Day 6 (contd) of 'A Week in Cambodia'

Energized after lunch (actually not really), we went to Bantay Kdei which was a Buddhist monastery in the 12th century. We sat under a shady tree and dozed off for a while. Woke up sleepily when I felt something against my leg. I was shocked out of my wits when I realized it was a dog. I tried to run, but twisted my ankle and fell. All this was too much for the dog to take. So it quietly retreated. I looked around victoriously only to find a couple of kids laughing their guts out. One of them had the nerve to actually approach me and try to sell a guide book. I said childishly "you laughed at me, so I wont buy your book". I dont know if he understood what I said. I hope not !

Disillusioned by this place, we went to Sra Srang which is a pool nearby. There were a few stalls en route to the pool. I realized the number of stalls outside a tourist spot is an indication of how popular it is. For the rest of the trip, I used this as a measure to determine how much time to spend at a place. Anyway, as we were walking towards the pool, a young girl approached me. With a sweet smile she asked, "Missy where are you from?". I usually dont bother replying to these people, but I said India. She quickly replied that New Delhi is the capital of India. I saw new found respect in Abi's eyes. He said something about education helping the poor people in Cambodia. This conversation was getting too tedious for me. I decided to go back to my default state of ignoring her. Then she asked me the following questions - (a) married? (she checked my hand for a ring and then gave me a bangle) (b) Husband? (she looked at Abi for a while who asked her if she went to school) (c) Hot day no? (d) Cold drink for hot day? She seemed quite keen to follow us around, so in an attempt to get rid of her I said we would buy it later. I had this exact same conversation with 3 others.

We had a nice, relaxing time by the pool and were totally not prepared for the drama that happened on our way out. The first girl I had spoken to came running towards us to say that we should buy a drink from her stall. Since it was an extra-ordinarily hot day, we didnt mind. But then the others appeared as well and they kept saying "If you dont buy from me, I will cry". We randomly chose one stall and the others aactually bawled like someone had died. I was pretty upset and wanted to leave immediately. Abi said, "you cant allow them to emotionally blackmail you like this". So I sat surrounded by crying girls while he finished his drink. Interestingly, they stopped crying when I wasnt looking in their direction and would start crying if I seemed remotely interested in them. After what seemed like eternity, we were finally on our way out.

We visited a few other smaller temples during the afternoon and finally were on our way to the Angkor Wat. We saw a lake on the way and Suporn informed us that it was Angkor Wat's moat. I felt that the temple must be quite something if its moat was so huge. Angkor Wat is the largest and most breathtaking structure in Angkor. It is believed to be the largest religious structure in the world. I was in awe of the fact that such a huge & intricately carved structure was built so many centuries ago. The central temple has 3 storeys. We easily climbed up the first and second. They were not really high and the stairs were in good condition. The 3rd storey is significantly higher than the first 2 and has 4 sets of steep stairs (one on each major direction). The width of each step is about half the length of a human foot and the stairs were at almost a 90 degree incline. My hypothesis is that Khmer people in the 12th century had really small feet to be able to climb up on those stairs. I shared this with Abi and he was thrilled that finally I was beginning to observe these things and make my own hypothesis.

I was scared to climb up, but also felt ridiculous to have come to Angkor Wat and not go up to the top. So I mustered enough courage to climb up slowly. I felt pretty brave going up because lots of people had actually given up. I reached the top and only then realized how much more scared I should have been during the climb. Getting down was worse. But I had a choice of staying up on the top storey of the temple forever or coming down with the others. So I chose the latter.

From Angkor Wat, we went to Phnom Bakheng to watch the sunset. It was a hill that I climbed with great difficulty (this was before I started yoga practice!) only to reach the top and find a cloud cover blocking the sunset. It was a tame end to a brilliant day at Angkor.

(I have been asked by more than a few people on whether I will ever move on from writing about this one trip. I will, there is only one more day to write now!)