The Pajama Mystery, and other tales

As I sat on the bus early this morning awaiting our departure from Siem Reap to PP, we were bombarded with terrible covers of pop music and I began to think about the number of truly mysterious things we had encountered so far in Cambodia. Obviously, when traveling through other countries you expect large cultural differences and thus these are sometimes less confounding than the odd little things. Fried cockroaches and tarantulas for sale on the street? No problem. Terrible 80s soft-rock covers dubbed over equally terrible music videos in english? Laura and I were bursting into fits of giggles. For a little while we were alarmed thinking that the next 6 hours en route would be spent with such no so subtle background tunes, but luckily once we started rolling they put on Home Alone 2: Lost in NY. My favorite example of cross-cultural differences too however was the Pajama Mystery. An unfortunate aspect of these minor mysteries is that they are often things that would be awkward to ask about, and thus remain unsolved. The pajama mystery, however, was just what it sounds like, in that we saw people all over wearing pajamas. All day. Matching top and bottom prints were to be found on just about every corner on both children and adults. At first we thought they were isolated incidents, just some people running out to get something, but then realized that women were wearing them with heels and that people wore them all day. We chalked it up to some sort of fashion.

Other funny things include the ubiquitous use of "lady" as a term to call out to get a woman's attention to sell them a) a tuk-tuk ride b) a meal c) post-cards, scarves, cold drinks or other odds and ends at the stalls right outside all the temples or d)anything else you could possibly sell anyone. Unfortunately, and I don't mean this in a terrible way, the intonation with which this word is said (because of their accent?) results in what is possibly one of the MOST annoying sounding words to hear over and over. I wish there were a way to convey this sound, but its something like lay-DEEE with the second half of the word increasing in pitch with extreme upward inflection.

Our first day in Siem Reap/Angkor Wat was definitely the hardest in terms of general harassment, both because we were new at it and because we were at the most heavily touristed sites. We knew a bit of what to expect from previous research online/in the guide book and I was pleased to see much less begging (often from victims of the land-mines) than I had steeled myself for, but that didn't make it any easier. The hawking was just as prevalent as expected, especially at certain sites, and though less aggressive than it used to be apparently it was still very persistent. The stalls are easy enough to walk by, but the hardest thing is the kids. The parents use the kids (who are all ADORABLE) to sell postcards, bracelets and trinkets. As soon as you get out of your transportation of choice (in our case, the tuk-tuk) you are accosted by a few beautiful little smiling faces "Lady, lady, you buy bracelet? 5 for $1" and saying "No Thank You" does essentially nothing. They walk with you until you go through the gates and are there waiting for you when you come back out. What makes it hard is that, even if you do think you might want something, its often hard to determine whether or not you do because you know that as soon as you look potentially interested in something, you're a goner. Where the moral right lies here, I don't know. I do know that its very hard to say no to these kids all the time/ignore them, but that if you don't want to end up with a lot of things you don't want, it's necessary. It wears on your soul.

Despite these difficulties however, we had a great time at Angkor Wat and it's neighboring ruins. As I mentioned previously, we got up at 4:30 on Thursday to catch the sunrise over Angkor Wat, and I got to use my new camera for the first time which was pretty funny as we were surrounded by some pretty serious photographers who meant business while I sat trying to figure out which button did what. Oh well. We walked around Angkor Wat (in case you don't know, the largest religious structure in the world) until 8 am. It's amazing how long the morning is if you get up for the sunrise! After that we toured the Bayon and a number of other famous temples, all remnants of the Angkorian civilization general built in the 11th Century. They blur together a bit in my mind amidst a swirl of sun, heat, tuk-tuk rides between, and warding of the hawkers, but each was in it's own right fantastic.

Friday, as I alluded to, we spent of the day in our trusty tuk tuk riding about the country side as we went to 3 sites, 2 rather distant north and the 3rd off to the east. Bantay Srei, the first, was an old temple with some of the most beautiful carvings I've ever seen, while Kbal Spean is a river with beautiful carvings in the rocks about 1.5 km uphill, just above a waterfall. Incidentally this spot is nicknamed "the river of one thousand lingas" because of the number of "one thousand lingas" carvings present, which lookd like series of circles in boxes, but while viewing the site neither of us could remember what a linga was and were too embarrassed to ask. Later we looked it up later all it said was that it was a phallic symbol. Then we laughed. The rest of the afternoon was spent in our epic tuk tuk journey to Bang Malea and then pretending to be Indiana Jones.

Today, after our long bus-ride we showed up in the capital tired, hungry and hot, but due to a mishap with the hostel we were supposed to stay at we spent quite a bit of frustrating time spent riding about in the blistering heat asking about availability instead of sight seeing. All's well that ends well however, and we ended up at the Waterfront Guesthouse, a nice, simple (but clean) place right on the banks of the river. Nothing that a delicious early dinner and some ice cream couldn't fix. Tomorrow we'll see the city in the morning before leaving for Chau Doc, Vietnam in the afternoon via a boat down the Mekong River. We're hoping it floats.