If you want to see Angkor Wat, really see it, you have to climp up. And up. On thin, slightly unsteady rocks that jut out from the surface of the temple. It is not extremely high, no, but it is high enough to fall off of, and that fall would not be a pleasant one. There would be screams. There would be the sound of bones cracking. There could even be death, if you're not too careful. And it's not like I'm trying to scare you off, or anything morbid like that. I'm just saying: If you come to Cambodia, and you visit the 'pyramids of Egypt' (which is, to be honest, the only real reason that most people do come to Cambodia), and you go to Angkor Wat itself (as opposed to the myriad other temples that are there), in certain parts of the place, you can ascend. There is a sheer rock wall filled with little stone steps that give you just enough leeway to stand on. It's quite steep, and I'm quite certain that there must have been at least a dozen or so people over the years that have kicked the bucket trying to scale its (admittedly-meager-when-compared-to-like-a-mountain) heights, and while I didn't climb it last year, this year I did, and survived, and somehow made my way back down. And, contrary to popular belief, going down is not always easier than going up.
You can lose your footing either way.
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
STANDING VIGIL FOR...HOW MUCH LONGER?
Every morning outside the ASIA-EUROPE bakery on Sihanouk street in Phnom Penh there are two or three almost-teenage girls who stand vigil, freshly printed copies of The Cambodia Daily gripped in their hands. Foreigners are what they are waiting for. Foreigners with money. Foreigners who may buy what they're selling. Foreigners who might, if the girls are lucky, buy them a croissant or a cookie or the always popular Coca-Cola.
These young girls don't actually go inside the cafe; they wait just at the edge, as if an invisible force shield prevented their access. There's no door to the place. It's all open air, tables and chairs facing out with a view of the hot and busy street, so you can read your paper and drink your orange juice and nibble at your almond chocolate pastry-type-thingee and, if you're so inclined, tilt your head just a little bit up and to the right to catch a glimpse of cars and motos speeding by, and of teenage Cambodians watching you eat, bite by bite.
They don't go to school, these girls, probably because their families need them to go out and make some money, damnit, and, anyway, they wouldn't be able to provide the fine educational services that the Kingdom of Cambodia so graciously provides to its people; many students have to bribe the teachers just to attend class, and you can't bribe if you got nothing to give.
So let's look at their options. They are eleven, twelve, thirteen. They come from dirt-poor families. They have no educational future. Newspapers are theirs to sell because they are young and cute and liable to trigger the guilt-complexes of foreigners -- backpackers and residents, teachers and NGO workers. Soon they will no longer be cute in that 'Cambodian Little Rascals' kind of way that breeds sympathy and handouts.
And what's left for them is...
Probably the sex trade. Possibly not. They might get a gig selling gasoline from bottles on the side of the road. (Always a viable career option for the young, smart, upwardly mobile, poverty-stricken Cambodian female.) Or, if they can somehow swindle a mobile phone, they can set up their own little booth, a bona fide business, so phoneless people like me can stop by when I need to make a call for the pricely sum of eight cents a minute.
In any event, there will come a day, probably soon, when one or two of those girls won't be in front of the bakery. No excited, almost violent cries of : "Sah! Sah! Daily? Sah!" The morning air will be crisp and cool, and the good, sweet smells of freshly baked goods will welcome me inside, and I'll wonder where those girls are.
I'll try not to wonder too much.
After all, this is Cambodia.
These young girls don't actually go inside the cafe; they wait just at the edge, as if an invisible force shield prevented their access. There's no door to the place. It's all open air, tables and chairs facing out with a view of the hot and busy street, so you can read your paper and drink your orange juice and nibble at your almond chocolate pastry-type-thingee and, if you're so inclined, tilt your head just a little bit up and to the right to catch a glimpse of cars and motos speeding by, and of teenage Cambodians watching you eat, bite by bite.
They don't go to school, these girls, probably because their families need them to go out and make some money, damnit, and, anyway, they wouldn't be able to provide the fine educational services that the Kingdom of Cambodia so graciously provides to its people; many students have to bribe the teachers just to attend class, and you can't bribe if you got nothing to give.
So let's look at their options. They are eleven, twelve, thirteen. They come from dirt-poor families. They have no educational future. Newspapers are theirs to sell because they are young and cute and liable to trigger the guilt-complexes of foreigners -- backpackers and residents, teachers and NGO workers. Soon they will no longer be cute in that 'Cambodian Little Rascals' kind of way that breeds sympathy and handouts.
And what's left for them is...
Probably the sex trade. Possibly not. They might get a gig selling gasoline from bottles on the side of the road. (Always a viable career option for the young, smart, upwardly mobile, poverty-stricken Cambodian female.) Or, if they can somehow swindle a mobile phone, they can set up their own little booth, a bona fide business, so phoneless people like me can stop by when I need to make a call for the pricely sum of eight cents a minute.
In any event, there will come a day, probably soon, when one or two of those girls won't be in front of the bakery. No excited, almost violent cries of : "Sah! Sah! Daily? Sah!" The morning air will be crisp and cool, and the good, sweet smells of freshly baked goods will welcome me inside, and I'll wonder where those girls are.
I'll try not to wonder too much.
After all, this is Cambodia.
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