Escalators And Offices - It's A Jungle Out There

We get up early to cycle to the temples in order to watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat. This sounds lovely but I have not quite anticipated how terrified I am going to be. Essentially, for much of the journey, which begins at 3.30 am, we are cycling on rattling bicycles with no light except for a dim glow produced by my dynamo light on the front wheel. M has no such light, though he does have brakes which is useful. My dymano was I think added in leiu of such luxuries as working brakes.

It’s not the brakes which scare me though. It’s the fact that we are cycling in the pitch black without any other lighting, down quiet paths. Either side of us the jungle is black and whispering. The jungle noises, which I love to listen to, become sinister and suggestive. I know that the jungle contains monkeys and parakeets. I suddenly wonder what else might be living there. I keep my light focused on M’s front wheel to try to light his way around the potholes. I try not to notice the howls of wild dogs, so familiar here, and normally so unthreatening (the dogs are much more scared of us than we are of them – they don’t hunt us – they bark in terror and flinch away, and the majority of the ‘wild’ dogs are in fact domestic, they just happen to do a bit of roaming), but the howl of a dog in the dark, accompanied by the rustle of jungle leaves, and the occasional screech of hunter or hunted, is a very different thing to the howl of a dog outside while you are tucked up inside your air conditioning. Sweat pools on my forehead in the early morning humidity. Something snuffles and grunts in the dark near my feet. It seems to me that we are cyling through the set of a horror film, in which we take the part of the dispensable minor characters who get killed at the beginning. I check for a full moon, but the depth of the darkness belies it.

When we finally find the turning to Phnom Bakheng, the temple on the hill we will climb for our view, which we identify more by the sudden flash of torchlight as the guard outside it checks his watch, it is with some relief that I dismount. We need to wait until 5.30am before we are allowed into the temple, so we wait, perched on a piece of wood in the darkness, listening to the sounds of the jungle.

“You were so scared!” says M, not without sympathy.

“I’m not now,” I say, “now I like it. I just didn’t like the ride through it.”

It’s true. We are now sat in the jungle in the darkness. We don’t have our torch on (it was too difficult to cycle and carry it so it sat in our rucksacks through the darkness of the ride here), and whilst the guard is there, he has wondered off somewhere and seems only to bother with a torch for brief periods, when he sees a couple of hapless tourists, for example. It’s just as dark. But I don’t mind. It’s different sitting still and contemplating the jungle. But it makes no rational difference.

Either way, it’s beautiful. And though we do climb the hill, catching a glimpse, on the way, of a beautiful little blue green snake, winding his way gracefully across the path at our feet, and we do indeed watch the sunrise – for me it is this wait at the foot of the hill, which is the most memorable. We can hear monkeys swinging and calling, birds screeching, the larger lizards making their distinctive ‘ek ow’ call, and smaller creatures snuffling and rustling about in the leaves. The stars, unimpeded by competing electric light, are very bright here, and the sky a beautiful velvety black around them. We watch the sky lighten and listen to the jungle creatures as they go about the morning business of swapping wakefulness for sleep, and sleep for the daily activity. Those that have spent the light hunting or playing, retire to their holes, nests and hideouts, passing on their way, the newly stirring day creatures, stretching and limbering up for a day’s preening, flying or scavenging. I rather envy the night guard’s peaceful job and understand his choice to keep his torch off. The night jungle seems companiable now, the stars seem to afford more light, and I no longer entertain fantasies of bears or tigers.

“Although I’m not sure it was the bears,” I say to M, “I might quite like to see a bear. Though not to be attacked by one. I was more worried about humans.”

It would be a dark and desperate sort of human who stalked the jungle at night, waiting for the once in a while appearance of a tourist stupid or diligent enough to be temple hunting this early. We have seen no one on our ride and though we are eventually joined by one other couple, we remain the only four people apparently alive on Angkor Wat temple complex – at least until nine.

Later, as we descend the hill again, after a peaceful sunrise, though a little cloud strewn, M tells me he is proud of me. I rather enjoy this, so of course I make him explain.

“You are scared of things that a lot of people are scared of,” he says, “and when you are scared – you really are.”

It’s true. I am scared of a lot of things, and when I am scared, I genuinely expect to die. Usually, if you entered my head in one of these moments, you would find it was most preoccupied with what my mum would say, when she heard that I had been eaten by a wild tiger in the jungle, or hit by a crazy Cambodian driver whilst cycling on a crazy Cambodian road. It’s not a casual fearfulness – it’s all consuming. And the best way I know to get around it is to be very honest. I tell M that I think I might die, that I am worried there is a bear, that I think some impossibly implausible disaster might happen. I tell him in as jovial a fashion as possible, and he plays his own part and laughs it off. This is rather easier for him if I’ve managed to retain a sense of humour. Some fears are reasonable – the roads for example, are genuinely dangerous. Others are not. Back home I am afraid of escalators. The chances of injury on an escalator in London, particularly given my white knuckled grip on the handrail, are minimal.  I am not, on the other hand at all afraid of snakes or spiders. If it’s poisonous I won’t touch it - but I’d love to see one. And I think they are beautiful – the bigger and brighter the better. There is no logic or discernible pattern to my fearfulness.

So why is this a thing to be proud of?

“Because you still do it”, says M. “You’re terrified, but you never ask to turn back – you don’t refuse to go in the first place. You do it anyway.”

He is right, I smugly tell myself, basking a little in this newfound admiration. I don’t turn back or refuse to do things, because generally they are worth doing. It is worth being in the jungle at dawn, worth cycling carefully down a scary road if it’s the only way to reach something wonderful. It is worth climbing up steep steeps braving fits of vertigo, for the sake of the view when I get to the top. It’s not really worth getting on an escalator in London unless there’s no choice about it. I guess that’s why I avoid the tube and walk. Though I tell people it’s for health reasons.

I’m no Brad. But being scared of it doesn’t mean I won’t do it. I think about how many unsung heroes and heroines I have encountered in my time. People who are shy, but force themselves out to meet people, people who are afraid of public speaking, but do it to further a cause they believe in, people who find work enormously stressful – panicked always that they will do something wrong – but who nevertheless do it, who throw themselves into it and face that fear every single day. Nobody tells them how brave they are for doing that. I think of my Mother, who taught herself to brave the sight of bloody mouth operations so she could be useful as a dental nurse in the more hospital based clinics, of my sister, who braved a similar fear of blood and needles as part of becoming a Mother, of a friend of mine who was afraid of the hassle and sacrifice involved in having children, but who made it her project, and worked hard to make herself the ultimate mother – finding along the way that the dreaded motherhood was in fact quite rewarding. I think of countless people who are quietly courageous on a daily basis. Who tells them they are proud of them? I hope there is someone.

You are not facing tigers each day when you work in an office. But it can be one of the most frightening places. You must meet people, trust people, produce things which may be judged harshly or rejected, finish things to tight timescales, undertake projects which stretch you, tackle the age old ‘imposter syndrome’ in which you are convinced that people think you are better than you really are – and that sooner or later they are going to find out. You have to deal with people without knowing if they have an agenda, have to work alongside people who may be playing by different rules to you, or playing another game altogether. You may be asked to play games you don’t agree with. You may have to refuse them, and face the consequences. The very crux of your profession may, at some level, scare you. The very fervour with which you approach it, may cause you to lose sleep over it. In my work as Company Secretary I have met countless others at various levels, who all admit to a sense of fearfulness and a certain tension before entering a Board Meeting. In M’s work, within the Computer Science Spectrum, he has met countless people who are nervous in company, and more comfortable closeted behind a computer screen, but who are nevertheless asked to do their share in promotional activities, networking and sales pitching. I know people who feel nervous ordering food in a restaurant, going to the bar or turning up to a party on their own. Most people I know, if ordering takeaway food for a party, will argue a little about who makes the phone-call. No one wants to do it. I don’t know what the fear is – but it’s always a relief when someone else takes control.

When we finish travelling, we will return to a culture in which the fears we are asked to face are, objectively speaking, relatively inconsequential. We have the luxury of facing fear such as public speaking, as opposed to earthquakes or the slow starvation of our children. But any fear, no matter the consequences, is still a fear. Sweaty palms are not always dried by rationalising the relative consequences. So if you’re scared of it, and you still do it, you are no less courageous.

And if you work with someone who seems timid, or who frets over the smallest details – take a moment to consider how brave they are. They’re here. And they’re doing it. That’s impressive.