Mar
4
The Bumpy Road to the Riches of the Khmer
(Note: this article is now also published on my friend’s new travel community site The Global Guru)
After a weekend of hard partying on gorgeous Koh Phan Gan island in the Gulf of Thailand, where I had the pleasure of attending my very first Full Moon party, I was looking forward to the next inspirational item on my itinerary – the grand temples of Angkor. What I didn’t count on is that I would have such an adventure along the way… As a self-proclaimed “traveler” as opposed to the turistas we like to denigrate, I was fully prepared. I had read about the Thailand/Cambodia border bus scam well in advance. Not really wishing to spend 18 hours on a bus traveling down monsoon ravaged roads only to get ripped off, forced into exchanging currency at a crappy rate and sleeping in a rickety old inn, I opted to go the independent route, something I would later come to regret.
Getting to the border at Aranyaprathet was easy, being that Thailand has some of the best public transportation in Asia… About 100 M from the crossing, I was accosted by two snot nosed 10 year old kids who refused to leave me alone, which is never a good sign… A gangly good Samaritan about my age interceded with some unqualified advice that I would later come to regret: ‘‘watch your wallet!’’, he yelled. Being the ‘seasoned’ traveler that I am, I reached for my wallet and switched it from my back to my front pocket, thinking there’s no way anyone can steal it now… Only to realize those two aggressive rugrats were no longer in lockstep with me & that I had just been pickpocketed. Mr. Gangly kindly offered to get it back for me – for a price. He wanted all of the money in my wallet. I almost told him to suck it, before realizing that I had no leverage. To make matters worse, I had a photo in there I desperately needed for my Cambodian visa.
Within five minutes the wallet was back in my hands, the hucksters were 
500 baht richer (I kept 500 and told him to get lost) and I was on my way. Well, not quite, as I still had to pay off a handler to pay off the border guards to get my visa. Yes, I tried refusing but being the only foreigner at the border was not exactly helping. Nor was negotiating for a taxi for ONE as there were apparently no other tourists brave (or stupid) enough to cross into Poipet at dusk. For 35 USD I would be delivered to Siem Reap by a toothless driver who spoke no English and had ample opportunity to rob me, shoot me and dump my body in the nearest rice paddy under the cover of the humid tropical night. Luckily he entertained no such thoughts.
The next day, as fate would have it, I entered the majestic grounds of Angkor. Built by the Khmer civilization between 802 and 1220 AD, the temples are one of mankind’s most astonishing architectural achievements. All of the structures are believed by scholars to have been arranged to mirror the stars in the constellation Draco at spring equinox some 12 thousand years ago. Another mysterious fact about the Angkor complex is its location exactly 72 degrees of longitude east of the Pyramids of Giza. This number is sacred to both Hindus and Buddhists. Needless to say, words and pictures hardly do justice to this place, reputed by scientists to have been the earliest pre-industrial city in the world and capable of housing one million people at one time.
Inside the main temple of Angkor Wat, which is the only of the 50+ temples of Angkor to face west, i.e. towards sunset (death!) I fell into a sort of hyper trance state… It was like a high octave spiritual frequency was pulsating right through me… Angkor Wat itself was built to honor Vishnu, one of the main gods of Hindu theology… However, in an interesting twist, each temple was built according to the specific beliefs/deities of the ruler at the time, so there are also plenty of Buddhist statues to be found throughout the thick jungle canopy… The blend of the two religions evident in the statues and stories told through the carvings in the temple walls was captivating. It’s not like I really understood exactly what it was all conveying to me, but my imagination was running wild just the same.
Climbing up the small steps up the main temple of Angkor Wat, I was able to hear, see, feel, taste and smell its essence for a moment. I felt the roar of the crowd and saw the king and his queen up a grand pedestal, wrapped in gold and surrounded by flowers, towering above clouds of incense, ministering to the tens of thousands of followers in the grass below, who believed that their rulers were the reincarnations of deities. All that has remained of the ancient Khmer are these structures carved of stone, monuments to human collective consciousness that everyone on this Earth should see at least once, before they themselves fade into the sunset, to the other side…
