Revenge of the Apes

Sunday, March 6.

Went for a walk along the Siem Reap River. It has two footbridges and a traffic bridge all in easy walking distance of the hotel. They are lit up like carnival attractions at night and they connect the markets on either side of the water.

We saw what we thought at first was a Ferris wheel, but discovered was a water wheel placed to draw attention to an upscale mall called King’s Road.  There was also a large fake monkey at the entrance to the mall.

The mall has several restaurants, including one called Emperors of China. They offer Hong Kong style dim sum, but Joanna says most of the menu is Beijing. They do offer Peking duck.

We shared a couple of dishes of dim sum, crab meat dumplings and small cakes made of turnip, which I liked better than the dumplings. A pot of tea and bowls of steamed rice rounded things out nicely.

Joanna asked about the Peking duck. The Cambodian waiter’s English wasn’t up to the conversation. She asked if the chef spoke Chinese. He came out and Joanna asked him about Beijing duck, "Beijing" because he spoke Mandarin.

Indeed, it doesn’t need to be ordered 24 hours in advance, as in many places. We decided to come back for dinner.


After lunch, we strolled past the night market, which seems to be open in the daytime too. I had damaged Joanna’s saffron umbrella. It still works, but I wanted to get her another. We had no luck there.

Joanna remembered that the second footbridge was the last chance to cross the river for quite a while. So she saved us from getting lost.

We wandered a few of the side streets, and then retreated from the heat to the hotel.

We were back at the Emperors of China sometime after 6. They bring out the whole duck, head and all. Then a server cuts the meat off the carcass in bite-size pieces. To eat it, you wrap the meat, with a little sauce, in a mu shu pancake. We had bok choi and rice on the side.

A lot of families were out for Sunday dinner. At lunch, there was a trio of youngsters who were chasing each other around the dining room squealing.

There were several toddlers at dinnertime but they weren’t playing tag or hide-and-seek. A little boy was apparently in the early stages of weaning, so he was crying and hanging on to his mother. He was later distracted by grown-up food.

A little girl went from table to table to say hi to other kids. I can’t be sure, but maybe they all knew each other.

There was one baby, maybe two years old, being fed noodles from chopsticks. Then the kid took the chopsticks and picked up a mouthful of noodles unassisted. Later the same kid coordinated the chopsticks with a spoon.

We would be out to Angkor Thom in the morning, so we made it an early night. We strolled back to Pub Street, where I had a beer. We bought some yogurt at a convenience store and went home.

Monday, March 7.

Angkor Thom is the last capital city of the Angkor period. Jayavarman VII had it built in the late 12th century, about the time of St. Francis of Assisi and Richard the Lion-Heart.

Not far from the entrance to the Angkor Archeological Park there is a children’s hospital named for Jayavarman VII. So even after more than 800 years he is still a very popular guy around here.

At Angkor Thom, traffic crosses a restored bridge with an ancient balustrade that looks like the tug of war with the serpent. Then it enters through the original south gate and proceeds to the crown jewel of the place, Wat Bayon.

Most of the city has disappeared altogether. Or maybe it has sunk into the ground. Bayon, however, has been restored and you can walk through it.

The temple has towers covered with smiling Buddha faces, said to resemble Jayavarman. There are several active altars set up in it, including one where they ask you to remove your shoes.

I walked through a narrow alleyway and was crawling over the steps into a chamber when Joanna shouted “monkey.” It had climbed a support for a corrugated awning and was looking around.

Joanna was concerned because the animal was only few yards away and they are known to bite.

Several other people came running to look, and the monkey must have felt a little self-conscious, because it crawled back under the awning to hide. I could duck down and see it sitting on the stones that the awning covered.

We climbed some new wooden stairs and walked around on the upper level, face to face with Jayavarman, you might say. It is a wonderful view—the hazy forest, the guys trimming palm trees, the towers and faces, and lichen too. A little crowded, like Disney World, but just so surprisingly wonderful.

I walked past a guide speaking English to a couple of people. The faces, he said, have Cambodian features. He pointed out that the nose is a little flat. The Barang nose, on the other hand, sticks out, he said. Joanna wanted to offer me as an example.

We were making our way around the roof, when I saw the top of the corrugated awning. I jockeyed my way through busloads of Red Chinese tourists to see if the monkey had come out again.

It was out, all right, directly in front of me. It climbed lazily onto the roof with all the rest of us and picked up a small plastic bag, either forgotten or left on purpose.

The monkey opened the bag as if it had done this before and took out a slice of dragonfruit (unmistakable red rind, white meat, black seeds). Monkeys don’t eat the rind either.

Tourists were coming up to the monkey while it ate and posed for pictures that would look like they were petting it. That was probably foolish enough, but at least nobody was so foolhardy as to touch it.

Someone must have made at least one false move, because the monkey opened its mouth to hiss and show its teeth. People got the message and backed off.

It finished the fruit, and went back to its awning.

So here was a monkey in a temple, and from my observations so far, I’d judge that one monkey qualifies as filling a temple. After all, it treats the place as its own.

When we came out of the temple, we ran into more monkeys. There must have been eight or a dozen, running across the ground and up in the trees.

After Bayon, we stopped at the Terrace of the Elephants, one of the remaining bits of the Royal Enclosure. There is an Elephant Gate at Angkor Wat. It was built without steps because people rode up on elephants and dismounted directly onto the porch.

I don’t know if that was the purpose of the terrace, which is an earthen dike fronted by a stone wall carved with the figures of elephants.

We went a little farther and got out of the tuk-tuk to explore the Terrace of the Leper King. Who’s going to pass up something with a name like that? Apparently one of the kings of Angkor Thom, like one of the Crusader kings of Jerusalem, had leprosy.

We threaded our way through a narrow gallery open to the sky. Joanna had read that the carvings there represented the king and his concubines. Most of the figures are bare-breasted women. Like the original Starbucks mermaid, they have nipples.

We went back to the South Gate and watched a wedding party on the moat. The bride and groom, dressed in traditional satin clothes, were in a golden dragon gondola rowed by a single gondolier. A similar boat, not golden though, carried the photo crew.

We had seen a similarly dressed couple outside Angkor Wat. The bride’s dress is a kind of traditional sheath. The groom’s suit, in matching color, has Yul Brynner pants.

I was wondering out loud if they were the same couple—maybe hired to go out and look colorful. But Joanna said no. This couple was in lavender. The couple at Angkor Wat wore pale green.

We headed back to the hotel neighborhood for lunch and to collect the laundry.

But there was one surprise stop on the way. Kwak, the driver, saw them first and pulled the tuk-tuk over. There, across the road, was a clan of monkeys. They may have been interested in a nearby fruit stand. But something spooked them. There were dozens of them—mamas carrying babies, young ones running with the group, single adults. Monkeys looking for a temple, I guess.

I’m not sure how much detergent, if any, the laundry used for our clothes, but at least they came out a little cleaner than they went in.

Lunch was at a sidewalk place across the road. Joanna had fried morning glories and rice. I had the national dish, amok, which can come in various versions. I had one with coconut milk, possibly basil (although the leaves looked too big), and slices of fish.

What a day, gang. Going back for more tomorrow.

Love to all.

Harry