The Keys To The Kingdom

Having completed two full days in Phnom Penh, we traveled to Cambodia’s northwestern city of Siem Reap, the gateway to the famed temples of the Angkor civilization. After an uneventful, 40-minute flight on a well-behaved turboprop, we touched down in sweltering heat and humidity amidst a potpourri of sage-green foliage and bright orange soil. The 10-minute ride to our hotel felt like an eternity, however, with our quite-literally-salivating-at-the-mouth cabbie ceaselessly hectoring us to put him on a $25 per day retainer. We arrived at our hotel breathless, having run through the front door to avail ourselves of a little peace and quiet.

As it turned out, the hotel was upscale, but not in keeping with our personal senses of style (the large saline pool had small waterfalls pouring out of the mouths of two gaping terra cotta lions). The Asian tour groups wandering around the lobby seemed not to mind the décor, nor the three prominently-displayed pictures of the Cambodian royal family, so our views appeared to be in the minority. After arriving at our poolview room (by now, the lions were very clearly taunting us), we took advantage of a much-needed hour of downtime in some good, old-fashioned air conditioning.

Refreshed, we made our way back to the lobby to locate the first U.S. friend to meet up with us during our around-the-world travels. It came as little surprise to either of us that our Boston pal Scott, a true gentleman epicurean, had crossed paths with us in Cambodia. Five years earlier, he had taken two red-eye flights from the West Coast to attend our wedding in Chicago. Granted, we had some compromising photos in our possession at the time, but we’re reasonably confident that Scott would have made an appearance, regardless.

This time around, we were meeting up with not only Scott, but also two of his college buddies: Adrian, who, in the small world department, just so happened to be a contemporary of Vik’s during their Booz Allen days, and Mike, a college professor currently braving a grueling sabbatical in dreary Bali. The five of us formed a motley crew: 4 men and 1 Kaberi.

After a satisfying traditional Khmer meal at a modest family-run restaurant in Siem Reap’s nearby Old Market (the total tab for the five of us, including appetizers, drinks and tip, came to a cool $25) and an ice cream pitstop on the walk home, we finalized the following day’s sightseeing plans. At 8:30 am sharp the next morning, we piled into a wonderfully-air-conditioned van along with our driver and guide and set off for the temples.

When we pulled onto the Angkor entrance 15 minutes later, we were shrouded on both sides by dense green underbrush. With our sense of anticipation mounting, we rounded a corner and saw the underbrush clear and an expansive moat unfurl before us. To our unaccustomed eyes, the moat appeared to be a uniformly-wide river. Within moments of our guide disabusing us of this notion, the undeniable gray form of Angkor Wat’s entrance gate came into view. Its five striking towers hovered tantalizingly in the background as we drove past.

Our first stop of the day was at Ta Phrom, an 800-year-old temple quite literally entwined with the nearby foliage. Built in the 12th century, Ta Phrom has had very little of the jungle cleared away from its footprint, and appears almost as unspoilt as it did to its French rediscoverers. The visual result is captivating with the temple’s sandstone exterior taking on a greenish tint through its lengthy exposure to Cambodian moss. We devoted two hours or so to exploring the site and marveled at the relentlessness of the nearby banyan trees whose roots had snaked around various crevices to make their way toward the temple’s foundation. In some cases, it wasn’t immediately obvious where the stone ended and the trees began.

Next on our agenda was Angkor Thom, an erstwhile city of temples surrounded on all four sides by walls, each with an entranceway running beneath a large stone face. We entered the complex from the east and began our explorations at the Terrace of the Elephants where three-headed stone elephants stood watch over the stairway. As our well-meaning guide tried to explain the method of historical construction, he displayed an unfortunate tendency to pronounce the word cement as semen. This idiosyncrasy cast the guide’s explanation in an unusual light, and gave all of us the occasion to consider the astonishing virility and endurance of Khmer laborers.

The piece de resistance of Angkor Thom was to be found at the center of the city in the form of the Bayon temple. Bayon is famed for its large stone faces, all boasting likenesses of the temple’s patron, King Jayavarman VII, carved onto its 54 towers. Despite its weathered look, Bayon was pronounced by Kaberi as her favorite. We carefully made our way through the temple in a clockwise route, relishing the refuge of shade offered by the small passageways and tower chambers. After an hour of exploring Bayon and admiring the detailed reliefs depicting everyday life on its inner and outer walls, we made our way back to the hotel for a 3-hour respite from the noontime sun.

Refreshed by a few hours lazing around the pool, we made our way back to the Angkor complex in the late afternoon. We took this opportunity to see the flagship Angkor Wat structure in the impending sunset. As we made our way across the causeway spanning the moat, and the structure neared, it was hard not to be awed by its stunning, symmetrical beauty. One inside, our guide gave us a passionate and exacting section-by-section explanation of Angkor Wat’s seemingly-endless, detailed sandstone bas reliefs (most of which remained in excellent condition and portrayed scenes from the Hindu epic, The Ramayana). Somewhere around the Sea of Churning Milk section, we roused ourselves from a collective self-induced stupor, to deliberately make our approach toward the inner sanctum of the temple.

Within minutes, we had reached the central chamber where a steep ascent to the second level awaited us. After a steep climb, we strolled around the antechamber for excellent western views (Angkor Wat is the only temple that faces west, suggesting its possible role as a mausoleum). We then made a slightly nerve-wracking descent down the steep exiting steps. At the bottom, Kaberi realized that her eyeglasses (removed in a brief picture-taking moment) had disappeared. After being inspired to make a second ascent to and descent from the upper level in a futile search for the glasses, we exited the grounds into a hazy, cloud-scattered sunset. Foremost in our minds was a faint hope that a needy, young, astigmatism-afflicted Cambodian would benefit from his or her newly-found, impish designer frames.

Our party ended the day with a well-earned, highbrow dinner at the restaurant of the posh Hotel de la Paix, a building which appeared to have been transported directly to Siem Reap by way of Soho. We feasted on another terrific meal, enjoying the cool background lounge music while basking in the glow of the day’s fulfilling activities. Mercifully, the topic of cement only came up a couple of times, saving our abs from yet another convulsing fit of laughter. As we prepared to settle our bill, the inimitably-generous Scott surprised the group by treating all of us. We didn't have the heart to tell him that we had long since sold the compromising photographs. Or that we still had Mr. Underhill's American Express card.

Our time in Siem Reap passed more quickly than we expected, and our final 24 hours in town were eventful. In the early afternoon, we toured Artisans d’Angkor, a Cambodian NGO that provides traditional Khmer craft apprenticeships to disabled youth. After a quick stop at the hotel to change our sweat-drenched clothes, we commandeered a tuk tuk and driver to take us to the Preah Khan temple ruins. Billed as a “battle” between wood and stone, Preah Khan managed to live up to the Lara Croft Tomb Raider-inspired images of Cambodia in Vik’s head, minus, of course, one form-fitted Angelina Jolie.

From Preah Khan, we visited the Sara Shraj bathing pool and then returned to Angkor Wat to observe a second sunset. The next morning, we roused ourselves at 5:00 am to join Mike in seeing Angkor Wat at sunrise. We enjoyed the majestic view of the structure’s silhouette against orange and then pink skies, and found that we were not alone in doing so. Our close proximity to hordes of tourists and mosquitoes, both of which proved stubbornly resistant to our fruitless attempts to swat them away, made us grateful for our earlier visits. By 7 am, the sun had almost fully risen, and it was time to bid Angkor farewell.