Saturday, October 1
Long comes to our hotel as he has for the past few days, but this time we are bringing our luggage to begin the long trip back to Boston. On the way, however, Road Scholar has helped us arrange for a cooking class with Chef Phav of Fou Nan Restaurant, where we had our best lunch in town on Wednesday. Chef Phav is fairly young but accomplished. Formerly with Siem Reap's Raffle Hotel, he has cooked for King Sihanouk and a thousand invited guests at the opening of the Angkor National Museum, and for President Clinton during his visit to the city in 2006. Not a bad resume for our personal professor of Cambodian culinary arts...
We begin with a tuk-tuk ride to Samaki Market to buy the ingredients for our farewell lunch. Along the way, we select the menu. Chef Pav suggests a banana flower salad and stir fried pork with ginger. We ask for the wonton soup that was the highlight of our lunch earlier in the week. He agrees, and we're off.
Along the way, we experience one final insight into Cambodian traffic customs. Passing Jayavarmann VII Children's Hospital downtown, we are stopped by police who swing barriers across a raised sidewalk shaped like an enormous speed bump; the barriers are a smaller version of what you might encounter at a railroad crossing. Traffic stops for a doctor who walks in scrubs from one hospital building to another; once he has made it across, we resume our trip to the market.
If you get the chance to go shopping for food with a great chef, take it. He brought us to stall after stall, explaining how he looks for the freshest banana flowers, garlic, ginger, pork, cilantro, onions, peppers, and tomatoes. It was a real education. Seeing a few of the many different types of eggplant grown in Cambodia was eye-opening. Some look like limes; others more like small cucumbers. The vendors know Chef Pav, of course, and he gets exactly what we need for our class. Soon, Cameron, he, and I are headed back to his kitchen to prepare what we've found.
The chef works fast, but he's precise, and more than generous with tips on how to cut onions for different dishes, or when to add basil to the soup. Course by course, we cut, chop, mix, stir, heat, season, and, of course, taste and adjust. It's some of the most fun we've had on the trip, and a highly-recommended activity for those pre-departure hours normally spent fretting about whether everything is properly packed, or if we'll get to the airport on time. Plus, the results surely beat anything served on an airplane.
With the soup and salad waiting on plates, Chef Pav demonstrates wok skills I probably will never achieve but enjoyed witnessing first-hand. In a matter of seconds, sliced pork, seasonings, and oil flame to perfection; we taste the smallest morsels we can find to avoid burning our tongues. It's delicious. During our goodbyes, the chef escorts us to a table as we turn in our aprons. Within a minute, servers bring our meal as Bertrand, owner of Fou Nan, helps select a wine to go with it. Then, a leisurely if early lunch completes the highlight of our last day in Cambodia.
It's also the last day of our unforgettable Road Scholar program along the Mekong and Tonle Sap Rivers, a fitting combination of the education, new experiences, fun, fine company, and - yes - delicious food that have been our constant companions throughout the past two weeks. I'm glad and even a little proud of myself for enjoying so many new things on this terrific program. I'm no longer surprised by how welcome and at-home we all felt wherever we were. And I've found new admiration and affection for those we've met along the way - the people of Vietnam and Cambodia, and our traveling companions. Most of all, I can't wait to do it again, and find out how the next program will open my eyes to another part of the world. There's no scholar like a Road Scholar.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Our last full day in Cambodia starts early, as Long arrives with his cheerful smile and his daily printed agenda. It's longer than usual; we're going to crisscross the ancient Khmer capital with visits to five temples and a sacred mountain - actually two sacred mountains; our last temple of the day is Phnom Bak Eng, Angkor Thom's first temple-mountain, built by King Indravarman I in 881. But, first things first. We begin at Pre Rup, one of the early red-brick temples constructed eighty years later in 961. The gods are smiling on us this morning with the bluest skies of our visit.
Next is a rousing one-mile hike up to Kbal Spean, a waterfall and "River of 1,000 Lingas," where the river bottom features carvings made by King Rajendravarman II's subjects during several dry seasons. Our trail through the rain forest alternates between firm red clay and large rock formations. Sturdy stairs have been constructed for our benefit, and the cicadas hail us loudly as we pass by their own little empires. We reach the river to find an alternate feature - high water has obscured most of the carvings, but the falls are worth the hike. Our trail back down passes several stone carvings, many of them beautifully mossy and green.
East Mebon Temple, another 10th century triumph, is an ancestral temple that boasts stone elephants guarding each of its four corners, looking out over the outer courtyards and the rain forest beyond.
The courtyards themselves align as a sort of maze, with lush green lawns inviting exploration around every corner. Close up, the contrast between the red walls and green grass is a refreshing change from the different shades of gray found in other nearby temples.
Preah Khan, built two hundred years later as the Khmer Empire approached its pinnacle. It has two fascinating details. First, we get a chance to see first-hand the challenge for those restoring these structures. In its courtyard, the sawed-off lower trunk of one of the rain forest's invasive trees is frozen in mid-digestion of a lesser tower, its roots a cross section of wood and brick awaiting careful dismantling and reconstruction.
Later, as we exit, Long points out a series of round columns, not seen elsewhere in Angkor Thom, that hints at some kind of European influence. Legend has it that a Roman coin was found nearby, raising the question of whether these two ancient empires ever met.
Our day ends with a final ascent, this one by elephant, as we reach Phnom Bahk Eng in time to watch a tropical thunderstorm pass just to our west. Its lightning and thunder are a dramatic background as we reflect on all we have done and seen in this most remarkable city.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Angkor Wat is vast. No other word can describe it. The scale of the moat surrounding it, the temple's outer walls, the long entrance causeway that was used only by Khmer kings, and finally, the temple and its five towers, is unimaginable. Unlike the other places we've visited, Angkor Wat was never abandoned, even as the empire fell. Buddhist monks have lived there continuously, keeping the rain forest at bay, and bringing thousands of stone Buddhas with them. Many of these latecomers have made a more recent journey to the Angkor Museum's Gallery of One Thousand Buddhas.
Every visitor to Siem Reap gets up in the dark at least one day to watch the sunrise. When it was our turn, Long, our leader, took us off to the side, through a smaller entrance reserved for the King's family, where the sunrise was more dramatic and less crowded than it was for the thousands of others who stood along the causeway itself. And then, after the sun had been up for a while and everyone else left, we stayed, touring the temple at our leisure, without the crowds. Road Scholar does it again.
Like all the other temples, Angkor Wat is best experienced up close. The spaces inside, even the ones we stumble upon, are enormous - great places to fill with our imagination of what Khmer life must have been like. What seem like miles of wall carvings tell story after story to give us a clue. There were wars, good struggled against evil, and gods walked the earth as part-elephant, or dragon, or lion. Multi-headed snakes kept demons at bay so multi-armed dancers could celebrate the empire's many triumphs. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands of finger-sized holes in so many walls once held precious jewels. What an empire it must have been...
As you get closer and closer to the center of the temple, the stairs become steeper and more narrow. This was intentional, forcing worshipers to prostrate themselves against the steps as they climbed, the better to express their humility in the presence of the gods. And then we reach the top, ruling the rainforest as Jayavarman VII did at the turn of the 13th century, even if only for an hour.
After our morning inside Ankgor Wat, we use our free afternoon for a helicopter tour of the temple, nearby Angkor Thom, several other temples, and the surrounding region. The view from above shows how vast Angkor Wat was, and how far Khmer civilization had advanced. A grid of roads, man-made reservoirs, farmland irrigation systems, and walled cities which once held over one million people, can be seen even as the modern town of Siem Reap develops and expands within it. Life on the river may change, but it continues.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
All of us have signed up for the extension of our tour, a land excursion to the ancient Khmer temples surrounding the town of Siem Reap. They're surprisingly close by, and as the day breaks with a beautiful blue sky, none of us can wait to see the highlight of anyone's trip to Cambodia.
Chhn Long, our guide, takes us first to Ta Prohm, a temple built in 1186 in the middle of the time of the Khmers. It's one of the smaller sites near Angkor Thom, but it has the distinction of being yet to be restored, giving us the chance to see how the Khmer Empire looked when the French happened upon it more than a century ago. Trees grow out of the towers and walls, giving the place an eerie, other-worldly appearance. Just the sort of thing for a hollywood movie, and in fact it is one of the sites used to film "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" in 2001. As we walk through Ta Prohm, we hear other guides pointing out where Angela Jolie stood in various scenes.
Because the day is so beautiful, we're hading to Angkor Thom this afternoon, rearranging our schedule in one of the wonderful Plan Bs we've come to expect from Road Scholar. On the way, we pass through much of the ancient city of Angkor Thom - walls, reservoirs, and smaller temples, some surrounded by moats. Our bus stops briefly for us to take pictures. It's almost incongruous, given how beautiful these timeless structures truly are.
After lunch, we head to the temple of Bayon, at the center of Angkor Thom, also built around the time of Ta Prohm. It is spectacular, on both the grand scale of its architecture, and in the finely-detailed carvings on its interior walls. Bayon is the temple that smiles back at you as you explore it from its towers, built to look like the sacred Mt. Meru. They do look like mountains, although no camera can do them justice, or at least mine can't. You need to see them for yourself to experience them in their fullest.
The carvings tell stories Mr. Long describers to us in great detail, including the struggles between gods and demons, battles on land and sea, and the combination of man and animal that made up many of the Khmer religion's gods. The carvings of Bayon are the best we see during our program; those elsewhere are worn by time and erosion, or polished to an almost metallic shine by centuries of visitors rubbing them to take souvenirs home in the days before cameras.
Our day ends at Banteay Srei, a Buddhist temple built in 967. Sometimes called the Women's Temple, it is built of red sandstone, giving it an unusual, warm appearance. Because of the high water this year, we wade to it, but our trek is more than rewarded. The late afternoon sunlight brings out its details in an unforgettable way. And today is just the beginning. Angkor Wat, which we have passed several times along the way, awaits at dawn tomorrow.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Last night's Captain's Dinner ended too late to make Monday's edition of the Mekong Evening Record.
Serge Prunier, our intrepid navigator and master of ceremonies, outdid himself with his hospitality, generosity, and charm. He hosted a dinner rich with food, laden with tales of ten years ago when he and the Toum Teave were the river's only passenger ship, and stories of how he and his crew had purchased and prepared our dinner this morning. Like every other night, his rich French accent and hand gestures kept all of us entertained. As he would say, "But yes, this story I am telling you is true. And now, I will tell you more..."
The same as our welcome dinner just seven short days ago, we began with his special cocktail, the Toum Teave Kiss, a secret recipe that, if guessed correctly, would bring another drink for free. "This is my offer to you, but of course I am sure you will never get it right, no?" Eventually, as a team, last night we Road Scholars did, although this morning, we discovered that one of the crew was dropping clues about the last ingredient.
This morning, after cruising since 4:30 am, we arrived in Siem Reap at noon, ready to begin our exploration of ancient Khmer culture. The official Mekong by Barge program ends Wednesday morning, but all of us have signed on for the two-day extension to tour the temples of Angkor Thom, followed by sunrise at Angkor Wat. This afternoon, we tour the Angkor National Museum and its modern displays.
But, for a while, even with all we will do and see for the next few days, today is a time for nostalgia, as all of us appreciate what we have shared with each other, and with the people of the Mekong and the Tonle Sap. For a week, Road Scholar and Captain Prunier have given us the opportunity to live our own lives on the river. None of us will ever forget it.
