Stunning but sorrowful Cambodia

We stopped in Cambodia for one thing: the extensive ruins of Angkor Wat. It was built by 300,000 people over 37 years - that's almost 12 million man-years (for comparison the pyramids at Giza took only half a million man years)! It is the largest religious monument in the world (the outer wall is 2.2 miles on each side). And Angkor Wat is just one of hundreds of ruins in the surrounding area. They were built almost 1000 years ago, when the local population was one million - at a time when London was just fifty thousand).

We also visited Bayon, famous for the four giant faces atop each of 54 towers. It had many levels and interior rooms - easy to get a bit disoriented. But our favorite was the "Jungle Temple," Ta Prohm. Left un-restored, it has giant trees growing all over and within. You may have seen it in the movie "Tomb Raider." It was otherworldly - immense mature trees growing right out of the temple itself: gnarled roots twisting through rock walls.

Each of the temples was built by a king during his reign. Some were Buddhist, and some were Hindu. Unfortunately one of the Hindu kings ordered the (accessible) images of Buddha in the other temples destroyed. Damned religious intolerance. Curiously, the Buddhists that came later did not deface the Hindu symbols.

Cambodia was very hot and humid, so we did our bike rides in the morning before it got too hot. One morning we woke up before dawn and rode about four miles in the dark to arrive at Angkor Wat before sunrise. Unfortunately, when we arrived, we were not alone. Several hundred other people crowded the prime viewing locations, but thankfully we were able to tune them out with some choice music on our iPods. Once the sun was up, we rode on to see other ruins, encountering a troop of playful macaques on the way.

Cambodia is a terribly tragic place. Eileen and I watched "The Killing Fields" on our laptop one night, and it was a sobering reminder of the brutal rule of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. One quarter of the adult population was killed - over one million people, mostly focused on the educated class. And it was not that long ago - peace only began in 1993. One of our guides told us he had difficulty learning as a child. The military would sometimes shoot at the schools, and the kids would all run home. We didn't see many middle-aged people. And because of the widespread deployment of land-mines during the struggles, we encountered a sad number of amputees.

When we asked our guide about the current government, he said it was a Democracy. Probing a little deeper revealed that there was only one party, without opposition. And after cautiously looking around a bit to see who was nearby, he told us that free speech was not possible. We've encountered this non sequitur quite a few times in the countries of Southeast Asia: "Democracy" without free-speech.

Outside the ruins was the town of Siem Reap, where some very high-end hotels and lot's of good restaurants catered to the large tourist population. We enjoyed the good food, but stayed in a more modest hotel that was perfectly adequate. The local taxi's were appropriately called "moto-trailers:" A seating platform on two wheels attached to the rear of the motorbike's seat. It was a heavy load for a small 100cc motorbike, but it was the braking that was most problematic - often skidding the motorbike's only braking wheel to slow the full weight of the trailer and passengers.

Our next and last visit is to Borneo, where we hope to see more wildlife, especially the Orangutan.