Sight-Seeing Outside Siem Reap by Moto

Word of the Day: Apsara

Female spirit of the clouds and waters in Hindu and Buddhist culture. There are two types of apsaras; laukika (worldly), of whom thirty-four are specified, and daivika (divine), of which there are ten. (Wikipedia)

If someone had told me that I would begin the best day of my Cambodian trip squashed between two men on a small, sputtering moped, then I would probably have suspected them of having contracted some sort jungle disease while exploring the various wats outside Siem Reap. But reality is one thing and expectation is another.

Even now, the day has a dreamlike quality to it. After all, the facts of the situation are entirely improbable: 1) I had never ridden or driven a motorbike in my life, 2) I had just met the small Cambodian man seated between my thighs and I was trusting him to drive me to parts unknown, and 3) the moped didn’t sound so good, banging and flaring over the bumpy roads, giving my normally risk-averse self a silent attack of second thoughts.

The good news was that Boyfriend was riding behind me, so if calamity befell, I would not be alone. And I have neglected to mention that our friend Nathan was perched uncomfortably behind another friendly local gentleman on the next moped over. And so the three American musketeers, none of whom have ever driven anything more technical than a bike and less user-friendly than a car, discovered the wonder of cheap Cambodian dirt bikes, more affectionately known as motos.

After evaluating our relative skill levels on some test drives around their office building, we were assigned our respective motos. Boyfriend and Nathan received the newer (as in, less broken) models, while I was saddled with a ramshackle moto I would come to call Bart. Bart’s body had once been black, but now had ragged scrapes along his sides that I chose to consider ‘contouring’ rather than a sign of a hard life.

From their hushed but pleased mutters, these gentlemen were aware of the fact that they had very clearly given the worst bike to the worst rider. Mise en place. Everything in its place. And before I could protest that I hadn’t mastered shifting or staying perpendicular to the ground while on a bike, we were off!

Our bikes whirred (and, in my case, coughed) along the scenic Cambodian highways as we wound through the outskirts of town. Soon the far-flung houses gave away to fields and the pockmarked highways to dirt roads. And a picturesque creek that we splashed through. And a nearby sand trap that almost killed me. And birds chirping merrily in the forest. And bugs smashing into my face. And smiling, waving children in bright attire. And a mud trap. And more bugs.

And somewhere among the fast-elapsing scenery, the Boyfriend’s moto began slowing down and eventually blew out a tire next to a windswept field full of long, tentacular grasses. Yelling over the crackling static of a state-of-the-art walkie-talkie(!?!), our guides communicated with some friends nearby. And then one of them hopped onto his bike and you could hear the whuff of the bike fading into the distance. And suddenly the bugs and the wind were very, very loud.

Shortly thereafter, our guide triumphantly returned with a new bike tube, which they expertly affixed and blew up in seconds flat. And then we were off again. Soon we reached the foot of a steep hill, and it would not be long before I learned that shifting was even harder when traveling uphill through puddles. In retrospect, I was impressively bad at this.

A little slower and a lot less steadier than the rest, I crested the hill to a real, live parking lot. That parking lot led down to a waterfall so lush and verdant that I had to pinch myself to prove that it was real. I quickly shucked my clothes in the roots of a convenient tree and stepped into the cool, refreshing water. The water sheeted down and coated me in a dewy mist. The sunlight slanted through the trees, setting the brightly-colored flowers alongside the walls ablaze and thickening the mist to near-solid white opacity.

Ouch! Ouchouchouch! Feet under attack! I look down. From…little itty bitty fishies! I jump and they flee. I splash around for awhile enjoying the view and then decide to cut short my painful, ichthyo-exfoliation interlude.

I climb onto a rock and luxuriate in the ever-shifting mists–while pragmatically ensuring that my toes were immune from attack. Some local gentlemen splash through the water beside me and start playing some sort of game with a scarf. They guffaw loudly to one another and launch one of my fishy tormentors in the air in a silvery arc above my head. I can’t help laughing too. Eventually I realize that they are fishing–thinning the herd of foot-fetishing pests–but they only keep the larger ones.

After a peaceful interlude of Ariel-ing on the rock, I eventually splash through the water back to shore (with some fish-induced squealing). Soon after, we took ourselves back up the hillside to a small restaurant where our friend Nathan ate–I kid you not–an entire chicken. It may not have been the largest chicken that I’ve ever seen, but still … it was an impressive feat.

Fully fortified, I smash my helmet back onto my head and kick Bart into gear. And we zoom along some more backroads before reaching a temple on a mountaintop. The only response to our repeated inquiries as to where we were repeated whispers of “Preah Anh Thom” from our guides. In the end, they do not accompany us as we meander up the uneven staircase to the unknown Thom, flanked by colorful mandalas that flutter in the gentle wind. When we reach the top, a small doorway is open wide, so we duck through it.

Inside the shadowed room lit by candles, a golden Buddha lays serenely on his side. The smell of incense wafts in slow and pungent waves. I sneeze. And cringe, certain that I’ve ruined the moment for everyone. Later, I would realize that this mountain was Phnom Kulen, a truly holy site to which Buddhists and Hindus pilgrimage and become even more horrified. But in the moment I duck my head and contemplate the silent ecstasy on Buddha’s face. It looked like he was seconds away from a nap, a feeling of sleepy contentment I could identify with.

My bare feet pad along the floor and then past the recumbent deity. I irrationally wonder what would happen if there was an earthquake–would Buddha roll down the steep hill? Or was he cemented here for eternity? As far as things go, this wasn’t a bad earthly spot–you were surrounded by miles of forest atop the “Mountain of Lychees.” No shortage of delicious foodstuffs here.

In silence, we descended the temple stairs, bumped down the mountain, and landed back onto flat ground. We had only driven only a short while before a black cloud materialized out of nowhere and exploded on our heads. Huge droplets splattered messily all over us. Bart quickly lost a layer of dirt that I had originally taken to be rust– but it only unearthed many more dents than I was comfortable with.

Then, out of nowhere, a rainbow arces across the sky — the most perfect rainbow I’ve even seen. We all stop to gawk and even the guides chatter excitedly to one another, pointing at the marvel ahead of us. Bart’s kickstand sinks deeper in the mud on the side of the road as we ooh and ahh in broken English at one another, as the clouds rapidly pass and give way to way to sun once again.

Strangely elated now, we all fall back into zoom formation and careen along the damp backroads back to civilization. The sun slowly dips into a deep sea of pink, gold, and purple hues. And later, when I pull up to the hotel perched on the back of on another, slightly-less-jenky moto, it is clear that we present quite the mud-stained picture to the well-dressed folks dining al fresco on the patio. And yet, even with witnesses, the day still doesn’t quite seem real.

November 23, 2013