Touristing

Sophie sorted out her passport issues with greater efficiency than either of us expected and so it worked out that I had company on my journey to the must-see Temples of Angkor.  Everyone else was taking a tuk-tuk.  I wanted to take a tuk-tuk.  I insisted it was quite far.  But Sophie has a habit, or perhaps a policy, of avoiding the conventional way of doing things, and I am not particularly difficult to convince, so while all of the other tourists were catching tuk-tuks and being shuffled from one temple to the next at their leisure, we negotiated a couple of reasonably functional bicycles and headed off for the 40 kilometer round trip. Right away we managed to take the wrong route, using my trusty compass to determine a heading that took us straight for the temples, but managed to miss the ticket booth by 4 kilometers.

The Temples are remarkable, well worth the painful 20 USD price of admission that had me skeptical at first. They are intricate and massive and mysterious; almost rivaling Machu Picchu in their
other-worldly strangeness, hinting at the collective will of ancient and powerful people working at purposes far beyond my comprehension. I loved it. I loved playing the tourist; posing, taking photos that captured nothing, cycling from temple to temple, shaking off tour guides and drink-sellers. When my legs, which are apparently far from cycle-ready, started cramping horribly, I barely minded that we were still 15k from home. We managed to make it to the last temple on our rout in time for what turned out to be an unrestrained fiery spectacle of a sunset, then find our way, exhausted and uncertain, through the darkened streets of Siem Reap, back to our 8 USD guesthouse; an upgrade made just for one night, complete with the cherished extravagance of A/C. I started to love Cambodia a little that day.

Today I'm on a beach. The water is turquoise and luke-warm. The sand is white. Everyone wants to sell me fake Ray-Bans and beaded necklaces and hashish. It's another tourist town, like any other, but I don't mind it for now. Sitting in a beach-side bar, listening to the sound of waves breaking makes up for the lack of authenticity, for the lack of any real experiential connection with the culture or people of Cambodia. I wanted the beach and so here I am, and it's a pretty nice place to be.