FURTHER ADVENTURES ON THE ROAD

I need to go redo Thailand since losing it all yesterday, but I must spend the hour before I leave talking about Siem Reap.  As I write this I hear Monks chanting outside my window.  About  a five minute drive from this five star hotel is a countryside spilling over with Temple after Temple that all take your breath away.

It’s a peaceful place, with a smiling, calm population that when you stop and think about what they have been through in the last thirty years seems almost impossible to believe.

The town of Siem Reap exists solely for the tourists at this stage, in fact it only grew in the last nine years to accomodate them. And boy are they here, mostly other Asians and Germans.  Bus load after bus load chug up to Angkor Wat and all the other sights, so people can witness the grandeur of a time long gone and slowly fill part of the coffers of this country that has been so shattered by war and the despotic Pol Pot. To walk around, though,  you would never know it. All you see is beauty, wide avenues, lotuses popping out of ponds,  no traffic, the obligatroy Tuk Tuks and Monks sitting in the shade and in the roadside Temples and the monuments.

You can pick up any book on Ankor and it will tell you much more than I can. Like many places of great history and beauty the sights lure you but the people are what you really remember.   For me I love to see the sights, but I prefer to go out to the villages and see the way the people really live. I’m interested in human behavoir and man’s perseverence and this place has that in spades.

We got here two days ago and were met by Mr. Thai who is known as Guide number one by the World Monument Foundation. We dropped the bags and headed off to one of the endless thousand year old structures that seem to have leap frogged from Hindu to Buddhist many times over the centuries. I’m bad even with the names of people I know so outside of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom they all blur.

I told Mr. Thai I really wanted to see the people and the the real floating markets, not the giant fake Louis Vuitton stores on water the floating markets of Bangkok have become. I guess he liked this because within one hour we were in his village an hour out of town standing in front of his family in the house on stilts he grew up in. The village is close in distance but far from the modern city Siem Reap has become. People still live off the sea and without electricity. The poverty is on the scale of  India in places, but not as in your face.  That is the thing about Cambodia, nothing is in your face.   I think the fact they still live in fear that the Thais or the Viet Namese will  come in and beat the shit out of them makes them exist in this very quiet, under the radar way.

We took a boat up the lake which is the largest freshwater lake in South East Asia and there you really see the boat people and the water life, from the Cambodians like Mr.Thai’s family who have lived there for decades to the Viet Namese boat people who float around depending on the tides.

I had seen a version of this in Thailand thirty years ago  but nothing like it in decades and the girls had never seen anything like it. Its one of the reasons I love dragging them with us, they  are becoming truly global kids unafraid of anything or anyone.  From a young age I have seen to it they see the world for what it is and learn to accept it on its terms no matter how different they may be from their  own. We briefly lost them yesterday as Glenn and I collapsed on a stone at Temple number don’t ask– but then we found them in small house behind a monestary talking with young monks.

The night after we went up the river we sort of all collapsed.  We had gotten up at four to make the flight and by eight the idea of dinner and a dancing show were out of the question.  We had room service and were all asleep by nine.
We move fast on these trips and sometimes you just have to give in and go no more- we need to recharge.

The next day we went down to breakfast and there was Heather Graham who was in my film The Guru. She is travelling around Asia with her boyfriend and we agreed to meet at the end of the day for dinner or drinks.

So early before the heat and hot it gets we went to Angkor Wat. What can you say?  There are some world sights you hear about and once you get there you go, it’s ok, nice enough, looks like the photos.  I  don’t know one person who has seen the Mona Lisa and not gone, you’ve got to be kidding– this is what all the fuss is about? The Taj Mahal is a bit that way and I  have given it four chances.  The Pyramids have a wow factor, but nothing like Karnak in Luxor which is a sight that doesn’t get nearly as much press but is far more impressive.

But the sheer size of Angkor Wat– the largest standing religious monument in the world– and the fact it is surrounded by so many others as beautiful, it’s beyond mind blowing. Apparently at sunrise it is even better ,though Tay was the only one among us who got up at four this morning and witnessed it. You have to go onto her website and see her photos – my only  photos this morning were taken from the balcony of my room.

You can only Temple it for so long as the heat gets to you. So while many go back to their rooms and rest, Glenn and I hit the stores. I’m so lucky to have a husband who likes to shop as much as I do.  While I was finding the young Cambodian boutiques he found what may be the coolest shop I have ever seen.  It’s run by a French couple, Frederic Fabre and his wife Marie, who have lived here for years. They sell all these amazing hip artists from the area in the most colorful, chic store I have seen anywhere.

We were doubly blessed as Frederic invited us to his house for champagne after dinner and at eleven last night we were sitting in this amazing house on the outskirts of  town that is so modern and colorful it could be on the cover of Elle Decor tomorrow.  The pool itself, a lap pool with tiles in thirty neon colors was enough to make you want to move into his guest room.

The house is full of things made by the designers he sells, all colorful and modern though stemming from traditional design.  He doesn’t speak perfect English and my French has seen way better days, but we were able to carry on a conversation until late at night.  I will post the name and address of  his shop and several others at a later time for those of you who may make the trip.

If  you want to come here I suggest soon as it will be Anaheim some day I fear and Frederic who first came here in 91 when no one was here said it gets wrecked more each day.

So after our shopping and lunch it was back to the Temples. Poor Lucy– dragged from one to another in hundred degree heat but she is the best sport. Thank heavens we found a field full of monkeys and she got to take pictures of them. Taylor has become such a photographer she is in heaven and wants to stay at places longer than we do. By five I had had it and came back to the hotel for massage with hot stones. Just what I needed after the heat, more heat, but it actually felt good.

We all got clean, which took a bit of doing and we went to the Foreign Correspondents Club for dinner.  It was not the real thing but they borrowed the name. It felt more like a restaurant you might find in SoHo but you sit outside and overlook the canals of the city and see the trees and the tuk tuks and the odd Monk passing by. It’s this amazing combo of chic and pious and old world, it’s really a special place.

Heather and Yaniv came by and had a drink with us. They had just come from having massages by blind people which really one-upped my hot stone one. It was such a great night, it’s the other special  thing about travel, you run into people like Heather who I really like but never see at home, but because we are all here we make the time.  Then we end up at Frederic’s mind-blowing house in the middle of the night drinking champagne and talking about our favorite spots in Tamil Nadu.Then the alarm in the next room goes off at four so my daughter who sleeps until eleven at home can get up and go on her own and watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat.

I LOVE THE WORLD and feel so blessed that I have gotten to see as much of it as I have and that I am able to share that with my kids and that there is still sooooooo much more to see.

Next stop Saigon!

I want to upload photos but Glenn is yelling we don’t have time. Excuse the typos.

Be Sociable, Share!

•