to take it all in during the ride. Every single thing I am seeing is so new. Here are a few of the things I notice along the way: a lot of people are in the street, even at 11pm; there are feral dogs, mopeds everywhere, huts, nice hotels, cheaper hostels, dirt roads, paved roads, trees, water, markets, mopeds, stands, tuk tuks, cats, and did I mention mopeds? There are a lot of them!
After about a 10-minute ride, I finally arrive at the hostel and pay my driver $6. I quickly check in, make my way upstairs, and knock on room 202’s door. My sister answers. It is Jana!! It's hard to describe the excitement I feel at finally seeing my sister. She left for her yearlong adventure on December 26, 2013; and today is May 20, 2014. It has been five months since I've seen her in person. She has been traveling the world while I have been at home in Utah. Enough of solo travel for her, it is finally time me to join her and for us to start having some adventures together! These are the memories that will last a lifetime.
We pick up right where we left off at Jana’s departure last December. Obviously, we are not only sisters, but we are also best friends. I begin babbling on about my flight, what we are going to do, what I am looking forward to the most, how hot it is, how I packed too much stuff, how heavy my bag is, and how nice it is to see her again. I realize she is nodding off, only saying "hmm" every few minutes, and here I am, not even able to think about going to bed. Realizing that she traveled from India earlier today, I figure we have both had long travel days and that I should let her sleep and try to get some rest for myself.
I look around the room and can't believe what a mess I've already made. As so often is the case, the one thing I really need - my pajamas in this case - is at the very bottom of my pack. This means that I must take everything out of my pack just to be able to go to bed. This is one of the many joys of living out of a backpack for a few months. I get into bed and a mixture of exhaustion, excitement, and a 13-hour time difference make for a rather restless night of sleep.
Thursday May 22, 2014
This is the morning we are going to see Angkor Archeological Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Here, the number of visitors approaches 2 million annually, and today, Jana and I get to be counted among those visitors. Angkor Archeological Park contains the magnificent remains of different temples, built in the 12th century, of the Khmer Empire. I know this is a place that many people only dream about going. Yet, here we are.
The alarm wakes us at 4am. We decide to bike to Angkor and see the sunrise over the Angkor Wat temple. Long story short, we become lost on our way to the ticket office and we don’t make it to the park in time to see the sunrise. The first temple we come across is Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is the best-known temple here and we are about to go explore it for ourselves. The Khmer King Suryavarman II built this temple in dedication to the Hindu God Vishnu in the year 1113. Angkor Wat is a small-scale model of the cosmic world. The five towers rising in the rear of the temple correspond to the five peaks of the mythical mountain, Meru, which is situated at the center of the universe. The outer wall symbolizes the mountains at the edge of the world, and the moat symbolizes the oceans beyond.
The vastness of this temple is noted before we even cross the moat. It’s hard to describe what it feels like to see something as impressive as Angkor Wat for the first time in person. Every single thing I notice about the temple, inside and out, is amazing. Every aspect of the temple is magnificent in its own right: the lions posted outside the entrance to protect the temple, the supporting columns visible throughout, the engravings and carvings on many of the walls, the views of the surrounding area from the highest towers of the temple, the crumbling steps leading up to these towers, the vast number of statues, and the way the sun hits the stone and seems to rise in such a magnificent way over the temple. This place really is incredible and it’s hard to take it all in. The beauty of it attracts one’s attention, but at the same time its complexity is distracting. It is clear everywhere and in everything that the builders attended to every detail; it’s all so intricate. It’s hard to imagine how something this grand could be built in the 12th century. Nothing I’ve seen in America, in all it has built since its discovery in 1492, compares to the magnificence that is Angkor Wat, which has now stood for more than 800 years.
In short: I could go on about Angkor Wat for hours. Instead I’d just like to tell you a little bit about my own experience and hope I excited you enough to visit for yourself one day. It is clear that this temple is a powerful symbol in Cambodia, as I believe it should be.
We hop on our bikes again and make our way over to the area known as Angkor Thom. We are treated by the presence of a few monkeys on the side of the road, and I enjoy photographing a few of them. In fact, by the time we left the little apes, there were some 75 new photos on Jana’s camera. As noted in the pictures above, one little guy even tries to get away with my water bottle. He decides, however, after a few attempts that it is too heavy for him to carry. We continue on our way and come across a long bridge, which boasts 54 demon statues on the left and 54 god statues on the right, making a total of 108 mythical beings protecting the city of Angkor Thom. Angkor Thom was the last capital of the Khmer Empire and was built as a living space for priests, military officials, and administers for the kingdom.
After we pass through the gate of Angkor Thom, we park our bikes at what is most well known within the city walls: the incredible temple called Prasat Bayon. There are no ropes or people forbidding our access to anything we might want to see. We are free to roam and discover as we’d like. Jana and I take full advantage of this opportunity. There is a kind of hallway made of doorway after doorway, and we step through them into a vast open plaza. We explore the area, which is full of what look like rock cairns, narrow walkways with low ceilings that require us to crouch to walk through, stairs that are less than up to code that we climb, and viewpoints with no safety barriers or nets. Once we make our way to the upper terrace, we are looking at the thing for which Bayon is best known: the famous ‘smile of Angkor’. Thirty-seven stone towers have survived through the ages, and each of these is about twenty feet tall and has four gigantic, smiling faces - one face on each side of each tower. They are rather large and exquisite faces, each with lips curved upwardly in a slight manner, which gives the impression that the faces are smiling and happy. We can’t help but wonder: who do these faces represent?
We make our way over to a shaded spot on the terrace and sit for a moment to relax and cool down. We notice a family that is taking pictures of their baby boy. They look over at me while I’m resting, and they hand me their boy. It is clear they want to have photographs of their son with the white lady. I agree to the photo and they snap a few pictures of their son while he sits on my lap. He is fine for a moment, and then he wants to go back to his mother and begins to cry. I try to bounce my knees and tell him that it’s okay, but he is done. Jana snaps a picture of the two of us, which you can see above in the slideshow, and I hand him back. They don’t speak any English and we don’t speak any Khmer, so we nod and laugh and they continue on their way.
This is my first experience with someone being fascinated, if that’s the right word, with the color of my skin and showing it in an obvious way. I just think that, if allowing them to take a photo of light-skinned me with their baby will make them happy, I’m happy to let them do so. Jana and I laugh about the situation and get back to trying to take in all of the smiling faces of the statues in front of us. We walk around the towers and try to take in the details of each face. They seem to be the same face repeated on every tower: thick eyebrows pointing slightly downward, eyes that also seem to point downward in the center, and a nose that seems a little large for the face. The lips on the faces seem to smile in a way that conveys serene happiness. We are starting to realize why this competes with Angkor Wat as a favorite temple. The faces we are seeing all around us provide such a majestic feeling. You can’t help but feel happy when all you see is smiling faces. These stone faces have just that effect on us.
We then hop back on our bikes and make our way over to another famous temple, Prasat Ta Prohm. While Ta Prohm is the most out-of-the-way site we will visit, it is another must see. Ta Prohm is a sight that many people have probably seen without realizing it. This temple was the site at which Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was filmed and is often referred to as “the Tomb Raider Temple.” I prefer the other name - the Jungle Temple. Ta Prohm is unlike any other site we have seen because, rather than control the growth of everything in order to preserve the structure, nature has run its course here. Most other temples are cared for in a way so that the trees/grass/growth are cut back so as not to interfere with the integrity of the structure - but not here. This leaves us with the incredible sight of trees growing into the walls all over this temple. We stumble upon the well-known tree wall, and it is unlike anything we have ever seen. It truly is a sight to behold. The tree is massive. The size of a single root is bigger than most tree trunks. And don’t merely picture a tall tree growing next to a temple wall, as this would be an underestimation. The roots of this tree are entangled with the stone pillars, thereby giving a sense that the wall and tree are one. The roots are intertwined in such a way that gives the impression that the tree is climbing up the wall. The trunk of the tree extends high up into the sky, and, from there, the branches find their place up in the sky perfectly among the clouds. It is such a delicate yet powerful symbol of nature merging with architecture. After taking many pictures and trying to soak in this beauty, we realize how exhausted we are and decide it’s time to head back to the hostel. We stop for some rest and a coconut drink and then bike back home.
As I sit down that evening and reflect on the day I have just had, I realize how incredibly lucky both Jana and I are. We have just had a first-hand experience at touring Angkor Wat Archeological Park, a site that is unlike anything we have ever seen and probably will ever see again. The world is big and beautiful, and I’m extremely glad to be able to cross this magnificent place off my list! Be sure to add it to all of yours… While a picture is worth a thousand words, seeing it first hand is far better.
Thanks for taking the time to read my post. I hope you have enjoyed reading it just as I have enjoyed writing it and sharing my experience with you!
Thanks to Jana for sharing her blog with me and asking to write about our experience together - now I will have this piece of writing to look back on for the rest of my years.
Nicolle
***
A few things I didn’t speak about in my post above, purely because I didn’t want this to be too long for readable entry:
My desire to photograph every single thing I see constantly competes with my desire to take it all in and let my memory serve on its own.
The heat. I have under exaggerated just how hot and humid it was during our time in Siem Reap. There is a reason that the high season here runs from November to March. I will never go back in the heat of the summer.
Biking during the hottest time of the year through Angkor Archaeological Park is a terrible idea. Pay those tuk tuk drivers whatever they want to drive you around. Being under their covered tuk tuks and out of the sun for the time it takes to get from one site to the next is priceless. We learned this the hard way.
Getting yelled at from the vendors while they are trying to sell ice-cold water and coconuts. It always went something like this: “Cold water lady……” “Whatcha want lady?” “I have what you need…”. We were continually getting yelled at, even from across the street, any time a local selling something spotted us.
Angkor Archaeological Park is massive. It is much larger than what I anticipated. You could be there for three full days and I don’t think you’d be able to see all of the temples/sites. There are a few we visited and many more that we passed by that I didn’t discuss in my post.
I am finally here. I cannot believe I am finally here. After 40+ hours of travel time, I am about to land in a place I have never been before, don't know much about, and was never really sure I'd ever see. It is finally starting to sink in and feel real. It didn't feel real when Jana and I first started to discuss travel plans; it didn't feel real when I made the decision to quit my job and travel; it didn't feel real when I purchased my plane ticket; it didn't feel real when I was saying goodbye to my friends and family, and it didn't feel real during my first or second flight; but now it is finally starting to feel real, five minutes before the plane is going to land. Here we are: Cambodia.
The first thing I notice when I step off the plane is the humidity. It hits me like a brick wall. If it's this hot at 11 o’clock at night, how hot will it be through the middle of the day? The second thing I notice is that there are about a thousand thoughts racing through my mind. Will it be easy to get my visa? Will I need the local currency to pay for it? Did my luggage make it here? Did Jana make it? Will the transportation I arranged to get me to the hostel be waiting? What will our $6.50 a night hostel really be like? What is this vacation going to be like? What will the culture be like? Will I enjoy my time here? Is the food going to make me sick? You get the idea: the list really just goes on and on...
As the passengers all find our way into the airport, the visa process begins: I hand my passport to a desk agent along with $20, step aside, wait while different people examine my documents, and it takes about ten minutes for me to get an official approval. That's it. I now have an awesome looking, one-month, single-entry visa to Cambodia in my passport, and I can continue on my way. I step outside and realize it's a smaller scale of what goes on at every airport. Taxis, buses, cars, and people are waiting for their friends or relatives. There are security guards, people holding up signs, and tuk tuks (every airport, right?) waiting right outside the door.
I see a man who is holding a sign that reads “Nicolle Novak”. He asks me in broken English if my name is Nicolle Novak and whether or not I am staying at the Bliss Villa Hostel. I say, “Yes,” make my way over to his tuk tuk, throw my bag in, and off we go! It was my first tuk tuk ride and it’s an experience I’ll never forget. Since a tuk tuk is open to the outside, I’m able to see everything that is going on around the city. I knew Southeast Asia would be very different than any other place I've visited before, but didn't quite know what to expect. Halfway through the ride, I realize I couldn't keep the smile off my face. Here I am, in this place that is totally foreign to me, riding a tuk tuk, knowing I'm on my way to see my sister. I try to take it all in during the ride. Every single thing I am seeing is so new. Here are a few of the things I notice along the way: a lot of people are in the street, even at 11pm; there are feral dogs, mopeds everywhere, huts, nice hotels, cheaper hostels, dirt roads, paved roads, trees, water, markets, mopeds, stands, tuk tuks, cats, and did I mention mopeds? There are a lot of them!
After about a 10-minute ride, I finally arrive at the hostel and pay my driver $6. I quickly check in, make my way upstairs, and knock on room 202’s door. My sister answers. It is Jana!! It's hard to describe the excitement I feel at finally seeing my sister. She left for her yearlong adventure on December 26, 2013; and today is May 20, 2014. It has been five months since I've seen her in person. She has been traveling the world while I have been at home in Utah. Enough of solo travel for her, it is finally time me to join her and for us to start having some adventures together! These are the memories that will last a lifetime.
We pick up right where we left off at Jana’s departure last December. Obviously, we are not only sisters, but we are also best friends. I begin babbling on about my flight, what we are going to do, what I am looking forward to the most, how hot it is, how I packed too much stuff, how heavy my bag is, and how nice it is to see her again. I realize she is nodding off, only saying "hmm" every few minutes, and here I am, not even able to think about going to bed. Realizing that she traveled from India earlier today, I figure we have both had long travel days and that I should let her sleep and try to get some rest for myself.
I look around the room and can't believe what a mess I've already made. As so often is the case, the one thing I really need - my pajamas in this case - is at the very bottom of my pack. This means that I must take everything out of my pack just to be able to go to bed. This is one of the many joys of living out of a backpack for a few months. I get into bed and a mixture of exhaustion, excitement, and a 13-hour time difference make for a rather restless night of sleep.
Thursday May 22, 2014
This is the morning we are going to see Angkor Archeological Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Here, the number of visitors approaches 2 million annually, and today, Jana and I get to be counted among those visitors. Angkor Archeological Park contains the magnificent remains of different temples, built in the 12th century, of the Khmer Empire. I know this is a place that many people only dream about going. Yet, here we are.
The alarm wakes us at 4am. We decide to bike to Angkor and see the sunrise over the Angkor Wat temple. Long story short, we become lost on our way to the ticket office and we don’t make it to the park in time to see the sunrise. The first temple we come across is Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is the best-known temple here and we are about to go explore it for ourselves. The Khmer King Suryavarman II built this temple in dedication to the Hindu God Vishnu in the year 1113. Angkor Wat is a small-scale model of the cosmic world. The five towers rising in the rear of the temple correspond to the five peaks of the mythical mountain, Meru, which is situated at the center of the universe. The outer wall symbolizes the mountains at the edge of the world, and the moat symbolizes the oceans beyond.
The vastness of this temple is noted before we even cross the moat. It’s hard to describe what it feels like to see something as impressive as Angkor Wat for the first time in person. Every single thing I notice about the temple, inside and out, is amazing. Every aspect of the temple is magnificent in its own right: the lions posted outside the entrance to protect the temple, the supporting columns visible throughout, the engravings and carvings on many of the walls, the views of the surrounding area from the highest towers of the temple, the crumbling steps leading up to these towers, the vast number of statues, and the way the sun hits the stone and seems to rise in such a magnificent way over the temple. This place really is incredible and it’s hard to take it all in. The beauty of it attracts one’s attention, but at the same time its complexity is distracting. It is clear everywhere and in everything that the builders attended to every detail; it’s all so intricate. It’s hard to imagine how something this grand could be built in the 12th century. Nothing I’ve seen in America, in all it has built since its discovery in 1492, compares to the magnificence that is Angkor Wat, which has now stood for more than 800 years.
In short: I could go on about Angkor Wat for hours. Instead I’d just like to tell you a little bit about my own experience and hope I excited you enough to visit for yourself one day. It is clear that this temple is a powerful symbol in Cambodia, as I believe it should be.
We hop on our bikes again and make our way over to the area known as Angkor Thom. We are treated by the presence of a few monkeys on the side of the road, and I enjoy photographing a few of them. In fact, by the time we left the little apes, there were some 75 new photos on Jana’s camera. As noted in the pictures above, one little guy even tries to get away with my water bottle. He decides, however, after a few attempts that it is too heavy for him to carry. We continue on our way and come across a long bridge, which boasts 54 demon statues on the left and 54 god statues on the right, making a total of 108 mythical beings protecting the city of Angkor Thom. Angkor Thom was the last capital of the Khmer Empire and was built as a living space for priests, military officials, and administers for the kingdom.
After we pass through the gate of Angkor Thom, we park our bikes at what is most well known within the city walls: the incredible temple called Prasat Bayon. There are no ropes or people forbidding our access to anything we might want to see. We are free to roam and discover as we’d like. Jana and I take full advantage of this opportunity. There is a kind of hallway made of doorway after doorway, and we step through them into a vast open plaza. We explore the area, which is full of what look like rock cairns, narrow walkways with low ceilings that require us to crouch to walk through, stairs that are less than up to code that we climb, and viewpoints with no safety barriers or nets. Once we make our way to the upper terrace, we are looking at the thing for which Bayon is best known: the famous ‘smile of Angkor’. Thirty-seven stone towers have survived through the ages, and each of these is about twenty feet tall and has four gigantic, smiling faces - one face on each side of each tower. They are rather large and exquisite faces, each with lips curved upwardly in a slight manner, which gives the impression that the faces are smiling and happy. We can’t help but wonder: who do these faces represent?
We make our way over to a shaded spot on the terrace and sit for a moment to relax and cool down. We notice a family that is taking pictures of their baby boy. They look over at me while I’m resting, and they hand me their boy. It is clear they want to have photographs of their son with the white lady. I agree to the photo and they snap a few pictures of their son while he sits on my lap. He is fine for a moment, and then he wants to go back to his mother and begins to cry. I try to bounce my knees and tell him that it’s okay, but he is done. Jana snaps a picture of the two of us, which you can see above in the slideshow, and I hand him back. They don’t speak any English and we don’t speak any Khmer, so we nod and laugh and they continue on their way.
This is my first experience with someone being fascinated, if that’s the right word, with the color of my skin and showing it in an obvious way. I just think that, if allowing them to take a photo of light-skinned me with their baby will make them happy, I’m happy to let them do so. Jana and I laugh about the situation and get back to trying to take in all of the smiling faces of the statues in front of us. We walk around the towers and try to take in the details of each face. They seem to be the same face repeated on every tower: thick eyebrows pointing slightly downward, eyes that also seem to point downward in the center, and a nose that seems a little large for the face. The lips on the faces seem to smile in a way that conveys serene happiness. We are starting to realize why this competes with Angkor Wat as a favorite temple. The faces we are seeing all around us provide such a majestic feeling. You can’t help but feel happy when all you see is smiling faces. These stone faces have just that effect on us.
We then hop back on our bikes and make our way over to another famous temple, Prasat Ta Prohm. While Ta Prohm is the most out-of-the-way site we will visit, it is another must see. Ta Prohm is a sight that many people have probably seen without realizing it. This temple was the site at which Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was filmed and is often referred to as “the Tomb Raider Temple.” I prefer the other name - the Jungle Temple. Ta Prohm is unlike any other site we have seen because, rather than control the growth of everything in order to preserve the structure, nature has run its course here. Most other temples are cared for in a way so that the trees/grass/growth are cut back so as not to interfere with the integrity of the structure - but not here. This leaves us with the incredible sight of trees growing into the walls all over this temple. We stumble upon the well-known tree wall, and it is unlike anything we have ever seen. It truly is a sight to behold. The tree is massive. The size of a single root is bigger than most tree trunks. And don’t merely picture a tall tree growing next to a temple wall, as this would be an underestimation. The roots of this tree are entangled with the stone pillars, thereby giving a sense that the wall and tree are one. The roots are intertwined in such a way that gives the impression that the tree is climbing up the wall. The trunk of the tree extends high up into the sky, and, from there, the branches find their place up in the sky perfectly among the clouds. It is such a delicate yet powerful symbol of nature merging with architecture. After taking many pictures and trying to soak in this beauty, we realize how exhausted we are and decide it’s time to head back to the hostel. We stop for some rest and a coconut drink and then bike back home.
As I sit down that evening and reflect on the day I have just had, I realize how incredibly lucky both Jana and I are. We have just had a first-hand experience at touring Angkor Wat Archeological Park, a site that is unlike anything we have ever seen and probably will ever see again. The world is big and beautiful, and I’m extremely glad to be able to cross this magnificent place off my list! Be sure to add it to all of yours… While a picture is worth a thousand words, seeing it first hand is far better.
Thanks for taking the time to read my post. I hope you have enjoyed reading it just as I have enjoyed writing it and sharing my experience with you!
Thanks to Jana for sharing her blog with me and asking to write about our experience together - now I will have this piece of writing to look back on for the rest of my years.
Nicolle
***
A few things I didn’t speak about in my post above, purely because I didn’t want this to be too long for readable entry:
My desire to photograph every single thing I see constantly competes with my desire to take it all in and let my memory serve on its own.
The heat. I have under exaggerated just how hot and humid it was during our time in Siem Reap. There is a reason that the high season here runs from November to March. I will never go back in the heat of the summer.
Biking during the hottest time of the year through Angkor Archaeological Park is a terrible idea. Pay those tuk tuk drivers whatever they want to drive you around. Being under their covered tuk tuks and out of the sun for the time it takes to get from one site to the next is priceless. We learned this the hard way.
Getting yelled at from the vendors while they are trying to sell ice-cold water and coconuts. It always went something like this: “Cold water lady……” “Whatcha want lady?” “I have what you need…”. We were continually getting yelled at, even from across the street, any time a local selling something spotted us.
Angkor Archaeological Park is massive. It is much larger than what I anticipated. You could be there for three full days and I don’t think you’d be able to see all of the temples/sites. There are a few we visited and many more that we passed by that I didn’t discuss in my post.