Annika was just a little dehydrated

Pictures of Angkor Wat

most photos by Elise VN

Tomb Raiders part 2 of 2

One of the coolest aspects of a day spent among the temples at Angkor Wat is the unrestricted access visitors are granted. In Europe or North America, everything –justifiably so- would be cordoned off. Sidewalks with traffic flow arrows would not only corral you, but they would script your experience.

But here, with few exceptions, visitors were granted full, unrestricted access. We could -quite literally- climb all over the temples. It was like –and forgive me for the comparison- a giant jungle gym for adults. We had a guide –nice fellow and all- but my favorite moments happened when I broke away from him and ventured out on my own to explore a corridor, walk through an antechamber, or climb up to the top of a temple.

Annika was sick the day we visited Angkor. She was a real trooper, but by midafternoon, she was fading fast. Julie decided to take her back to the “Home Sweet Home” guest house. Laura and Madisson decided to go back as well.

That left four of us including Elise and me back at Angkor Wat. We were able to see and climb to the top of Angkor Wat temple which is the biggest and most famous of the temples and also the one that gives the complex its name.

By the time we were done, it was getting close to sunset and there is only one way to spend sunset at Angkor Wat. We hiked and then climbed up a hill to the highest of the complex’s temples. We joined hundreds of other visitors who had already climbed the steep steps and fanned out over this temple to claim their spots from which they planned to watch the sun set. We hustled up the steps and jostled with the crowd afraid we might not get a good spot. It was a bit precarious, but Elise and I found a pretty good perch. We planted ourselves on the edge of a rampart, let out feet dangle, and waited.

While we waited for the horizon to swallow up the sun, we watched people. We saw a young woman sitting on the wall not too far from us. In front of her was a narrow tower that rose up from the ground below. It was close enough that she could have almost reached out and touched it, but in between her and the tower was a twenty-foot drop. Elise and I saw her stand up and study the column of ancient brick. Oh no, I said as I realized what she was thinking. Sure enough, with one swing of the arms she leapt across the gap and onto the column.

I look around for a staff person who might reprimand her. There was none. I thought she was going to settle in to watch the sunset from her new perch, but a moment later she jumped back.

I was aghast.

But then, I found myself musing, “Hey, that actually looked pretty do-able. I wonder if I could . . . .” Elise interrupted my revelry. The sun was just about to touch the horizon. We soaked in the view and took a few more pictures. But we decide not to stay for the rest of the show so that we could beat the huge swell of people down the hillside.

I’ve seen a lot of sunsets in my day, but few more spectacular than Angkor Wat.

The temple complex at Angkor Wat are impressive. They have lasted a thousand years and withstood the ravages of time and nature.

I just hope they can survive the throngs of tourists that come to explore them every day, 365 days a year.

Tomb Raiders part 1 of 2

Ranking right up with the Pyramids of Giza, the Great Wall of China, and the Taj Mahal, the Temples at Angkor Wat in Cambodia are among the world’s great heritage sites.

Ankor Wat wasn’t known to the Western world until the late eighteen-hundreds when a French explorer wrote about them in a best-selling book. But even then, very few Westerners had a chance to see them due to the political turmoil that dominated the region for the next hundred years.

It wasn’t until about twenty years ago when a previously closed Cambodia opened her borders to the rest of the world that more people had a chance to experience this ancient wonder.

The temple complex had been abandoned for several hundred years which allowed the jungle to encroach. The temples and their extensive carvings are pretty cool in and of themselves, but what gives the place an other-worldly feel is all the trees and their roots that have slowly engulfed big portions of the complex.

While preservationists have cleared away some of the trees, it would be impossible for them to clear away much more without doing further damage to the buildings. Even if they could, they shouldn’t. The melding of ancient civilization with irrepressible nature is what gives Angkor Wat its undeniable appeal.

from the land of the squat toilet

Styrofoam take-out containers

Check!

On the airplane from Hong Kong to Bangkok, my wife and daughters sat together in the three seats ahead of me. I was stuck by myself next to two strangers. Having already flipped through the SkyMall catalog filled with $800 air purifiers and high-tech neck massagers and with no one to talk to, I got a little bored.

I took out the barf bag from the seat pouch in front of me and listed all of the countries I have been to. Then I listed the countries my daughters have been to. Then I listed the countries Julie has been to.

Just about then, Julie turned around and peeked between the seats to see what I was up to. She motioned for me to pass the barf bag to her through the gap between the seats.

A minute later, she handed it back to me. On the bottom, below my four lists, she had neatly written in block letters “It’s not a competition.”

I looked up. She smirked at me. I stuck out my tongue at her.

Somehow my wife has gotten the idea that I operate with some sort of mental check list.

Eleven days later, we found ourselves in a long line ready to cross the border from Thailand into Cambodia. It had been a long day and we had a long way to go still.

Our border crossing guide indicated for us to follow him. I checked to make sure that I had my passport. I checked to make sure that our daughters were following us. I looked around at all the commerce and chaos that surrounded us. I kept an eye on our guide.

We walked past a sign that said “Welcome to Cambodia.” I looked around to make sure our group was still together. My wife caught my eye across the crowd. While she held my gaze, she silently raised her hand and made a big check mark in the air.

She coolly turned away and kept walking.

I couldn’t help but smile.

To be truly and deeply known by one person in life is one of life's blessings.

It’s also rather disconcerting.

-Jack

from Thailand to Cambodia pictures

Border Crossing part 3 of 3

My brother-in-law and I conferred quietly. He won me over. We paid the money and sure enough, our guide walked us right to the front of the line. I felt a tinge of guilt as we walked past well-tanned, scruffy Australian Dude and his tank-topped, tattooed girlfriend sitting on top of their overly big backpacks.

Once through customs, we had to walk another 500 meters on the Cambodian side. As we were walking with our border crossing guide, a van pulled up. The driver seemed to know who we were and had been expecting us. He waved for us to get in. I looked at our border crossing guide who nods in ascent.

For the fourth time that day we allowed ourselves to be put in the hands of a complete stranger who spoke little or no English to be taken who-knows-where. I took a deep breath and had to force myself to not think of all the possible ways in which this could go horribly wrong. I glanced at my wife to see how she was doing. She appeared fine, so I climbed into the van. My children followed.

Three hours later -twelve hours after we had started our trek that morning- our driver pulled up to the front door of the “Home Sweet Home” guest house where the staff was expecting us.

Less than thirty-six hours later, we would reverse the whole process and do it all over again.

Maybe that laconic beach vacation down in Phukhet wouldn’t have been such a bad idea after all.

I was astounded at the level of organization required of the informal network of men who got us over the border. It reinforced for me the enterprising nature of human beings. Give a man a cell phone, get out of his way, and he will find a way to make a buck.

I would have loved to have been able to talk to all of those people –seen and unseen- who were involved in getting us over the border. I would have asked them who was in charge of all this. But I suspect that I already know the answer to that question. There was no one person who was orchestrating all this from on high. I’m sure it was an informal network that arose from the ground up. It’s the invisible hand Adam Smith talks about in the Wealth of Nations. God bless the free market, spontaneous order, and the profit motive.

Now, about these sheets here on our bed in our seven-dollar-a-night hotel . . . .

Home Sweet Home indeed.

Border Crossing part 2 of 3

But once we were in Koh Chang, we started to see signs in the windows of all of the tour operators advertising guided trips over the border into Cambodia.

For those of you who know my brother-in-law, you know this ex-military guy doesn’t have the words “no can do” in his vocabulary. After brief deliberations, we ducked into one of the tour operators and booked our guided transport into Cambodia.

Early Wednesday morning, our Thai driver picked us up right on time in front of our hotel. At noon we stopped at a little restaurant where we were met by a man who was expecting us. He took our passports and started filling out the paperwork for us. After lunch, he handed us back to our driver. It was still another hour to the border.

At the border, our van pulled in and there was a man waiting for us. Before I fully realized what was going on, our van driver back up and drove off. We essentially had no idea where we were. We were hours from Koh Chang and hours still from Angkor Wat. We were in the custody of a man we had never met before who spoke little English. While our phone still worked, if we ran into trouble, whom would we call anyway?

We were on a little dirt median between two parking lots standing under the weak shade of an anemic little tree. While the guy who would be walking us over the border looked over all of our paperwork, we shifted our heavy backpacks from one shoulder to another and tried to avoid making eye contact with the beggar who was trying to sell us cheap-looking velvet-covered plastic horse with beady red eyes. Finally, our guide indicated for us to follow him. It was time to walk the one kilometer through the city of Poipet to the border crossing.

The guy in the TravelAdvisory.com chatroom who described the city of Poipet as a cesspool was being kind.

At the immigration station, we cued up behind a hundred other would-be border crossers. Mostly they were young, western backpackers. The line did not seem to be moving. With our lack of dread-locks, our recent showers, and our blonde-haired children, we certainly stuck out from our fellow trekkers. My nephew sporting his bandana and scruffy beard could have blended in if he weren’t hanging out with us breeders.

After disappearing for a minute, our crossing guide returned and said that it might be a couple of hours before we could get across. He paused for a second, looked at me, looked at my brother-in-law, and then said that for US$10 per person, he could get us across in a few minutes. Knowing that we would be cutting in front of all these fellow travelers, my egalitarian American sensibilities recoiled at the suggestion. Furthermore, I didn’t like the idea of being squeezed for some extra payola.

Border Crossing part 1 of 3

Cambodia and Thailand are right next to each other. They’re part of the same peninsula. It seemed like a no-brainer to combine them into one trip. After Thailand, we hoped to head over to neighboring Cambodia to visit the famous temples at Angkor Wat.

Before leaving home, we researched how to go from Koh Chang –our last stop in Thailand- to Angkor Wat.

Turns out, you can’t get there from here.

We clicked around in a multiple TripAdvisor.com and LonelyPlanet.com chat rooms. Almost everyone warned about what a nightmare it is to try to get from Koh Chang to Angkor Wat. Most people advised against attempting. Among the people who had success made the trek, every one of their methods was different.

Getting from Koh Chang to Angkor Wat would require three buses, two taxis, a train, and a walk across the border. And if we were lucky, we could make the four-hundred-mile trip in one day. If we ran into trouble at the border, it might take two days.

I knew this trip was going to be my family’s one trip to the Indochina peninsula. If we didn’t make it to Cambodia on this trip, it wasn’t ever going to happen. Period. I really wanted to go to Cambodia, but it was going to take additional money and an extraordinary effort. For the sake of marital bliss, I had to let it go. While Angkor Wat wasn’t on the top of my must-see list, it was still tough knowing that I had gotten so close and wasn’t going to see it.

Oh well.

I let it go.

I wasn’t going to let missing Cambodia ruin my trip to Thailand.

Can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

So the decision had been made.

Or so I thought.

Road-side petrol for sale by the whiskey bottle

Koh Chang adventures