My first solo adventure trip was to Cambodia to visit the Angkor temples in 2008, so it was a particularly special journey when I accompanied The Boss and The Wee Babe on their first Cambodian adventure in 2022.
What a difference fourteen years makes. At twenty-three, I had no professional certifications or advanced degrees, precious little meaningful work experience, no real direction of any sort - I hadn't a clue, really, scraping by and steadily generating credit card debt to add to my pile of student loan debt.
But none of that money stuff matters when you're on an adventure, and Cambodia is an irresistible adventure.
The city of Siem Reap has undergone significant development in the last fourteen years. In 2008, I don't even know that I would have called it a city. The increase in paved roads alone impressed me on my return visit, but there were also far more amenities of all kinds to add to the greater general sense of municipal cohesion. There was even a baby store that catered to Westerners - I mean, they tried to scam us with a currency conversion game, but at least the store existed. It is still Cambodia, after all.
Down the street from where we stayed, a relatively new place called Treeline Urban Resort, there was a statue of a mother breastfeeding. Very refreshing, Cambodia.
A couple of restaurants impressed us. Embassy Khmer Gastronomy was a chic spot with creative local dishes. Perhaps even more delightful was some of the best Mexican food (and murals) we found in all of Southeast Asia at Maybe Later Mexican Bar & Grill.
Purchasing tickets for the Angkor temples is more centralized and systematized than it used to be. In 2008, I rolled up to an entry gate on the back of a motorbike with a guy named Rith and bought my three-day pass. These days, the passes look the same and work the same, but you have to go to a centralized location to buy them in advance. No more rolling up to the gate Kenyan-safari-style. There are now also checkpoints along the road leading to the Angkor Archaeological Park where you must produce your tickets or be turned away (or be flogged and flayed - I'm not really sure; we had tickets, so I don't know how being ticketless shakes out, but I wouldn't be surprised if bribery is involved, Cambodia being in SE Asia).
Entering and exiting Angkor Wat is more regimented than I remembered, and inside Angkor Wat the modesty police are on high alert. I don't remember anyone there giving anyone a hard time about appropriate dress in 2008, but they gave The Boss the business about her shorts in 2022. And it's not like we never ran into anything like this before. We lived in the Middle East. We get it. We were in Bali weeks before, so we thought that The Boss should have no trouble accessing the most sacred parts of Angkor Wat with a sarong covering down near her ankles. Well...no. Perhaps not unexpectedly, I was able to access the same spots with my knee-length man shorts.
But - but - the breastfeeding statue...
Boss: covered to the ankles. Me: covered to the knees. Boss: no entry. Me: welcome, sir!
So what do you do? What else? Boss borrowed my pants. I wore the sarong. Excellent ventilation. That's a thing that happened, and it worked, sexist double-standard be damned. Maybe the breastfeeding statue was a trick. Maybe they don't like sarongs? Oh, Cambodia.
In my view, Ta Prohm is still the best Angkor temple. It is the perfect picture of a jungle subsuming a temple. I don't remember there being boardwalks at Ta Prohm in 2008, but these days there are strong suggestions of where to go and in what direction. There are also photo spots set up by the walkway system. It's not a terrible thing, but it is less freeform - less wandering involved. And I like wandering. I think The Boss likes it when I do less wandering, though, especially when there's a bubbula to carry.
I also remember far more freedom to roam in Angkor Thom, especially around the Terrace of the Elephants. Now it appears to be more of a station-to-station experience. The major draw in the Angkor Thom walled city is The Bayon, which looks like a pile of rubble from a distance but is absolutely magnificent up-close with all the faces on the towers.
I think we were wise to keep the trip short with our wiggly little squish, but that meant fewer temples, no far-out temples, and no other parts of Cambodia such as Phnom Penh. Nonetheless, seeing Angkor again with my favorite ladies for life was a dream experience for me.
Cambodia is hard, but Penelope continues to prove that she is quite the adventuring bubs. She's one of us.
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