The Temple

The Temple (extract from my journal)…

It’s 6:00 A.M., and I’m sitting inside the pavilion in a temple complex 55 km. west of Siem Reap, listening to monks chanting in the temple just across the courtyard. The chanting has been going on since 4:15 A.M., 20 minutes after a monk sounded a gong at 3:55 A.M., some ten yards from our tent, where we were trying to sleep. And I say trying to sleep, because I’ve been awake since 12:30 A.M., after about two hours of sleep, unable to get any rest because of the stiflingly humid, deathly still air. The gong sounded for 5 minutes, a noise so deafening that it made me cringe. Five minutes later, the roosters awoke and started to crow, then the pigs set to squealing (or, rather, continued, because they had been making noises throughout the night). That, and some unearthly sound that must have lasted for 5-10 minutes and sounded ghoulishly like something out of this world.

It has been daylight since perhaps 5:20 or 5:30 A.M., and I am so near to screaming that I can feel the blood pressure rising and my chest tightening. Stephane refuses to get out of bed, even though he has been awake for a good three hours – at least – and knows that there isn’t any chance of sleep. Plus, I’m sweating unbelievably – already – for 6 A.M., and it doesn’t promise to get any better. There is a group of young boys that have come to inspect our tent, silent and solemn. And now, I think, Stephane is beginning to stir, and good thing, because I’m dripping, working on two hours of sleeping, trying to ignore my migraine and my aching butt, and also trying to ignore my hunger pangs, wondering where – and more importantly – when we’ll get our next meal. The woman in the corner of the pavilion has been working in the dark for the last 1 ½ hours over a fire, cooking for the monks. She is working in the dark because there is no electricity. One small candle and one flashlight are all there was to light the place until the fire was started, and which point the candle was extinguished.

This hour may be the only hour of the day where we have neither rain to make the roads muddy and impassable nor an unforgiving sun to burn us to a crisp and set my head a-throbbing. “Let’s go, Stephane, get out of bed! Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!….”