Why not zag, when others zig? GLOBETROTTER
Leaving before 5am still wasn’t enough to beat the crowds. Pedaling through Siem Reap’s sleepy streets, it didn’t take long to realise that we weren’t alone. Tourists using all forms of transport were on a pilgrimage to witness sunrise at Angkor Wat. On this morning, there were easily 10,000 visitors, all jockeying for that perfect position.
Daybreak at Angkor is special at what Guiness classifies as the world’s largest religious structure. It’s worth getting out of bed for. But with enormous crowds, it’s an experience short of magical.
After roaming around Angkor Wat, we hopped on our bikes for a tour of Angkor’s other greatest hits – Angkor Thom, Bayon and Ta Prohm (the Tomb Raider temple). By this time the tourists who slept through sunrise were also making the rounds. It was nearly shoulder to shoulder as we trudged our way through the temples. Serene it was not.
Although Angkor Wat’s tourism recovery is just 55% of pre-pandemic levels, this annualised measure doesn’t reflect seasonality. It’s difficult to imagine Angkor Wat any more crowded in the high season than the morning of my fateful visit in mid-February.
After the COVID pandemic, travellers are hell bent on ticking off bucket list journeys and experiences. Globally, 2024 may likely be the year that international travel eclipses pre-COVID heights. Travel is bursting at some seams, especially at iconic destinations such as Angkor Wat. There are about a thousand temples at Angkor, yet a handful attract a vastly disproportionate amount of foot traffic. Whether it’s monuments, countries, cities, islands, national parks, restaurants or selfie spots, everyone gravitates to the same places, at the same times.
With so many people zigging in travel, why not zag?
The greatest hits temple tour was the first day of a two-week Siem Reapto-Saigon cycling trip. I was along for the ride. But I also wanted to zag. I dedicated two days to explore some of Angkor’s less visited temples. I had plenty to choose from.
My first excursion was to the Koh Ker temple complex. This 10th century temple town, second only to Angkor in size and scope, functioned as the Khmer capital for roughly two decades. UNESCO added Koh Ker to its world heritage universe in September 2023, a process that took almost as long as Koh Ker’s reign as capital.
Prasat Pram has all the charm of the beloved Tomb Raider temple, with centuries old jungle-covered ruins and massive tree roots fused with sandstone and brick that have survived a millennium of history. During our visit, it was just our small group, the temples and the surrounding jungle. That was magical. Prasat Thom, nearby, is an impressive seven-tiered pyramid. I climbed to the top for great views of the complex.
The following day I visited some impressive but lesser-visited temples closer to Siem Reap. My favourite was Banteay Samre. This 12th century edifice, constructed in the Angkor Wat style, was restored some 80 years ago. A British couple and I enjoyed this magnificent shrine to ourselves during our noon visit.
Bakong Temple is so important to Cambodian history that it features on the country’s currency. Indonesia’s Borobudur is said to have been the prototype for Bakong, and the two structures share many architectural details. I counted four other visitors while I was there.
Travel zagging applies to more than visiting under-the-radar temples. Upon leaving Siem Reap, our cycling group zagged all the way across Cambodia. We cycled by backroad to the Tonle Sap Lake, then took a one-way chartered boat trip on the Steung Sangke river, a tributary of the Tonle Sap. This boat trip was a journey’s highlight, passing floating villages and fishing communities, and witnessing traditional fishing methods and rural life. After four hours on the boat, we disembarked on a shallow riverbank. We were in the countryside with a capital C. This is where life happens. This is also where one can get a genuine sense of place and the possibility to make real connections, however momentary.
We cycled along dusty roads, past pregnant and shimmering rice fields, beyond Buddhist wats, and through small villages as we followed the Steung Sangke on our way to Battambang, to Phnom Penh, then to the coast before crossing into Vietnam.
OBSERVATIONS
There are many young children. Young kids are seemingly everywhere, and account for one-third of Cambodia’s population. These kids seem to be equipped with early detection radar in the presence of ‘barang’, or foreigners. What a visitor will reliably hear, village after village, is a chorus of “H-E-L-LOs!” from children who come from all directions, running and smiling and waving their hands, to say hi. It’s very exuberant, friendly, and welcoming. These cheerful children – this burgeoning new generation – inspire optimism for what might lie ahead.
But it’s not all cheerful, of course. Cambodia’s history has been violent and complicated since independence from the French in 1953. In the Cambodian view of history, there have been three world wars: the French, the Vietnamese/American conflict, and the Khmer Rouge.
In one village, we stopped for a rest and started a conversation with an 84-year-old woman who was sitting outside, watching the world go by. She’s survived it all, I thought, studying the lines in her face, and wondering what they might conceal. She wore a red and white scarf, and that led to an honest conversation about the Khmer Rouge.
This woman explained how she was sent far from home and family during the civil war. Her eyes began to water as she spoke of that period and loved ones lost. No one knows how many people died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge; estimates range from 1.5 to 3 million. That translates to one quarter of Cambodia’s population, using a midpoint of that range. The lingering scars afflict nearly every Cambodian family today.
Perhaps through all that zagging across the Cambodian countryside I had stumbled on the country’s core promise: to move forward without forgetting the past.
From Cambodia, the zagging continued across the Mekong Delta to Ho Chi Minh City, or HCMC, cycling along canals and past more rice fields and fruit orchards. The route to Saigon involved five ferries, including upper and lower Mekong crossings. The last 10km of cycling into the core city centre were a near-death experience.
ROOFTOP ZAG
In Ho Chi Minh City, I had one more major zag. An iconic photo by Hubert van Es, a UPI photographer, captured the image of an Air America Huey helicopter atop an elevator shaft on an apartment building roof, with scores of South Vietnamese climbing two packed ladders and scrambling to board. This photo of Operation Frequent Wind became a defining image of the American exit from Saigon in April 1975, and was taken one day before the city fell to the communists.
Today this building, at 22 Ly Tu Trong Street, is still an apartment building. Naturally, I wanted to get up to that rooftop.
I entered the building and quietly gave the security guard on the ground floor 100,000 Dong (approximately US$4). It was an efficient commercial arrangement. The guard pointed to the elevator and directed me to the 9th floor. From there, I climbed a flight of rusty stairs and stood next to the elevator shaft structure, which loomed much higher than the van Es photo suggests. The perimeter of that shaft is much smaller than I expected, with an area that seems inadequate to land a helicopter. On the right side stood a steep steel ladder.
I zagged up that ladder to the concrete rooftop-turned-helipad, trying to process all that has changed in 50 years.
Essential information: In Siem Reap I stayed at the well-located Central Residences hotel. My day trip to Koh Ker was operated by Siem Reap Shuttle, which I booked on TripAdvisor.
Social Cycles operates the Siem Reap-to-Saigon cycle tour, cycling some 620km over 16 days on flat terrain and mostly quiet roads. It’s a 475km straight drive between Siem Reap and Saigon on the highway, but Social Cycles has created a picturesque route that maximises countryside. Some busy or less interesting sections use vehicle transport.
AirAsia and Thai Airways connect Phuket with Siem Reap and HCMC, via Bangkok. Most nationalities will need to apply for a Vietnamese e-visa in advance but can obtain a Cambodian visa on arrival at the airport for US$30.
Adventurer and author Todd Miller has cycled across two continents and visited all seven. He authored the Amazon bestseller ENRICH: Create Wealth in Time, Money, and Meaning, lauded by Forbes, USA Today, Entrepreneur, and other global media. Todd has contributed to Fast Company, Newsweek, and dozens of podcasts on work-life topics, and resides at Natai Beach. www.enrich101.com