Day 237: Last Temple of the Year? Cool Ta Prohm with… Indifferent Kids
We had a nice breakfast in our cool hotel, then got picked up at 9 am for our tour of Ta Prohm.
As mentioned, we did some major rejiggering to our touring schedule in Cambodia, and whittled our temple tour hit list down to….one. And we’re in the land of Angkor Wat! But honestly we’re all so, so relieved we did.
Today’s schedule was a tour of Ta Prohm, one of the coolest temples in Siem Reap, if you ask me. Not because of its history, but because it’s been left alone to be devoured by the jungle. The stones and trees have a symbiotic relationship that makes for interesting thinking about the future of man (this TED-Ed 2-minute animation came to mind) and just breathtaking Hollywood set-esque scenery.
But first: Laundry. Once again we skipped hotel laundry to find a by-the-kilo wash ‘n’ fold. Our guide took us to a place where the total of our full family load was…$5.50. A dollar extra if we wanted everything ironed.
After a total of about 10 minutes in the car, our lovely guide Virak turned around and yelled over to James, “Hey James! You okay? How are you doing?” To which genuinely confused James, not understanding the dynamic of very attentive guides, goes, “You’ve asked me that three times already!”
It was embarrassing for us — Virak’s just trying to be helpful — but telling.
At Ta Prohm we met Olivier, a French architect and expert in Siem Reap temples. His take on our kids’ indifference was refreshing. Instead of pandering to them (that is so f*cking annoying) or nervously dancing around them or just failing to get their attention, he laughed and said his parents made him go to endless temples when he was little and he “hated them all.” And then just moved on with the tour at a rapid clip for us, while Willa and James played in the dirt (their signature temple move).
We liked it, and because the kids were eager to cash in on the Coca Cola we’d promised them if they didn’t bitch, it was quiet-ish.
Oh and we saw an American guy pop the question while we were there!
When it wrapped, our guide and van took us to a beautiful lunch set up at a private home rented out for special occasions.
We were in our raggedy backpacks and rumpled clothes just looking for a bowl of something good to eat — and had two waitstaff unfurling napkins in our laps and standing by, seven feet from our awkward little table the entire meal in case we needed anything.
More on this below.
We wrapped things up and headed back to the hotel for some school and swimming.
At one point while we were in our room, the phone rang. We know by now this means the travel agency is calling to make sure we’re enjoying our time.
Teddy let James answer. It went like this:
“Hello?”
[Pause]
“Fine.”
[Pause]
“Okay.”
James put down the phone and walked over to Teddy: “He wants to talk to a grownup.”
Teddy walked over to pick up the phone. Found it hung up on in the cradle.
James doesn’t know how landlines work. Hahahahhhahahaa!
Willa and I did school in the main building, up in the second floor lofted seating area. I ordered a ginger tea (still having stomach issues) and she got English Breakfast Tea. Big, stupid mistake on my part. She was up all night!!
We relaxed until cocktail hour — cashed in our 4 free cocktail/mocktails at the bar (coupon from hotel) and ate in the restaurant.
It’s the low season here (rainy and also the school holidays finished in Europe and US), so we’re among the only guests in the whole hotel. James was tired.
MISC:
- Somehow we took a turn from having a chill locals-ish year that suited our style …to being waited on at private lunch venues exclusively catering to foreign luxury tourists. Went astray somewhere in our planning. If we were on a two-week holiday to Cambodia, a fancy private lunch arranged by a travel agency would’ve been cool. But this is our life all year, and as beautiful and delicious and special as it was, the setup felt incongruous with our style (not to mention the developmental downside of having Willa and James treated like a princess and prince every day of the week). All we really want is to sit on some plastic chairs and eat good, cheap food with everyone else. This was 100% our bad and we’re using it as another learning about travel.
- Our guide told us that tourists don’t and shouldn’t eat locals’ food in Cambodia. He claimed the “Cambodian food” on menus in tourist restaurants is actually westernized Cambodian food (doesn’t mean it’s not insanely good btw). But that just seemed ridiculous. Why can’t/don’t tourists eat locals Cambodian food, we asked? “Too many seasonings, and not good hygiene.” You’re telling me there’s NOWHERE a good traveler can eat local Cambodian food? “No.”
