River of 1000 Dicks (no, seriously)

The past two days have been very temple heavy, I've failed to blog the last two nights from plain and simple exhaustion. Today the old man and I have elected to take a day of respite and planning before we embark out to Bangkok tomorrow morning on a 9 hour bus.
So, Ankgor! What an incredible time. For our first day we hired a tuk tuk driver for the day as well as a guide to tell us about what we were about to see. We set out at 8 to make our first stop at Angkor Thom, the largest of the temples built. We entered the grounds by a bridge that spanned the 50 meter or so moat that had 54 statues on either side. The statues on the left represented good with evil on the right. Both rows of statues were carrying a long snake (Naga! Naga!) whose symbol is intertwined with the story of the Churning of the Sea of Milk; giants and gods playing tug of war with snakes and the prize in the middle being the fountain of youth created from the churning of the sea of milk (as best I can explain it in one sentence). At the end of the bridge we passed through a gate flanked by 8 meter walls that surrounded the complex. The main temple contained 54 stone spires (54 representing the 54 Khmer states) each with 4 massive faces pointing in the cardinal directions. The stone work of the ancients is impressive to say the least. The temples rise in a tiered fashion that give them such a mass that they are referred to as mountain temples. Words won't do these places to much justice, so I'll keep it brief until I find a way to post some pictures. We continued on our way to Ta Prohm but stopped along the way when I saw a sign that read TA KEO (Takeo being our incredible host on our recent visit to Kyoto. Much love to you Takeo, Chie, Ellia, Maika and Mike!). Keo means crystal so Ta Keo refers to the crystal temple, so named for the fine quality of stone used there. Unfortunately the temple was never finished because in a storm it was struck by lightning, so they decided to make it into a prison haha. We continued on to the "jungle temple", Ta Prohm. This temple has preserved its beautiful overtake by the indiginous trees. These particular trees pour out branches and roots that envelope everything in their path including the temple. This makes for an incredible symbiotic relationship between the wood and stone. Roots have grown into and around the blocks and even slowly knocked over sections. Ta Prohm is not a "mountain" temple so it stays relatively low to the ground with spires that reach around 20 feet. One particular spire is famous for its acoustic characteristics. If you lean against one wall on the inside and pound your chest, the bass reverberates off the walls as if you had just beat a 20 foot drum. In old times people would come from all around the country to do this and release the demons that caused illness of the respiratory tract. We continued on and our driver took us to a restaurant at the side of a massive man made lake outside Angkor Wat. They brought us menus that were written in english only (bad news) with really high prices (4-6 dollars, which is a fortune out here). We ordered some noodles which turned out to be basically instant noodles with vegtables and meat. Tourist trap. It seems to be a fairly common practice that the tuk tuk drivers strike deals with local tourist traps to take a cut of the bill. When we returned to the tuk tuk, I began to channel my friend Sammy in my mind. I was thinking in his voice, "Come on bro, don't do that to us. That's garbage man. You know it, you know better than that. We'll pay for good food and we'll tip well, but don't pull that stuff on us bro" (love you Sammy, coulda used you out here man). Alas, we just told him how bad the food was and decided that we wouldn't be hiring him again. We continued on to the magnificent Angkor Wat. A 15 foot wide stone bridge led us across a 200 meter moat to get to the outer wall. Kodak moments everywhere. Ankor wat is the largest religious monument in the world, and they used enough stone from Phnom Kulen (50 km away) to build one of the great pyramids. Inside the outer wall we had another 300 or so meters to walk up to the inner wall that houses 5 great spires. The inner wall has a covered walkway around the perimeter that is lined in bas relief carvings the entire way around with the story of the hindu based religion that they had at the time of building. As Cambodia (Cambuchia here) is between India and East Asia, they have gone through different periods of religious blends and beliefs. In some temples that were built during times of Buddhist beliefs, all of the Buddhas have been chisled away from the walls long ago. We finally made our way in to the innermost tier and saw the 5 spires from the inside. The space holds a lot of energy, you could go on forever trying to imagine just what a real ceremony on the grounds would be like in ancient times, pretty special I'd say. What wasn't so special though, was when we continued our tour along four pools that were built inside the main entrance among several tourists, an old sweaty man lugging camera equipment let out one of the most comically long drawn out farts that was loud enough for everyone within 30 yards to hear. I was between this guy and my dad, who turned thinking it was me, and said just as audibly "Daaaaang man!" As he looked over after some confusion, he and everyone around realized he had just reprimanded some stranger. We had nothing to do but continue on in silence. Hahaha, classic. After Angkor Wat we made our way back to the hotel and wandered out to find some food. We settled on another Khmer restaurant in a little bit of a touristy alley which displayed a menu with some tantalizing pictures of spicy beef and also some eggplant with pork. It was at this restaurant that I had my first notable drink. I had originally ordered another Angkor beer, but as I started flipping through the drink menu, something caught my eye: Khmer Whiskey. I rushed up to the bar to cancel my beer order and place one for the whiskey neat. I got a chance to peek at the bottle while I was up there. A very plain looking bottle adorned with a slightly filigreed red label. The words on the label could have been produced by typewriter, or just printed in plain 16 font Times New Roman:

Mekong
31%

Exciting. It came out with a light golden color and looked a bit syrupy after a good swirl. I took a whiff, light and slightly floral, and took a swig. It went down like butter, incredibly smooth with a strong hazelnut up front and a slow burn to finish. Pretty dang good, though I questioned if it even made 31%. I topped it off with some bottled water and enjoyed the rest with my meal. We had arranged a mountain tour the next day that we had to be ready for by 6:30, and after a long day of temple tromping on top of that, I hit the hay pretty hard.
Groggily we managed a small breakfast of eggs and bread before jumping into a mini van that would be our ride for the day. We started out about 60 clicks north at Kbal Spean. A really nice 1 mile light hike up a mountain gave us some good views of the lush rolling hillsides around us that were dashed with white boulders protruding from the trees and grass. At the end of our hike, we found ourselves and the River of 1000 Lingas (phallus'). About 1200 years ago at the beginning of the mighty Khmer civilization, a bunch of monks made their way up this mountain to get some privacy and carve some dicks in the rocks under water, and now it's a national monument. Well, I guess there is some more to it. These guys were paying homage to Shiva the Destroyer (and to his powerful wang) by carving symbolic units in the flowing waters that would bless and "fertilize" the waters that would eventually flow down to their rice farms below. They also carved other deities and such in impossible places. We continued on (after my camera's battery ran out! I'll have to steal that day from my pops) to Phnom Kulen where we walked a ways into an impoverished mountain community to a temple which housed a huge ~40 foot carving of a buddha at the top of a tall rock outcrop at the mountains pinnacle. As we came down, the sky opened up and dumped torrential rains on us so we scrambled into a nearby hut that was barbequeing chicken. Now these were real chickens. Small and scrawny, you could find then wondering through the dirt streets which had just transformed to rivers of mud. The chicked was splayed out and held between two bamboo pieces that were strapped together. Though the meat was a bit scarce, the flavor was abundant and it turned out to be one of our best meals. After the rain subsided we continued on to see some more linga in another river which led to a waterfall that is a local place to swim. Maybe it was the time of week and time of day that we got there, but as we arrived to the bottom of this 70 foot waterfall which ended in a shallow sandy lagoon surrounded by lush green forest, we were the only people there; save two maybe 8 year old local girls chatting on a large rock overlooking the pool. The scene was a picture perfect postcard for Cambodia. Fortunately I came prepared with some shorts, so a got in for a swim. The water couldn't have been more than a few degrees cooler than the 85 degree air. I felt like I was in a strange and magical dream as I floated in serenity and climbed on the rocks below the cascading waterfall. Incredible. Eventually we had to leave, though the mild euphoria lingered with me. We made our way down the mountain to Bantay Sray, a small temple by comparison to the rest, but the artistry was unsurpassed. The main temple was about 40x40 meters reaching about 20 feet into the air, but quite literally every single inch of the rich pink sandstone was covered in carvings and filigree. Again the rains came and hastened our return home. Though we were finished with seeing temples we decided to take the next day to relax and catch up on travel planning and blogging (me: fail). After sleeping a good 11 hours, we got up and moved nextdoor to a hotel with a swimming pool and decided that a lazy trip to the museum would be a good days activity, which it turned out to be. Afterwords I got a little time in on the internet, before we went to dinner with some friends we had made on the bus over from HCMC. Yohan and Dolina are a couple who have spent the last year travelling the world and it was great to hear their stories and get great advice (liberals from Texas too! What a rare breed) and we spent most the evening over some Khmer and Amok food that included duck, mushrooms, fish, and pumpkin. The next day we booked a bus trip to bangkok (tickets that go for 10$) that we were informed was a 9 hour shot. The first 7 hours of the trip to reach the Thai border was hellish. I say that with hesitation, having seen the travel accomidations of the locals, but this trip took some endurance. First, to road was all dirt the entire way that was plagued by massive potholes keeping our top speed below 40 and very ofter forcing a crawl at 5 or less. Second, the bus was in really bad shape. We were crammed into seats where I couldn't even put my feet flat on the floor without the seat in front of me digging into my shins. The pleather seats almost seamed heated as they caused the sweat to pour off you at any point of contact. The only form of circulating air was the front door of the bus remaining open throughout the trek, which made for a steady stream of dust from the road to fall upon us all. I turned my music up and tried to go to another place. When we finally crossed into thailand, the change of scenery was immediate. The bus we climbed into was a plush double decker with a disney themed paint job, a/c, reclinings seats and movies to watch for the ride. Every road in Thailand is well paved with major highways in all directions. We cruised along at great speed, though our journey took about 13 hours when it was all said and done. We rushed to the train station to try and catch the overnight train to our take off point to Ko Samui, but it was sold out. So we grabbed a tuk tuk (which in Thailand have full size engines and zoom around at motorcycle speeds), and after a bit of a back alley scare, eventually made it to a good hotel where we crashed from exhaustion. Now we are booking hotels in Ko Samui and catching up on e-mails and such before we do some light tourism and then we jump onto a 6:30 train heading south.
Phew.
So, sorry to get this blog out a bit late and a bit hurried, but there it is. I'll catch you in Ko Samui for a little more cultural insight and more adventures. Thanks for tuning in and for the comments, it's great to hear from you all =)
Much love,
-Jon


Jenkins: Yea I suppose I should have clarified that a bit. What I meant to say is that the pace of life is just a bit slower and that everything being 5 minutes late is not a surprise. The big clock at Wat Phnom was 5 mins behind the clocks everywhere else in Phnom Penh, but no one really bothered to correct it. Hence the custom seems to be to not worry about time so much, as opposed to everyone putting their clocks back. I usually try to read over my writings but It always seems to be late when I'm doing it and my writing suffers from that. Thanks, for reading, it's good to hear from you! Hope all is well