The Angkor Archaeological Park in Cambodia is best known, of course, for Angkor Wat; but it contains much, much more, with scores of ancient temples and structures within an area of over 150 square miles (400 square kilometers). And for our money, some of the lesser known temples are more interesting than Angkor Wat. We’d already visited the park on two other occasions — and each “occasion” involved a multiple-day ticket. But it’s one experience that bears repeating many times; not only is it interesting to revisit the same temples (and discover details you’ve overlooked previously), but it’s practically impossible to see them all on one ticket. So when our school in Phnom Penh organized a staff teambuilding trip to Siem Reap, we gladly signed up to go along.

At 7:00 in the morning we reported to the school, where along with an oddment of teachers, staff, and an assortment of kids whose parents work at the school, we piled into three school vans and launched into the drive to Siem Reap, a journey of about five and a half hours nonstop, but of course nobody drives it nonstop because the human appetite and the human bladder just won’t allow it, especially when multiplied by dozens.

The first pit stop came about an hour into the trip, with what was supposed to be a bathroom break, but ended up being an hour-long breakfast break. About three hours later came our lunch break, also an hour or so in duration. This was at a rest stop/ restaurant/ gift shop/ tourist black hole beside a somewhat scenic little lake, with a large swing by it, which some of us of course availed ourselves of. Seated outside the gift shop, a fetching older gentleman was masterfully plying a tro, the Cambodian folk instrument that Dennis has acquired but has been unable to torture a tone out of that sounds as if it originated on this planet.

Puttering into Siem Reap in mid-afternoon, we checked in at the Pacific Hotel, joined by vans from the two other branches of the school in the provinces of Stung Treng and Ratanakiri. The Pacific is an impressively designed property, featuring statues of elephants and ancient warriors out front and in the lobby.

The check-in process for our group(s) was handled at a table set up in the lobby, and the girl (she literally looked high school age) who processed the two of us gave us an upgrade for some reason or other. We don’t know what kind of quarters we’d been slotted into originally, but we ended up in one of the 17 “Colonial Rooms” featuring rosewood floors and furniture, with a canopy bed. One of our misgivings about an overnight outing with the school is that our first experience of that type had a billeting arrangement of 4 men or 4 women per room — and one of the women had a demonic snoring problem (or rather her roommates did). But this time we lucked into a semi-VIP room all to ourselves, with a view of the pool no less.

For dinner on the first night, we found a restaurant called Madam Moch. Not a specifically vegetarian restaurant, but vegetarian variants were offered on most dishes so we left reasonably full and fulfilled.

Then we sauntered down to the river, where a large mass of people — larger than usual, we accurately suspected — had congregated near a gauntlet of refreshment stands. Everyone seemed to be anticipating an event; and sure enough it finally came, in the form of fireworks erupting just across the bridge.

The next morning, breakfast was on the house at the hotel, and it was quite an opulent spread, a buffet with just about anything we could want, including some exquisite bread pudding. Then at 8:00 or thereabouts we loaded into the vans and headed to the Angkor park for a day of discovering archaeology.

Up first on our list was one of our favorites, Bayon, where each tower features four colossal stone faces, facing the geographical directions. But what makes Bayon even more interesting is that it’s also a favorite hangout of the local population of monkeys, which caused a bit of skittishness among some of the teachers. One of the simians had filched a can of Pringles-like chips from someone, and was settling in for a thirst-inducing junk food binge.

Speaking of which, by the time we’d finished examining Bayon and its neighbor Baphuon, it was lunchtime. And for our noonday repast, we all went to a rather odd location: an out-of-the-way wooded niche where there were a few concession stands by a pond, and we had to drive over a creek to get to it. There were no restrooms on hand except whatever ones we chose to invent. Seated on the floor of a rustic pavilion, we learned that there was really nothing the two of us could eat except rice — though the director of the school soon remedied that by bringing us eggs and fruit. After lunch, as we headed back to the ruins, our van driver gunned the engine going over the creek to give his passengers a bit of a splashing thrill.

Next up on our itinerary was Ta Prohm, better known (at least to us westerners) as the Tomb Raider Temple, distinguished by its extensive network of towering strangler fig trees, which look as menacing as the name sounds, curling their long thick roots around walls and straining over the centuries to “root out the work of masonry” (in the Bard’s words). The complex also features a few little round outbuildings; and the school’s custodial lady demonstrated for us how you can stand in one of them and slap your chest, making a resounding echo that sounds really hep, hip, cool, groovy, copacetic, rad, sick and six-seven.

The original schedule had us cramming in a couple of additional minor temples in the afternoon, but we more or less unanimously decided that we were too wiped out to fully enjoy them, so we retreated back to the hotel to rest up — though Kimberly did later attend a brief rehearsal for a little dance some of her cohorts would be presenting at the festivities the following evening.

The next day, a Saturday, was “blue shirt day”, which meant that all school personnel were supposed to wear one. This was a strong indicator that group photos were on the horizon. And the morning’s destination for such photos was an auspicious one, the classic setting of Angkor Wat, the centerpiece of the archaeological park, and the most commonly photographed attraction, ubiquitously appearing on postcards, T-shirts and even the national flag of Cambodia.

One of the group photos was taken on the bridge at the front entrance of the temple; the photographer, from the school’s media department (yes, our school actually has one of those) ended up borrowing Kimberly’s camera to take the shot, because his telephoto was too severe.

It was a rather rushed tour of Angkor Wat this time around, seeing as we were on a time schedule and had something else on the agenda too — we breezed through it in about 45 minutes. But at least we were able to take a side route that we hadn’t taken before, and examine some details we’d not examined previously. There’s always something new to discover here. One of our new teachers, another American by the name of Tami, was told that she was not allowed to climb a particular set of stairs because she was wearing a long skirt that posed a tripping hazard. It was at least reassuring to see the site’s administration exhibiting such concerns about safety; quite often there are dangers that never would be allowed to exist in the States.

Having put in our whirlwind tour of the wat, we all adjourned to a pavilion nearby that we didn’t even know existed, to indulge in some fun “team building” exercises. They included a circular speed competition somewhat like a three-legged race; a race passing an egg between participants via a spoon held in the mouth; a game resembling “telephone” except in Khmer (in which we did not participate, our Khmer sucking too much); a collaborative and competitive team drawing of a relevant cartoon without removing the marker from the paper; and a competition between teams to assemble the longest “rope” consisting of items of clothing. We’re proud to say that our team won three of these competitions.

Lunch time was upon us, so we poured into vans and left the park, driving through Siem Reap and then another 13 kilometers to a rural restaurant beside a lagoon. The tables were all in separate gazebos, quite spread out, and the serving staff attended them on golf carts. Meanwhile, some guests were taking joy rides in miniature replicas of classic automobiles. There was a little rain forest serviced by misters (that’s devices that spray mist, not gentlemen). And there was a gazebo where musicians were playing, all victims of the landmines that still infest many locations in the country.

Our original schedule had called for us to visit the local aquarium as the final stop of the day. But we decided, pretty much unanimously, that it surely wouldn’t be worth the price of 20 clams each, so we passed and headed back to the hotel for our respective naps.

At dusk we all congregated by the big pool for the evening banquet. After three songs and three speeches, dinner was served (which we vegetarians supplemented with some emergency rations we’d bought earlier at a local supermarket). But there was at least a pretty good dessert, a sort of lotus seed pudding.

The program for the evening featured a superb dance performance by some of the teachers, including Kimberly, who’d attended a brief rehearsal with them. And Tami, who’d attended no rehearsals at all, but still did just fine. And, with the school being fond of awards, we all received certificates of appreciation.

Our three-day frolic concluded, we all loaded into our vans the following morning for the long drive back to Phnom Penh. Along the way, we stopped to work in one more temple, a small one called Bakong. Completed in the year 881 CE, Bakong is among the older temples, and was the first constructed of sandstone. It served as the official state temple of King Indravarman I, who reigned for about 12 years until his death around 890 CE.

And it was mandatory that we stop at one of the many roadside stands vending kralan, a regional snack made by roasting rice, beans and coconut (and other things?) inside a piece of bamboo. It’s quite yummy, and cannot be found anywhere else in the galaxy, we gather, except along this little stretch of road. So of course we had to have some as usual. But we’ll still pass on the fried tarantulas.

Events occurred: 11/06-09/2025