Cambodia: Day 1

Fresh ginger tea, morning Cambodia

Tour guide Tan

One of the 'Gods' or 'Angels' holding the serpent

Our second mother-daughter bonding experience had begun. As we strolled out of the airport with our wheel-along bags and fake mulberry’s from good ‘ol Hong Kong, i noticed carriage like vehicles, powered by motorbikes. My eyes widened at the thought of riding in one, they almost looked like Cinderella carriages in war-struck Cambodia, it was bizarre but a lovely touch. A man stood with our names on a sign-board, for the first time everything was spelt correctly, a very good sign indeed. To my delight we sat in one of the Cinderella carriages, with the warning of clinging on tightly to any valuable bags due to bag snatchers and the like. We stopped for a local sim card and made our way to our lovely guest house in Siem-Reap called ‘seven candles’, highly recommended! The rooms were basic but did have AC, a small TV, dvd player and lovely service. An entertaining laminated poster within the bathroom read ‘cambodian potty training’ and instructed us to not place any unnatural waste (tissue paper) into the toilet as the drainage system in Cambodia couldn’t deal with it yet. Back to basics. Luckily, my Asian upbringing meant that this kind of thing wasn’t that unusual, and a bum-hose was a daily routine and not an alien device.

Mum and I

A Lingum in a Yoni

 It was 8:30am so we munched on apples and muesli bars and then head off with another Cinderella carriage (i later learnt that they are called  motor-roteks, the Cambodian version of a tuk tuk), a tour guide and lots of water to sight-see and appreciate the lovely temples of Angkor. The first day we completed ‘the grand circuit’ – as we hadn’t seen any of them before, they were fascinating, the stories related to the elaborate detail on every inch of the temples was so interesting – and not dissimilar from what i remember acting out from 1^st – 3^rd grade when I attended the British school of new Dheli. The hindu gods Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu, Laxmi and Hannuman. Shiva the destroyer, Vishnu the sustainer of life and Brahma the creator. Laxmi the goddess of wealth and prosperity and all the other wives and women who served as the feminine energy to balance out the overpowering sense of masculinity.

 The animal symbolism was also interesting, there were many serpents, especially at the entrance of the temples, on our left, stone statues of the gods held the strong serpent body and on the right, just as yin and yang has light and dark, the devils held up the other snake body of the snake. The head of the serpent, or Naga, rose to a higher level and the tails twined to symbolize the churning of the sea of milk, the elixir of life, evoking immortality for the divine. Square Yoni’s (meaning the female vagina) lay everywhere, with Lingums (round stones) in their centres. Due to vandalism, greed and war, many of the lingums had been taken and many of the heads of Buddha’s or stone statues had also been cut off.

Hand-like almost

Without a guide, all of the picture stories that smothered the stone would not have been nearly as interesting. Some of the stories were gruesome, i remember the picture of Krishna standing strong and mighty, with pyramids of servants below him. When i asked what this meant we were told the story. Krishna had been brought up by his uncle, and led to believe that he was an only child and therefore the rightful king, with servants surrounding him left and right. Many of the servants were in fact his siblings but his uncle kept this from him, when Krishna found out he stormed towards his uncle in rage and tore his body in two. The violence within these stories was revealingly apparent. We visited the crematorium where bodies used to be burnt, face down mind you as if they were face up the nerves would cause the body to sit up, and due to lack of understanding the ancients must have thought the individuals spirit was coming back – a somewhat scary thought! We learnt about the tradition that still continues today, following ones cremation. The ashes are cleansed in king coconut water (seven king coconuts to be precise!) and everyone must drink a small amount of this water in order to feel connected to the deceased relative – not a tradition i’d feel comfortable taking part in but an interesting one nevertheless.

Amazing tree

It struck me how linked hunduism and Buddhism were on these temple walls, the hindu positioning of the Buddha sitting in meditation with his knees up and hands in prayer position against the sternum, was transformed into the Buddhist positioning of legs down and hands resting on his knees. Vishnu was said to be reincarnated into the Buddha, hence Buddhism (Theravada Buddhism, the country’s current religion) stemmed directly from Hinduism. I think all religions merge really. Due to the ongoing movement and constant energy that KL required, my body could take no more and my streaming nose, not dissimilar to a water hose, was proof of that. It began to get unbearable and my head floated in a fog as our guide continued describing the interesting stories on the temple walls.

I love that food can lift ones spirits, Khmer food is absolutely delicious. Very similar to Thai food but without the chilli, for lunch we ate a lemongrass, pork and mushroom soup with rice and basil chicken. The portions are meant to be shared so we were able to order these two dishes and still have plenty left over, another holiday of eating? I think so.

Buddha carving, notice the aura

For dinner we continued the Khmer trend, we bumped along to pub street in our motor-rotek and ate ‘spicy’ (this wouldn’t even be spicy for a western palette) baby bamboo soup and minced pork omelette with rice and crunchy raw veg. At bed time we watched the killing fields, a DVD we’d brought earlier that day, just to gain a richer understanding of what we would later be seeing in real life. Emotions rose high and my empathy towards Cambodians for what their country and people had gone through increased significantly. I went to sleep with a box of tissues and vitamin C within arm’s length.






Recipe of the day: Minced pork omelette with rice
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