One Day At Angkor: Part 2

The blackness of night whips by and we are again heading due North into the heart of the Angkor complex. The only reason that this mission might work is because of our transportation: The Minsk. Otherwise, no Tuk Tuk driver would be stupid enough to let us hire them for the undertaking and an assault on foot would prove disastrous since it would be impossible to outrun night guards on speeder bikes if worse came to worse.

Instead of taking the main road into Angkor where the largest concentration of guards patrol, we turn off a few kilometers before the ruins and take the back way that we had scouted a few days before. Revving at full speed we approach the smaller guard post which is responsible for stopping tourists from entering the complex after sunset. We are counting on the fact that many locals must use the roads around the ruins to get to their villages and homes that are scattered throughout the area. Their presence there rightfully grandfathered in, so some traffic at night is expected. The idea is that the guard will never suspect a motorbike at 11 o’clock at night to carry two foreigners. It is illegal to rent motorbikes in Siem Reap, so just the fact that we are on two-wheeled transportation makes us look un-suspect. We keep our heads down, wrap our faces with shirts and pull our hats low over our brows.

Then all of the sudden, before we even have time to worry ourselves into a frenzy, we zip past the guard post, our little headlight streaking by, our engine popping and churning, spitting out black smoke from the excess of engine oil we un-proportionally mixed in with the gasoline. We look pretty standard I guess, an overloaded bike, belching sooty exhaust, heading home in a hurry. We make it through.

The trees break around us into a clearing and we see it: Angkor Wat, the most famous temple of the Angkor complex and the focal point of ancient religious life in Khmer society. An enormous feat of architecture and manpower, Angkor Wat is the largest religious building in the world and one of the most iconic buildings in history. The place is normally crawling with tourists, but this night, under the silvery blue of the full moon, it stands like a silent sentinel, resting from the onslaught of feet and the flashes of cameras that it endures everyday. We have the place to ourselves.

We circle around to the west side of Angkor Wat and park the Minsk stealthily behind a tree. Every once in a while a car or motorcycle approaches and we duck behind bushes to avoid the revealing glow of their headlights. Some of the traffic is undoubtedly locals, but others are certainly night guards. It is highly illegal to be in the temples after dark and the consequences of getting caught are dire, either jail or a lot of bribe money. We are illegally tromping through a UNESCO world heritage site and I feel scandalous, but not guilty. I feel blessed. I feel like we are there for the right reasons, with the right intent, we are there to celebrate the New Year as it should be celebrated and where it should be celebrated. At Khmer cultural ground zero.

We grab our supplies and hammocks off the bike and make a dash across the large clearing to the sandstone bridge that crosses the 160 meter wide moat into central Angkor Wat. We quickly survey the surrounding area, noting there are no headlights approaching and make a run for the walled city, completely exposed as we dart towards our destination.

The doorway of the outer wall frames the interior of Angkor Wat perfectly as I walk through it, the frame growing and growing as my perspective changes until it finally dissolves out of my peripheral vision and I enter the full grandeur of the scene. I feel like I have crossed into another world, walked through a portal, walked into a picture or a painting, walked out of my time and place into a place of enchantment and mystery. Suddenly I am inside the magic and although it is nighttime, the moon illuminates the structure perfectly, its nightly hue making everything look even more mystical. My first un-obstructed view gives me a commanding panorama of the temple center. Five enormous towers stretch into the sky, one for each cardinal direction and a fifth in the very center, 65 meters high, symbolizing Mt. Meru, home to the pantheon of Hindu gods.

We cross the causeway which links the outer walls and gallery with the central structure. From the outside of the moat to the center of the temple is about 730 meters, ¾ of a kilometer. Keeping to the shadows and keeping quite we enter the main temple, past the ancient bathhouses and towards the central towers. There we scale up the insanely steep stair sets, passing signs of “Do Not Enter” we crawl up into the focal point of the symbolic center of Angkor society.

On the eve of the year 2555 of the Khmer calendar we climb to the very center tower of Angkor Wat, string our hammocks amongst the temple pillars and stare in awe at our surroundings. From the vantage point of our new bedroom the sprawling grandeur of Angkor Wat spreads out below us in every direction. The temple is literally radiating heat, pulsing like a living entity, the enormous thermal mass of millions of pounds of sandstone releasing its stored energy into the night sky.

Never before and never again will a human being be in Angkor Wat, in the middle of the night, under the full moon, as the cycle of time brings in the year 2555. That window of opportunity, that exact moment in history came and then went and my buddy and I sit in silence and realize we are the only ones who will ever have witnessed it. For the rest of the history of the Universe that moment is ours. It feels magic, epic, exhilarating and highly illegal.

It is incredibly humbling to think of the celebrations that took place at Angkor Wat 1,000 years ago during the New Years. In fact, it was probably the largest celebration on the planet. But here we are, looking out at the now silent grandeur of Angkor Wat, feeling lucky and feeling small, but feeling literally on top of the world.We sleep in our swinging hammocks for a few hours until daybreak and then stealthily make our way down from the temple just as the hordes of tourists begin to arrive for the official opening of the park at 5:30 AM. We have no tickets since we have squatted the whole night through, but we slowly mingled in with all of the camera-toting travelers. We have perfect cover, able to blend in with the newly arrived crowd even though really we have been in the temple for hours already, taking in a view and experience that none of them could ever imagine.

We casually snap a few shots of the sunrise over Angkor Wat with the rest of the crowd and then stroll straight out the main gate, smiling and waving at the guards as we pass (you never get checked for a ticket on the way out). I feel like a jewel thief that just completed a caper and is strolling through the open streets with a bag of stolen goods. We are all smiles, just two more tourists walking past the authorities. Beneath my mask of serenity I am internally bursting, knowing that I have acquired something precious and fleeting from Angkor. A memory I will never forget for the rest of my life.

One Day At Angkor: Part 1

SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA

My eyes blink awake to see morning light pouring into the room. I am barely able to un-glue my tongue from the roof of my mouth, that sticky sick feeling of whisky and cigarettes still clinging to my mouth like a bad memory. It is day three of the Khmer New Year Celebration, the final day. Tomorrow marks the year 2555 on the ancient Angkorian calendar and there is no time for feeling sorry for myself, no time to allow a magnitude 9 hangover to keep me down. It is bright and early, the sun is just coming up and even though my head has just hit the pillow it is time to get up.

I pull myself together the best I can, brush my teeth, take a cold shower and hit the streets. The morning sun over Siem Reap, Cambodia is already blasting too bright for my delicate eyes which means two things: I am late and I need my sunglasses. I fish my shades out of my pack and then remember that I had lost my rental bike the night before. This means I have no transportation which doesn’t help my tardiness.

I begin walking due north out of Siem Reap, heading towards the sprawling temple complex of Angkor. I manage to thumb a ride on the back of a Moped, the driver heading out to Angkor to peddle his wares to the minions of tourists from around the world.

I make it to Ta Prohm, just as the perfect morning sunlight hits the ruins through the jungle foliage. Ta Prohm in the most “authentic” of all the immediate Angkor ruins, meaning it was so completely overrun by jungle upon it’s re-discovery that it was utterly impossible to untangle the stonework from the encroachment of the forest. It is a maze of jumbled rocks, huge tree roots and crumbling towers. Its east gate is topped with an eerie all seeing quadruple face relief, typical of later Angkorian architecture. The faces seem to look in every direction at once, a mask of serenity but also surveillance. It is said that in the later centuries of the Angkor period, the empire was divided up into 54 separate states. The faces are incorporated into the architecture to send a clear message: “we are watching.” They were an important symbol for a kingdom that had become diverse and sprawling, with a long history of revolt and usurpation.

I sit on a broken piece of a sandstone pillar and look up and the faces glowing with morning filtered sunlight. They stare back. I wait. I am supposed to be meeting my friend here, he should be arriving at any moment on a 1967 Soviet-imported Minsk motorbike. He picked the bike up somewhere along the trail in Vietnam. It had been used to run weapons between Viet Cong strongholds in the war years before changing hands over and over until it arrived firmly under the weight of my buddies backpack. He had been traveling for two months with it, all throughout Vietnam and now finally across the border into Cambodia. We had agreed to meet at Ta Prohm to go on an excursion together out to some of the farther constructed complexes, places that you can’t get to normally without your own transportation. I am a little late. Hitchhiking never goes well with schedules.

Through the dust and chaos of the traffic which has began to descend upon Ta Prahm for the morning light photo ops, I see Chris approaching. The Minsk is rattling along, the two-stroke engine popping like a lawn mower. Chris’s face is all smiles. He wears a cut off plaid shirt, headband, jean shorts and haggard flip flows. He looks like he has been on the road. He looks at one with the bike. He looks as excited as I am.

We head to a local food stand and pound down some Lok Lak; fried beef hunks, covered in mystery sauce and served over rice with onions. It s the Khmer food staple, whether for breakfast, lunch or dinner. It is a hearty meal and we both know we are going to need it for the day’s adventures.

I strap my red day bag over the back of the bike as he restarts the engine with a pop. I grab his backpack, sling it over my shoulders and settle onto the back of the bike. It is not a large bike and I struggle to find a place for my feet amongst the frame. There are no pegs for the second passenger, the bike is as bare bones as it gets, utilitarian to the core. The only reason it has survived for 50 years is by its hardy simplicity.

After some awkward flailing and re-adjustments we zip away from the main Angkor complex into the countryside.

Now some people know this, some people don’t, but there is really no better way to see a place than by motorbike. It is the ultimate vehicle, personal in the sense that the scenery is literally washing over you, the wind and smells confronting you as you drive past whether you like it or not. Food stands, animal carcasses, burning trash piles, sulfury swamps, or cool lake air, whatever you pass you literally seem to taste. Cruising past other travelers huddled into tour buses or expensive Tuk-Tuk’s we fly deeper into rural Cambodia. We are going on the path less trodden, out first stop the mystic carved river banks of Kbal Pean located about 30 kilometers outside of Angkor proper.

The scenery becomes more rural as we continue on. Houses built on stilts are the most common type of construction, high enough off the ground so that when the rains come and flood the fields for growing season, their livelihoods remain dry and elevated. Farmland stretches out in every direction, cows graze along the road or take a nap in the center of the thoroughfare. Dogs go about their lazy lives, yawning and sprawling in the shade as the temperature continues to climb. Huge post apocalyptic tractor contraptions become the most standard vehicle, their engines un-covered, churn way out front, attached to a swivel that extends back like an elongated rotatiller. The handles are attached to the swivel and controlled by the driver who is perched on a makeshift cart. Sometimes dozens of Khmer’s are stacked onto the cart going to or from work.

We pull up to Kbal Pean after a brisk ride, stopping far enough down the path so that we don’t have to pay to park the bike. From there we head into the jungle, the electric buzz of insects are everywhere, clicking and chattering. The Cambodian jungle hangs thick around the path, vines draping down like huge swings, boulders swallowed by root systems and the sun absolutely blasting through the canopy any place that it filters through the jungle thicket.

For an hour or so we hike upward, along cliff sides which overlook the valley below, scrambling over broken rock and under debris. Finally we reach the river bed and behold the ancient carving therein. In the rainy season the river rages downward, helping to sustain the crops of the lower Khmer’s for thousands of years. In the dry season, the water shrinks to no more than a trickle and it was then that the ancient artists of Angkor came to do their work.

The riverbed itself is carved into intricate designs. Relief’s of gods and kings as well as purely decorative patterns mingle with the natural rock, some times hidden behind a bolder, sometimes tucked up on the cliff side. Everywhere we look we can see another secret, another piece of art that took untold hours to carve. Lingams and Yoni’s are everywhere, by far the favorite decoration of the area. The belief was that water was the center of ancient Khmer life, it was the nectar the nourished the entire civilization. The riverbed was carved to honor that water, so that the river would flow over Gods and Kings before reaching the lowlands. It is an impressive sight and unimaginable that the carvings remained in such detail after being flooded by ragging torrents of water every season for thousands of years.

Local kids play in the trickle of the waterfall and in the punchbowl in the stone which the water has created over

countless wet seasons. Locals are lounging in hammocks, cooking fish over small fires and enjoying the coolness of the jungle shade. It is fascinating to think of their ancestors before them putting tool to stone to create the timeless pieces that remain today. It is impossible to not be overwhelmed by the richness of history and culture here, it is everywhere, literally carved into the living stone.

We head back down out of the sacred hills, we still have a lot of ground to cover today and the sun is reaching it’s zenith in the sky. Fully flexing its power, the heat makes both of us sweat profusely on our down hike. We get back to the bike, un-lock the chain we have woven between the back tire spokes and get situated. The Minsk has no ignition key and when she is feeling good tempered, she can be kick started at any time and driven away unless proper lock-down precautions are taken. After we de-tangle her, she starts right up and with map in hand we zip back out onto the main road.

Our map is haggard and out of date, crumpled and soggy, but it is our only reference. Our next intended stop is Beng Mealea, one of the most mysterious ruins of the Angkor period. It was built along the old highway system which linked the urban and political center of Angkor Wat with the rest of the outlying cities. It is a less visited ruin because it lies far away from the cluster of structures, which are on the standard tour of the “Angkor complex.” The mystery of Beng Mealea lies in its decay which is nearly absolute. The re-colonization of the site by the jungle after Angkor decline was thorough and devastating, completely overrunning the defenses of the outer wall which, although effective against invaders, could do nothing against the juggernaut of raw nature.

The ruin lays somewhere off to the east. We are not sure exactly how to get there but that is precisely why we are going. No one goes there.

After an hour of riding and a few stops to rest our aching asses and slurp down some moderately cool refreshments from roadside vendors, we reach a crossroad; a crossroad that doesn’t look like anything on the map at all. We know the correct direction to go and we know that the ruin lies six kilometers from the ancient and sacred mountain of Phnom Kulen. We can see the “mountain” rising up to our left, looking like a long finger of jungle covered cliffs that stretch as far as the eye can see into the country side. The left fork of the crossroad heads in that direction, but it looks far from well maintained. The pavement abruptly stops and turns into an iron-red dirt track cutting into the alluvial plain. The “road” doesn’t exist on our map, but we are sure that it must lead to our secret ruin. At this point it is the only logical road to take: the road less traveled.

We peel off into the dust and grime of the un-pavement and immediately wash out in the deep sand which gathers in piles at various points along the road. Nearly taking a bad spill mere moments after the inception of our new plan, we stop again and take a few deep breaths. “We better just take this slow,” I say looking down at my calf that is throbbing after being burnt when the exhaust pipe of the bike lay over on top of my leg. “Um yeah,” says Chris, “ I have never really ridden a bike off road before, let alone with two people.”

An awkward silence follows as we both gaze down the dirt track that leads for unknown kilometers into the countryside. Then at the same time we both exclaim, “We’ll be fine,” and with a chuckle we take off again.

Chris is actually a master off-roader, he just didn’t know it yet. Before long we hit our rhythm, zipping in and out of crater sized potholes, around drainage ditches, sand pits and jumbles of rock. We are truly off the beaten track, in the middle of nowhere now, paralleling Phnom Kulen as we head nearly due east. The surrounding area is farmland as far as the eye can see in every direction.

We stop for a rest after some time, giving ourselves a break from the constant borage of bumps and jolting which we have endured for what seems like hours. Stopped on a small bridge over a lagoon the scenery is timeless. It feels like we could be in any moment of time in the last few thousand years. Nothing is around but low-tech cultivated farmland, a dirt track, a magical mountain, a few palm trees and us. Well, and the motorbike which is barely from this century.

Eventually up ahead we spot pavement again. It is an exhilarating feeling. Although we still don’t know where we are, at least we know that some kind of humans must use this part of the road. We must be nearing something. The long finger of Phnom Kulen has slowly sloped back down to the lower levels of the plains, meaning that according to our calculations, the ruins should only be 6 kilometers farther east and an unknown number of K north.

We are beginning to look like total disasters. We are both completely covered in mud. The mud started as dust but after in combined with the perspiration which has erupted out of our bodies while riding through the mid day heat it turned to pure slimy grime. We make it into a town finally and promptly, as if on cue, as if the bike had done its best to avert a total disaster but can take the abuse no more, we blow out our back tire.

Now this kind of break down could have been really really bad. If it happened out in the middle of the dirty track we would have been really and truly fucked. We would have been hiking in the heat for hours with no hope of help. However, after Chris managed to keep the bike upright long enough to not kill us both, we coasted to the side of the road and a little convenience shack. There we ordered beers and asked if it was possible to fix a tire in this small outpost of a town. Well as it turns out, directly across the road, not even 100 ft away was a little stand that specialized in inner tube repair. It is probably the only place which provides such a service for hundreds of kilometers and we have basically blown a tire at their doorstep.

We roll the Minsk over to the workshop and throw the bike up on wooden blocks. We then rip out the inner tube, dowse it in water and pump air into the dilapidated tube which already looks like a Frankenstein creation of puncture patchwork. Sure enough the hiss of escaping air and the bubbles which the puncture whips up leads us right to the hole. Some kind un-identifiable metal object had ripped right into the inner tube.

At this point Chris drops his camera in a giant vat of stagnant water and simultaneously finds a filthy forgotten hammock on the workshop floor. Our luck is getting eerily Shawnish, sure we popped a tire, but then we were easily saved, Chris destroys his camera but then finds an important object for our later night’s plan. We have been looking for a hammock for Chris all day, the reason for which is a dangerous mission to be embarked upon after dark. The hammock is a filthy pile of flea ridden garbage but Chris was stoked, he bought it from the tire fixer for 50 cents and paid him another dollar for the patch.

With uncanny efficiency, the type that can only come from having your entire livelihood and career be based off of fixing flat tires, the local tire guy fixes us up, throws on a patch, lathers some kind of crazy glue all over the tube, sets it all briefly on fire to seal every thing up and send us on our way. One tire fixed, one hammock acquired, one phone down.

At this point it is getting late. We know that we want to spend a good amount of time exploring the temple of Beng Maelea and there is only a few more hours of daylight left. We are both starving, we haven’t eaten since early in the morning and have been hiking and biking intensively all day. That said, there is no time for food now, if we want to get our temple ramble on we need to do it now. We know we are close so we skip food, skip buying water and tear off northward, hoping to see the temple soon.

We know we are on the right track when we see a massive checkpoint up ahead. The type of place where you stop, pay an entrance fee and get a ticket to go in. We stop a little way away, watching a few locals go through unmolested, just waved through by the guards. “OK man,” I say, “whatever you do, just don’t make eye contact and look like we know what we are doing. And if things go bad, just gun it.” With that we rip off toward the checkpoint, accelerating through the gates as the guards wave and yell and try to get our attention. We just look straight ahead and fly past, the Minsk popping along, revved up into the red, screaming as we zip through.

Beng Maelea appears suddenly. The massive ancient moat which surrounds the city alerting us initially to its presence. We park our bike at the ancient stone bridge over the moat which is adorned with 9 headed dragons. No time to lock up the bike, we just have to trust that no one is sinister enough or smart enough to steal her. We run across the moat, over the ancient bridge towards the central ruin.

Beng Maelea is tragically beautiful. On approach it looks like a total pile of rubble. The main gate has an avalanche of sandstone blocks pouring out of it. You can immediately tell its former grandeur was epic in proportions and beautifully constructed, but Beng Maelea is also a perfect symbol of the crumbling of Angkorian society. Grand in scope but brutally destroyed upon its downfall. We climb straight up the mountain of rubble and ignore the semi-established path which circles around to the north. It is time for some proper temple rambling and Beng Maelea is the absolute best place to do it. Left basically as it was found, it is a labyrinth of dark corridors, collapsed towers, impressive walls and intricate carvings. There is no security, no rules, you go where you want, where your interest takes you, trying to re-construct in your mind what this sprawling complex looked like in it heyday.

The way that the jungle has annihilated the place is more than impressive. Huge trees sprout up in the most un-likely of places, on doorway arches, over walls, winding between statues. One of the most humbling thoughts is that although the trees are massive and ancient, probably 2-3 meters thick and hundreds of years old, these trees are the grandchildren of the original flora invaders. They are babies in the re-colonization campaign of the jungle. The total destruction of the structures can not be understood with the current jungle, but only if you remember that this is the third generation of assault, huge corridors and roofs which now lay in total disrepair where attacked centuries ago, finally crumbled under the wait of the jungle, only to have the trees which annihilated them die themselves, fall over, decompose and disappear. The effect is that although the destruction seem incomprehensible it must be seen in the context of millennia.

The best way to explore Beng Maelea is to take the high road. Most of the roofs of the temple have long collapsed, which means that the thousands of tons of stone which had created intricate arches and watertight corridors have all fallen inward, filling the spaces below which they once sheltered. The best way to get around is to crawl over the walls, using them as elevated highways to get from one place or the other. In this way, not only are you up four or five meters up and can move free from the rubble, but you also have a commanding view of the entire complex.

One of the most intriguing intricacies of a temple ramble is to see a random piece of sandstone block, cast amongst the debris of a thousand other sandstone blocks, no more special than anything else, a lonely piece stone which was once part of something greater. On this one block, which I randomly decided to focus on there are unbelievably skilled carvings. Now it lies cast aside, no more special than the pile it rests on, but so intricate, such an amazing achievement. Every piece of debris tells a unique piece of the overall story, a story of a culture which placed unbelievable amounts of emphasis on their architecture and art, creating spaces that were greater than their individual parts, but also fascinating in their detail. They created pieces of art which were livable.

This is exactly why I came to Cambodia. This is the dream I have had since I was a little boy, experiencing the magic and mystic of Angkor. Fueled off Tintin, Indiana Jones and National Geographic’s it is this experience that I wanted. A true exploration of something ancient and mysterious, still half swallowed by jungle where any discovery you make may be the key to unlocking thousand year old secrets. We get lost for hours, sometimes together sometimes separating as our noses and eyes are close to the ground searching for something precious or fascinating.

We left Bang Maelea completely starving and completely dehydrated. The Minsk was still parked at the ancient bridge right where we left her, so that was one good thing. We headed off back towards Siem Reap, only one part of our mission left to accomplish, the most illegal part, the part that involves hammocks.

Chris has broken his flip flop in our ramblings, which just adds to our general demeanor of flusteredness. We are filthy, hungry, thirsty, out of money and ready to get back. We take off back in the direction we came, again gunning it through the security gate as guards try to run out and pull us from the bike. We bypass the “non-road” we had taken along the base of Phnom Kulen and take the normal highway.

Just when the ol’ Minsk gets up to speed and we are feeling like we are finally heading back toward civilization she gives a sputter and a cough and dies. We coast to the side of the road. Out of gas in the middle of nowhere. “Last time I was on a motorbike I ran out of gas, “ I say. “Well, in two months of riding around half of Asia I have never run out of gas, “ replies Chris. “It must be your luck.” The poor guy doesn’t know how true that probably is. The hazards of traveling with me, the ups and downs of Shawn luck when it strikes hard can be unrelenting. Sometimes I feel like I should come with a warning label telling my future travel buddies the hazards they are engaging in just being near me when I am on the road.

At this point there is no option but to send me on ahead as Chris stays behind and slowly pushes the exhausted bike down the road. I hitch a ride on an Ox cart with a kind faced old man and his young son. The cart is piled high with huge blocks of charcoal. I scramble up on top and promise Chris that I will return as soon as I can with a litre of gas. We manage to extrapolate that a side of the road gas-station is only a few kilometers up ahead where they sell litre’s of gas in whisky bottles. So off I jostle down the road, the sun is now setting and casting brilliant swaths of orange across the sky. I laugh at my predicament and praise life for its randomness from my new throne on top of the charcoal. The scenery is beautiful and wild, I feel totally isolated in my predicament, somewhere in the Cambodian countryside hitchhiking on an Ox cart.

I arrive at the gas station and buy a litre of gas in a glass bottle of Red Label Whisky. I walk back out onto the road to start thumbing in the opposite direction back towards Chris when I see a commotion up ahead. Something is coming up the road towards me, I can see its headlight, but it sounds like it is working really hard for such an even grade of road. As the vehicle approaches and materializes out of the near dark duskness I see that it is Chris, still riding the Minsk, but being pulled along by a moped driven by too saintly young ladies. With one hand he is steering and with the other hand is gripping the rack on the back of their Moped. He had done a little hitchhiking of his own.

So we met in perfect timing, dump the gas into the tank, sincerely thank all of our saviors, the women, the ox cart driver, his son and the shady whisky bottle slinging gas station attendants. Again we zip off, this time into the blackness of night.

Now we are really and truly exhausted. We still haven’t eaten since breakfast and our water was long gone hours ago, all that we want is to reach Siem Reap where we know there is civilization and we can prepare for the final and most ambitious mission of the day. As we will ourselves forward, thinking of nothing but the approaching city we again feel the Minks sputter under our bums. Thinking this must be some cruel joke we pull over on the road, unable to believe the sad but true: we are out of gas again.

Again we start walking, pushing the Minsk along with us. We have bigger problems than normal because the two-stroke oil which must be mixed with the gasoline is also completely depleted. We need a legit gas station or mechanic shop or we are doomed. As Shawn luck would have it, after a mere 10 minutes of walking we come upon a moto repair shop and garage, out in the middle of nowhere. They supply us with both gasoline and oil and again we prepair to leave. This time though the Minsk is less cooperative. The kick-start won’t work so Chris has to bump start her on the flat road. It is one of the funniest things I have seen in a long while, Chris on the seat of the bike, his two legs working like giant paddles on either side of the bike as he wobbles down the road trying to get enough speed for the motor to turn over. Traffic is zipping by, nearly clipping him as he weaves in and off the shoulder. Finally I hear the motor catch and rev up. We are good to go, I hop on the back and we make our final approach to Siem Reap.

Civilization has never looked so good. We look like total messes. Dirty, grime and filth, broken flip-flops, sunburned, sullen dehydrated faces and darting eyes which come from extreme hunger and fatigue. We stop and eat some noodles, some of the best food of my life. Then quickly I head to my room, grab my hammock, Chris goes to his place and takes a quick shower. We meet up again in 10 minutes flat and prepare for the final stage of our crazy Khmer New Years day. The best part, the most dangerous part, the most illegal part is mere moments away. We are both nearly shaking with anticipation about what we are about to do. It is a ballsy move, historical, it has never been attempted and it is the pinnacle of the adventure. Again I pile on the bike and off we zip into the night hoping that the ration of good to bad luck from the day puts us ahead for this next phase. The stars are shining brightly as we head into the forest, I look up and think to myself, “we are going to need a lucky star for this one.”

(Continued soon, promise)

Koh Tao Emergency

The Island of Koh Tao has been destroyed. The catastrophe began shortly after we finished our diving certification, which was in a sense the only good luck about this debacle; at least we got semi-clear water for our underwater excursions. As always, the beginning seems innocent enough, in this case just a stiff breeze ripping in from the east, battering the far side of the island.

Then the rain began to pound and refused to stop. At first we all went swimming, basking in the bath warm waters of the Gulf of Thailand as the drops slammed down, raining up at me from the sea. Next small streams began to appear around the island, starting as little rivulets of water trickling through any low spaces; along the roads, down the paths, between the bungalows and the alleys between nightspots. That first onslaught was only a jab however, like an exploratory blow from a kick boxer simply trying to find a weakness before the true attack comes.

The situation quickly became more serious and the amount of rain and wind became anomalous, something that no one had seen this time of year, something to banter about around the bar or in the bungalow. These observations soon became irrelevant and the trivialness of “noticing” the bad weather became clear and the island deteriorated into a full blown crisis. Buildings began to flood, streets filled up into rivers and the pavement of the roads was washed out to sea like pebbles. As the torrents continued the situation only became worse. There was nothing anyone could do but sit back and watch the destruction. The seas were whipped into a frenzy of large powerful swells. The boats and the ferries completely stopped normal operation. Everyone who was on the island was stuck on the island, there together weathering the storm.

The electricity began to become intermittent, some say because the generators were running low on fuel and re-supplies could not make it out from the mainland, some figured it was just the standard destruction that occurs to power lines when high winds send debris whipping around like pieces of straw. Nevertheless, the power became sketchy, both Internet servers on the island went down and supplies and basic food stuffs in the stores began to dwindle.

The Royal Navy got called in to help. Not because the food was getting low, but rather because the supplies of beer and cigarettes were nearly exhausted. It was rumored that the Prime Minister of Thailand himself made the executive decision upon hearing the dire news and decided to intervene in order to prevent the island from being ripped apart by its inhabitants.

Word came down that an aircraft carrier would be sent in the morning to evacuate whoever was in need. People had been stranded for days, missed flights, overstayed visas, dealing with serious medical issues and missed obligations elsewhere. We all waited for the morning when we were told to assemble on the south end of the island for be transported to the mainland.

In the meantime things continued to deteriorate, rivers of mud had flowed down the mountainside and washed out buildings and homes. Businesses were completely flooded, sandbags were scattered everywhere but were ineffective against the sheer magnitude of water. The main tourist strip looked like it had been hit with a bomb, large parts of the paving had been annihilated and the route became impassible. To get anywhere you had to wade through knee deep water. Tourists woke up with their belongings floating around them and the water lapping into their room through the windows. Entire beach front establishments were disintegrated and washed out to sea. The aqua marine blue waters of the island turned to muddy trash filled soup. The bays were filled with boat carcasses, half submerged, smashed into each other and left to be destroyed in the surf. Palm trees lay strewn everywhere, the soil beneath their roots was literally carried away beneath them until they toppled over like matchsticks.

I heard that more rain fell on Koh Tao in just three days than they receive in the entire year and that is including their monsoon season.

The best way to get around became to go as naked as possible, because any clothing which you wore was soaked within minutes. In fact laundry and hygiene in general was becoming a major problem. Nothing was able to dry in the humid and wet climate and slowly backpacks filled up with damp mildewing clothing. The sun worshiping tourist crowd became a herd of rain-poncho clad recluses. Everyone who normally paraded around basking in sun-tanned glory now resembled odd moving Christmas ornaments, each locally bought poncho of pastel pink, blue or green bumping into each other as they mucked through the mud.

So everyone arrived at the secret pier in the morning to get evacuated from the mayham. Miscommunication was at an all time high. No one knew what was happening, only rumors that had circulated the night before. According to one Austin Powers looking Brit, “The aircraft carrier will be bigger than the whole Island of Kho Tao, and I should know, the British invented the aircraft carrier after all.” The scene was a full on refugee looking situation, except with a little more beer. Everyone that needed to escape had shoved into the lobby of the Koh Tao Resort and were barricaded against the wind and rain which continued to howl outside.

Eventually somebody hooked up the PA system and began to speak into the microphone. The Royal Navy aircraft carrier would indeed be arriving soon and all that we needed to do was line up, sign a sheet which verified we were trying to make and escape (for insurance reasons they assured) and wait for the boat to arrive. There were close to 1,000 people trying to evacuate and so the seen quickly became chaotic, everyone began by rushing to try and sing up first, but this was obviously hyper-counter productive. Eventually we were convinced by the woman with the microphone that everything would be much better if we just calmed down, relaxed, sent one representative for each group traveling together and lined up orderly. “Don’t worry,” she said, “the Navy is here and everyone will be getting taken out of here like one big happy family.”

Finally everyone had calmed enough to actually register. Each person was given a ticket and a sticker, the color corresponding to the destination we were hoping to reach. I had purple for Bangkok. I was labeled.

Suddenly out of nowhere the massive hulk of the aircraft carrier appeared out of the sea mist and froth of the ocean. Looming massively out of place on the once serene Thai waters it seemed to completely juxtapose itself against the experience that we were all hoping to find on Koh Tao: relaxation, remoteness and chillness. Nevertheless it was inspiring, it was hope, it looked like a formidable force and a true tangible escape route. A cheer rose up from the crowd. We were going to be saved! We would make it out of this place finally, the government was taking care of it, bless the Thai Prime Minister and the Navy’s resourcefulness…….or so we thought.

It took about an hour and a half for the ship to find proper moorage. I can’t speculate about why it was so difficult, it seems like a boat that size, with an anchor that size should be able to drop line pretty much anywhere in the world. For some reason, the Thai seafloor was proving difficult and we watched and anticipated as it did tiny concentric circle patrols just out of reach, looking for a place to whole-up.

The scene in the resort was post-apocalyptic. Little groups of travelers had huddled on the floor, circling up around their bags like pioneers protecting themselves against attacking marauders. Trash was strewn everywhere and everyone looked truly disheveled and confused. Each time an announcement was made the hubbub would subside enough to get the message that nobody knew anything about anything and we would go back to dozing, talking, card playing, reading, music playing or staring off into the wall.

Finally a boat arrived from the carrier, it tied up at a pier near the resort and began to accept passengers. The feeling was actually quite positive at that moment, it seemed like things were finally really happening. Small “long tails,” local boats with three meter long propeller tipped drive shafts attached to car engines, would be ferrying us out to larger boats, which would in turn take us out to the carrier that was still farther out awaiting our arrival. From there the carrier would take us to a port town near Bangkok where we would meet up with government hired buses to take us into the countries capitol. Neat diagrams were drawn up on poster board and posted around to illustrate the effectiveness of the strategy and put everyone and ease. The problem was that once again everyone wanted to rush the boats, once again we were soothed by the folks on the microphone who assured us it was much better to stay indoors, away form the rain and wind and just wait patiently.

Helicopters began to make runs to the island. Whipping over us with the stereotypical “Whump, Whump,” that you have heard on a thousand movies. Like giant metallic bees they whirred overhead, back and forth back and forth, flying deafeningly low. The helicopters began taking the disabled, the elderly, the pregnant and otherwise needy travelers to the boat. It was a simultaneously exciting and desperate feeling. It felt like there was no way that anything other than success was possible, the government had come to our rescue afterall. However as time went by most of the weary group remained stranded. It seemed like no one was getting anywhere.

Hours past and we waited full of hope. As we looked out at the hulk of the Navy boat just out of reach the storm began to again flex its elemental muscles. The long tails stopped making shuttle runs, there was no way to get us from the shallow waters of the resort out to the carrier. The storm was just too strong. Soon even the helicopters, which we had assumed could weather almost anything, stopped their patrols and evacuation. The weather simply refused to let us escape from the island. With all of the force of the Thai’s largest Navy vessel there to assist us, the temperament of Poseidon prevailed. For twelve hours I waited, little food, little water, waiting for a turn in the weather, waiting for shuttle services to resume by air or sea. The inactivity of the evacuation process became eerie. Doom settled in.

Finally the intercom system screeched and crackled as someone picked up the microphone and cleared their throat. The announcement came through, no one else could be evacuated that day, the waves were just too big to get out by boat and the wind was too strong for the helicopters to keep flying. Everyone who was not already on board was going to need to wait it out. “We’re sorry, but there is no way to get you out of here. If you have family already onboard, you are sick or injured or have a flight in the morning we can take another ten people,” said the speaker to the crowd of 1,000 refugees. Chaos.

The hulk of the carrier seemed so close you could touch it but there was no way to reach her. The helicopters had seemed so invincible yet the silence in the sky that had replaced their rotors seemed deafening. Both a literal and emotional cloud settled over us as the news sunk in. People began to burst into tears, make bribery attempts, hire private boats to take them out to the carrier and attemptl to ie their way onto the last emergency helicopter.

Exhausted, emotionally destroyed and hopeless we slunk back towards the destruction in the interior of the island, looking for somewhere dry to rest our head for the evening. We were stuck again, our only hope was the compassion of the weather gods. The Navy boat raised anchor and steamed off towards the mainland, leaving us all behind. Maybe we will get out tomorrow…….

ERAWAN BLISS

We walk down the dusty road, pothole marred and lined with vegetation beaten down by the dry season. The village is small, rural and dominated by the monastery and minions of Buddha placed throughout the hills. The bulk of the population seems to be either canine or monk. Near the temple a tree stands by itself, providing shade for the temple guardian, a small monkey who watches over the grounds and fends off evil spirits. In the tree a monkey-house has been constructed to provide sanctuary from either blazing heat or pouring rain. The monkey has the most important job in the village.

We are going to a soccer match. Not to watch, but to start it up. We had acquired a ball during the trip from Bangkok, something to keep ourselves busy and active during various stops along the way for food or toilet breaks. It was now the most shiny, new and fun-creating item in the village. We kicked it along the road as we moved towards the school, attracting stares and interest. Soon the village knew where we were going and word spread like wildfire.

The school is the center of activity and the villagers have gone to great lengths to maintain a quarter sized soccer field out front. Upon arrival we had to jockey for dominance with the local cow herd which had meandered onto the field to help “mow.” Unfortunately they had also left behind steaming bovine paddies which were scattered across the field like land mines. After clearing the mowers we began to kick the ball around and weave between the dangers with tender attention. Many of our players went barefoot, and many a player got a squishy surprise between their toes or slide tackled into a smear of excrement.

The game slowly starts, first only us foreigners (know as Ferangs) were stupid enough to brave the late afternoon heat, but soon the eyes which had tracked us down the road began to materialize into able and excited bodies, ready to get involved in the game. Before long we have a full on soccer match raging, our smallest player coming in at 4 years old and the oldest one probably being myself at 27. People zipping by on scooters or bikerx stop and before long the whole village knows of the crazy Ferangs playing soccer in the heat and cow shit.

The game battles on and we all end sweaty and laughing at our predicaments. I come away bloody from sliding into a gravel patch, my buddy comes away covered in yellow, green cow excrement highlighted by half digested grass fibers and everyone leaves happy.

Erawan National Park is an amazing place, just outside of Kanchanaburi, Thailand it includes a number of impressive cave systems and an incredible multi tiered water fall. We spent a few days basking in sheer Thailand bliss. Food cooked fresh and bursting with flavor and spice good times with the generosity and conditionless compassion of the locals. We bushwhacked through the jungle to the top of a mountain, dodged giant bat-eating cave snakes, fended off mosquitoes and scorpions and helped out our friends with crops and landscaping. We guarded our vitals against marauding thieving monkeys who tried to steal our lunches, mucked through murky swamps that smelt of carcass and re-discovered the elusive “Joe Banky Shit Cave” of IVS lore. Nowhere inundates you more quickly into Thailand than this part of the country. We would be traveling far and wide, into some regions far from comfortable, but as a microcosm, Erawan is the Thai’s Thailand. Village life is largely simple, healthy life. It is an amazing pace of life.

BRAIN OVERLOAD AND IMPENDING DOOM

Bangkok, Thailand

Sitting looking out my window over the roof-scape of the structures below, I am reminded of youth. I remember distinctly the same view 10 years ago when I was fresh and scared, excited and full of wonder. That view was one of my first in Thailand and was one of my first international moments. Now I look over the same roofs and wonder how I got here? How has this world turned 365 x10 times, 3650 revolutions since I last saw this? What has changed? What is the same? Are the differences going to be within me or within Asia? I think both.

I feel strong. Good. Ready to be in a position of responsibility, ready to approach this job with correctness and draw the distinction between work and vacation. It is interesting to feel comfortable here because frankly I do now know this place well anymore. The last time I was here I was 17, however I do feel able to travel with confidence. Who knew that aimlessly rambling and popping out the other side still alive could be turned into a salable asset, that travel hours logged can make you marketable? I don’t feel confident about Thailand, but I do feel comfortable in Thailand. I feel ready to take it on without crippling nervousness in a position of semi-authority.

This entrée already deserves a borage of knocking on wood. Ultimately writing about my current optimism will of course guarantee hard times to come. That is the way of the world, the world of my luck. I know down the road there will be troubles, hard times, confusing situations and moments when I feel inadequate. Those entrees will also have to be written and when I look back on the rosy writing of today I will surely laugh. Well hopefully.

I love the bright and wide eyes of the students. It is incredible and empowering to see their mentality and outlook change right in front of me. I see connections made, assumptions shattered, questions formed and questions resolved. In many ways it feels like watching a child develop. Never is a brain as busy as when it is subjected to new environments and surroundings. Traveling is literally the fastest way to make new connections within the brain, it is a biological fact that not since infancy when the human brain is truly like a sponge, can the brain develop as rapidly as when abroad and stimulated. There is no other way to learn so much so quickly. The standard and formal paradigms of education fall to the wayside as a traveler begins to learn with all senses at once . No longer is information transmitted solely through words on a page interpreted through eyesight and translated for the brain to process. Instead holistic over-stimulation smashes into the cerebral as sounds, smell, touch, sight, taste and emotion transmit new information simultaneously.

It is excitement. It is the greatest hit. It is what all travelers ultimately come back for. I can watch it in my students and I can feel in brewing within myself. Bring on the confusion!!!!

Bangkok

The beginning of this adventure has come and gone. Only now, nearly a month into my travels have I had the time and quietness of mind to sit down and write. The old struggle between committing time to stop, breath, slow down and reflect on my experiences and continuing to go out and accumulate new stories is once again playing tug –o-war with my conscious. It is times like these that I usually cut and run, leave the weeks old adventure in the dust and move on to relate the more visceral, the more tangible adventure of yesterday and today. But I will try to rewind, simply because there is too much to tell and maybe, with luck I can cover enough to get me back to the present.

Arrival into Thailand was like finding myself in a reoccurring dream, a place familiar but fleeting, a place that I knew well but was unable to decipherer the legend in my own mind from the true experiences of years gone by. The feeling of deep déjà vu ran through me like a train, everything so similar but just different enough to question whether it was Thailand myself that had changed over the past 10 years. Ultimately it has been little of both.

The Shanti Lodge is a place of refuge. Quietly tucked away in the Tewet district of Bangkok it constantly bustles while remaining homely. The open aired hallways hang thick with vegetation, the kitchen is constantly emitting delectable smells of gingery, garlic, Thai-succulance and Thai massage is gloriously relaxing the inhabitants. It was there that I rediscovered into the depth of my connection to Asia for the again, there that I ran into old friends for the first time and there I realized that not only did I remembered Asia, but Asia remembered me.

The staff at the Shanti Lodge became good friends of mine during my first tour of Thailand in 2000 and now, more than ten years down the road many of the same smiling faces greeted me. One of the most striking things about Thailand is the apparent health of the people both mentally and physically. Immediately upon arrival our students reported feeling healthier than ever, that a weight have been lifted from their shoulders and that even in smoggy Bangkok an aura of good living was contagious. Indeed many of my acquaintances here look exactly the same if not younger. The resilience of the Thai’s is amazing; aging with grace is a inspiring thing to behold first hand.

Bangkok is a fascinating city. We started with a temple tour, heading from the Shanti Lodge through the bustle of the riverside market which crawls with live fish, meter long eels, snails, toads, chickens, spices, drying meet, stray dogs and peddlers of every variety. We made our way slowly, swimming through the smells until we finally arrived at the Chao Phraya river. Bangkok has been called the Venice of Asia and its intricate system of waterways provided the original public transportation for the city. River Taxi’s have operated efficiently and reliably for centuries as the city has grown around them into a tangled mass of traffic jams and high rises. There is no way quicker, more interesting nor more direct than utilizing the carp infested canal systems to get where you are going. And it is not secret: the river itself is jammed with all manner of boats and random rigs. Barges pushed massive piles of trash to unknown destination, “rooster tail” boats with their converted four cylinder car engine outboards zip around in chaos and near collisions and the ferries diligently bump and grind their way from stop to stop. The biggest danger is getting your arm caught between the boat and the tire lined piers as the taxi snaps into place off the lassoed spring lines.

First stop the grand and majestic Wat Po, home to the largest reclining Buddha in Thailand. As always the magnitude of the Buddha is breathtaking and I was immediately reminded of the significance of religion to art throughout the ages. Regardless of creed it is impossible to dismiss the resources put into art by faith worldwide. Throughout the time it has been through the lens of religion (or narcissism disguised as piety) that has prompted humanities most precious works of art and architecture. Whether at the Vatican, the Taj Mahal, Angor Wat, Manchu Pichu, Chichen Itzá, the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Acropolis or a native village on the west side of Vancouver Island, religion is the original benefactor of artistic expression. Nowhere is this more apparent than Bangkok which houses at least one elaborate temple in every neighborhood and contains a total of 450 Buddhist temples city wide.

After a tour of Wat Po and the intricacies of the temple complex we crossed the river again to visit the historically significant temple of Wat Arun. Built in Khmer style and constructed when the center of power was moved from Ayuthia to Bangkok by Rama I, Wat Arun was originally created to house the Emerald Buddha, on of the most sacred relics of early Thai/Khmer history. It is said that whoever controls the Emerald Buddha controls power over the Thai Kingdome. The effigy now rests safely at the Royal Palace in Bangkok after a long and adventuresome tour of the world via pirates, marauders and traders.

Although no longer housing the Buddha, Wat Arun still stands tall, a testament to the initial push towards Thai nationalism and the consolidation of governmental power in Bangkok.

After a day in the sweltering heat it was all about street food and Bananan Lassi’s whipped to a cool refreshing froth. The first day is the craziest day, simply in the fact that time becomes so relative. In new and stimulating surroundings your brain can process more information in one day than it does in a week in your comfortable abode back home. The brain is literally creating twice the connections as normal and “growing” at twice the normal rate. It is for this reason that when my head finally hit the pillow that first night it felt that I had been going for a week.