Keepin it Riel

After the last post we walked successfully found the Foreign Correspondents Bureau and on the way passed dozens of Cambodian youths doing an elaborately choreographed line dance to some strange pop music. Strange. The FCC featured photographs from the last 30 years by foreign artists all over it and had a nice lounge feel. We drank chilled coconuts then walked back to the room.

Yesterday morning we got up early to hit the markets by 7:00 am, which was a great idea as the vendors were too preoccupied getting things ready to chase us down for needing something. The Phnom Penh market is housed in a large circular building with a lot of surrounding stalls. Each leg has a theme (clothes, fruit, flowers, electronics and miles and miles of strange meats/fish). After we walked to the Royal Palace to unfortunately find it closed for prayer all day (Khmer New Year) so instead went to the National Museum, which is very much like the National Museum in London that features sculpture and artifacts from hundreds of years ago. The vast majority had been taken from Siem Reap/Angkor Wat, which was a city that boasted a population of 1 million when London had a measly 50,000. At noon we caught a bus there that traveled like a NYC bus went to Boston picking up people all along the way. The majority of the way (6 hrs), we sat next to a family of 3 adults and 8 children sharing 4 seats.

Angkor Wat has definitely earned its place as the 8th wonder of the world. Every person we have consulted counts it as a highlight of the region, and it has surely impressed. After foolishly trying to walk to the market (the bus station turned out to be different and about 3 miles further than expected), we encountered a nice tuk-tuk driver who offered to cart us around to all the temples for cheap. This morning at 8 we went directly to Angkor Wat, which is the largest religious building in the world. Through the years the temple has transitioned from Hinduism to Buddhism so retains features from both religions. Hinduism left an impressive line of bass reliefs telling the stories of the gods (my favorite being judgement day with extensive and very specific versions of hell -- you get nailed to a frame for sleeping with a scholars wife or drinking too much). The rest of the day we hiked around other temples in the central Angkor area. One was disassembled before the civil war only to have the Khmer Rouge destroy the plans, making it the world's largest jigsaw puzzle. One was the "sun temple," which we climbed up to at mid-day despite the largest incline of stairs I'd seen in recent memory. There were terraces full of elephants and mythical dragons and an homage to the Leper king (rumored to hide his leprosy from the public) and monks at every center giving out incense and bracelets and teaching how to pray (three bows of the head). I particularly enjoyed To Phanom (probably spelled wrong; I'm tired), which was built as a Buddhist temple representing wisdom and warning against knowing too much too soon. It has slowly been taken over by these mammoth trees whose vines wrap around everything and create a lovely combination of "hey, man could build this! whoops, nature can too!"

Now we are back at the hostel and about to head out for some Khmer food and a night market. Today was exhausting and dirty and hopefully I'll get pictures/videos up soon. There are seemingly thousands.

Also, the title of this post refers to Cambodian currency but we have actually yet to see Riel. Everywhere takes and often prefers USD (ATMs dispense only USD) and all coins have been replaced with Baht (4000=$1). I guess it works.

Monks not dead,
Jones

PS - Our tuk-tuk driver has two thumbs growing out of one thumb-stump. He reminds me of Gertrudis, my polydactyl cat in new york. I hope she hasn't been defenestrated.