Cambodia

I went to Cambodia expecting Angkor Wat to be the highlight.

I didn't expect to love Cambodia quite as much as I did.

Of course I wanted to see Angkor Wat. Everyone wants to see Angkor Wat. I'd seen those unmistakable towers in photographs for years, and they were the big prize waiting for us at the end of our bicycle trip from Vietnam.

And Angkor was extraordinary.

But when I think about Cambodia now, I don't just think about temples.

I think about bicycles and red dirt roads. Lotus fields and rice paddies. Kids running out to see us as we rode through their villages. Monks. Markets. A calf running beside my bicycle.

I think about Phnom Penh, a city I hadn't expected much from and almost immediately wanted more time in.

I think about a country with an almost incomprehensibly painful recent history that somehow didn't feel defined by it.

And yes, I think about eating a tarantula leg.

Because apparently that's who I am now.

Crossing Into Cambodia

We didn't fly into Cambodia.

We arrived by boat.

We'd started our journey in Saigon and spent several days cycling through Vietnam's Mekong Delta before reaching the Cambodian border. Our ultimate destination was Siem Reap and Angkor Wat, but getting there was the whole point.

And we weren't doing it alone.

We were traveling with a dear friend of mine from fellowship, her husband, their little boy and her older dad. Add Vuong and me, and we were a fairly multigenerational little bicycle gang making our way across Southeast Asia.

We actually had different guides for the two countries, and we lucked out with both of them.

In Vietnam, our guide was Phuc Le, who asked us to call him Mr. Happy. He guided us through the Mekong Delta and became part of the adventure himself.

At the Cambodian border, we said goodbye to Phuc and met Art, who would guide us through Cambodia all the way to Siem Reap.

Art was every bit as wonderful. He took care of our multigenerational little group, kept us moving, handled logistics and showed us a Cambodia we never would have experienced from inside a tour bus.

Later, when one wrong digit on my Vietnamese visa left me stranded in Siem Reap, Art would come to my rescue.

But we'll get to that.

There's something about entering a country slowly that I love.

Airports are efficient, but they're also strange little bubbles. You land, collect your luggage, go through immigration and suddenly you're somewhere else.

Crossing by river was different.

We got to watch one place gradually become another.

And almost immediately, Cambodia felt different from Vietnam.

Not better.

Not worse.

Just different.

We'd only crossed a border, but we knew we'd arrived somewhere new.

Phnom Penh Knocked Our Socks Off

Phnom Penh was supposed to be a stop along the way.

Instead, it knocked our socks off.

I hadn't expected to love it as much as I did. It was cosmopolitan and chaotic and beautiful, with French colonial architecture mixed among temples, markets, modern buildings and busy streets.

We explored Wat Phnom. We saw the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. We visited the National Museum.

And almost immediately I wished we had more time.

I remember thinking that I could happily spend a week there.

Maybe a month.

We didn't have either.

We had bicycles waiting.

Back on the Bikes

Leaving Phnom Penh was...interesting.

There was traffic.

There was construction.

There were moments when I questioned whether riding a bicycle out of a major Southeast Asian city was an activity sensible adults voluntarily undertake.

And then the city disappeared behind us.

Suddenly we were riding past lotus fields and rice paddies.

Through villages.

Along quiet roads.

This is why I love traveling by bicycle.

You're slow.

And in travel, slow can be a very good thing.

You're not sealed inside a car watching the country pass by through glass.

You hear it.

You smell it.

You feel the heat.

You see people working and cooking and going to school.

And they see you.

We'd ride into villages where kids would come out to greet us. We stopped at a school and became considerably more interesting to the children than whatever they had been doing before we arrived.

At another stop, monks let us use their toilet.

This may not make the average list of Cambodia's Top Ten Must-See Attractions.

It made mine.

At some point, a calf ran alongside my bicycle.

There were rice paddies and lotus fields and tiny villages and people going about ordinary lives.

This was the Cambodia I hadn't known to look forward to.

The Things You Find Along the Road

One of the best things about traveling this way is that the stuff between the attractions becomes part of the trip.

Sometimes it becomes the best part.

We stopped for snacks.

We tried fruit.

We passed spirit houses and temples.

We rode red dirt roads through the countryside.

And then there were the markets.

Oh, Cambodia.

There were tiny frogs.

Larger frogs.

Stuffed frogs.

Crickets.

Ants.

Bee larvae.

And assorted other things that I couldn't identify and wasn't entirely sure I wanted identified.

I am actually a pretty adventurous eater.

That does not mean I approach a tray of insects with the same enthusiasm I approach a bowl of noodles.

But travel has taught me that sometimes you just have to try the thing.

At least once.

Preferably while someone is taking pictures.

Cambodia's Other History

Most people know Cambodia for Angkor Wat.

Many also know it for the Khmer Rouge.

Those two things occupied most of the space Cambodia took up in my mind before I went there: an extraordinary ancient civilization and an almost unimaginably horrific period of modern history.

But, of course, a country is much more complicated than either of those things.

The Khmer Rouge years devastated Cambodia. Millions of people were killed or died from starvation, disease and forced labor. Families were destroyed. Religion and education were attacked. The effects didn't disappear when the regime ended.

That isn't ancient history.

People alive today lived through it.

Families still carry it.

And as we traveled, that history wasn't confined to a museum or one designated historical site. It surfaced in stories, damaged places and even food traditions.

During the Khmer Rouge years, starvation forced people to survive on whatever they could find, including insects and other creatures that most Americans would never think of as food.

Suddenly the trays of crickets and frogs we'd encountered weren't just an amusing travel story.

There was history behind them too.

But just as I don't think of Vietnam primarily as a war, I don't think Cambodia should be reduced to the worst thing that ever happened there.

Because the Cambodia we experienced was also warm and funny and curious and welcoming.

Kids waved at us.

People smiled at the ridiculous foreigners pedaling through their villages.

Monks helped us.

We received a Buddhist blessing.

We shared little moments with people whose names we would never know.

Cambodia's history matters enormously.

But Cambodia is not simply its tragedy.

Riding Through Ancient Cambodia

Before we reached Angkor, we visited Sambor Prei Kuk.

The temples there predate Angkor, and we rode our bicycles through the forest among the ruins, following trails between ancient brick towers.

This was exactly the kind of experience I'd begun to love about traveling by bicycle.

There were no grand entrances.

No pulling up in a vehicle, taking a photograph and getting back in.

We were moving through the landscape.

Trees surrounded us.

Ancient structures appeared through the forest.

It felt like exploration.

Of course, we weren't discovering anything. Plenty of people had been there before us.

But travel doesn't always have to be about finding something nobody else knows exists.

Sometimes it's about having a moment that feels like it belongs to you.

Cambodia gave us a lot of those.

And Then There Were Spiders

Eventually, we reached Spider Village.

You can probably guess what they sell there.

Tarantulas.

Fried tarantulas.

There are moments in life when you have to decide what kind of person you are.

Apparently I am the kind of person who will eat a tarantula leg.

I was willing to participate.

Within reason.

I ate a leg.

And then, being the generous person that I am, I graciously saved the body for our driver.

I didn't want to be selfish.

The Day We'd Been Riding Toward

Eventually, we reached Siem Reap.

This was what we'd been working toward.

Angkor.

We got up in the dark and headed to Angkor Wat for sunrise, along with what appeared to be every other human being in Cambodia.

We waited.

Gradually, the sky began to lighten and those unmistakable towers emerged against the morning sky.

There it was.

Angkor Wat.

The place I'd seen in photographs for years.

The place we'd been riding toward.

And it was magnificent.

But sunrise at Angkor Wat wasn't the end of our day.

It was the beginning.

We got back on our bicycles.

And what followed was my favorite day of the entire trip.

Through Angkor on Two Wheels

We spent the day riding sandy trails through the jungle, moving between the temples and ruins of the enormous Angkor complex.

And once again, the bicycles changed everything.

Instead of driving up to a temple, getting out, looking around and getting back into a vehicle, we moved through the landscape connecting them.

We rode through the forest.

Ancient stone appeared between the trees.

Every so often we'd round a corner and there would be another extraordinary structure waiting for us.

Bayon fascinated me.

Faces everywhere.

Huge stone faces looking out in every direction, serene and mysterious and impossible not to stare back at.

Then there was Ta Prohm, where enormous tree roots spill over ancient walls and wrap themselves around the ruins.

Nature is quite literally reclaiming the temple.

It's beautiful.

It's eerie.

And somehow, despite having seen photographs of it before, being there still felt magical.

Art guided us through all of it, leading us along those sandy jungle trails and showing us a version of Angkor that felt much more adventurous than simply being driven from temple to temple.

We'd started that morning watching the sun rise behind Angkor Wat.

By the end of the day, we'd ridden through the jungle between some of the most extraordinary ruins I'd ever seen.

It was the best day of the entire bicycle trip.

Angkor Wat may have been what I'd been waiting for.

But the day was so much bigger than Angkor Wat.

And Then I Tried to Leave Cambodia

Remember Art?

This is where he really earned his tip.

Our bicycle trip was over, and Vuong and I were supposed to fly from Siem Reap back to Vietnam.

We had somewhere rather important to be.

We were heading to Phong Nha to begin our long-awaited expedition into Son Doong, the largest cave in the world.

At the airport, we discovered a problem.

My Vietnamese visa had the wrong passport number.

By one digit.

Vuong's visa was fine.

Mine was not.

He could board.

I could not.

And we couldn't simply wait around together because we had a very expensive, very difficult-to-reschedule cave expedition waiting for us in Vietnam.

So Vuong left without me.

I stayed behind in Cambodia.

And Art helped me.

Even though his job guiding our bike trip was essentially finished, he didn't disappear the moment the tour ended. He helped me figure out what to do and get the visa problem sorted out.

Unfortunately, by the time we fixed it, there were no more flights that day.

So I spent another night alone in Siem Reap.

Sick.

At the time, I didn't know exactly why I was sick.

I would eventually discover the answer:

Giardia.

Because apparently a one-digit visa error wasn't quite enough adventure.

I finally made it back to Vietnam the next day and eventually reunited with Vuong in Phong Nha in time for Son Doong.

It's a much longer story involving a missed flight, an emergency visa, a slightly alarming nighttime drive and the world's largest cave.

But the important part for Cambodia is this:

Art took care of me when he absolutely didn't have to.

A great guide can change a trip.

We were lucky enough to have two of them.

The Cambodia I Remember

Before this trip, Cambodia existed in my mind mostly as two things.

Angkor Wat.

And the Khmer Rouge.

One was ancient and magnificent.

The other was recent and horrifying.

Both matter.

Neither prepared me for the country we actually experienced.

They didn't prepare me for Phnom Penh.

Or lotus fields.

Or red dirt roads.

Or children running out to see us.

Or monks letting desperate cyclists use their bathroom.

Or a calf deciding to run beside my bicycle.

Or riding through forests filled with thousand-year-old temples.

Or sharing the whole adventure with a dear friend and three generations of her family.

They definitely didn't prepare me for the tarantula.

I went to Cambodia expecting Angkor Wat to be the highlight.

And it was every bit as spectacular as I'd hoped.

But if we'd flown directly into Siem Reap, toured the temples and flown home, we would have seen one of the world's great wonders.

We wouldn't have experienced Cambodia the way we did.

The bicycles gave us that.

They made us slow down.

They put us on village roads instead of highways.

They made the distance between Phnom Penh and Angkor part of the adventure instead of something to get through.

And somewhere between the Mekong and Phnom Penh, the rice paddies and red dirt roads, the frogs and tarantulas, the ancient temples and sandy jungle trails, I fell completely in love with Cambodia.

I loved Angkor.

But I loved, loved, loved Cambodia.

And if I go back—and I hope I do—I don't just want another sunrise photograph at Angkor Wat.

I want more of everything that happened along the way.

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