Pulling The Loose Thread

The flicker of fire coming from the lighter faintly illuminates the large interlocked stones that line the hallway of the elaborate entrance to Angkor Wat.  The light is just enough to see where we’re headed while also creating shadows that follow us through the ancient passageways.  While most visitors at this pre-dawn hour wait outside this 12^th century Khmer temple ruin in the hopes of capturing that picturesque vacation photo – sunrise colors cast behind the jagged spires of the temple, the lotus-filled pond reflecting a mirror image of an awe-inspiring scene – I and two other explorers creep through this ancient Hindu, then Buddhist, worship house. 

Our bodies hold a mixture of adrenaline and fear.  It’s exciting to be walking through these old halls; where yesterday, throngs of people filled the hallways and courtyards, now the only noise is our footsteps and the squeaks of bats flying in the dark above us.  It’s also a bit creepy; as I pass by headless stone sentries tucked into nooks along the hallway, suddenly appearing from the shadows, my mind wanders to imagine the activities taken place here over the past 900 years and the spirits that might be lurking about.

Through the entrance, into the main courtyard but still outside and just below the main temple, sky reappears above us.  I’m grateful for the space around me.  The sky is clear and still dark enough to see the stars.  It’s quite a view looking up, just beyond the spires, so close now, into the night sky.  It is warm; it’s amazing how much the stone surrounding us has created insulation from the cooler air outside the complex.  Despite there being no ceilings here, the stones beneath and around us have captured enough heat from the intense tropical daytime sun to provide a comfortable warmth well into the next morning. 

I find an old stone, a fallen piece of this ancient ruin, gathered together in a pile with some fifty others in one of the corners of the courtyard.  I sit, taking in the silence.  Even these fallen stones still show the work of the stonemasons, the intricate patterns and shapes etched into the sides of the rock.  The stone serves as a gateway for me, a connection to the past, and I’m awed that I am able to so freely connect with it, that it is not behind some glass in a museum or better protected onsite.  As I sit, I try to imagine the worker who chipped away at the stone and what that day was like.  Did they imagine someone sitting here, so many years later?

It is a special thing, to be able to enjoy this space, usually so filled with light, people, and noise, all to myself.  I sit until the sky begins to brighten, the stars begin to fade, and people start to slowly shuffle in. 

Angkor Wat Sunrise

The next morning, I am sitting in a café in Siem Reap town, the main hub for the many tourists that come to this part of Cambodia to visit Angkor Wat.  Of the many restaurants, cafes and bars that line Pub Street, the usually busy nighttime hotspot for visitors to find international food and some cheap alcohol, I choose a small place that boasts a socially conscious mission.  Joe to Go, the narrow two-story café with good food and a long history of decent coffee, is one of two entrepreneurial businesses that financially support The Global Child, a local nonprofit whose aim is to give Cambodian kids who would otherwise be begging for money on the streets the opportunity of an education. 

As I sit sipping on my Americano, watching the diverse array of travelers walk by on the street beside me, I write about my experience in the temple the day before.   A middle-aged man with no legs in a wheelchair comes in to the front patio where I’m sitting.  He’s selling books.  There’s a sign in front of the books written on a loose piece of paper.  It says something about how he’s a victim of leftover landmines from the war.  It is not the first time I’ve been put in this situation since being in Cambodia.  He’s distracting me from my writing.  I say “no thank you” and continue to look at my computer screen.  He eventually wheels himself away. 

Ten minutes later an older man walks in.  He’s only got one arm; the other is cut off at the shoulder.  With his remaining arm, he holds out a ratty hat by the bill, asking for some money.   I am starting to get annoyed by these ‘distractions.’  I look at him the eyes, trying to recognize his unique humanity, politely refusing his request.  The damage has been done though.  I can no longer think about my temple wanderings.  Trying to get back into the scene with the dimly lit hallways, the only thing that bubbles up into my mind is the emerging underlying story of my visit to Cambodia. 

Just four days before, our group had visited Choeung Ek outside of Phnom Penh, just one of many ‘killing fields’ that served as a slaughtering site and mass burial grounds for the 2-3 million people that were killed during the late 1970s Khmer Rouge regime.  As you walk around the grounds, bones and shrouds of cloth still lay in the dirt, rising up due to recent rains.  On the audio tour player, you hear the stories of survivors and perpetrators:  kids torn from their families, and witnesses to intense brutality; kids torn from their families and forced to commit horrendous atrocities.  Later in the day we visit Tuol Sleng, a former schoolhouse turned prison and interrogation center, in the center of the city.  Portraits of the men and women that passed through these cement cells on their way to the killing fields fill room after room after room.

            In the capital city of Phomn Penh, amputees claiming war survivor status sell books and other odd trinkets.  You might walk by them on your way to a sunset cruise along the Mekong River.

Siem Reap is no different.  You are confronted with beggars on every corner of the busy streets that light up with florescent lights at night and serve as a virtual ‘western’ town; where the only Cambodians are those serving your Mexican food or fish and chips.  Tuk tuk drivers are only too willing to offer you drugs or the company of young Cambodian women.

 As we toured Angkor Wat, I got to know our guide a bit.  He was born in 1979, the last year of Pol Pot’s regime.  He doesn’t know what month he was born in: his father died during the war, and he was separated from his mother and sister soon after birth.  Raised by some monks in a temple in the countryside, he doesn’t know what happened to his mother.  His sister lives far away.  This information is not part of the normal slew of facts he normally tells when guiding through these ruins.  It is hidden underneath the surface of this tropical tourist haven. 

It seems too easy to visit this country and not confront the underlying story of violence, oppression, pain and injustice.  As you are bussed from one hotel to the next, eat in one café after another, and visit world heritage sites and traditional dances, you remain in some illusion of reality, a theme park showcasing the beauty of this peaceful, exotic land and peoples. 

But the signs of a different reality are everywhere, if you choose to open your eyes and scratch just beneath the surface. 

My annoyance, I quickly recognize, has nothing to do with these people disturbing me from my journaling, asking for money.  My annoyance comes because they are confronting me, asking me to look at something that is filled with violence and pain.  They are asking me to deal with the questions of why this genocide happened here.  They are pushing me to question my current role in it all, as a tourist just passing through, feeding money to those that have enough power and resource to offer me something I might want in return.  How does my presence here contribute to these peoples' liberation, their domination, their pain, their sadness, their freedom?

I finish my breakfast and pay the bill.  The man in the wheelchair might have appreciated even a quarter of what I just paid for that breakfast.  I leave the cafe.  The sun is now high in the sky shining brightly, but my day is a bit gloomier.