Angkor Wat is actually more than the central temple that we all know from countless comic book adventures and treasure hunt movies. It´s a giant area of wild forest and parks filled with many temples, pyramids and small villages. All of them very, very old. Very old indeed. It´s located in the tourist ridden town of Siem Riep, about 6 hours north of Phnom Penh by car or by bus on a badly worn out, much frequented road that leads through endless fields of rice and through little shanty towns along the roadside. The busride was one long nightmare of projectile vomitting, moaning and sweating. Since I was wearing my SeaBands (c) I for once was not carsick, but with half of the bus puking their guts out this wasn´t much of a comfort to me. We were picked up by our designated TuckTuck driver at the bus station, went to our small, cheap hotel, showered and went straight to the Angkor Wat park in a stream of hundreds of other tourist to watch the sunset from the famous sunset hill pyramid. Inside the park we first had to climb a steep hill for about half an hour or so. The heat was excruciating and soon I was sweating like a hog and swearing like a sailor. At the top of the hill we had to walk around to the east side of the pyramid and then get in line for the final ascend. Hot damn, it was the narrowest, steepest set of stairs I had ever encountered. They went up at an angle of almost 90° and were so worn out that you had to climb them like a ladder. Since there were hundreds of people waiting to climb up there was absolutely no turning back once you started to climb the 45 ft to the top. Many of those struggling to climb up were really old and rather shaky on their feet and constanly threatened to slip and fall. Guards with long bamboo brooms kept a close watch on the masses, always ready to prod anybody back against the steep wall, should they start to fall off or slip. This was rather painful, but you had no time to complain or even think about it. All you really could focus on was getting to the narrow platform alive. But once you got there things really got out of hand. There were no railings up there, only another steep set of stairs leading back down on the west side, and hundreds of people clinging on for dear life, clutching there cameras or each other, screaming and crying and trying not to fall off and tumble down those stone walls. The descent was even worse, since you had to look down to find a safe footing and look up to avoid having people tread on your fingers. I was shaking all over by the time we got back down, and felt like kissing the ground. Annette asked me for the little hipflask of gin that I always carry with me as a digestive and took a long swig.
"You go ahead and write about this one. No one´s going to believe it anyways." she said. Then we went back down, jumped into our tucktuck and went back to the hotel for a bit of rest before our dinner.
Our driver recommended a buffet style restaurant on the main drag of Siem Riep with traditional dancers and music. I didn´t feel too crazy about it, but Annette insisted that we had to go to a really touristy place just once and I reluctantly agreed. Inside it was filled with couples aged about 40 to 60 from all over the western and asian world. We ordered some beer and went to check out the buffet. Man, it was just sad. 90% of all dishes were deepfried and cold, and the rest was just piles of junkfood that would put even the lowliest fastfood chain to shame. While Annette fought with a bunch of crazy ladys from sweden over the only warm dishes I went back to the table and got stinking drunk. Then the lights were dimmed, an announcer said something incomprehensible in asian english and the traditional dances started. The 5 tone music was hurting my ears and the dancers looked like they were wearing little eiffeltowers on their head and moved like they were just as drunk as me. When the anouncer finally came back onto the stage I climbed onto the table and yelled "Any of you guys know how to do the time warp?". Everyone turned to look at me, some of them smiling uneasily, most of them frowning. In my dazed and confused state I tried to raise my glass in a salute, but instead spilled most of my beer on a burly bearded guy from Holland. He froze for a moment, then turned around and started to rage and jabber and move towards me.I heard something like "Chottverdammter Moff!" as I began to climb off the table and move towards the door. One of his friends was trying to hold him back. "Please listen to your husband, sir! Violance can never be the answer!" I said, when 4 strong hands suddenly lifted me up and bounced me out the door, chicago style. Outside at the curb I slowly got up and made sure the dutch madman wasn´t following me. Inside the restaurant I saw Annette engaged in agitated discussion with several parties, including the owners of the place. Finally, she rushed on out right past me into our waiting tucktuck and said to the driver "Mr.Loutas won´t be joining us." and off they went, leaving me standing in the middle of Siem Riep with no idea where our hotel was or what it was even called. Well, at least I was only slightly bruised and still had some money on me. A bunch of young Australians hollered at me from across the street, so I went over there to see what the deal was.
Apperently they hadn´t even been admitted to the restaurant in the first place for being too drunk, and they really loved the way I had come sailing out of there. They had bought some cheap local beer at a supermarket across the street and had decided to spend the night singing and drinking Aussie-style on the plaza. Since I had nowhere to go I decided to join them. It was also quite obvious that these young gentlemen were in need of some adult supervision. After two hours of professional beer consumption they wouldn´t let us into the supermarket for a refill, and the security guards told us to move along. We said our goodbyes and each went our way. After another hour of restless drunken wandering I finally found the hotel, woke the nightclerk and stumbled up to our room. Unfortunately Annette had accidentally locked the room and didn´t seem to hear me knocking, so I just curled up in front of the door, until the maid found me the next morning and let me into the room. I had a monstrous hangover but tried not to show it to atone for last night´s little mishap. Annette didn´t say a whole lot for most of the morning, and nothing to me,but after we had checked out the first few temples she finally came around, if only because I bravely fought off all the locals in the park who tried to sells us everything you could think of from catalogues to drinks to souvenirs to guide tours. Finally it got too much even for me when we reached the wall of lepers where there was a whole plaza of little sales booths and tucktucks all rushing up to us and the other tourists trying to make a fast buck. "Nothing, I want nothing!" I yelled but they just said "2 dollar for nothing! Good price!". When I had to sneeze and couldn´t find a tissue a woman yelled "5 dollar for khmer hanky! 5 dollar! You need! 5 Dollar! Good prize for Mr.Handsome."
I had just gotten back on Annette´s good side, but it was simply too much for my hung-over head. I pulled some snot from my nose, held it up to her and yelled "German Nosegold! Freshly mined! 10 Dollar! Good price! You buy! You need!". When the crowd retreated in disgust and fear I started after them and chased them towards their sales stands. "What good is nose gold if I can´t share it with the common people? Good price! Good bargain!". An officer of the tourist police finally stopped me and asked me what the commotion was about. I told him that it was just me spreading the wealth, nothing more.
He actually smiled gently, told me to drop the bugger, which I did and then explained to me that since I didn´t have a prospectors liscense I wasn´t allowed to go mining, and without a special permit it was also forbidden to sell any goods on the parks premises. He then let me off with a warning.
I found Annette standing by a tree, one hand on her hip, the other shading her forehead, looking down and slowly shaking her head. We soon went back to the hotel and called it a day.
The next two days I managed to keep a low profile, and the ride back was uneventful, except for the general sweating, vomiting and crying. Coming back to our apartment actually felt like coming home.
I guess I´m slowly adapting to this strange but beautyful country.
Stay tuned.
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