Day One In The Lost Empire of Khmer

Finding someone who likes the things that you do is hard enough but finding someone to have a stress-free trip with is heaven-sent! We arrived in Siem Reap half dazed because I had spent the night before packing the ‘pummkin’s-infamous-last-minute-items’ & found out later that I left my entourage behind! Not good, especially when I had travel the seas with them keeping me tucked & snug in bed….

Sokha, our driver cum guide, picked us up at the airport, detailing all the stuff we were going to do & stressing that the itinerary is flexible. We checked into a guesthouse but I would deem it as a boutique resort from the friendly & hospitable service rendered. The accommodation was great. We had two beds & ample space to put all our photographic equipment & power to supply to our laptops. What’s better is there’s wifi broadband to stay connected!!! My first inclination was to look for food so we headed out to the Old Market for some walkabout to see what we can savour & in the process, take some pictures of the life in Siem Reap town.

We were picked up to go to the Artisans Angkor, a place of the revival of the art of Khmer almost lost in the Pol Pot’s Regime. An escapee of the genocide who fled to France in the 80’s, had obtained artistic & technical background, enough to help rebuild the poverty & the lost art of Khmer when he returned to Cambodia in 1998. The art of sculpturing & wood carving was taught to the Khmer people & eventually, silk weaving. During his time in power, Pol Pot imposed an extreme version of agrarian communism where city dwellers were relocated to the countryside to work in collective farms and forced labour projects. The combined effect of slave labour, malnutrition, poor medical care and EXECUTIONS is estimated to have killed around 2 million Cambodians, approximately a quarter of the population. His regime achieved special notoriety for singling out all intellectuals and other “materialistic, middle class enemies” for murder. In 1979, he fled into the jungles of North West Cambodia after an invasion by neighbouring Vietnam which led to the collapse of the Khmer Rouge government. Pol Pot was never brought to justice, although he was overthrown and imprisoned by other Khmer Rouge leaders, and succumbed to natural causes in 1998 while under house arrest.

They hire speech & hearing-impaired Khmers after teaching them the skills. A big step in rebuilding the lives of the former war-torn country.

Another artisan who is speech & hearing impaired.

We headed out to our first temple visit for the evening at 4:30pm where we would obtain our passes for the next three days. Entrance is free after 4:30pm when you make your purchase. It’s a bit steep at US$40 but in the ensuing days, it was all worth it.
The Banteay Kdei was the first of the succession of temples which we we would visit & I must say, it is quite ruined. The rustic feel was overwhelming me. It wasn’t so simple as to walk but because there are steps in the doorways, I always have to climb & duck to avoid hitting the top .

When we have done the entire loop of Banteay Kdei, we had a picnic courtesy of The villa!

WIth me enjoying the Brie cheese, olives & wine!!!