Siem Reap, Cambodia--Ten Years Later

In a hotel ballroom near Pattaya, Thailand, I slow stepped in processional style to “Pomp and Circumstance” with about twenty of my classmates and graduated from Michigan State University with a master’s degree in Teaching and Curriculum.  It was July, 2002, and I had just completed my final semester of coursework at one of the university’s international summer campuses—in our case, a campus set up using the facilities of a K-12 international school currently devoid of its traditional students who were enjoying summer break.   The morning after graduation, with travel buddies Tammy and Carolee in cahoots, we then unrolled an unforgettable two weeks of travel dabbling in Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos.  Much of our rather haphazard itinerary we pieced together based on suggestions and insights of graduate school classmates who had jobs teaching in some of the international schools of Phnom Penh and Vientiane. 

On one foray, we headed to Siem Reap, Cambodia, expressly to visit the temples of Angkor Wat.  Only Carolee had any real previous knowledge of their existence and significance in the history of the world, but Tammy and I quickly caught the vision:  They are incredible ruins—in beauty and in historical relevance.  Still, the visits to Angkor Wat temples alone could not instill the intensity carried in memories accrued during that Cambodian experience.  Maybe because my childhood overlapped much of the Vietnam War and its aftermath, to witness the landscape and the people of that era of conflict—both of which still bore witness to the horrors of that time and the resilience of the human spirit—forged indelible images in my mind’s eye and record of life experiences.

In April, almost ten years after that initial visit, I returned to Siem Reap.  Since I spent the first three days of my spring break in Singapore and my friend Cindy traveled directly from Seoul to Siem Reap, I flew in on my own.  I arrived on a Monday afternoon and immediately observed that in the last decade the terminal facilities had been notably upgraded, although I did locate the terminal used during my first visit off to the left of the new one; however, regular air passengers in normal circumstances would certainly never set foot in it now!  After completing the rituals assigned to visa, immigration, and customs procedures, I wandered into the arrivals hall—pretty much a portico with a few concessions and a taxi stand.  Reconnoitering only briefly—I had no airport shuttling arrangements in place—I turned to the taxi stand and read the rates posted:  From the airport into Siem Reap, a motor scooter taxi cost $2, a car taxi (sedan-size) cost $7, and a van taxi cost $10.  (And, yes, the prices were listed in American dollars; in fact, in Siem Reap, one can pay for everything in American dollars!)  I requested a taxi, and the guy behind the counter, replied, “Motor scooter?”

I said a motor scooter would be fine—yeah, I do have an affinity for motorized two-wheeled vehicles—except that I had a bag and pointed to the luggage I was not wearing, the bag I had checked for the flight.  “Let me look,” he said, peering over the counter to better evaluate the situation, and then quickly responded, “Oh, no problem.  A motor scooter is good.”

I’m sure I looked unconvinced, but he smiled and whistled over a “driver,” who promptly took command of my bag and escorted me to a nearby parking lot. There he wheeled out his scooter from its parking space, put on his helmet (none on offer for passengers, by the way), positioned my suitcase in front of him, and instructed me to hop on behind him. Incredulous but exultantly committed, I did just that. After all, I had returned to a land where a motor scooter is regularly used as the family vehicle, and, truly, I might never again have the chance to taxi into town behind a driver on a motor scooter balancing my suitcase in front of him. And, just to enhance your visualization of this perhaps once-in-a-lifetime event, I also wore a fully-laden backpack and a cross-strap shoulder bag. Welcome to Cambodia!

 This is the upgraded passenger terminal at Siem Reap International Airport.

Siem Reap, Cambodia.