Cambodia: Temples, Angkor Wat.

Cambodia: Temples, Angkor Wat and amber horizons

Back in the summer, my Cambodia trek with Macmillan Cancer Support had seemed a long way off. I felt that I had now recovered quite well from my ME and was looking forward to my upcoming trek during the autumn. Our camping trip in the Rockies had gone well during the late summer and although I had suffered quite badly from the altitude and heat I had been able to enjoy some reasonable trail walking.

The itinerary for the Cambodia Hiking challenge stated “We will walk for up to 9 hours a day. The terrain is varied as our route passes through paddy-fields, dense jungle and farmland” with the trek finishing in the beautiful 12^th Century Angkor Wat. The pictures shown to us at the pre-trek meeting in London, certainly looked beautiful. I was excited about seeing a new county, a beautiful historical site, amazing wildlife and a people rich in their culture and history. Although I did have a few concerns about the fact that mines had only just been removed in the area and they asked us not to go off the trail if we needed the toilet, just in case!

It was a lovely group who travelled out that November day. We meet at Heathrow and were soon a group of friends rather than participants. After visas were all stamped our bus was on the road leaving Siem Reap for the countryside. We arrived at a beautiful temple and after walking along a gently shaded track in the dazzling morning sunshine arrived at yet another even lovelier temple where we stopped for lunch and played games with the local children. Along the walk we passed waving families at their doors, bicycles ridden by a whole family or even half a dozen piglets on their way to market. It was a very beautiful area deep in the lake area that surrounds Siem Reap. The monsoon rains had doubled the waters of the lake overflowing and spreading out into the countryside almost doubling its waters. Little children swam in pools and picked armfuls of water lilies in pink and white, their happy shrieks resounding. We trekked through rich green pastures and iridescent rice fields were locals worked in the sharp Asian sun. It was only a short day but with the rising temperatures the humidity grow and we were wiry and hot when we reached the promised pagoda that night.

The temple was a little higher up and as we circled its walls to peak at its internal beauty through stolen glimpses our tiredness grow. We erected our tents and sorted our belongings to make it our home for the night. Showers that night were provided in matted areas containing a large tub and small dish. With strict instructions not to use more than five little scoops to wash with. Then it was over to a most luxurious looking mess tent, with cushions instead of chairs and a meal of barbequed squid and chicken on little sticks and the most beautifully spotted watermelon. 

We rose early to the sounds of the monks preparing for a day of pray, the heat and humidity already rising.  Children dressed in blue were arriving for their school day. They attend their lessons in open sided classroom with a blackboard in the middle. The girls wearing a white blouse and blue skirt and the boys in blue shorts. We packed our day bags and filled our water bottles and after a short briefing we were off.

Today we were joined by a cart and oxen to carry our lunch and supplies for the day. It was a long tiring day of dusty tracks often lines by the welcoming faces of locals and shared by scooters and bicycles on their way to market. The scoters packed with crates of piglets or produce and the bikes ridden by as many as 5 occupants, with father standing on the peddles, mother on the seat and 2 or 3 half clothed children connected somehow to the frame or the parents. Cambodia is a beautiful country, green and lush, full of wildlife; flowers and butterflies.  We had been briefed not to leave the tracks as they had only recently been cleared of mines but were less ready to realise that this had only been the previous month as the sign informed us. One has to remember that trekking is real adventure and only somethings are planned for, that’s what makes these treks so exciting and special. 

Cambodia, once known as the Khmer Empire, has been occupied by France, Thailand, and Japan and at the end of the Vietnam War by the Khmer Rouge.  The people suffered greatly at the hands of the Khmer Rouge regime. They tried to force the country back into the middle ages, led by their Marxist leader Pol Pot. Nearly two million citizens died from executions, disease, starvation and forced labour in the countryside. Finally a war with Vietnam that led to peace efforts from the United Nations gave Cambodia back to its citizens and peace was restored. Unfortunately it had taken a terrible war to resolve these turbulent times and the people had continued to suffer massively.

We stopped for lunch under the shade of trees, it was in fact rather muddy here as we had at times waded through large areas of fairly deep water, a reminder that the monsoon had been fairly recent. The flowers are beautiful in Cambodia, colourful and very lovely. I enjoyed the butterflies too, with wings the size of small birds, they darted along in the fields we passed. Families worked in damp fields and hung out of glassless windows from their wooden houses. These houses are built on stilts so when the rains come they are never flooded. They are all made from natural materials and blend perfectly with the landscape. It’s a poor country but very rich in both its nature and the warmth of its people.

After a long day of heading north we came to a lovely camping spot under the trees at the next pagoda at Wat Preash Bat Bun Tham.   We put our tent up without the fly sheets as the air was hot and humid, but we soon had to return to them and cover our belongings. Big drops of rain came before the rumbles of thunder, a storm that never arrived with us, just flashes in the night sky, telling of a storm a long way off.  We enjoyed our evening meal, patched up our rapidly disintegrating feet as blisters popped up like poppy fields in summer all over them. We covered them in tape and blister plasters but our feet were constantly damp in the humid atmosphere. Whatever we did, the blisters came and our feet looked more like those of pilgrims than trekkers.

Leaving our camp we came to village where a young man beamed a knowing smile. He talked to one of our guides who laughed and announced that we had been offered a challenge. “Would anyone like to eat a chili, they are the hotter chilies in the world” he asked. Well, I’m always up for a challenge and so I ate one, as he added “it needs to be chewed and swallowed”. Which I promptly did, smiling back and advising him that they were very good and not too hot. One of the other trekkers thought he would have a go too after my success but his ended up on the road and he spent most of the morning swigging water. Laughter is the best medicine they say and it kept us all going.  Locals were selling petrol for scoters along the tracks, school children walked to school or ran to wave from the roadside at school entrances. It’s a country of simple life, laughter and kindness. Every face full of love and the wonders of seeing the world through new eyes.

We walked all day in the heat up endless cow-cart tracks, I never seemed to catch up with anyone else. Paddy fields lay either side of us with wide views across them towards the low mountain of Phnom Kulen.  Finally we arrived at the ruins of a temple hidden in the trees. It was a peaceful place and good to be out of the sun for a while. As we explored the fallen stones, covered by an age of plant growth and tangled vines times seemed to peel away.  It was as if we were the first to discover this temple, so little known and visited. A privilege to step along the walls and libraries built and occupied by ancient Cambodian monks.  We left Beng Mealea in an even wearier state, the long day and sore feet we catching up with us all and I was getting even slower a remembered tremble inside me, stirring. Oh, how pleased we all were when we saw a coach waiting for us to transfer us to our camp so way off.

Another night of heat and tiredness, but in the most beautiful and serene place yet again. Our food was always wonderful, but very strange. The funny thing was that our trek doctor had told us on the first day not to eat anything that was raw but the crew encouraged us to eat the beautifully prepared melon that that gave us most nights. Our lunches were always in little boxes and contained a little bit of everything, beautifully prepared but cold. We often felt worried to be eating such food in view of the children who waited for scrapes, so we ate some and let them carry off the rest.

I think this camp was the most beautiful, it was once again a pagoda, this time more open and not in the trees like the others. The monks lived and worked on site and seemed to have family members there too, but I may have been wrong. These people may just have been from the village and have come up to have a look at us. I painted a little picture and gave it to them. They were intrigued how I did this and excited to see the finished picture as they had been watching me from a lofty position on a little set of steps.

It was always to wake to the sound of prayer but being very tired I wasn’t too sure about being woken at 4.30 am by the sound of loud gongs clanging. I looked up at the star filled sky, unable to sleep any longer as the monks started to chant prayers from nearby. Then the penny dropped as shooting stars crossed the night sky, I would never be in this moment again, it was very special and I had to embrace it. A new dawn brought a warm, pink glow to welcome the day and warm the tent. One by one we began our tent partner chatter and then the zips started opening as everyone made their way to the toilets. These were like the wash rooms usually, made from colourful matting although occasionally there was also a basic toilet on site. On this occasion there was and as the group toilets were busy and we were ready to leave, I popped off to use that one. Who should be sharing it but a very large, black tarantula? I bet a hasty retreat, you knew know what next to expect.

I knew by now that my ME was going to make the next few days very difficult for me and the trek was probably going to set my recovery back by months or even years. But I was here now and this was my chosen challenge in life, the path that I had decided to walk even if others had thought it unwise.  Leaving campo that day I was in a pickle and my mind and body was well pickled. The guides had waited for me as I was last to leave camp and there I was muttering something and huge black spiders attacking me in the toilet and that my hand had stopped working so I couldn’t put my clothes on, everything was inside out and very dirty. There was a market in the village as we walked through it, then just a very long climb to the top of the mountain. I couldn’t feel my hands and the feeling in my feet came and went, while my heart beat like that of a giant mouse, fast and furious.

At the top of the mountain everyone was off visiting the Big Buddha, I never did see the Buddha and said “I said something about I could live without seeing a Big Buddha”. In fact I was just too exhausted and they knew all too well that I would have done anything normally to see such wonders. I slept instead of eating lunch and the camp doctor decided I was in no state to continue walking for the afternoon, so I continued in the support vehicle and tried to sleep on the bumpy track. It wasn’t what I wanted to happen but now it had I needed to rest and hope I would recover somewhat.

There are always plenty of stops along the way on these treks and this one was no different, so we stopped and waited for the others to catch up.  The ground crew had made their way ahead too and spent the time jumping around the grass with empty water bottles and filling them with the biggest centipedes you have seen in your life. These monsters I was told would be their super, fried until crispy and enjoyed as a bit of a treat. My friends made their way up to our resting place and refilled their water bottles, but when it was time to leave the doctor still refused my wish to join them on the last part of the walk into camp. He wasn’t taking any chances.

The River of a thousand Lingas is very beautiful and there are little wooden platforms to camp on near to the river. Quite a few of the group went down to the water to swim and mess about. Most of us had a tummy bug and some were feeling unwell. It was here that one of the girls had decided to return to Siem reap as she felt so bad. It was a lovely place to be but not if you were feeling poorly.

The river bed here has many very beautiful and intricate carvings on the rocks that form the river bed itself. Here the waterfalls flow fast over Lingams, which are mostly phallic symbols of the Hindu god Shiva. It’s a very special place, the carvings being made in the river during the 11^th century. The river flows all the way down to the Siem Reap river and then into the great lake, finally passing the Angkor temple complex on the plains below.

There are many sculptures of Hindu mythology here too and wonderful sandstone rocks and formations, these we enjoyed the next day as we pushed on down through the jungle to reach the plains. It had been so hot all week and a light shower was much appreciated walking the dusty tracks once again. It seemed such a long day today and after stopping for lunch my wiriness increased to the point that I kept taking tumbles into the little ditches beside the tracks.  It was all very beautiful but all too much for me. The paddy fields became seas of grass and the track my single perspective. We saw a group of monks in their orange tunics walking through the fields towards us. How peaceful they looked, another thing I know I would never see again. A wonder of this amazing country. But the most beautiful thing about Cambodia that will always stay with me is its people and their kindness. The faces of true love for others as each time I fell they would come and ask why I could be helped and when they were told that I didn’t want help because I wanted to complete this walk myself to help others, they looked on with such compassion and warmth, but also with shock that the crew would let me continue.

We arrived at our last camp but sadly I completed the last part in a vehicle as even the crew couldn’t cope with me falling in so many ditches and had said that if I fell again enough was enough. So I arrived too tired to crawl to put my tent up and lay on the ground asleep oblivious that I was covered in ants until my tent partner and one of the crew arrived and helped us. They put my things in my tent and told me to crawl in. I couldn’t feel my hands and feet and was in a lot of pain but it’s amazing what a night’s sleep can do. And I felt able to continue walking for a while the next day.

We had stayed the night on the campus of a larger school as now we were heading towards Angkor Wat and a more populated area. The children visited us in the morning collecting bottles in large sacks to sell for recycling and a few riel, even the paper money is worth next to nothing.

The road was busy and hot as we passed a sugar maker boiling up the cane mix to pack in little grass packets. While we were stopped here watching the process, all clad in our bright Macmillan T shirts a car drew up and out go a couple. To our very great surprise it was Ciaran Devane Macmillan’s Chief Executive on his holiday and he was so delighted, surprised and honored to meet us all, even if we were rather dirty and smelly. Taking a smaller track into Angkor Wat with visited one of the beautiful temples for group pictures and enjoyed a lovely lunch before returning to the hotel for a well-earned shower.  I never did visit the main complex as I was just too tired but I did have a little look at the temple that’s covered in ancient vines and bought a few presents in the little market.  

Angkor Wat is probably the largest religious site in the world, consisting of many complex and uniquely designed temples over a vast area, located just outside Siem Reap. It was constructed in the 12^th century by the Khmer Empire originally as a Hindu temple but later evolved into a Buddhist temple. The name Angkor Wat means “City of Temples” and that’s exactly what it is. A huge complex of extravagantly decorated temples covering about 400 acres. Although Angkor Wat was dedicated to the god Vishnu, it became the king’s state temple and also the capital city. The city was used up until the 16^th century although it was never completely abandoned but of it slowly became overgrown and its sheer size had not been realised by the west until more recently.

I returned with a tropical form of salmonella and was on antibiotics for a month but it took a lot longer to recover from my ME and spent the next year improving once again. When asked if I’ve had enough of trekking by my doctor he always knows the answers going to be “Please can I do another one”?