December 2009
...Bayon smirking faces hiding secrets they won't reveal...
...monotonal hum of cicadas creates a supernatural, otherworldly feel, like film suspense music, or that track by Black Sabbath, "E5150." Any musician could quickly identify this pitch...
...two boy monks linger atop the ruins of Preah Palilay. At the foot of the ruin, a woman bathes in a sarong. A temple is a short walk away, where the head monk is busy blessing a young couple...
...a Cambodian tour guide at Angkor speaks with a Cockney accent...
...frustration at the ongoing construction at Angkor, and the inability to enter the innermost, and therefore holiest, sanctum...
...visiting Angkor at sunrise. Walking through the temple in the dark is like walking to some pagan sacrifice. The coming light brings out the temple's features, like Shiva's trident. I like the temple more like this, from a distance, features indistinguishable. Later, we have coffee and baguettes on the grass, with the temple's reflection appearing amidst the lilys on the surface of the pond...
...Miki shopping at Rin's stand, while I play with her 1 year old daughter. Rin assumes Miki is Japanese because she's 'not sexy' like the more fashionably dressed Chinese...
...ruins are more interesting the more disheveled they are. It was great to walk through the forest of Angkor Thom, duck through a hole to see a new pile of stones before us...
...head craned upward in order to aim a camera has become a form of worship of sorts, a new form up supplication...
...the landmine orchestra stops their playing once the tourists pass by...
...finding solitude in an empty courtyard of Ta Prohm, eating dried pineapple amidst the broken walls and persistent tree limbs...
...road to Bantrey Srei. A sign written with "We Don't Need Weapons." Another sign for battered wives. NGO offices interspersed throughout the jungle. Kids play in the canals. Land for sale. Volleyball games here and there. Jackfruit for sale. A hello Kitty tuk-tuk. Coconuts piled in the corner of a yard look like skulls. A guy drives golf balls out into the open fields. Eight people piled into one tuk-tuk. Miki falls asleep in ours. Later, a trio on a motorbike warns her about her scarf, which is blowing precariously close to the rear wheels--potential to strangle her, break her neck, throw her from the vehicle. A thought keeps reoccurring in my head: "Democracy comes from the Barrel of a Gun"...
...the red dust and porous rock of Bantrey Srei. Cambodians bicker in the forest beyond, cows far more grave beyond them. Entered the site after having lunch, next to a hefty, happy Frenchman. It's never a good sign when the toilets smell like what you had for lunch--fish paste mashed with rice...
...sunset at Phnom Bakheng. Thousands crammed atop the ruin to watch the sun drop into the jungle. Despite having Angkor Wat behind us, the whole experience seemed pointless. Better to watch it set behind something. The only real gain is for the elephant mahouts, shuffling lazy tourists up the mountain...
...feeding two hungry kids atop the Bakong. An even poorer looking boy in a tree is bullied by another boy heading to school. Chatting with a group of Japanese nursing students from Fukuoka. The landmine orchestra plays a traditional Japanese song as they pass. A Korean princess in high heels and Jackie-O shades doesn't even make an attempt to climb the precariously steep steps. I watch her Korean tour group climb the ruins from one side, the Japanese nurses from the other. I fantasize that they meet at the top, and a wicked kung fu battle breaks out...
...guide at Prah Ko tells us he lost 2 family members to the Khmer Rouge. He's happy with the peace but still doesn't like cops...
...monk at Lolei. he himself is a student, but is hard at work teaching English to local children. He talks with us as lunch is being prepared in the shade. His white board is filled with dozens of English words translated into Cambodian. I notice that there is no translation for 'antique'...
..artist at the Eastern Baray has paintings of Angkor scenery, monks, and a man in a wheelchair. I assume that the latter is a political statement, but find out that it is a tribute to his uncle, a landmine victim. The artist is 24, and hoping to make enough money to go to art school in Phnom Penh...
...our tuk-tuk driver, surly and unfriendly. It's beginning to affect our day. At lunch, he apologizes, telling us that the night before he'd fought with the hotel owner, quit, and had gotten drunk. This morning he's been nursing an aching head. After this he becomes nice and helpful. As he waits for us at the final temple, he flirts with a woman selling drinks. It's the first time we've seen him smile all day. Then he drops us off at our hotel, his employment there finished. We've been together all day, then our lives go in separate orbits. How American of me to want to be friends, yet our relationship is based on economics...
...Angkor Hilton owner perpetually shirtless, watching the French version of Jeopardy. Roza, the 21 year old manager, ever smiley, ever sleepy, newly married to a girl "not beautiful." Our resident gecko bounces its voice off our bathroom tiles all night. Other geckos sing from outside, each in its own distinct voice...
...the Brazilian girls at our hotel wonder if Roza, the manager, knows he has girl's name. I wonder if he knows it means 'rouge'...
..walking the Old Market grid of Siem Reap, made slightly annoying due to the impossibility of going 10 steps without someone shouting, "Hello tuk-tuk?" I've come to hate the economy here. Dollars are used but I can't approximate their ever-changing value. I do like the narrow dusty streets, the French balconies. But far too much is geared toward the tourist dollar. "Seam Reap it in," has become my mantra. I compromise on a coffee at Red Piano. I sit on the veranda of this old French building, under the cool of spinning fans. The view of the street is obscured by potted plants, but beyond can be heard the ever-present purr of moto engines, waiting...
On the turntable: Rolling Stones, "It's Only Rock'n'Roll"
On the nighttable: Bill Morgan, "I Celebrate Myself"
On the reeltable: "Nobody Knows" (Kore-eda, 2004)
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