It’s an experience driving in Phnom Penh.  There are few traffic lights and roundabouts and  no obvious rules.  Drivers and cyclists just seem to know how others will behave and avoid them as they would just as if they were walking along a crowded pavement.

It’s the same if you want to cross the road on foot.  Just step out into the flow and keep walking slowly and deliberately so that nobody has any doubt of your intensions and they drive round you. 

Despite the volume and chaos of traffic, we saw just one accident, when somebody fell of their moto at the side of the road.      

Drivers are not neurotic in Phnom Penh.  There are no stops and starts, no irritations, no speed merchants, no horn honking or shouting just a blending into a steady inexorable flow of traffic.  Everybody seems to know what is expected.

But the way, they drive their motos looks incredibly dangerous; police in England would have a field day. Mothers balance children on the handlebars as they drive one-handed through  heavy traffic.  A family, a little baby sandwiched between mother and father, careers along in the flow.  A man controls his moto one-handed while wheeling a bike with the other.  Another balances a big water tank on the handlebars and peers round the side of it.    

Sundays evenings are the busiest time. Then everybody seems to go for a ‘promenade en moto’.  It’s the time to see and be seen.  Men ride upright in shiny suits while their women sit side-saddle in their best pyjamas.   And their children stand up on the seat in their designer football strips and wave.

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Don’t get me wrong.  Angkor Wat is part of a truly magnificent and beautiful complex of temples that was hidden away in the jungle for many years until rediscovered by the French archaeologist, Henri  Mouhot in 1859.   It is a candidate for the 10^th wonder of the modern world, the advertising posters proclaimed.   Some of the temples, particularly the Roulos group and Bateus Reay are so lovely especially when viewed in the evening when most of the tourists have gone, the sun is low in the sky and birds are singing – mellow russet stones amid the dense green foliage.   And then there’s the Jungle Temple, its walls and columns completely overwhelmed by the giant muscular roots of  strangler figs, a mysterious and eerie setting for the film Tomb Raider starring Angelina Jolie. 

Angkor Wat is not so much a church but a house for the Gods.  There are no big spaces.  People just walk round and visit, maybe talk to the monks.   The carved friezes on the outer wall depict scenes from the Ramayana as well as beautiful illustrations of everyday life ten centuries ago. 

I always marvel at the sheer complexity and sophistication of life so long ago.  It reminds me of the triumphant columns of ancient Rome,  the reliefs on the Temple in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt or the magnificent Assyrian reliefs in the British Museum, but you need time to reflect on such things away from the press of tourists and the self congratulatory chatter of Nak, our increasingly irritating guide. ‘I am very fit, I love fast cars, I go cycling.  I cycle back to Siem Riep in 20 minutes.’  Oh really, that’s very good, I reply for the umpteenth time, hoping he might just pick up the note of sarcasm in my voice and desist.  But he’s completely oblivious.  ‘I very strong and handsome.  I love beautiful women.’  ‘You rascal, you.’   

And then there are  the terraces of the Leper King (so named because his image has been overgrown with moss and bits of toes and earlobes are missing) and of the Elephants in Angkor Thom.  These are situated at the edge of a massive arena, larger even than the Circus Maximus in Rome and dominated by massive carvings of Garuda (which until now I thought was just the name of the Indonesian airline). 

What is interesting is not the differences of the Angkor Wat complex, but the connections, the similarities with other cultures; ancient Rome, classical Greece, the Egypt of the pharaohs, the Tigris- Euphrates valley, and of course numerous sites in India.  It’s like convergent evolution; the same patterning is built into human culture but may come to fruition at different times without any obvious link between them.  But could the Khmer kingdom have been aware of classical western civilisations?  Might there have been a link through India; Alexander the Great?   It makes you think, but you have to have time to think.  You need the mental space to discover things for yourself, to pause and reflect.  Another group of flag waving, chattering Korean tourists completely negates that.  But Nak was getting the message.

So I now know what the Nagas are and appreciate that the churning of the sea of milk by the Gods pulling on opposing nagas around Mount Meru threw up all kinds of mythical creatures including the beautiful half Goddess Apsara dancers.  I understand how each ritualised step of the Apsara dance carries a particular emotional significance.  I know about conflicts of Vishnu in his incarnation as a monkey general against the demons.  But I struggle to find any deeper significance in these myths.  So they’re relegated to the back burner.  I know about the life of Buddha, his birth into privilege, his marriage to a princess, the great renunciation, the long years of meditation under the Boddihava Tree until he attained the beatific state of Nirvana.   I find out that Angkor Wat was a garrison for the Khmer Rouge and another temple a field hospital.  I understand how the temple complex was built between the 8^th and 12^th centuries by workers in exchange for their food and lodging and that there were only 4 classes of people at the time; soldiers, farmers, workers and monks – a bit like in mediaeval England.  Facts at the periphery of awareness become fleshed out awaiting  further enlightenment.      

But I guess that’s what travel is about, opening the mind to possibilities, doing some work to try and understand the context, associations and meanings; a  voyage of self discovery.   I’m afraid a guided tour can prevent that.  It’s a bit like eating fast food; it disempowers and is not very nourishing, but if time is short, it can at least provide an awareness for further  study .  So despite Nak, twenty thousand Koreans and Japanese, the whining post card sellers, the guilt at being a rich tourist bastard,  I guess this was a positive experience.  Next time I shall do it free lance and on a bike.

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it clung, sticky fingered,

to an impossible beam

under a palm leaf thatch. 

and in freeze frame mime,

advanced along a leftwards flank,  

then turned, paused, and

Ignoring the claws,

sprung,

seized,  

crunched,

 grinned

and milked the applause .

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A poem and instructions written on the wall of Tuol Sleng internment centre,  Phnom Penh.

No chatting

No laughing

No discussion

No answering back

No opinions

No theatre

No music

No poems

No Literature

No Religion

No priests

No doctors

No lawyers.

No study

No glasses

No football

No games

No playing

No running

No schools

No parents

No children

No brothers

No sisters

No house

No friendship

No flirting

No sex

No love.

No life

 Instructions.

1. You must answer according to my questions.  Don’t turn them away.
2. Don’t try to hide the facts by making pretexts about this and that.  You are strictly prohibited to contradict me, contest me.
3. Don’t be a fool, for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.
4. You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
5. Don’t tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution.
6. While getting lashes of electrification you must not cry at all.
7. Do nothing.  Sit still and wait for my orders.  If there is no order, keep quiet.  When I ask you to do something you must do it right away without protesting.
8. Don’t make pretext about Kampuchea in order to hide your secret treachery.
9. If you don’t follow all the above rules you will get many lashes of electric wire.
10. If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.

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