chef’s market

banzaan

Ok, I lied. After lazing around for two days I needed to get off my duff and do something, so I hijacked the chef from Paresa to take me on her morning rounds to the local market in neighboring Patong. And what a far cry from Siem Reap it was! The banzaan, or fresh market, is a contemporary two-story affair with specific sections for meat, seafood, vegetables, flowers, and a bizarre-looking selection of fruits. Everything is neatly presented – even the pigs hanging upside down are artistically arranged – and more importantly, nobody is scaling fish or beheading chickens in their bare feet. It was like Citarella, albeit with a more herbaceous, Asian flair.

black crab

half chicken

strange fruit

curry paste

super squid

sorting herbs & chilis

sweets

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here a tuk, there a tuk

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honestly sincere

sok

If I take away one thing from this country it will be the generous, friendly nature of the people I have met in this small corner of Cambodia. Like Sok, one of the pool attendants at the Raffles Grand Hotel D’Angkor. Every time I came for a swim he would greet me, bring me some fruit and ask me about my day. He seemed genuinely interested in whether or not I liked his country. Without irony or subtext or sarcasm we would chat for a few moments only, yet the human connection was real and sincere. And so it was all over Siem Reap: an earnest inquisitiveness, an absence of hidden agendas, an honest concern. What does it say about my life in New York that these kind of interactions would seem so surprising, so out of the ordinary?

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chaos and claustrophobia, or the daily shop

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For sheer chaos and claustrophobia, it’s hard to beat the daily market in Siem Reap. (The smells, too, are something I’ll not soon forget.) Most of the meat and fish is killed and cleaned to order, so you know it’s all as fresh as it gets – if not exactly on par with Western standards of safe and sanitary. I left wondering what, if anything, might make these women – mostly barefoot in and among the blood and guts – squeamish.

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the return of the apsara

apsara dance

The relatively recent history of Cambodia is horrific. Under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge the country was subjected to a radical social engineering project in the 1970’s that aimed to create a purely agrarian Communist society. Around two million people were forced from the cities to take up agricultural work in the countryside. The party controlled what they wore, whom they could talk to, how they acted. Children were believed to be tainted by the capitalism of their parents, so they were separated, indoctrinated in communist ideology and made a dictatorial instrument of the party, given leadership roles in the torture and execution of anyone suspected of being a traitor. And almost everyone could be considered a traitor: intellectuals, artists, minorities, city-dwellers and anyone with an education. In little more than four years the Khmer Rouge killed an estimated 1.5 million people – a fifth of the country’s population – through torture, forced labour, starvation, and executions. Unbelievably, one of the many groups targeted were the Apsara Dancers, practitioners of the classical Khmer dance which dates back to the 7th century. (The Angkor temples are festooned with thousands of images of the Apsara. During this period, dance was ritually performed at the temples as both entertainment and as a means of delivering messages to the gods.) Although 90 percent of all Cambodian classical artists perished in the genocide, the tradition of the Apsara was resurrected in the refugee camps in eastern Thailand with the few surviving Khmer dancers. Yes, I had come to Cambodia because I wanted to see the temples, but what I needed was to see this dance: elaborately dressed, performing a slow and figurative set of hand gestures and poses, invoking the gods and enacting epic poems; a testament to the power of art and a point of national pride. (Plus, anyone with even a passing familiarity with The King & I will immediately notice where Jerome Robbins stole his best ideas.) The return of the Apsara augured not only a reestablishment of civil society but,  more importantly, a resurrection of the country.

apsara dance 2

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sizing up the night market

pub street

Night markets are a tradition particular to Asia. A crazy open air jumble of stalls and stands selling everything from meat and produce to tchotchkes to clothing, condiments, and prepared foods, it only comes alive after dark. Part shopping mall, part social scene, it makes for great people watching while also being quite handy for souvenir shopping if you’ve spent your entire day engaged in more culturally elevated pursuits. In Hong Kong the night markets are pristine; in Bangkok only slightly less so. Here in Siem Reap the capitalism is nakedly pure – if slightly less hygienic: no price is what it seems and absolutely everything is negotiable

night market

night market toenails

night market grill

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moating

gondola launch

After trampling up and down temples in the sweltering heat – I’ve tried to not belabor the point but it is hot, hot, hot in Cambodia! – it’s time for a little luxury:  skimming the moat of Angkor Thom in a private gondola stocked with champagne and canapes. As the sun set the moon rose high into the sky, casting an iridescent blue glow over the waking jungle.

gondolas

moorise over the moat

pale blue glow

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beware the giant cambodian spider

giant cambodian spider

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three monks alighting on a temple

three monks

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sunrise, angkor wat

sunrise, angkor wat

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all this and siem reap, too

grand hotel d'angkor

Built in 1932 to provide accommodations for the first wave of travelers to whom the Angkor Temples were an obligatory stopover, Raffles Grand Hotel d’Angkor is hands down the place to stay in Siem Reap. Spread over acres of landscaped French gardens, it exudes an old-world Cambodian grandeur updated with all the mod cons and comforts. Behind the unassuming façade is an understated elegance of art deco tile hallways, languorous ceiling fans, colonial style furnishings, and what must surely be the country’s most magnificent swimming pool, surrounded by fragrant frangipani trees. This hotel has style to spare – and the steamy weather only adds to the atmospheric allure. I keep expecting to find Somerset Maugham in evening attire, smoking in the Elephant Bar or Bette Davis peering through louvered shutters, clutching a scandalous letter. I’m in heaven to say the least. They don’t make them like this anymore.

grand hotel swimming pool

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