The trip to AngKor Wat

On 22^th of March, 2011, my friend and I were going back to Cambodia together. At this time, we did not go to the international border Pio Pet, because we want to see Angkor Wat on the way home. So we go to another way called Osmach border. It is located in between Surin province (Thailand) and Udormeanchai province (Cambodia). By going this way we can go to see Angkor Wat on our way, and it is not too far from the border to Angkor. It will take us about 3 hours by taxi. In spite, it is one way to Angkor, but there is rarely to see the foreigners come this way, because the road is not yet completely paved, or may be some others reasons that I don’t know.

We arrived at the border at 6 o ‘clock in the morning. At the border side, we can see the Casino on the left side of the road (heading from Thailand), and the hotel on the right. It is very close to the border. I asked the people the taxi driver “who is the owner of this casino?”, and he said “I don’t really know, but the many people here said it is belong to the Thai people.” He added more that “most of the people who come to this casino are Thai. They usually come in the evening around five o ‘clock. I took a rest for a while with my friend because we spent the whole night on the bus, so it is really exhausted for us. During our rest, we can see many people were crossing the border to do their exportation and importation. Amazingly, the people there mostly communicate in Cambodian. I mean most of the people in Surin are still using Cambodian, because this part of land is used to be part of Cambodia in the history. I can understand their speaking quite well. But whatever, history is history, and we cannot bring the past back.

At 9 o ‘clock we leave there for Siem Reap. They charged us 25000 reals (Cambodia currency), and it takes us about three and half hours to get there. It was the sick day for me on that day. There are eight people in one taxi. The drive put five peoples at the back and two at the front. My limbs were sleepy and it is very hot from the heat of the sun. There is little space for us to sit. However, I tried to change the atmosphere. I tried to communicate to everyone in the taxi. I asked the driver many questions about his career and his family. I left my country almost three year so it is a little weird for me when I come back and there are a lot of questions for me to ask him.

There was one interesting thing in our conversation. It was about tourism. I asked him “does the tourist come to this way very often?” He said “No, not really often.” I keep go on my question “Is it because of the road?” He replied “No, not all of that.” After a long conversation I learned that, it is from the people themselves. I mean they charge the tourist more than the local people (twice of the normal price). Let say, at this time they charge me two and half dollars, but for the foreigners they will charge ten dollar or more than that. I asked him “have you ever get some foreigners?” He said “No.” His friends and he never take any tourists. Actually, they will divide themselves as a group for the taxi in that area. So they will help each other to get the passengers for their taxis, and his group prefers the local people to tourists. The other they take both local people and foreigners, and they set the different prices. It is hard to say which one is the wrong or right about them for me. But he told me that there are about five tourists come to this way last month and that group took-over them. From that time there is no any foreigners come to this way again. The reason is they charge a lot of money from them. It makes me a little confuse and I don’t really understand they did this to the tourists. I think it is not good idea to do that. In the mean time as the owner of the house we should be happy, and warmly welcome to their visiting. I know there is nothing free in this world. Even Thailand or the other countries they will set the different price for the foreigners, but they make it in the appropriate way. Therefore, in my idea I want us to charge them in the suitable price. I do believe that even they are foreigners but it does not mean they are millionaires. I know I am not supposed to say this in my writing but I think it is the point that we need to consider about it.

As we all know that Cambodia is the poorest country in Southeast Asia, and it’s nearly forgotten by the outside world in the last decades (1975-1979). So it is the time for us to reopen our door and say welcome to the universes. It is the time for us to narrate the story in our country to those who never know what has happened in Cambodia. We have to let them know who we are. What is Cambodia and where is it? I expressed my idea to him that as a human being we should not let ourselves to be a greedy man. Especially, for his career, he should consider how he can provide his passengers the good service, and being honestly, genial and friendly to them. It is not all about the money. Therefore, when they are being satisfy with our service, they will keep in their mind that the taxi service in Cambodia are very good, and it will attract or being persuade them to come here again. Moreover, when they go back to their homeland, they will tell what they got from us to their families, friends and the people around them. By this behavior we will absorb more tourists to come to visit and get to know more about Cambodia. The people will have a lot work to do, and the taxi will have many passengers, and their budgets will increase. In the other hand, as the workers we have to be good at far-seeing about our work. We know exactly that we don’t work for only one day for this job, and it is the job that we need to do to feed our family. For the other people they may not care about it, but for some people they may work on it for their whole life. So if we charge them a lot of money on this time, we will get only this time. We cannot keep the money that we earned today to support our families for the whole life. The foreigners may come only this time, and next time they will not, because we charge them a lot of money. As in our country, most of the time we tell each other that “Don’t earn your life by blocking your way (I’m sorry, because I cannot find the very sure definition on this slogan).” But it all means that we have to work and preserve our place or business for the long time not just work on it one day and then give it away. It has been a really nice conversation in the taxi, but the sun seems does not understand what we were talking about. It is the hot day over there because the weather in Cambodia seems to be hotter than Thailand, because its deforestation.

We arrived at Siem Reap at 12:30. We did not take a lunch on that day, but we have fresh water and some orange juice. When we get into the bus station, we did not go anywhere besides going straight to our friend’s place. We spent there for one night and then in the morning we set our trip to Angkor Wat temple.

In the morning we woke up at 8 o ‘clock. The first thing I heard is the sound of English translating class. It is very close to my friend’s room. In fact, it was the school for monk to study Pali literature, but they use it to study English in the morning. I asked my friend “what do they study in English?” He said “they are translating the newspaper. I thought, wow! That was great! That is why the people here can speak English very well. So let me tell you “Don’t be afraid of none will not understand your English when you come to Cambodia.(KIDDING! :D).”

After, taking a shower and finishing our breakfast, we were heading to Angkor by motor. First, we go to visit Angkor Thom (big Angkor). That was amazing! That was wonderful! I made a slip of my tongue “Wow! My Buddha, it is unbelievable.” Do you believe me or not it is my first time to see Angkor Wat. Even I am Cambodian, but I never been here before in my life. It makes me wonder how the people at time can build such a wonderful monument like this. There was no machine and cements. I am so proud of them. There are many tourists come to visit Angkor Thom. We walk around the temple without any exhausted. There are a lot of trees around the temple side as well. Some foreigners were riding the elephants, and the guides were very busy in telling the story to the tourists. At Angkor Thom, you will see the stories were carved on the wall depicted the life of the people at that time, the war and the invasion of the other kingdoms, and the organizing of Angkor period. That is why many tourists were asking a lot of questions when they come to see Angkor Thom. My friend and I were continued our sightseeing for awhile, and then we took a rest under the shade of the big tree. It feels very good; a bit cold with wind comes and touches our body. Some tourists go there with their family, and they sat under the tree and talk and take the photo with their member. I am so jealous at them! During the rest time, my friend was taking a lot of photos from the monkey. They are very cute. But unfortunately, we don’t our own camera, so we took the photo by mobile phone.

We left Angkor Thom at 11 o’clock, and we keep going to see Angkor Toch (small Angkor). At first, we thought we can walk there because it seems not too far from where we were standing. But we were underestimated it. We started to walk about 20 minutes, and then our legs started to disobey our order. So we get on the tuk tuk (in my country we called three wheel motor) to Angkor Toch. When we arrived at Angkor Toch, I asked my friend whether we want to have lunch or not, and we decided not to have lunch. It does not mean that we don’t have money but we don’t feel hungry at that time. We bought two bottle of water with us. I don’t feel tired about travelling around Angkor.

Again, there was an awesome view from Angkor Toch. We can see the sculpture on the wall such as the angel, the sage, the warriors and the life of the people in that period. There are ancient reservoirs in front of it with the beautiful of the lotus are scattering in the water. According to the history of these ponds was told that the people made it up for their agriculture. We walked only half round, because there was some places people still working on the reconstructing (there was a massive destruction from the war, the nature, and from the Indian who brought the acid to clean but it was turned into a huge damages.). So we went to the center of the temple, and then we climbed up to the top by the stair. On the top, we can see the green views of the trees lay beneath around the temple. At the far side we can see the peak of the buildings. At the same time, there was a wonderful moment when the wind comes and touches our body, and it took away all the stress or any uncomfortable thing from us. “Let forget about our lunch!”I said. We spent about half an hour, and later on we move to the other side.

While we are walking many foreigners come to ask for taking photo. So we did according to their requests. It is no doubt for them when they see the Buddhist monk, because most of the western people never saw the monks before in their country. That is why when they see the monk they always take their photo. We did communicate to each other about Angkor, about Cambodia, about their country and their family. After that we knew he was from U.S.A, but he work in Vietnam. After taking a photo he said thank to us and I replied “don’t mention it!” Suddenly, he putted his hand into his pocket and took out his money. Then he gave one dollar to us. That is a little weird and we didn’t accept that money. He told us that the money is for the food and drinks, and he did this since he came here, and he always gives the money to the kids around here whenever he asks them to take photo. I told him that I will not take the money as those people did. I think that it is not a good for me to do that. Obviously, there is no one right and no one wrong. Those kids need the money for their living, and most of them are from poor families, and some of them are orphans. On the other hand, the tourist guy did this to show his good manner. For me, I don’t want the other people to have such a pessimistic attitude toward Cambodia that they have to pay their money for everything when they come to Cambodia. You know! In this wonderful universe there are some valuable things that people can get without paying money. These things are smiling, warmly-heart, and friendship. This is what we want Cambodia to do into the whole world. We all want to be your friend, no matter where you are come from, or who you are; we are the same human-being. Moreover, Cambodia had lost its smiling, and fell into the loneliness for many years ago. So from now on, we need friends, and we want to be a part of you.

At the same day, we met one another tourist from China. His name is Jerry, and he is about 25 years old. We get to know each other, and began to have conversation. He told us that he was lost his friend when he was taking a photo inside the temple. Then I began my simple question as I did to the other tourists. “What do you think about Cambodia before you come here?” my first question. He said “I was afraid, because some people have been told me that Cambodia is not safe for the tourist. But when I come it is not like what the people said. I saw the smiling of the people, and most of the people here can speak English well as well as the kids. Especially, the beautiful temple that I never see before in my life” I am very happy to hear what he just told us. I think this is what we called “THE INNER BEAUTY”. Everything has their inner beauty, the people, the countries, and the animal, so we have look deeper into it other why we will have a misunderstanding on it.

You may wonder why I write this thing in my blog. The reason, I want the people to understand between the money and their own value. Even I am Cambodian but I don’t have any bias on my country or the others. I will stand in the middle way. I will support for the thing they did right, and I will against on the things they did wrong. Some people may think it is not important to concern, but I think, it is the thing that reveals us to the outside world of who we are. As I did mention in my paragraph above that we need friends, and we don’t want to sit in the darkness corner of the room any more. I want our people to look into the real world now. Where are they now? Where are they going, and what are they doing? I know Cambodia is a poor country, but Cambodia is not a market that everyone has to pay money for everything. It is not always about money!