Steps

By Rachel

At Angkor Wat, you are constantly aware that you are not in the United States. Clues include the elephants, the heat, the flowers, the motorcycles, not to mention being surrounded by Asian people. But for me, it was the steps.

Angkor Wat is full of steps that were seemingly built for people with very little feet. Climbing up the steps to the main temple at Angkor Wat itself, your toes might have two inches to perch on. If you are dumb like I am, and wear flip-flops, you can imagine some unfortunate endings. But people tromp up and down. Masses of Korean women with white gloves, Cambodian women in high heels, and Europeans with cameras as big as I am all make the scramble. Thinking back to tourist attractions in the United States, I can think of nowhere where you might tumble to your long-term detriment from a stone tower with absolutely no safety features. On some level it is wonderful, because you wander around, sit on ancient stones, paw ancient carvings and so on. But all this access poses problems for the tourists who visit, not to mention Angkor Wat itself.

Of course, there are people who don’t always put safety first. The woman going down from the top of Angkor Wat in front of me was very concerned about how all her friends below could see her butt. “Everyone can see my butt!” she said several times, “and I have a BIG butt.” So she turned around and went down facing out, more precariously, but with her pride intact. I was not so vain.