Schlink Attack: Sweating in Siam Reap

You know what they say when building a religious complex, go big or go home. Angkor Wat said hold my beer. Bigger than Detroit, and with over 1,000 temples built from sandstone and laterite rocks from all over the country, hundreds of thousands of slaves and elephants succeeded over a few centuries. First, they hauled stones down rivers and mountains. Then they shaped, stacked, and then carved the blocks, etching nearly every square inch of the walls, halls, and ceilings with Hindu, and later Buddhist entities. Some artists carved 13 foot tall faces, whereas others told stories using tiny, almost filigree type designs with characters dancing or fighting. Gargoyles were placed for flair on the high walls. So yeah, the 900 year old religious complex is big. It's pretty and impressive. Overwhelmingly so.

All week in Phu Quoc, I suspiciously eyed the weather in Siam Reap realizing we'd be going from hot to hotter. And wetter, if that's even possible. I'm one of those travelers who takes (and uses) 15 pairs underwear on a 7 day trip, but still panics when I get down to half of my clean supply. I coped by doing a last minute load, in mental preparation to see ancient ruins ala Mark style. This portion of our vacation was Mark's dream, which would mean long, hot family death marches in the city and around the temples. He'd probably take 4,000 photos over the course of 4 days (he took 2,000), and I needed to be prepared. And fresh.

Exiting Siam Reap's new swanky airport, we were somnolent from a long day of delayed flights, saying goodbye to my best friend, and from the moist, heavy heat that hit us like a blanket. We arrived too late in the evening for dinner but the hotel bar was still open, so we dined on g&ts and coconut water instead. One of the best things about Siam Reap, we found, is that plans are easily made and don't require reservations far in advance. That meant we could have at least one slow morning to plan. Mark wanted temples, I wanted to visit a mine and bomb detonation program involving rats, and the kids wanted to go zip-lining.

Every single Angkor Wat review says one must see the main temple at sunrise, whether by air balloon, or on the ground, so we hired a tuk-tuk driver to pick us up at 4:30am. Still, we were hardly the only ones there as hundreds of people had already claimed their spots, mostly on the pond side to catch Angkor Wat's reflection. It felt crowded at first, but when the complex fully opened, we had several long moments where we were alone. The complex really is huge, extending far beyond the classic photos we see in the travel guides. I worried about breakfast, but shouldn't have. Once we could see beyond cell phone screens and flashlights, restaurant touts were in full force. In fact, every temple stop had rows of restaurants and we ate incredibly well, especially the Cambodian curry dishes. The kids drank as many mango and banana smoothies as they wanted and I developed a pineapple problem.

As promised, we walked and explored the individual sites all day, pretending heat was no big deal. I'm glad we hired a tuk-tuk instead of renting bicycles because we really did need rest in between stops. Some of the ruins were exactly that: ruined with toppled stones and overgrowth. Other sites had undergone reconstruction, some nicer than others depending on who funded the project (some focused on using wood frames to hold the structures together, others were rebuilt using concrete between the rock that oozed out of the cracks).

The best part of the tour was the sense of freedom and space we felt, even if thousands of people were visiting at the same time. Deets really got into taking long exposure ghost photos and Margo perfected her cartwheel. She and I played around with taking panoramic shots. Mark was off in his happy place. Sometimes we'd find him in the dirt, flat on his back with a fisheye lens, or inspecting a unique shadow with his 200mm. That man routinely carries 40 pounds of camera equipment like it's no big deal. He's a yak (but a sexy one -ed.).

Zip-lining was pretty cool, glad we did it, though I never need to do it again. I equate it to the excitement of parasailing: fun for the first few minutes, but then it's more about the view. Deets was treated to an extra surprise when a school friend joined us, whose family trip happened to cross ours in Siam Reap. The only thing that made this day even more perfect was Mark discovering a South African Shiraz from the Stellenbosch region while the families dined together at restaurant named Somaha. I recommend ordering the steak and ceviche, raid their upstairs wine cellar, and skip the dessert menu.

Siam Reap is one of several countries that uses TNT detecting rats to sniff out buried mines. Specifically, they are African giant pouch rats that are bred and trained at headquarters Tanzania. The company, Apopo, chose this breed because of their intelligence, trainability, and ability to smell TNT buried as deep as 8 feet. The program graduates are then flown to countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Ukraine, and Angola, to a new home where they systematically walk cleared fields on a roped-off grid with their trainers. (Jungles grow crazy fast, so in order to provide farmland to the people, they need to make sure its safe for planting, and most of all for the kids). The rats start work at 4am, and put in about 3 hours of sniffing to avoid the heat of the day. One rat can clear a tennis court sized field in 30 minutes, whereas metal detectors require several days. Even better, these rats do not blow up (I thought they did!) because they are too light to set off a mine. Once a mine is detected, humans secure the space for digging and detonation.

We took a tour at Apopo to get to know the HeroRats and trainers who live in Siam Reap and were impressed by how well the non profit organization runs. The kids and I held a sleepy rat who wore a teeny red harness and had long twitchy whiskers. He was a chill, clean rat, and very cute. Landmines, RPGs, tripwires, and anti-tank missiles are not.