more cambodia

Friday was spent, from 5:00AM to about 4:00PM, visiting the various Angkor temples.

Sunrise at Ankgor Wat

One of over 200 enigmatic faces at Bayon temple:

Ta Phrom temple has not been restored, and the resulting fusion between 12th century temple and 800 years of forest:

If you’ve seen the film Tomb Raider, you might correctly think the above two images look familiar, as much of the Cambodian temple portion of the film was shot at Ta Phrom. Cool, eh?

A million pictures, with a hundred days time, by a photographer a hundred times more capable than myself would fail to capture the essence and sublime beauty of the temples.

After just barely catching the bus Friday morning, I arrived as a wildly popular celebrity in Phnom Pehn. The moment the bus pulled up, it was surrounded by throngs of remorque drivers and guest-house representatives. The moment I stepped off the bus, I was instantly surrounded by no less than thirty of them, all yelling loudly for my attention, shoving brochers in my general direction, trying to herd me to their vehicle, and just generally clammoring for my attention. I can’t even being to describe the experience– feeling clauterphobic, smothered, and entirely unable to form a clear thought; amusement, frustration, agitation, maybe some element of fear. My god.

Anyhow. After some work, the two Dutch girls that I was traveling with and I managed to find a decent guest house, where I am currently writing.

The rest of the day was spent getting slightly acquainted with Phnom Pehn. It contrast to Bangkok, Phnom Pehn is paradise– or, rather, many of the things that I dislike about Bangkok are absent in Phnom Pehn: the pollution, the noise, the eratic traffic, the lack of open space and greenery… Phnom Pehn has a million residents, but doesn’t seem to suffer for its size. The air is clean, the river is clean, the streets are generally quiet and less than crowded… In the more affluent portion of the city, parks are prevelent, and are filled by people as the sun goes down– eating, playing, talking, enjoying the splendor of the evening.

I’m unable to believe that Phnom Pehn is the same country that I was in two days ago.

Today has been less than productive, though I did manage to get an amazing sun-burn while driving my little rented motorbike all over the city.

I suppose I’ll post more details when I put the pictures up. Unfortunately, my lens is a little dirty, so all my pictures are a little blurry. Tsk. So it goes.