Siem Reap, Angkor Wat, and deja deja deja vu

I'm sitting here sipping an iced coffee at the Cafe de la Paix at my hotel. As I stare outside the "rush hour" traffic is rushing by: cars, bike, trucks, and the local motos, all getting people home as they would in any other city anywhere in the world. But as I've learned today, Siem Reap is not just any city. As the closest town to the current hottest tourist destination in town (that's the Angkor temples, in case you were confused), Siem Reap has experienced a tourist boom and an onslaught of foreigners in this once sleepy countryside neighbourhood.

And yet, there are things about Siem Reap (and Cambodia in general) that continue to shock and surprise me. The country and its people are poor, very poor, and yet, everyone I see has a cell phone (usually a very trendy one), and there is an amazingly well-connected mobile network even when electricity supply is often spotty. We often get power surges at the hotel, and yet, I was able to check my email and send text messages right in the middle of Angkor Wat. Go figure.

The US dollar is the unofficial official currency here. When I went to "change money" at the front desk with a $20 bill (everything is very cheap here), the hotel clerk simply broke my 20 into smaller US denominations. I looked at him confused, but he shrugged and said that "we use US dollars here." And true enough, everyone from the Angkor tourism office to the little lunch stand on the side of the road had their prices in US dollars.

"It's like Venice, but not..." -- it's the 4th time on the trip that I've said this. This time, it's referring to the floating village of Chong Kneas, where there is literally an entire village of people who live on the water in house boats, stilt houses, and just plain boats on the Tonle Sap Lake. Even schools and hospitals are floating, and every year, the entire village migrates around the lake depending on the season. When the dry season arrives, they move further towards the centre of the lake since the water level can drop by several metres. The reverse happens when monsoon season comes around.

My hotel is another anomaly in this city. Operated by the trendy company that brought Bangkok's Bed Supper Club, the Hotel de la Paix is something of a modern oasis here in Siem Reap. Although nearly 100 hotels have sprung up in the area in the last few years, the de la Paix is probably the only one that will make you think that you are in London or New York the moment you step inside. The lobby is a public-space-slash-art-gallery-cum-bar-lounge that houses modern Khmer and Cambodian art work. The rooms are equipped with iPods and speakers -- the iPods even have preloaded podcasts of Angkor temple e-tours.

And of course, how could I not discuss Angkor? The temples at Angkor are really an amazing sight. Today I visited the main Angkor Wat temple (Angkor Wat, by the way, only refer to one temple -- the largest one -- in the entire Angkor area), and the ancient city of Angkor Thom. The symbolism used throughout the buildings were definitely deja vu; everything from Hindu influences (the 5 Angkor Wat towers were built to represent the three Hindu gods and their consorts), Buddhist elements, and the universal concepts of heaven and hell are repeated over and over again.

For example, the heaven and hell bas-reliefs in Angkor Wat reminded me of the Judgment Day depictions on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Beautiful apsaras (celestial dancers) figures adorn all of the temples, not unlike sirens or faeries in western mythology. As the largest Hindu temple in the world, the structure of Angkor Wat, with its giant moat representing the ocean, Naga bridging the ocean and the land, the concentric galleries the mountains, and the towers which represent Mt. Meru were consistent with the structures that we saw in Chiang Mai.

I think Bayon at Angkor Thom is probably my favourite temple so far. Built in a slightly different style from Angkor Wat, Bayon has an eerie mystical aura which remind me of a lost city.

Tomorrow I am off to attempt to see the sun rise at Angkor Wat. And then...more temples, including Ta Phrom, now better known as the temple that has the tree that was in Tomb Raider -- I guess that's all part of the legacy that Angelina Jolie has left for this country. *sigh*

And in case you missed on those "contextual" links, the photos from today are here.