March 2, Friday, 2007, Siem Reap, Cambodia

It’s 8 o’clock in the morning, and I’m back at the little coffee shop at the gas station. I hope the journal mood hasn’t left. I sat down with my first cappuccino and then I saw Michael ordering a coffee. He came over and joined me and we talked for a while. He just went back to their guest house and I’m going to order another coffee in a minute.

Things worked out fairly well yesterday, and I’m glad now that I didn’t get out to the temples for a sunrise. Like I think I wrote yesterday, I had this idea that I had to see sunrise. Every guidebook and Internet site and every person you talk to goes on and on about that. But when it came right down to it as I was lying there in bed I didn’t see why a sunrise was so important and I let the moment pass.

I was actually feeling a little ambivalent about going out to see the temples, but once I got on my bike and started cycling I started to get quite excited. I was surprised about that, but I had a real tingling in my stomach and my legs had wings. I was just racing along the streets and in a very good mood. How many times after all do you cycle toward a place like Angkor Wat? A place that you’ve heard about your entire life? A place that you might never see again? It’s one of those once-in-a-lifetime deals and I got more and more excited as I cycled.

It is pretty easy to get to the temple area. All I had to do was cycle along the road where the Jasmine Guest House is and then after three or four blocks turn left at a traffic circle near the river. Then you ride north.

The main temple area is just a few kilometers from the town center. First, however, you have to buy your temple pass. The place where you buy your pass looks a lot like a toll booth for a highway. You turn off the main road into a parking area that feeds into seven or eight booths. There you hand over your cash and a photograph and a minute later they give you a pass with your picture laminated inside it. It wasn’t that simple of course and my first mistake was to ride my bike up to the booth. Apparently you can’t do that. I have no idea why not. The place was designed for vehicles to just drive up and stop at the windows and get passes, but for some reason it doesn’t work like that and I had to turn around and park my bike off to the side. Then I had to walk up to one of the booths. They were all labeled the same and I just went up to one at random. Two men were ahead of me and when they were done, I went to the window where I was told to go to another booth. It seems that this booth was for group tours, not for individuals. There was nothing on the signs to indicate that, and I mentioned that to the woman. She simply ignored me and motioned me away. The next guy in line behind me was then told he was at the wrong booth. It was for group tours only… I shook my head and walked away wondering how many years of this would have to go by before it occurred to someone to put up a simple sign that says “Group Tours” at one booth and “Individual Passes” at another booth. If I were working there, it would take me till my first coffee break before I was making a little sign and tacking it up.

I was impressed, however, at how smooth the process was once I was at the correct booth. A day pass costs $20. A 3-day pass costs $40 and a week pass costs $60. I didn’t even try to pay in riel. I think this was strictly a US-dollar operation. I handed over $40 and gave the woman a selection of photos to choose from. I wasn’t sure what size they wanted. She chose the smallest size I had. I was a bit disturbed that my money and photo just disappeared along with that of a bunch of other people. I didn’t get a receipt or anything like that. The only paper trail that indicated I’d just paid for a pass was that the woman had a tiny picture of me. But who knew how many pictures were floating around in that booth? If she misplaced mine or dropped it, there would be no proof that I had just paid $40. And how do you get your pass? None of this was explained anywhere. So I simply stood there and waited, hoping that someone would tell me if I was doing something wrong. It felt a bit weird because these were drive-through booths after all. We were just a bunch of random people milling around on the pavement wondering what was going on. After a few minutes, however, a tour guide who was with a larger group of people was handed a stack of passes. He turned to his group and started looking at the pictures on the passes and handing them out. Of course, he was also handed mine even though I wasn’t part of his group. I saw him stare at a picture and then look at his group and then look back at the picture. Something wasn’t right. I looked over his shoulder and saw that it was my pass and I took it from him. It was pretty big piece of plastic and there were no holes in it for a lanyard or anything else. It also had nothing on it about Angkor Wat or the temples. It said Apsara Authority at the top, three-day pass in the middle and “Bantaey Srei,” whatever that is. It was issued by Sokha Hotel Col. LTD. The Sokha Hotel had purchased the temples? Apparently. For all the world it looked like I’d purchased a three-day pass to enjoy the facilities at a hotel. I tried punching a hole in the plastic so that I could hang the thing around my neck along with my bike lock keys and keep it handy under my shirt. But the plastic was pretty brittle and it felt like it would tear open easily and I’d lose it, so I just stuffed it inside a pocket inside my knapsack.

I then got on my bike and rode back out onto the main road and turned right toward the temples. I hadn’t gone twenty feet before a guard got up from a chair in the shade blowing his whistle. He ordered me to stop and asked to see my pass. I showed it to him and then he indicated that I was supposed to turn around, cycle back and then go through the parking lot, past the toll booths, and exit from the other side. I found this a bit dumb because where we were standing was maybe twenty feet from that place. I was right there. And yet he wanted me to turn around, cycle back the way I’d come, go through the toll booth (where they’d told me earlier I couldn’t take my bike), and then pop out just past this guy on the main road pretty much right where I was. It wasn’t a big deal, but for some reason it bothered me and I refused. The only reason you had to go to the toll booths was to buy a pass and I already had mine. This was the road to the temples and the temples were that way, the way I was riding. I indicated all this to the guy and he still insisted over and over that I go through the toll booths. I continued to refuse (feeling stubborn that morning I guess) and he eventually just indicated that I could continue on my way. I went the twenty feet to the place where the toll booth emptied back onto the road I was on and two more uniformed guards suddenly sprang to their feet blowing their whistles. They wanted to see my pass as well. I guess this was punishment for being such a problem with the first guard. I say this because there was no real reason to stop me. I was on the main road and it was thick with traffic. Scooters, bicycles, cars, tuk-tuks, and buses were all flowing past in a steady stream. There were lots of foreigners in this stream and none of them were stopped. Just me.

Another complication was that the president of Vietnam just happened to be visiting Cambodia and yesterday was his day to visit the temples. So there was a lot of extra security laid on. There seemed to be armed guards and police everywhere. I’d noticed that in Siem Reap as well. Twice on my way out, they had blocked traffic to allow official motorcades go past.

A couple of kilometers from the toll booths, I was suddenly pulled over by some policemen. They were sitting at the side of the road on their motorbikes. I saw them from a distance and they were talking into their walkie-talkies. Suddenly they leapt to their feet and were waving their arms at me and signaling me to pull over. What now? I thought. Apparently this guard at the toll booth didn’t like my attitude and had friends everywhere. But no, it was just that the presidential motorcade was on its way and they were stopping all traffic until it went past. Everyone had to pull over and wait. There were maybe fifteen vehicles in the motorcade including a couple of trucks with the backs loaded with fully-armed soldiers. Once the motorcade passed, I pedaled on.

By this point, that tingling excitement had vanished. I was back to my usual cynical self and wondering if the temples would strike me as “just a pile of rocks” as Richard at the Serendipity Guest House called them.

I didn’t have any plan for visiting the temples and didn’t really have a clue what things would look like or how one went about this temple tour business. Of course, I knew what Angkor Wat and the other temples looked like, but how did they appear when you were actually there?

The first surprise was the overall scale of the place. The road hit a T-intersection alongside a large square body of water. This confused me because I assumed it was one of the big water reservoirs. I thought they were far to the left and right of where I was. I turned left and cycled along the reservoir. I got to a corner and decided I’d better look at my map and get my bearings. I got out my map, and I was very surprised to see that this wasn’t the reservoir at all. This was simply the moat that went around Angkor Wat. I thought that if this was just the moat, then how big must the reservoirs be? I sat there on my bike for a while and contemplated the size of the grounds of Angkor Wat. And then it dawned on me that the grounds of Angkor Wat were actually quite small compared to Angkor Thom where the Bayon was located. I was starting to figure out just how big the whole temple complex was.

I soon got my bearings after that. I could see around the corner a big causeway going across the moat. This was how one actually got across the moat and into Angkor Wat. I had some trouble finding a place to put my bike. There were quite a few other bikes around, but these were cheap rentals from the guest houses, and they were simply parked and not locked to anything. There was no convenient place to put a bike like mine. I rode around for a while just checking out the area. There were lots of parking areas for tuk-tuks, scooters, buses and cars, but no place that was obviously for bikes. Finally, I just leaned my bike against a sign for a hot air balloon company and started to lock my bike to the post. I was in full view of a big group of uniformed guards, and I figured if I was doing anything wrong they would soon let me know. But they didn’t say a word. I was very pleased that I wasn’t hounded by millions of people trying to sell things. I went there fully expecting to have the experience marred by children and people hassling me all day long to sell me things and be my guide. But only one little boy came up to me as I was locking up my bike. He tried to sell me some postcards, but it was very half-hearted. He was more interested in checking out the bike. I wasn’t totally pleased with how he put his hands all over the bike. Just once, I’d like to come back to my bike and find the mirror in the position where I left it and the gear shifters not all twisted out of position. I was going to leave my water bottles on the bike, but with that kid there making free with the bike I decided to take them with me and I put them in my knapsack. I was just about set to go when the kid suddenly jerked backwards away from me. He hit another bike with his back and that bike went over and hit another bike and they all went over like dominoes. Then the kid just started running. I instantly thought he had somehow grabbed my wallet or something else. But I checked and nothing was missing. Then I realized what had happened. One of the uniformed temple guards had hopped on a bicycle and was racing toward the kid. He chased the kid through the parking lot and through a bunch of trees before he gave up the chase. I don’t know why he took exception to the kid. Perhaps it was technically illegal to hawk postcards and souvenirs, and though they tolerate it, they occasionally chase someone away just to make a point. Or the guard had been watching and thought the kid had bothered me enough and decided to run him off.

The approach to Angkor Wat didn’t seem that special. The causeway was just a stone bridge and lots of tourists were going back and forth across it. At the other end was the first of the big walls that go around the temple and you couldn’t see anything.

Even when I was inside the main complex and could see the temple itself in the distance, I wasn’t that impressed. It all looked nice enough, but nothing I saw seemed to justify all the hype. But I’m glad to say that the longer I stayed and the more I explored, the more I appreciated the place. Angkor started to work its magic on me. I ended up staying there for more than three hours just climbing around and exploring and taking picture after picture after picture. I kept finding new ways to view the place and new areas to explore. By the end I was a complete convert and walked away thinking it was a pretty amazing place. It was well worth the effort to get here.

From Angkor Wat, I simply cycled north toward Angkor Thom. Again, the scale of the place impressed me. I guess back when this area was built there was a huge city here. But all of those buildings were made of wood and were long gone. Only the stone temples remained, leaving a vast forested area around the central temple.

The temple in Angkor Thom was the Bayon. This temple also didn’t seem like much when I first got there. I rode around the entire temple a couple of times and all I saw was a big jumble of rocks. There didn’t seem to be much of a pattern to any of it. But by the time I left a good two hours later, this temple too had worked its magic on me. It wasn’t until I climbed into the temple itself and walked around it that I began to appreciate it. I took about 80 pictures of Angkor Wat and about 120 of the Bayon. I just couldn’t stop taking pictures. By the time I left, my fingers were actually sore from holding the camera and pushing the shutter button.

I did go to one more temple, but I had no more energy left to appreciate it. Those two temples were more than enough for one day for me. I was also very happy at how few people were around. I was anticipating huge crowds, but apparently these huge crowds show up for sunrise and sunset. During the day when it’s hot, very few people are out there. I didn’t exactly have the place to myself, but I could easily take pictures with no other people in it if I wanted. There were so few people at the Bayon that we tourists actually spoke to each other about what we were seeing. There might have been three other dumb white guys there while I was there and then a couple of tour groups came through, but that was it. A lot more people were at Angkor Wat, but the temple complex was so huge, that it hardly seemed to matter. And if you went even the slightest little bit out of the main areas you felt like you had the whole place to yourself. At Angkor Wat I nearly walked myself into the ground going around and around all the walls at all the different levels. Most people didn’t even make it that far. They simply walked in along the main walkway, looked at the main temple and then walked out again. Very few people even went around the inner wall to look at the relief carvings that went all the way around.

By the end of the day I was exhausted, but I was also energized. It was a great day and I cycled back into Siem Reap glad I had come here. I saw Michael and Michelle later at the restaurant of the Jasmine. They hadn’t had nearly as good a day. They didn’t get up for sunrise either. And they had been talking about renting bicycles, but they didn’t. Michael was very glad they didn’t. He said that the whole day they kept thinking about “poor Doug” out there on the bike in that hot sun. I think it was being on the bike that made the day special for me. They hired tuk-tuk drivers to take them around and in the end they didn’t think much of the whole Angkor Wat experience. They said they went to about eight temples and they all looked the same – just piles of rock. Michael was impressed by the carvings at Angkor Wat, but that was about it. They also talked about being hassled all day by people trying to sell them things. It was like we went to two entirely different places. I think they had a bad time precisely because they were just driven around from temple to temple. Look at this temple. Now drive to the next and look at that one. I only saw two temples and thoroughly enjoyed both of them. When I went to see the third one, I went there only because I had time left in the day and thought I might as well. But I couldn’t appreciate it anymore and just left. I think how I felt at that third one was how they felt pretty much all day at all the temples.

I could easily leave Siem Reap today satisfied with my experience of the temples. But I am going to ride out again and look around again. There is one other temple that I’m interested in.

March 3, Saturday, 2007 Siem Reap, Cambodia

Well, I’m full of surprises these days. I decided, literally at the last minute, to stay in Siem Reap longer and take a bus (or a boat I guess) back to Phnom Penh. And so far I am very glad I did.

I actually left from Siem Reap this morning. I got up and went through my normal routine when I’m going to go cycling. I packed up and got everything ready and hit the road. I stopped at the gas station variety store and bought a bottle of water and a bottle of milk. The milk was my breakfast and the water went into my bike bottles. I wasn’t sure how far I was going to ride. The next town that definitely would have guest houses was 145-150 km away. On a good touring bike I could cover that distance without too much problem. On this bike it would be a pretty painful affair, but I could still do it. There were some other towns listed in between Siem Reap and this big town, but none of my maps agreed about their names and I had no idea if there would be hotels in them.

Siem Reap is a very busy place and extremely busy in the morning. I had to be very careful on my bike particularly as I went past a big market. While there, I picked up a companion of sorts. A foreign man in his sixties on a rented bicycle fell in behind me and then stayed there for about 10 km. I kept glancing at him in my mirror and he really seemed to be struggling, but he kept up with me the whole way. I didn’t mind that he was there. He wasn’t bothering me. But then he put on a burst of speed and came up beside me and asked me how much further it was to Angkor Wat. I had to break the bad news that he was on his way to Phnom Penh and heading in the wrong direction entirely. He made a joke out of it saying that he needed the exercise anyway. But I’ll bet by the end of the day he’ll be regretting that little 20-kilometre detour. A day at the temples on a rented bike is no laughing matter. It takes a lot of energy.

I rode for a further 15 kilometers, and then I really started to doubt what I was doing. For one thing, the road was boring. It was flat and empty and going through nothing but empty land. The distances I was facing were also pretty large with no room for stopping and enjoying the towns I’d be staying in. It would essentially be four days of just sitting on my bike and pedaling. And I could contrast that with how much I enjoyed the temples at Angkor. Anyway, after I’d ridden 25 kilometers, I pulled over to the side of the road and got out my map and thought about my plans. It didn’t take me long to make up my mind and I turned the bike around and started riding back to Siem Reap. It was going to be my own little 50-km detour by the time I got back, but that was okay. I got to see the countryside around Siem Reap and now I could ride my bike around Siem Reap and look for a better place to stay. The Jasmine where I’d joined Michael and Michelle was actually pretty awful. My room was a real dungeon. The bathroom had no ventilation at all and was like a hot house combined with a sewer. The room itself was very dark and dim. The lights barely cast a glow. And it never seemed to cool down. I had a lot of trouble sleeping every night. Michael and Michelle complained of the same thing until they decided to spring for the extra $7 a night and get the air conditioner turned on.

When I got back into Siem Reap, I turned down the road that went along the river. I wanted to stay in an entirely new part of town. I will miss my coffee shop right next door, but I could still cycle up there if I wanted my coffee. It doesn’t really matter where you go in Siem Reap. There are guest houses and hotels everywhere. There is no need to find out where the neighborhoods with the hotels are. Every neighborhood has hotels. I ended up staying at the second place I looked at. The first place was out of my league at $35 a night. The second place was a basic looking hotel. There was nothing about it that would make you think, “I want to stay there!” But it looked reasonable and I rode my bike into the courtyard. Two nice women at the front desk greeted me and one of them took me upstairs and showed me a room. It was $10 with fan and $13 with air conditioning. It didn’t look that special and I almost decided to keep looking for a more atmospheric place. Then I made the smart move and took the room anyway. I didn’t want to spend hours and hours looking around.

I took a room for $10 and they gave me room 207. I quickly realized what a bargain a place like this is. At $10 it is twice as expensive as my room at the Jasmine, but the room is easily ten times as nice. So it works out to be a good deal.

The room is big and bright and clean and quiet. It doesn’t smell and there are no mosquitoes. There is not only a big normal window with curtains, but a second frosted glass window high on the wall to let in more light. The bed is fully made up with sheets and blankets. There is a nice desk and chair with a telephone and a fridge and a TV. There is free water in the fridge. They supply nice towels, shampoo, soap, toothpaste, and a toothbrush. It even has hot water – the first I’ve had in Cambodia. When the woman showed me the room, she put the key in a slot to turn on the power and the air conditioner turned on. I’m not paying for an air conditioner, but I guess I’m getting a few free minutes of it until they realize their mistake. The woman looked at the air conditioner, so I think she knew it was on, but she just left it.

I’m going to spend the rest of today just relaxing and exploring Siem Reap proper. Then I’ll likely spend another two days at the temples. There are actually a couple more that I want to see. Who knew I could be such a temple hound? Then I’ll hop on a bus back to Phnom Penh. I’m much happier with this new plan. I don’t think that 4-day bike ride back to Phnom Penh would be any fun at all. I might miss the exercise, but in fact when I visit the temples I end up cycling 40-50 kilometers in a day. So I get some exercise.

My plan yesterday was to only go to one temple. This was Ta Prohm, the temple with all the trees growing over the temple walls. Lara Croft Tomb Raider was filmed there.

I was a little dismayed when I first got there because there were about thirty tour buses at the entrance. But I had timed things just right. It was around 11:30 when I got there and as I walked toward the temple itself, I was walking against a river of people leaving. They were all going back to Siem Reap for lunch. By noon, the place was almost empty, and for the next three hours I had it almost entirely to myself. Well, it wasn’t quite empty, but at least the big tour groups were gone. I didn’t realize what a difference that made until about 3:00 when they started to come back. They were Japanese and Korean tour groups and with them around it was impossible to get pictures of the trees and roots. They all took turns having their pictures taken posing in front of the trees and roots. It took a long time to get through an entire tour group and when they were done, the next group would start. If they had been there the whole time, I wouldn’t have been able to take any pictures at all. But I was lucky and took lots of pictures. I hope some of them turn out because the temple really was amazing.

That was the only temple I wanted to see, but I was cycling back to Siem Reap I passed another one that was right on the road. I took advantage of it being so close to get off the bike and do some climbing around on it.

I saw Michael and Michelle last night as well. They hadn’t done very much. Michael was bored silly by the temples and they had barely gotten out there in their tuk-tuk when they decided to just turn around and go back to the Jasmine. We sat around for a while and played some pool. They were going to go out to some bar district and wanted me to come, but I declined. I knew I would regret it if I went. Besides, I was too tired. The two of them had plans to take a taxi to the Thai border and then another taxi from there to Bangkok. So I won’t see them again.

March 4, Sunday, 2007, Siem Reap, Cambodia

It’s 7:30 in the morning here, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it. Things get going early here. I’m having my coffee at a place called The Red Piano. It’s a very well-known spot, and I had it in my head to eat here at one point just to check out the atmosphere. I was surprised to see that it was open already and so I popped in for a cup of coffee. The one disappointment was that the balcony isn’t open yet. The balcony (where everyone wants to sit) doesn’t open until 4 p.m. apparently. I can’t complain. I’m happy it was open at all. I actually wanted to go back to my gas station. I like places like that better. The coffee is often better and the seating is better for typing. Places like the Red Piano always have “comfortable” seating, which means lots of cushions and deep chairs that pull you back away from the table when I like to sit up high and right at the table.

The atmosphere here is pretty good, but I do wish I were at the gas station. The seating is more comfortable for me, the coffee is better, and there is more to watch. That gas station is very busy in the morning as all the scooters and tuk-tuks are getting gassed up for their day and the tour buses are filling up as well. I guess this Red Piano is more of a bar/lounge and is meant for evening drinking. It isn’t bright enough or cheery enough for a morning coffee. I wanted to have my coffee in this neighborhood, though, rather than go back to my old one. I don’t remember the name of this area offhand. It’s something like Phas Cha. It’s the Kao Sahn Road of Siem Reap and there are the usual guest houses, Internet cafes, pizza restaurants, travel agents, and everything else that you can find in these places. This is the area that Michael and Michelle walked to the other night when I didn’t go with them. The main street here is known as Pub Street and, not surprisingly, it has lots of places to get a drink. It’s quite a bit more gentle and welcoming than Khao San road. There is the backpacker set, but there are also lots of normal tourists. It’s made up of perhaps four main streets with a bunch of smaller connecting lanes. The streets are nice and wide and, like in all of Cambodia, the street corners are rounded and pleasant. A few of the buildings here date from the French colonial period, though not as many as in Phnom Penh. The Red Piano is in a restored colonial building. I haven’t had any trouble lately finding places to put the bike. Perhaps I’m just getting more relaxed and I don’t absolutely insist anymore on locking the bike to something. I guess it depends on the place. The Red Piano has a very official and attentive looking armed guard sitting at a small table right at the corner at the front of the restaurant. I stopped in front of him and indicated the bike. He showed me a place to park it right behind him. So I put it there and just put the lock through the rear wheel and frame. There was nothing there to lock the bike to except for some palm fronds, but I’m not worried about it.

I made the mistake of telling the waitress here that I was something of an English teacher. She then asked me for the best way to learn English. She is a very serious student of English and really wanted to know. I don’t have an answer to that question though. There seemed to be some unique problems going from Khmer to English, and I don’t know what those could be.

At first I was surprised that so many Cambodians asked me about the NEO. Then I realized that there is an idea floating around that either English or computer skills can open up a secure future. They talk about computers almost with reverence. Yet most seem to have been defeated by their experiences with them. Many have taken private computer classes, but they aren’t very good, and they don’t learn anything. They just end up confused and have this idea that computers are very complicated. Plus they are working on very old computers that barely work ,and they don’t have computers at home to practice on. Then they see the NEO and it appeals to them because it is so simple in appearance. It looks a lot easier to master than the computers they are used to. I explain over and over that it isn’t really a computer, but that doesn’t really sink in. I explain that it doesn’t do email or graphics and can’t access the Internet, but they don’t seem to understand what that means.

The mornings here are wonderfully cool and pleasant. The sun is just peaking through the clouds now, and it will soon get hotter. I still don’t find it to be an unpleasant heat like Taipei’s. Perhaps it is just my mood. Certainly other people complain about it a lot and work hard to avoid the sun and the heat. They can’t believe that I would willingly just cycle out to the temples in the hottest part of the day. Normally I wouldn’t either. If the heat was as oppressive as Taipei’s, there is no way I’d be out as much as I am here. But I don’t think it is as oppressive. I seem to be handling it without any trouble. Almost every hotel room has been totally comfortable with just the fan. In fact, I’ve woken up a bit chilled sometimes and then I’ve used my sleeping sheet that I brought. The mosquito net hasn’t been that useful, but the sheet has been wonderful. All the hotels have provided a fitted sheet over the mattress and then a small blanket. The blankets though have been small and scratchy and rather unpleasant. So I’ve gotten out my sleeping sheet and crawled inside it.

The exceptions have been my last two hotels here in Siem Reap. My room at the Jasmine was unpleasantly hot and humid. It got better when I realized I could open the window, but even then it wasn’t that comfortable. And last night I found my room at the Bequest hotel a little bit warm. Someone eventually figured out that I was getting free air conditioning and it was shut off. They didn’t have to come into the room to do it. They just flipped a switch somewhere else and turned off the power. Once the air conditioning was off, the room got a bit humid and last night it never really cooled off even when I opened the windows wide.

I got a surprise yesterday when I moved into the room. I pulled back the curtains over the window and found myself staring directly into a restaurant. I went outside later to check it out and it turned out that the “Popular” guest house was right next door. This is a popular backpacking place largely because they have a pleasant rooftop garden restaurant – the one that is right outside my window. Had I seen it yesterday, I probably would have ended up staying there instead of at the Bequest. I imagine their rooms are $5 instead of the $10 I’m paying. But maybe not. I should ask. I’m very happy with my luxurious $10 room though. I didn’t think I missed hot water, but it felt wonderful both yesterday and this morning. You don’t need hot water in a hot country like this, but at times it does take an effort to step into that stream of cold water. It’s nice to be able to turn on a hot water heater and get all toasty. Then you don’t have to steel yourself and hold your breath before taking the plunge into the water.

I didn’t have a very good experience at the Internet café yesterday. I guess there are better places around, but I didn’t know that. This was the only one I managed to find then. The young fellow working there was very eager and he kept screwing me up. I wanted to transfer my latest journal entry from the NEO to the computer and email it. The NEO, however, doesn’t transfer whole files. It actually retypes the entire file into whatever window the cursor is sitting in. The drawback is that you have to send the entire file from beginning to end and you can’t do anything else while it is typing. You can’t touch a button on the computer’s keyboard or a button on the NEO and you can’t click on the mouse or do anything. The NEO just keeps typing no matter what. So if you click on a menu or open another window or do anything, the NEO just types away in that new window or in the menu system and you have to start all over again. There’s no way to pause and start resending the file from the middle. You have to send the whole file from the beginning and it can take some time.

The kid was very interested in the NEO and watched what I was doing. I had explained to him over and over that you can’t touch anything while the NEO was working. But he wanted to help me and when the NEO had typed out about 25% of the file, he suddenly reached over and grabbed the mouse and tried to save the file. He was worried that there would be a power failure and I would lose the file. But by trying to save the file, he screwed the whole thing up and I had to start over again from the beginning.

I explained all this to him while I was restarting the NEO and resending the file. This time he waited till about 15% of the file was sent and then he reached over and grabbed the mouse a second time before I could stop him. His heart was in the right place, though. He wanted to restart the computer’s timer so that I didn’t have to pay for all the time I had lost by his screwing me up the first time. But of course by trying to restart the timer, he screwed me up a second time and I had to start all over again. I was a bit annoyed with him of course and I told him in very clear terms to touch nothing and just leave it all alone. I restarted the NEO and a few minutes later he reached over a third time! This time I was ready for him and I wasn’t so polite. I simply grabbed him by the wrist and pushed his hands away. It felt odd to grab this perfect stranger by the wrist, but it was either that or lose everything again.

I finally kept him away long enough for the NEO to retype the whole file. Then I had to unplug the NEO and plug in my Jetflash. I could have saved the file to the hard drive first just to be safe, but I don’t like putting anything on the hard drives. Every time I use a computer here I make sure to delete all the cookies and temporary files and I clear the history. Normally it doesn’t matter. But I figure it’s just a good habit to get into. I’ve discovered that a lot of people put files on these computers to transfer them and then forget to delete them. So I always just for fun, go to the My Documents folder and check out whatever is in the My Pictures and My Videos folders. There is almost always a bunch of pictures in them that people have taken on their digital cameras on their travels. It’s kind of fun to see them.

Once I got my Jetflash installed and saved the file, I felt safe. Even if the power went out now I could take the Jetflash somewhere else and still email the file. I then went through the file and corrected the worst of the typos etc. Then I copied that file into a new email in Hotmail. And then I wrote for a while in that email. That was a mistake because when I finally hit “send” the computer locked up and the computer had to be shut down. There was nothing else to be done and I lost everything I’d typed. I knew I should never type into Hotmail. Instead I usually type in Word, saving the file as I go just by hitting Control-s, and then when I’m done, I copy that text into Hotmail. But it has an entirely different feeling then. Typing directly into Hotmail has a more personal and connected feeling. When I type in Word and then copy and paste, it feels like I might as well just type it into NEO somewhere else. But at some point when you send the email you feel like you should write something in the present moment. It feels more personal and connected.

In this case though, I lost everything I had typed in Hotmail. I had to move over to a completely new computer and put in my Jetflash again and get the original NEO file which I’d saved and recopy it and all of that. It wouldn’t have been that bad except the mice at both computers were old and they didn’t work very well. I was two seconds away from smashing the things against the wall. There is little as frustrating as a mouse that doesn’t work.

I finally got it all done and then they didn’t know how much to charge me. When the first computer locked up, they also lost the record of how long I’d been on it. The original bumbling fellow was gone and it was a new guy. I could have told him anything, but I was a good boy and estimated I’d been on that computer for about two hours. I’d also had a Coke and a beer in that time and the bill came to $4.50. I usually pay in riels and I asked him how much it was in riel. He said seven thousand. I teased him a bit because I knew he meant seventeen thousand. But he insisted that it was seven. So I gave him seven and waited for his reaction. When I got it, I gave him seventeen thousand.

While I was there, I was asked a lot of questions by the bumbling computer guy and three of his friends. They were all sitting at computers and running a very brisk business in trying to get money out of foreigners. What they did was get to know some foreigners well enough to get an email address out of them. Then they’d start a correspondence leading up to asking them for money for a variety of things. They would get these replies from these foreigners and sometimes they wouldn’t be able to understand them. That’s where I came in and they called me over to explain what this or that English phrase meant. That way I got to read all the different emails. These kids used a variety of stories on the foreigners. The three most common were a) that they wanted to be tour guides, but they had to take courses in English and the history of the temples, b) they wanted to be tuk-tuk drivers but couldn’t afford to buy one, and finally c) that someone was sick in their family and they didn’t have money for medicine.

It was very labor intensive for these guys because they had to type all these emails in English. They were very slow and they had to pick and choose their words very carefully. Plus they had a lot of trouble understanding the emails that they got in reply. For example, one email I was asked to help them with was all about one guy’s plan to be a tour guide. The foreigner wrote back that it was a great idea and he wished him luck and all of that. Then at the end, the email said, “P.S. Could you be a bit more specific about your financial needs?”

The Cambodian fellow had no idea what that meant and I explained it to him. This guy then said something like, “Well, why didn’t he just say so?”

I don’t know why but I was very tired yesterday. I think it was the nights at the Jasmine when I didn’t sleep that well. Of course, most of the day was spent riding 25 kilometers out of town and back again and then finding a new hotel and all that time at the Internet cafe. By then it was already getting dark. I went cycling around this area and saw “Ecstatic Pizza.” I don’t know why, but I’m absolutely hooked on pizza at the moment. I think it’s because my eating pizza coincided with the end of my stomach troubles. I don’t want to mess with a good thing and I’ve been eating pizzas ever since. They didn’t make pizza at the Jasmine, but they had a page in their menu from Happy Herb pizza. You could order that and they’d have it delivered. That’s what I had every single night at the Jasmine. It was good pizza, though not as good as the pizza I had in Phnom Penh. I’d read that Ecstatic Pizza had the best pizza in Siem Reap and I popped in there to give it a try. I wasn’t that impressed, but it was pretty good. The rest of the evening I spent back at the Bequest hotel reading some books that I’d found at the Jasmine. I found this children’s book about three children who have a big adventure. It was meant for pre-teens, but I read it from cover to cover and enjoyed it very much. Then I started in on a novel called “One for my Baby.” It’s by Tony Parsons, that guy who wrote “Man and Boy” and all those other books that Kate and Kevin gave me. It isn’t very good, but it’s something to read.

I also spent some time going over various tourism things and trying to pick out my temple for today. I think I have one picked out. I don’t think there are any temples left as spectacular as the big three: Angkor Wat, the Bayon, and Ta Prhom. But in most listings there is a fourth temple added to these three. It’s called Bantey Srei and is a bit farther away than the rest. It’s about 32 km away from Siem Reap and that will mean a fairly long cycling day. I don’t mind though. I might get sidetracked by other temples as I head out that way and not make it there. We’ll see.

Hmm. I just went over my maps again and I think I might save Banteay Srei for tomorrow. There are a couple of other temples closer to home that sound just as interesting. In the past, people used to visit the temples by elephant and other slower ways. At that time, two routes developed – the big circuit and the little circuit. According to the LP there is no reason for these two circuits to mean anything anymore, but they still exist and many people visit the temples based on these two circuits. I think this is partially what leads to temple fatigue like Michael suffered. When people negotiate with a tuk-tuk driver I think they end up talking about these two circuits. People often end up choosing between doing the big circuit or the little circuit. Either one has a huge number of temples on it, far too many to see reasonably in one day and not suffer from “temple fatigue.” It was funny to hear Michael and Michelle talk about their experience. They started talking about “drive-bys.” The tuk-tuk driver would expect to stop and let them out to go walk around the temple, but Michael would say, “let’s just do a drive-by.” And they’d zoom past the temple and just look at it from the road.

The temples I have my eye on now for today are called Ta Som and Preah Neak Pean. They are both on the big circuit, and I haven’t ridden my bike all the way around that circuit yet. I sort of rode around the little circuit on my second day when I visited Ta Prhom. Yep, I’ve made up my mind. Going to do the big circuit (though not visit every temple). There are some other temples along that route that might be interesting. I also have to organize a way to get back to Phnom Penh on Tuesday. I’m going to go to a travel agent after I leave here. I think I’ll do the bus instead of the boat. The bus feels more definite, and I would like to see the road that I almost cycled on. The boat is appealing except that I’ve done similar things before and when you are close to shore it is interesting, but this boat goes down Tonle Sap and you spend most of your time just out there in the water like you’re on the ocean. It’s actually not that interesting. Anyway, it’s time to go.

 

 

Tags: Angkor Wat, bike, Cambodia Bike Trip, Siem Reap, temple