Angkor Wat?

Where to start.

For those of you who don't know—which is likely everyone not in my extended family, ship family, or frequent text messaging circle—Semester at Sea is over. OVER. So it would have been only logical for you strangers to assume the voyage is still going considering the blog hasn't been completed, but that is only because the blog was forgotten under the masses of goodbyes and a few new countries; in any case, my priorities shifted and it is only now, after Christmas, that I've found time to trek a month or so back in my memory to write about a some bygone ports—Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Hawaii and Costa Rica.

Foreword: (No one to write this but myself, this being a mediocre and unknown blog, so here goes): Consciously or not, I think that the non-completion of this blog rests on a few factors. The first and most obvious of these is that the conclusion of this log denotes the conclusion of the action about which the writing is happening, and this situation is unfavorable no matter which way I look at it. Second—as more of an amendment to the first—regarding this blog as "finished" would thusly make every incident, event, exploit or affair first detach from my immediate self, then isolate itself among other departed memories resting in a large box tagged "SAS," and all of those will only grow more stale over time. This process allows the deaths incurred to die, the love to cease swelling, the excitement to be snuffed out. All of it is so final. (The next reason is still more of an amendment than a new point, but) with the end of the voyage comes the end of the blog, which has received its fair share of praise and lived a happy (but short) life. And I am somehow afraid that now, on this quiet, unwavering land, the writing that once flowed from my fingertips was lost with the sea, that because I'm no longer in the middle of some terribly exciting journey my mind will have noticed the downshift and grown dull and uninspired. Too dull to entertain, too dull to finish. I haven't picked up a pen with the intention of writing since the trip ended—not even to write a letter, which I do often—because I'm afraid of what will happen, afraid that my time (not that I have "a time" to mourn) has ended. With this senior year, college ending, new house, friends gone, thesis thing looming over my head as my constant companion, impending failure, sails in right behind it, any theory thwarting my writing ability will be wholly believable and ultimately deadly.

So now that I've given you my excuses, I can get started on Cambodia.

As people have asked about my favorite ports, without giving it much thought, I say India and Cambodia. Then they ask why and I go on and on about India, and they say, sure, ok, India, everyone loves India—what about Cambodia? But I find that one harder to explain as it's not altogether dazzling, or mystic, or… It was sad. It was simply sad, tragic, really, and I think that may have been its allure. Sure, it was beautiful, but even the beauty was shrouded by something fatal.

Before arriving in Cambodia, we first had to sail into Vietnam and board a plane from there to Phnom Penh ("The Pearl of Asia"; Cambodia's capital; I don't expect you to be familiar with the country yet). As my memory is hazy, I will have to assume we arrived late and immediately retired to our hotel rooms after arriving that night.

Just kidding. I was just informed by cousin Drew that, being Halloween, we went out that evening in search of a masquerade, or some sort of wingding to celebrate our most cherished holiday. We found an alehouse with a pink-wigged bartender and hip tunes and stayed there for a bit while our driver (of his own volition) waited outside. That same kind-hearted man later took us to a series of brothels and similarly questionable establishments, and once it was clear that prostitute hour was to last the rest of the evening, we headed home to get some much needed rest.

The following morning was an early one and we wasted no time immersing ourselves in the tragedy that is Cambodia—to the Killing Fields where Cambodia's own citizens were flogged, shot, hung, trampled, or killed any other way the Khmer Rouge (Cambodian government opposers) saw fit. There were fields for children, for women, for intellectual, threatening men—educators, doctors, writers—and in some, clothes were still embedded in the sodden ground. T-shirts hung limply over tree roots as if they had tried to escape, shoes whose toes jutted out from a patch of grass were still trying to run away. Hack marks in every tree trunk where a child's head was beaten to a board, ropes hanging like living vines from the trees, and a tower that would have been gorgeous had it not been for the hundreds of butchered skulls it held: all of it suddenly transformed the ground I walk on, the layer of earth separating myself from the millions massacred, the dead, into a blessing, but a thin one.

To carry on with the theme, we went to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a prison with a purpose similar to the Killing Fields. A Cambodian Auschwitz, if you will. Founded, ironically, out of a high school, the facility made cells of the classrooms and torture chambers of the corridors, then enclosed these all with electric fences, barbed wire and iron bars. Between a thousand and fifteen hundred people would be housed here at a time, each of them forced to utter the names of family members who would be summoned after the prisoner was swiftly exterminated. Given the fertile location, the Khmer Rouge had the means to execute more creatively—not just beating and shooting, but suffocation via plastic bag, (the recently disputed) waterboarding, electrocution, burning and mass starvation were widely popular forms of killing, too. Where thousands fell dead, pictures of their rotting corpses stood for tourists to see, and even the small, blurry photos were the most graphic and sickening images I had ever seen. For fear I would vomit on the recently mopped tile, I exited the room and went outside to the courtyard where, yes, still more had been killed, then I continued to the outside-outside, past the deactivated electric fence, where victims of neglected land mines crept through the alleys with half a leg, half a face. At that point, I could do nothing but get on the bus and sit and wait.

The Royal Palace was next, a stunning plane of silver and gold outside of which a clever many beggars without arm or foot wheeled or lurched before the entrance with postcards or water to sell, collecting Riel and looks of sympathy-stricken horror. I wandered inside the gates with Drew to whom I commented that the roofs looked like they were on fire, each one topped with spikes as would be found on a dragon's back, and he agreed. Beyond the obvious beauty of it, not much was to be found in this place besides puddles, Buddha relics, and a small wooden xylophone orchestra. And for all of you who venture to travel here, good luck finding the silver pagoda. (It's actually gold).

Following this stop and another run-in with incapacitated street crawlers (pardon the interruption, but I realize that I sound condescending and heartless in these descriptions; I'm finding it difficult to create a concise and polite image for such a troubling sight), we made a brief stop at the National Museum. Looking back, I wish I hadn't entered, as I would have been more impressed seeing only the façade, red, on fire, and complete with burly elephant. But inside, hundreds of sandstone antiquities from the Khmer period sat silently, heavily, bored. In the center was a very nice pool, though, with swaying lily pads and koi fish adding color to the place. And my favorite part of the centerpiece, something few of us sailors noticed, was a view from behind two pygmy sized lions with abnormally large testicles, beyond which sat a statue of Yama, the god of death, sitting proudly in front of his pond. A queer sight indeed.

Take the last few paragraphs and sprinkle them with fish, rice and noodles, and there we have Phnom Penh.

Now a plane to Siem Reap, and the saga continues.

Evening number one, the SAS clan discovered "Bar Street," a most delightful strip of bars and shops with heavy (drunk) foot traffic. Europeans, Canadians and Americans filled the streets and windows, each holding a bucket of hooch with a few straws for friend-making, and a merry time was had. That's about all you need to know there.

For the following days' activities, I have for you a short "essay" written for a class ("for class" should by now translate to "saccharine" or "hyperbolic" or "overdeveloped") about Angkor Wat which basically consumed the rest of our time in Cambodia.

Commence:

As we near the end of our voyage, and particularly the close of our innumerable temple visits—with one paper left to write—it has come to my attention that I must now fish out one tour from the purée of religious site images in my memory, one that has evaded the mindless blending-together of the last three months. The prototypical temple appears in my mind, a somewhat hazy canvas of tans and browns foregrounded by some sort of very lush tropical tree and tourists swarming underneath. How do I find a standout in this muddle?

I then scour my memory for other things; forget what they looked like—what were the stories? I clear away the muted temple image and allow a story to form. I see a man, slightly older than myself, with tanned skin and powerful arms. In public, his face is honest and his smile heartfelt, but in his room, he wears the same brooding scowl as Hamlet's Claudius, steely and full of rage. This brute also shares Claudius' murderous agenda: kill the king, usurp the throne. And as Claudius' target was his own brother, so will this man turn against his own family. Now it starts to get interesting.

According to our Cambodian tour guide, in whom I have full trust, Angkor Wat came about when a twenty-five year-old man, Angkor, with most unsettling family ideals, murdered his uncle and proclaimed himself the new king of the Khmer Empire. He went quickly to work on a new project, Angkor Wat, while executing a great number of military campaigns in his free time, most of which were unsuccessful. Despite his failures, however, Angkor's ego never suffered; he thought so highly of himself that he proceeded to name himself after Vishnu, the Hindu god to whom he dedicated his temple. So the newly dubbed Paramavishnuloka enjoyed a fabulously busy life, posing for artists even though the tradition had by then been unheard of in Khmer, and he now lives on in Angkor Wat bas reliefs, portraits and standing sculptures.

After hearing this story, the otherwise forgettable building begins to take on vivid color, As a sidenote, I realize that I have been portraying myself as an overcritical commentator up to this point, so in my defense, I would like to clarify that I am not necessarily closed off when I sightsee; that's not the case at all. But I have found that even if I think I am being riveted by a certain sight or experience, the spectacle, no matter how spectacular it may be, will be promptly forgotten if no supplementary knowledge of the site is provided. Personal and somewhat dramatic tales such as that narrated by the tour guide give life to these mysterious buildings, make me want to study every door, wall and window rather than just skate around the periphery. In fact, I can still relate, in great detail, the pattern in the King's wallpaper in Versailles, as well as the exact hue and depth of the sheets, all because I was told the King used to urinate in the corner of the room. Those are the sorts of details I need to etch a place in my memory.

I can still picture some of Angkor Wat's bas reliefs, for example, as if I were watching the imperious Angkor himself, silently snickering as he carved ribald images of large-breasted, smiling women with stocky snakes peeking out of their skirts. Or the general labyrinth-inspired interior on which Angkor surely prided himself; I can imagine him crouching in a shrouded corner of the most perplexing corridor as he watched his laborers' curses echo off the walls, trying to find the way out. These intricate visions of Angkor Wat comprise one larger, much more interesting view I would have never seen had it not been for the brief historical sketch. And if I could, I would thank Angkor for his brilliant biography, as he is what made Angkor Wat extraordinary.

[Refer to top for image of Angkor]

Some Angkor Wat highlights not included in the essay were: being attacked by fire ants, the spots from which appeared suddenly after hiking around Japan; sinking into saturated soil in the middle of an open field; elephant riding (watching, not participating, as participating is ten less dollars in my pocket); always walking up to walk back down to walk back up again (in every structure), vendors with dollar t-shirts (many of which I now own or have gifted), five dollar paintings (of which I have one, now hanging in my Monterey bedroom), bracelets (which I now wear, a black, pink and blue woven thing with triangles and self-braided ties); adorable, endearing, persuasive children who use tourists for English lessons (with much success); tough, smoky snake cooked bacon-style, but with more pepper (yes, I ate it); sunset from the top of Angkor Thom with a view of the city, bright yellow hot air balloons and people scaling up the wall from below; and of course, the ever-extending profile of Angkor Wat over the river, proudly presenting every color worth having. Well, not really, but it is damn pretty.

So hopefully you can all infer from the above chronicle why Cambodia was my favorite country (with India). I will warn you now that my country-shock ends here, though the fun and excitement and all that jazz will continue on through Costa Rica. Now let's see if I ever get there!