Cambodia: More local attractions

After the last day of the workshop, the whole group went over to another historic site, Baekong Hill---these temple remains were on a high hill from which we could see the beautiful towers of Angkor Wat. After walking around the ruins, we went to a traditional Cambodian dinner theater, Apsara Theater, where after dinner we had an amazing dance performance of one part of the Boddishatva---the story of Buddha. The dancers made certain signs with their fingers that signified different stages in the life of a flower---the dances were accompanied by a live music performance on traditional Cambodian musical instruments. I really enjoyed the beautiful performance even though we did laugh a bit during it trying to “decipher” what the performance was about.

Baekong Hill (with view of Angkor Wat in the trees)


Dance performance

Cambodia: The field trip

All our workshops usually include a visit to the “field” (or a community where our partners have a research project). This time we had a choice between several trips, and I chose to go a fishing village. This was quite interesting as the village is usually under water this time of the year (rainy season), but because of the visible effects of climate change, the rains haven’t been strong enough to make the lake overflow, so we could see that all houses are built on stilts. There was even a floating police station. We were told that by this time each year the houses all end up in water up to the second floor (they are designed as such), and the villagers end up moving around by boat instead of a car. One of the more interesting things in the community was a “floating” forest---trees that have adapted to be submerged under water during part of the year, but are above water during the dry season---this forest fulfils a number of important livelihood functions for the community during both seasons.

Fishing village

Our next stop was a visit with a Fishery and Forestry Community as well as some local government officials---and the meeting was in a pagoda where the monks were chanting prayers, people were having lunch, several kids were playing, and two dogs were fighting…again, all in a pagoda, that certainly appeared the center of social activity in this small community.
Our next stop was another pagoda where we actually had lunch! This was a newer pagoda with the paintings about the life of Buddha on the walls and the ceilings. After lunch, we even had to go through a small ceremony of making a donation for the maintenance of the pagoda to the resident monk.

Our "lunch" pagoda
After lunch, we went to visit a forestry community, which had their own community forest---their interesting story was tied up with the bloody history of Khmer Rouge. On a short, but very sweaty hike to the forest, I saw a slash-and-burn field for the first time. Even though it was a long day, I really learned a lot about the everyday life of the poor resource-dependent Cambodian communities and their difficult history.

Cambodia: Shopping and other entertainment

Even though I usually get souvenirs in most places that I travel to, I have wanted to go to Cambodia not only for its sights, but for its amazing craft markets. Indeed, they did not disappoint. Braving the evening heat on Tuesday evening, we went to the Old Market in Siem Reap and were right away emerged into the plethora of scarves, shirts, placemats, etc---this is where I started going crazy, but still tried to hold the screws in my head from coming off by only buying a few things. Our next stop was the Night Market, which turned out to be cheaper and had more interesting things. This is where those screws in my head got loose, and I started buying everything in sight. My boss, who is a marathon shopper, was doing her usual: maintain her sanity while remembering to buy for every member of her family and circle of friends. After discovering more stalls that we simply didn’t have the energy to visit, we went to find a good spot for dinner. On the way there, we stopped by one of the numerous blow-up kiddie pools where for about $2-3 you could stick your feet in and have the special kind of (flesh eating) fish get rid of the calluses on your feet. I didn’t want to risk getting a fungal infection so I just watched my boss getting her feet “massaged” by the fish of “Dr. Fish.” According to her, it felt pretty weird at first and then got better, and her feet were smoother afterwards.
We found an amazing place for dinner…a little hole in the wall called Khmer Kitchen that turned out to be a great find. For about $3 per dish, we had outstanding Khmer food accompanied by delicious lemongrass tea.
When we returned to the hotel, we decided to lay out our purchases (that is, my boss and I☺), and after realizing that I sort of outshopped the champion of market shopping, my boss declared her night as “inadequate,” and we made plans to go back to the Night market. We did go back again, and even though I promised myself not to get anything else, I did end up buying more things before another delicious dinner at Khmer Kitchen.

Cambodia: More exciting sightseeing

By mid-week, we were beginning to get a bit more antsy about taking full advantage of our great surroundings, so I fell into a cliché that you do things that you would never do otherwise: early on Wednesday morning together with other participants I went on a hot-air balloon ride to watch sunrise over Angkor Wat. Even though I’m terrified of heights, one of my co-workers “got” me with “You will regret it if you don’t do it,” so I felt that I had to brave my fears and do it. The ride turned to be more of a lift to see the sunrise over the surroundings of Siem Reap and the temples---it was not scary at all, even though the basket would tilt almost 90 degrees when everyone would rush to one side to see the sun rising over the temples.

Our hot-air balloon at 4am

View of Angkor Wat at sunrise

Cambodian countryside at sunrise


The other cool thing happened on Friday morning when I went out to see a real floating village. Despite my somewhat weird expectations, this was actually a “real” village: there were homes, stores, a mechanic, a school all located on boats floating in the great Tonle Sap lake. We even saw a floating Protestant Church.People used boats to get around from place to place. It is hard to imagine what their lives must be like being confined to small spaces with big families. This village had tourists visiting it (hence, some cash flow), but the others that are more remote must be quite poor. It was fascinating to just go through the village in our boat and observe the everyday activities of the inhabitants.

Floating church

Cambodia: Workshop and Everyday life

Thanks to my terrible jetlag, the mornings were the best part of my days in Cambodia since I was able to take advantage of the amazing outdoor pool (it’s even better in the morning!), work on my presentation, check email and baseball scores…and all this before breakfast! The reason I was actually in that wonderful country is to be part of a workshop organized by my program at IFPRI---this was a bit more unusual since we had very few people from our beloved CGIAR (most participants were from other research/practitioner organizations and universities, especially Canadian ones), which made the interactions very unique and lively. I also presented a paper that I had worked on in the past and realized that practice indeed makes perfect: I was definitely more relaxed presenting this paper and even attempted to crack some jokes (probably not the best idea when presenting research☺. In any case, I received good comments, which made me even more excited about my upcoming studies. The rest of the conference went really well, especially in the pristine surroundings of our hotel with great food, very helpful staff, and warm Cambodian sun.

Cambodia: Sightseeing

Siem Reap is the sight of the world-famous Angkor Wat temple ruins, but this particular site is just one of the remaining temple structures that this city has to offer (all built between 9-13 century AD). We started off early in the morning before the unbearable heat set in. The first stop was the ancient city of Angkor Thom (“Great City” in Khmer), with its famous Bayon Temple, a former Buddhist temple built in the 12th century. This particular structure is known for its stone “faces” on the four-sides of the numerous towers.
Bayon

After exploring Bayon, we went to a series of structures around the Royal Palace: the Elephant Terrace, the Terrace of the Leper King, and the Baphuon Temple. All of these ruins still had many remaining reliefs left for tourist to enjoy and take in. We even climbed on top of several temples, which was a good challenge for my fear of heights.
Elephant Terrace

As the heat was mounting, we went on to our next destination, the jungle temple Ta Prohm that has trees growing out of the ruins. This particular site was quite an adventure as visitors are free to roam in the labyrinth of ruins until a dead-end. This temple is built in the “flat” temple style unlike the structures of Angkor Thom, which are built as “temple mountains” with the inner levels higher than the outer.
Ta Prohm


On our way to the main attraction, Angkor Wat, we stopped by two other, smaller, temples, which were quite unique---we briefly explored those, as well as another bigger one, Ta Keo. This last temple was possibly the first Khmer temple built and is a five-tier pyramid with overlapping terraces.
After a delicious lunch of Khmer food (fish soup---yum!), we finally pulled up to the jewel of Siem Reap---the magnificent Angkor Wat (“City Temple”) temple surrounded by a rectangular mote. It was built in the 12th century and was first a Hindu Temple dedicated to Vishnu, and later rededicated as a Buddhist temple. It is indeed the epitome of the classical Khmer architecture and has become the symbol of Cambodia, combining two basic plans of the traditional Khmer architectural style: the temple mountain and the galleried temple, based on the South Indian Hindu architecture. Because of its atypical orientation (facing west rather than east), it is believed that this may have been designed as a funerary temple.
In the sweltering heat of the Cambodian sun, we crossed over the bridge and walked through the gopura (traditional temple entrance) only to see the absolutely majestic structure of the actual temple with the well-recognizable three lotus-shaped towers. We wandered around the outside galleries that still have many reliefs left (including one of angels and demons) and then climbed up the main temple, which offered great views of the whole structure and surrounding areas. The inside of the temple had some inscriptions in Khmer (and even Japanese and Burmese) about various pilgrimages and several cloisters dedicated to Buddha and Vishnu. One of the highlights was a group of young Buddhist monks visiting the site and taking pictures with their camera phones.

Cambodia: Arrival and First Impressions

After surviving a brutal 14-hour flight from DC to Seoul, Korea and a less brutal 5-hr flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia (during which I was completely passed out), I finally arrived in this very interesting country. So far, I have been pleasantly surprised by how (relatively) developed this country is. To a Russian, the word “Cambodia” associates with post-conflict devastation, landmines, and complete underdevelopment. However, this country is anything but those things. Indeed, it survived a lot of civil strife, including the bloody Khmer Rouge regime an d other military dictatorships, but somehow it managed to rebuild after those tumultuous years with good roads, relatively well-developed infrastructure, including tourist facilities, and even almost widespread knowledge of basic English . My hotel is a lovely clean and comfortable place with an amazing outdoor swimming pool (already tested it out) and great and kind service staff. The food is delicious: a unique combination of Vietnamese and Thai with its own flavor (Im now addicted to lemongrass fish soup). Right now it is rainy season, which means hot and very humid 95 degree days and heavy afternoon rains.
The biggest question I have so far: Why can’t African countries, which have far greater abundance of natural resources, have the same level of development? One night, we went out to a very Western-looking gas station to get some water at the adjacent convenience store. My colleague and I looked at each other and said: “Why can’t Africa have gas stations?”