Saturday Ride: Empires And Connecticut

It's one thing to be reminded of Paris when you're in New York--especially, say, if you're walking down the Grand Concourse in the Bronx and looking at the Art Deco buildings--or pedaling along Ocean or Eastern Parkways in Brooklyn.  As I have mentioned in other posts, these places were inspired by the Grand Boulevards of Paris as well as the wide residential boulevards of London and other large European cities.

Also, I was in Paris a week and a half ago, so I have an excuse for thinking about it.

Now, it would be fair to ask what would cause me to think about Cambodia during a bike ride to and from Connecticut.  After all, there isn't much physical resemblance between the two places.  You might think that because I was riding on a cold day--the temperature didn't reach the freezing mark the other day, when I pedaled to the Nutmeg State--I was taking a trip, in my mind, to the warm weather I experienced in Southeast Asia.

Actually, I wasn't thinking about that.  Something I saw in the Greenwich Common reminded me, in an odd way, of something I saw in the land of the ancient Khmer kingdom.

Bare branches furled themselves around a monument to young men who marched, perhaps bravely, perhaps blindly, into their own slaughters.  In another year they are mourned, their young bones turned into mud:  They remain only as names on these stones after dying to capture hills and other terrestrial features that are recorded only as coordinates on a map or, perhaps, dates and times.  

All right.  I'll get off my soapbox.  When I see a war "memorial", I can't help but to think of what a colossal waste of lives--especially those of the young--result from the rise and fall of nations, of empires--whether said entities consist of real estate or simply numbers traded and sold from one electronic screen to another.

At least all those Greenwich residents who died too soon have names, at least for as long as those stones stand.  What, though, if the trees--not unlike the ones on the Connecticut state coin--were to wind themselves around those monuments?  What if they continued to grow, as they would if no one touched them, while the stones bearing the names of the lost were to crumble?

Somehow I don't think similar questions ever darkened the mind of Henri Mouhot.   He is often said--mistakenly--to have "discovered" Angkor Wat.  Of course, he no more "discovered" it than Columbus "discovered" America:  There were thousands of people already living in its vicinity, and they all descended from people who'd lived in the area.  Moreover, other French explorers and missionaries had seen and documented the temples decades before Mouhot.  He did, however, popularize Angkor Wat in Western imagination, in part by comparing them to the pyramids.

I have to wonder, though, what went through his and his colleagues' minds when they first saw Ta Prohm.

We know the name of the King--Jayavarman--who commissioned it.  Those who cleared the jungle, cut the stones, carved the statues and made the meals for those who did all the other work are anonymous to us now.  So are those who fought to build and maintain the Khmer Empire (or almost every other empire).  What we have now are what Mouhot encountered 160 years ago:  Trees reclaiming their home from monuments humans built.

Now, of course, I am not complaining about having gone to see Ta Prohm, or the rest of the Angkor Wat complex.  It really has been one of the great privileges I've enjoyed:  The temple sites are awe-inspiring in all sorts of ways, and the people are inspirational.  It should be remembered, though, that its glories, much like those of the Vatican and the grand cathedrals of Europe, as well as the pyramids, were the result of now-nameless people whose lives began and ended as fodder for the empire.  

And, I must say, it is ironic to be reminded of an ancient marvel in a tropical climate on a cold day in a modern suburban downtown--while riding my bicycle.

From The Tangles Of Moss And History

It's been said that in Florida, "North is South and South is North."

The southern part of the Sunshine State--particularly Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Tampa--is filled with retirees and other transplants from colder climes, like the one in which I live.  The north, on the other hand--which includes the Panhandle and, depending on which definition you choose, anything north of Orlando--has more in common, genealogically and culturally, with Georgia or Alabama.

My parents live in the north-central part of the state, near Daytona Beach.  In cities like Palm Coast, where my parents live, or Daytona or Ormond Beach, there are people like my folks who moved from places north of the Potomac.  But outside of such cities, in the smaller towns and rural areas, the "good ol' boys" rule the roost.

Some native Floridians will tell you that in those towns, and in the surrounding countryside, you will find the "real" Florida.

Now, I am in no position to say that. But I can say that it's certainly more Southern than, ironically, some points further south.

I mean, you're not going to find anything like this along Collins Avenue in Miami Beach:

Of course, the moss hanging from the trees is a sign you're in Dixie.  But that's not the only thing that made my first ride on this path, more than two decades ago, one of my first truly Southern experiences in Florida.  It's also where I saw my first armadillo.

That path also is the entrance to the Bulow Plantation Ruins Historic Site. It is interesting to learn about the rise and fall of a plantation--and a society.  But its exhibits and signage reflect a bias that I've found in every other former plantation site I've visited:  It makes the building and operation of the plantation (and its sugar refinery) seem like a heroic act because the owners had to face, not only capricious Nature, but hostile Natives.  According to the text of the exhibits, the plantation was "swept away" in the Seminole War of 1836.

And, of course, the labor practices are whitewashed, if you know what I mean.

But it's certainly worth a visit, not only for the ruins and history lesson, but also to bike, hike, fish or simply be calm in a setting that is reverting to nature.

From the Bulow Plantation, I rode down Old Kings Road into Volusia County and made a right where the road ends--at the Old Dixie Highway.  Then I got to ride under more canopies of moss-draped trees--for about four miles!  Even if you are thinking about the history of the place, it's definitely a lovely ride.  And I found the drivers unusually courteous:  All gave me a wide berth and none honked.  It didn't matter whether the vehicles were Fiats or trucks, or whether they had license plates from Florida or New Jersey or Ontario or Michigan.  I guess anyone who drives on that road isn't in a hurry--and shouldn't be.

Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Florida!

Along the way, I stopped to see something that made me think, oddly enough, of the Ta Prohm temple I saw in Cambodia.

People know it as the "Tomb Raider" temple.  It's the one in which tree roots have wrapped themselves around its walls.  Now, of course, you're never going to find anything that looks like an Angkor Wat temple in Florida, or anywhere else in the US.  But seeing the Fairchild Oak in Bulow Creek State Park made me think of what those trees in Cambodia might have done if they didn't have a temple to ravel themselves around.  

It's easy to see why stories by writers like Faulkner and Welty are so often so intricate that they seem (or are) tangled.  That idea occured to me after leaving Bulow Creek and continuing along the Old Dixie Highway as it bisected a swamp and curved along the shore of the Halifax River on its way to Ormond Beach.

Temples And Bikes

Another temple, another bike.

No, I didn't buy another bike--or a temple. (If I could afford to buy a temple, I probably wouldn't have flown economy class!)  I did, however, managed to ride third different bike in as many days.  After mounting the machines provided by the organizers of the rides I took the previous two days, I did some exploring on this machine.

Here in Siem Reap, as in much of Cambodia, hotels and guest houses have bikes for their guests to use.  They are the sorts of bikes ridden by people who live here:  heavy and completely utilitarian.  Then again, most places charge only a dollar or two a day.  The hotel in which I'm staying provided the one in the photo for free.

You can tell this bike was not maintained in any systematic way.  Fragments of brackets for parts and accessories long gone are still clamped to the bike in various places. Did the bracket on the front hold a basket?  A light?  And the old shifter pod on the handlebar:  Was it for a three-speed?


The hotel desk manager actually knew enough to fill the tires before letting me ride it.  He even helped me to adjust the saddle. And the chain was surprisingly well-oiled.  But, as I found out when I dodged a tuk-tuk, a dog and a motorbike at the same time, about a kilometer from the hotel, the brakes weren't.

Fortunately, I found a hardware stall in a market strip.  The gentleman tried three different wrenches, all brand-new, before finding the 10mm open- and box-end wrench that fit the front brake's cable fixing bolt.  When I asked his price, he waved his hand.  So, I insisted on buying the wrench.  His price?  2000 rials, or 50 cents.  For good measure, I noticed he had a cooler full of cold beverages for sale.  I took a small can of lychee nut juice, which made for a grand total of one dollar.

(Most day-to-day transactions in Cambodia are done in dollars.  Rials are used only for amounts less than a dollar.  So, for example, if you buy something for $7.50 and pay with a $10 bill, you will probably get two dollars and two thousand rials in paper notes for your change.  Coins seem not to be in circulation in either currency.)

After adjusting the front--a simple side pull--I went for the rear and found what appeared to be a kind of disc brake in which the pad rubs the outer rim of the disc rather than the sides.  I didn't need the wrench to adjust it: I simply turned the cable barrel.

Then I was on my way.  First up:  the Ta Prohm temple.  I had already visited it with Vichea and Stuart, but it was along the route I happened to ride.  I certainly didn't mind seeing it again and, because I have a seven-day pass, I didn't have to worry about paying to get in.

Note:  The admission prices for what is known collectively as the "Angkor Wat complex" seems high:  $25 for one day, $54 for three and $72 for seven.  But those passes allow admission to the Angkor Thom temples (which include Ta Prohm) as well as others nearby.  Also, the seven-day pass is for seven days of visits, and can be spaced out over a month.  I figured that if I spent three days in any of the temples--which I have--I will have gotten my money's worth.

Anyway, there was no sign of Lara Croft, so the temple had to make do with me.  All of the temples are interesting in their own ways, but this one has what might be the most maze-like internal structure.  And, of course there are those trees that twine themselves around and under walls and other structures.  While all of the temples had things growing on them and creatures (and, probably, people) living in them when the Europeans found them, they didn't look like Ta Prohm.  Even there, some of the trees were cut away.  The ones that remain couldn't be cut or removed without damaging or destroying the structure.  A debate lingers as to whether the trees should be removed if a way can be found to extricate them without sending the walls tumbling down.

From Ta Prohm, I rode along varying combinations of pavement, dirt, ruts and rocks to Banetay Kdei.  Whatever its architecture or other attributes, it makes sense as a Buddhist temple for its peace and quiet alone.  It lacked the crowds of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom.  It's so quiet, in fact, that you can hear the chirps, caw-caws, moans and other sounds of the surrounding jungle!

It was built in the late 12th and 13th Centuries CE  by Khmer King Jayavarman VII, who also built Angkor Thom and completed Angkor Wat.   So, not surprisingly, some features of Banetay Kdei, including the gopuras, or face towers at the gate, echo those of Angkor Thom.  Some go as far as to say that Banetay Kdei is a sort of Angkor Thom in miniature.

From there, I got some guidance for the rest of my ride--and day.

Somehow they managed to steer me back to Angkor Wat.  I didn't mind:  I mean, it really is one of those places worth returning to, crowds be damned.  Also, seeing it again helped me further appreciate the other temples I'd seen, which in turn helped me to further appreciate the Angkor Wat.

As for the creatures:  They're not as nice as they are cute.  (I've dated a few people like that.)  A few hang around Angkor Wat.  As I was leaving, one jumped on a tourist.  One of her traveling companions swatted at it, but it finally let go when another companion tossed a pineapple chunk onto the ground.  Good thing that monkey was hungry! 

You Weren't Expecting Angelina Jolie, Now, Were You?

In The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot's eponymous speaker laments, "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons."

Most of us, I believe, have measured out something or another in our lives in ways that have nothing to do with the metric or Imperial systems.  Me, I've gone on bike rides that I didn't measure in miles, kilometers, minutes, hours, days, pedal strokes or calories.  

As for the latter, I have followed the example of an old riding buddy and measured out my rides in bananas, water bottle refills, "gorp" or trail mix packets, dark chocolate squares, pizza slices or other foods consumed during the ride--or what was consumed afterward. 

I have also measured rides in the number of climbs or amount of climbing, temperature changes or the number of chateaux I visited. 

You know which country I was touring when I was counting chateaux.  Although the country where I've ridden the last few days was a French colony for a bit less than a century, that method wouldn't work very well. But there is a parallel method of measuring a ride in the vicinity of Siam Reap, Cambodia, where I am now.  


To wit:  I have been able to gauge my rides, more or less, by the temple ruins I've visited en route.  Only one of my rides so far have included none at all, though that one--the PURE countryside tour--took me to a currently-operating temple and monastery.  My other two rides both included the "big one": Angkor Wat.


As I mentioned in yesterday's post, my ride with Grasshopper Adventure Day Tours began with sunrise at Angkor Wat. (Interesting fact:  Angkor Wat is really a nickname. It means "city of temples".  Its original name, in Sanskrit, was Parama Visnuloka.)  Stuart and I, led by Vichea, rode a series of trails that Vichea knows about because he rides and races in this area.  Those trails took us to other temples that have at least some relation to Angkor Wat.  

They were actually part of a complex called Angkor Thom.  If Angkor Wat is the "Temple City", then Angkor Thom is the "Big City"--literally.  It's Angkor Wat on steroids--and at least one other mind-altering drug (at least according to my amateur knowledge of psychopharmacology).  It covers 9 square kilometers, or 3.5 square miles: roughly the size of Manhattan below 14th Street. 

Since it was designed as a city, it has  ports, if you will:  gates leading to  bridges lined with carved images.  All of those bridges and gates have more or  less the same architecture and carvings, which depict the deities involved in the Hindu creation myth.  

Once inside the gates and cross one of the bridges--we came in through the North side--possibly the most striking monument is Bayon, which is full of ecstatic depictions of Hindu deities.  The style of the place is often described as "baroque", in contrast to the "classical" Angkor Wat.  The latter has a symmetry that Bayon lacks, but it's hard to imagine Bayon built, or its carvings rendered, in a more restrained way.

Then there is a temple you might have seen even if you've never gone anywhere near Angkor Wat.  At least, you might have seen it on a screen much bigger than the one you're using to read this post.  Now, though, you get to see it with me in it.  Who needs Angelina Jolie, right?

I'm talking about Ta Prohm, more commonly known as the "Tomb Raider" temple.  Aside from its intricate structure, it's known for the trees whose roots ravel themselves around and under various walls and other parts of the temple.  Next to one of those trees, Jolie's Lara Croft character picks a jasmine flower and tumbles through the earth into....Pinewood Studios.  Hmm...I don't recall seeing that in Dante's Inferno.

I saw other temple ruins with Vachea and Stuart.  But Angkor Wat, Bayon and Ta Prohm were enough to make the ride a monumental one, however many kilometers we pedaled, tree roots we rumbled across and mud we flung from our tires.  Oh, and just as nature re-conquered the Ta Prohm site once dominated by Khmer kings, at least one creature showed us who really has the run of this country, however slick we were at riding the trails and roads!

Give me a home where the (water) buffalo roam!