Frank's New LinkedIn Profile Picture

Friday morning we rose bright and early at 4:45 to see sunrise over Angkor Wat, a Siem Reap tourist staple.

After sunrise we wandered briefly into the Angkor Wat temple to see the hoards of tourists, and returned to our hotel around 6am. I also was fortunate enough to pet a horsie who was tied up inside. At the hotel, Frankie went up to the room to pass out for a couple hours, but I powered through, having a lovely breakfast and calling mommy via my iPhone’s Skype app (so clutch).

A fellow Tuckie, Francis, joined us and our guide for the day, exploring the major temple sites close to SR. Our first stop was Angkor Wat, the mother of all temples. AW is an enormous Hindu temple complex, spread over a square mile, all contained within a large gate and moat. At the center lies the main temple, an impressive structure with multiple spires and huge stairs. All the walls feature impressive bas reliefs, many damaged by bullet holes from the civil war, as the province of SR was one of the last to be rid of the Khmer Rouge.

The sheer enormity and intricacy of the place is amazing, and to consider how large a population it supported in its hayday adds to the amazement (whatever number I put here will be made up so consider it, like, more than a quarter of a million, maybe more than a million, I dunno, A LOT for the 12^th or so century).

Next we hit up the Bayon of Angkor Thom, the most recent of the Angkor temples, which is unique for being a Buddhist temple among many Hindu temples. It has famous carved faces on its structures in addition to defaced Buddha images.

Following the Bayon was a quick stop at Preah Khan, followed by lunch and a tuktuk ride out to the Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship military base. This was easily Frank’s favorite part of the trip.

For a hunk of cash delivered straight to the pocket of the highest ranking officer at the base, you can pick a gun off their “menu,” and make use of 30 rounds in their bunker of a firing range. Frank picked the AK-47, because their Uzi was currently jammed up.

Frank’s new LinkedIn profile pic:

Francis with a rocket launcher:

Me, completely petrified with what’s in my hands:

We later visited Ta Prohm, the temple made famous by the movie Tomb Raider, that has trees literally eating/spooning most of the structure, hampering reconstruction but making for some excellent imagery. As a side note, I will say this is the hottest and sweatiest I have ever been in my entire life. The temperature was nowhere near the highest I’ve experienced, but (sorry for the TMI) the 100% humidity ensured that my pores re-saturated the entire surface area of my body within seconds of me wiping myself down. Nightmare.

Our last stop of the day was a local pagoda that had a memorial to the killing fields, filled with skulls and bones recovered from a mass grave.

That night, after Frank and Francis ditched me early to go to bed, I met a whole bunch of folks at the Angkor WHAT? bar, including Brits Roz and Jazz, Trainspotting-accented Scotsmen Scott (yes, really) and Donal (like Donald but without the last D), and another American girl named Molly. Through the night, Molly and I figured out that we knew no fewer than 5 people in common, proving just how small this white, privileged world I live in truly is.

The next day we slept in and decided to go on a quad bike tour, which turned out to be one of my favorite activities in SR, not for the ATV riding, but for the amazing scenery and friendly village children we saw along the way. Literally every child we passed ran out, excitedly smiling and waving, and smiled and waved even harder when we did so in turn. It was so nice to finally see some Cambodian children that hadn’t been forced into begging or touting or selling something.

We spent the rest of the steamy afternoon poolside, sipping mango shakes and reading, and spent the evening eating Khmer food and catching the tennis on Pub Street with Francis. Evening was fairly uneventful, except for when I almost gave this disgusting, fat, old sex-pat a piece of my mind after watching him harass this unfortunate, beautiful prostitute to the point of making her the most uncomfortable I have ever seen anyone, outside of Kelly at Middlesex Lounge in Cambridge. Francis could sense I was getting to the point of outburst (probably because I kept telling him I was) and had us move tables. In another life, I would have liked to have offered her $30 to hang out with me the rest of the night and talked with her about her life and experiences, but maybe that behavior is just as patronizing as that of the fat sex-pat, I don’t know.