Escape the Bleak Midwinter Part 4: Angkor Wat, or another dream come true

 One morning in third grade free reading time, I found an unoccupied corner of the classroom and opened up a treasure trove.  In my hands was "Richard Halliburton's Complete Book of Marvels, Orient and Occident," a collection of one man's adventure travel around the world in the 1920s and 1930s. From the moment I read about the French explorers in Cambodia who stumbled upon the ruins of an ancient city in the jungle, Angkor Wat was fixed in my mind - I simply had to see it.

So it's really not an exaggeration to say that making it to Angkor Wat, our final stop, was another dream come true.

I'd tried to go to Angkor Wat back in 2009, but late planning resulted in no plane tickets to Siem Reap and a fabulous adventure in Burma instead. If you want to read about thousand-year old ruins just two ancient kingdoms to the left on the map, check out my friend Rebecca's series "Burmese Days." This time, nothing was going to stop us.

When you cross the moat and enter the city walls, you are flanked by a row of demon warriors pulling a serpent (apparently it's a reference to a famous Buddhist story):

A Chinese emissary (my word! they got around) visited in the 1200s and recorded that this temple was covered in gold:

The kings of Angkor would sit on the Elephant Pavilion and watch their royal processions:
 

Elephants!!

Tomb Raider scenes. The jungle really is taking over these temples.

On the second day, we went out at sunrise with hundreds of other people to photograph Angkor Wat itself:

I probably should have taken a photography class before going....wasn't quite sure what to do with the giant lens. Sigh.

Sunrise started warming up the stone corridors of the enormous temple grounds:

Long walls covered in carvings telling of the king's exploits in battle:

You really can climb up and down the stone stairs and walk in the footsteps of ancient people. Incredible.

Some days, it's a beautiful world.

Escape the Bleak Midwinter Part 3: 24 hours in Phnom Penh

My curiosity about Phnom Penh had been ripening ever since 2011 when I began researching transitional justice in Cambodia for my graduate thesis. So although my coworker and I only had 24 hours in the city - really, a layover of sorts on the way to Angkor Wat - I was incredibly excited about this third leg in our journey. And Phnom Penh did not disappoint!

The capital of Cambodia was full of contrasts and felt humble and regal at the same time. Broad avenues with stately gates and lampposts crisscrossed the city center, while the surrounding streets were filled with motorcycles and commerce spilling out from tiny shops felt more like Jinghong. In the morning of our second day, we visited the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda, built in the mid-1800s. I was so taken with the subtle French elements that blended so well with traditional Southeast Asian design!

(On returning to tropical lands with no parasol, I discovered the necessity of a big hat)

The leafy lanes outside the palace are filled with artsy shops owned by NGOs and creative types, and we made the joyful discovery a little multilingual library with donated books from all over the world. But Phnom Penh also contains the shadows of a time when the Khmer Rouge killed over 20% of their own countrymen. A few kilometers away from those pleasant shops and libraries is Tuol Sleng, a school that the Khmer Rouge converted into a prison and place of torture during their reign.

Many of the rooms remain much as they were found when the Vietnamese intervened and put a stop to the horrors that the Western powers did not want to face in the late 1970s.

Every face, a soul. Created in the image of God.

Only a handful of people made it out of Tuol Sleng alive. One of them sat under an umbrella at a book stand quietly offering to talk to the visitors. We were rather absorbed in our own thoughts, processing what we'd seen, and also under a tight schedule to catch our bus out of the city. I didn't realize who was speaking to me until I'd passed him by. I wish so achingly that I'd stopped to listen.

(An exhibit at Tuol Sleng by the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an excellent organization working for transitional justice by recording the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge)

One of the unplanned benefits of taking this trip through two new countries was getting a better idea of "Would I be willing to serve here in the future?" To live here for two to four years, learn the language, eat the food every day, and try to achieve the most good for our two nations? The answer for Phnom Penh is most definitely yes.