Day 49 - Angkor Wat
Trip Start
Sep 02, 2007
1
50
243
Trip End
May 01, 2008
Siem Reap,
Cambodia
Sunday, October 21, 2007
We'd worked out the itinerary that we wanted to do (from an amazingly helpful free guidebook which covered most of Cambodia), and our guide was happy to use that and to make a few tweaks to help us avoid the hordes of tourists.
The tuk-tuk was not exactly a Ferrari, I think it's top speed was about 15mph, so we had a very leisurely drive to the entrance to the park, where we needed to organise our entry passes.
We will have 2 days in the national park, so we went for a 3 day pass (which was the same price as 2 single day passes and we can save time by not getting another pass tomorrow), posed for our photos, got our snazzy passes back and off we set !
Our first stop was Angkor Thom, the ancient walled city, and the largest temple site within the Angkor Wat area.
The Angkor Thom area is nine square kilometres in size, and has a number of stunning temples packed into that space. The rest of the area is green, either open stretches of grass or forest, it's really lovely.
You enter Angkor Thom via one of four large ornamental gates at the four points of the compass, we entered via the South gate, which had a four-faced Khmer head as the centrepoint.
The gate was flanked by about four stone soldiers on each side of the approach, each about 5ft tall, it was very impressive. You would certainly know that you were about to enter a very important city...
Our first temple was called Bayon, and it was a beauty.
Built in 1200 in the exact centre of the walled city, it was instantly noticeable for the smiling faces beaming out of the towers of the temple.
It reminded me of that film 'The Mummy', where a huge stone pillar has a human face, but here there were loads of them !
They say that the face used in Bayon is that of the King at that time, who wanted to keep an eye (or sixty !) on his subjects. All the Angkor temples are either Buddhist or Hindu, and often a mix of both.
Bayon is famous for an amazing series of bas-reliefs (wall carvings) which surround the towers, showing a fantastic slice of daily life for the Khmer people in the 1100s.
Sadly no paper records exist from Khmer history as they usually recordedt them on banana leafs, which have all now fallen apart.
So the bas-reliefs are really the only thing historians know about how the Khmer people of that generation used to live, and they are INCREDIBLY detailed, showing scenes of cock-fighting, drinking, fighting, wars... they're very impressive and are used all over the temple walls. I can't imagine how long it would have taken to finish them.
If anything the Bayon temple looks like a pile of rocks from a distance, the lines are not very sharp; it's as you get closer and venture inside that you really appreciate it.
We climbed up through the various levels of the temple (which are always an odd number because even numbers are unlucky for buddhists) and each level was full of photo opportunities and offered some fantastic views.
It was a great call by our guide because with an early start the place was not crowded with tourists, but each minute we stayed there more and more people arrived...
I quickly grabbed a photo of Katie kissing one of the stone faces and then practically ran away as a couple of coachloads of Korean tourists headed our way complete with sun-visors and cameras swinging !
The fantastic thing about all the temples in Angkor Wat is that they pretty much allow you to clamber wherever you want !
As I'm still basically a big kid, I loved being able to scramble over the rocks & ruins, in search of a good photo or a great view.
As you'd expect, they do restrict some unsafe areas, but apart from that it's a case of 'at your own risk', which is fine by me, even if it did make Mrs Fey Jnr rather nervous as she watched her husband doing his Spiderman impressions !
Next we walked to the Terrace of the Elephants, a very long and impressive wall that runs along the main road inside the city. The terrace used to have a wooden roof, and gold-framed windows, and was essentially a massive viewing platform for various royal parades & religious festivals.
Scenes of elephants at work & war are carved into the walls, along with carvings of 'garudas' (bird/human hybrids) and lions, although the focus is very much on the elephants. It's a very striking structure which stretches for hundreds of metres, it must have been incredible to see in full working order.
Behind the terrace was another temple called Baphoun, which apparently has been a huge restoration project as it was in a real state of disrepair.
It has the rough shape of a pyramid, and you could climb the extremely steep steps up to the top for great views of the area. It was clearly very dangerous to climb the front steps, so our guide helpfully explained that there were much easier (and more boring) wooden steps behind the temple !
Of course I decided that I wanted to climb up the difficult steps first, which was much easier going up than coming down again !
We then climbed the easy steps at the back, enjoyed the view at the top before climbing back down again.
There was a HUGE "swimming pool" behind the temple which was reserved exclusively for the Princess, and I guess that she was either a giant, or she swam like a fish; it was the biggest pool I've ever seen in my life.
There were also some very large and nasty-looking red ants around the pool, so we got the hell out of there quick smart !
Behind the pool was another smaller temple which has become known as the "chimney" temple, as it looks remarkably like... a chimney !
The 'chimney' temple had 3 large trees growing on top of it, a perfect blend of man & nature, it looked fantastic. You could also clearly see the holes that they drilled into the stones to make them easier to carry, by inserting sticks into the holes and carrying them over their shoulders. Clever.
Next we visited the 'Palace of the Leper King', an unfortunate chap who was the victim of an extremely complicated story which had our eyes glazing over after 5 minutes with no ending !
I really enjoy a good story, but we both got a bit lost when it involved horses with 5 heads, elephants with 3 heads, creatures of the sea, mermaids, 7 headed snakes etc etc !
Ignoring the story, this 'palace' has 7 levels of very detailed carvings which explained how the King became a Leper, and on the top of these tiers sits a statue of the King himself, naked.
This temple was joined to the Terrace of the Elephants, and completed a very striking run of buildings, and some amazing carvings...
We then left Angkor Thom and headed for Ta Prohm, made famous by them filming part of the original 'Tomb Raider' here. I don't remember much about that film apart from the delectable Angelina Jolie, so I'll take their word for it !
Many of the temples of Angkor have been cleared of trees, bushes etc over the last 10 years or so, but they have pretty much left Ta Prohm as it was when it was rediscovered by the French just over a century ago.
It's a unique place, with huge 300 yr old trees growing inside and on top of the temple. It's hard to know if the trees are pulling the temple down, or keeping it up !!
Unfortunately by the time we got here it was about 10:30, so there were thousands of tourists walking around, queueing up for photos and driving us crazy.
The worst were the large groups of Thais, Chinese and Japanese, who would hog all the best photo spots and practically scream at each other the whole time ! Again our guide was able to show us quieter parts of the temple, so it didn't get too stressful...
One thing I remember was that they had somehow hidden the face of a buddha inside the roots of a tree, and there was a queue of about 30 people to get through before you could even see it ! Not sure if it was worth it, but it was quite cute.
We then went for lunch at about 12pm and prepared ourself for our next stop, one of the modern wonders of the world: Angkor Wat.
Lunch was pretty good, Katie had her 356th 'fish Amok' since arriving in Cambodia, I had my 654th chicken curry since arriving in Asia. Washed down with some good fruit shakes, we were full of energy and ready for whatever Angkor Wat could throw at us.
The guide had suggested we visit Angkor Wat after 2pm, when the sun shines directly down on the wat, creating a very clear reflection in the famous pool located in front of it.
As our tuk-tuk crawled towards the entrance, we came upon the grand moat, which surrounds the wat on 3 sides. This was designed to symbolise the oceans, the stone entrance gate the mountains, the trees behind the earth. This idea was replicated inside the wat, but more on that later.
It's incredible to think that before Angkor Wat was re-discovered this would have just looked like a river with a dense forest on the other side. You would have no idea of the majestic temples hidden on the other side of the water.
When the tuk-tuk stopped, out we jumped, already impressed by the view over the moat towards the gate. A long stone causeway connected the road to the gate, each side bordered by a very long "Nara" (snake) statue, which acted as a large railing to prevent people falling into the moat.
These stone snakes must have been at least 100 metres long, and both have sadly long since fallen apart, but you get a very good idea of their former splendour.
As we walked up the bridge and towards the entrance, there were some local kids showing-off to the tourists by diving into the moat. I have to admit it was pretty cool...
After passing through the entrance, past some very cute kids (until they started asking for "dollar" !), we then had our first glimpse of the main temple. It was some distance away, but it looked beautiful.
The closer we got, the better it looked, the only blemish were the bright green (?!) canvases used to cover some structural work that was being done. Quite why they decided on this colour which was obviously going to clash against the grey stones is anyone's guess...
All I could try to do was use the trees to block out the sheets on my photos !
We walked towards the pool, which was just a photographer's dream. Honestly, even Katie would have been able to take a good photo, IF I let her anywhere near the cameras ! ;)
The pool reflected the temple behind it, giving you the perfect 'postcard' shot of the famous towers.
About 30 shots later we walked into the wat itself, approaching on the front left corner and walking right along the front of the building, which was covered in 2 bas-reliefs showing 2 very famous stories from Cambodian folklore.
These reliefs were once painted red, but very little colour remains today. They were carved into sandstone, so you could also clearly see where so many hands have previously touched the carvings because some areas (eg the horses) were polished so much that they literally shined. The carvings are now fenced-off to prevent any further damage.
By this time we were quite tired because we'd not had much sleep last night, and we'd walked for Britain today !
Our guide said that everyone always feels sleepy inside Angkor Wat because of the cool temperature (it was boiling outside), and something about the peaceful spirits inside the temple.
(Our guide was an intelligent man, son of a Doctor & Nurse murdered by the Khmer Rouge who was then sent to the country and lived with his grandparents. He was lucky to avoid likely death on the rice fields by being assigned the ultimate 'shit job', namely producing fertiliser by collecting excrement from animals & houses, and transporting it to the fields. This was a punishment for his 'intelectual' family history, but the work was not strenuous or dangerous, just extremely smelly and distasteful. Had he been able to continue his likely path in the city he would surely have been very different, but his time in the countryside had caused him to become an 'animist', believing in the existence of special animals possessing special powers. He told us with absolute sincerity that he knew Black Magic existed because he had experienced it personally. He told us how people use "holy blows" to impose and lift ancient curses, by chewing beetle seeds, spitting and then blowing in a bizarre fashion. At times Katie and I could hardly believe our ears, but this rather unbelievable testimony was mixed with flashes of very rational logic, and it was therefore hard work to try and filter out the fantasy and home-in on the facts. He was certainly a very interesting bloke !)
Sure enough we were soon very tired, and we still had to walk around the length and breadth of this large building !
We dragged ourselves around the sides, and then climbed up to the second of the three levels, which was very attractive.
This time the spiritual 'oceans' to appease the gods were represented by stone pools built into the floor of the 2nd floor/ceiling of the 1st floor, which must have been an ambitious idea, but I bet it looked amazing in its day. Sadly now there is no water kept in the pools, so you have to use your imagination.
Unfortunately you are no longer allowed up to the 3rd and final level of the wat, as the steps are extremely steep and narrow, and each year there were a number of serious accidents as clumsy tourists fell down the steps and onto the stone floor below.
A Korean tourist was the last person to fall down 2 years ago, and so they decided to close this area to the public for health & safety reasons. This is a great shame because the top floor was designed exclusively for use by the King himself, so is bound to be beautifully designed.
A short while later we climbed back down to ground level, and headed back to the tuk-tuk, via a stand selling cold drinks as we were really thirsty.
We then got back in the tuk-tuk and headed to another temple with a deep pit in front of it. This showed only too well how robbers destroyed so much of the land to get to various treasures which were buried in front of each temple.
After I climbed to the top of this temple, which was exhausting work, we climbed back into the tuk-tuk and headed for our final destination, a hill temple from where we could hopefully enjoy the sunset and the surrounding countryside.
It was a good 10 minute walk up the hill to get to the foot of the temple, and a steep few minutes climb to get to the top. We were among the first 50 or so people there, so grabbed a good spot and waited.
Pretty soon tourists were streaming up the temple, and the clouds were unfortunately streaming across the sky, so the sun went down behind the clouds, denying us the sunset that we were all hoping for.
The views up there were really nice though, you could even see Angkor Wat in the distance, which looked amazing.
How I would love to have experienced this place 800 years ago...
We left before the end of the 'sunset', to beat the rush back down the hill. When we got to the bottom we met our driver & guide and set off back to our hotel. Getting down the temple was a bit harder than climbing up it, with so many other people around us on the narrow stone steps !
I was absolutely knackered after getting up at stupid-o'clock to watch the rugby, so when we got back to our room I fell asleep as soon as I lay on the bed. Katie woke me up about an hour later and we went out for dinner.
We chose a Mexican place that we'd seen the night before, as we wanted something different, i.e. not the normal Asian curries/stir fries/noodles ! Our nachos were diabolical, as was my margherita, so we thought we'd made a bad choice, but the mains were excellent, I had chimichangas and Katie went for enchiladas, washed down with some Angkor beer. Lovely jubbly.
We then went back to the hotel, re-booked the same guide & driver for the next day, having already agreed with them to rise extra-early in order to catch the famous sunrise at Angkor Wat tomorrow.
The plan was to meet our driver at 4:30am, get to Angkor Wat for about 5am, get a good spot before all the tourists arrived, and then wait until 6am for the sun to start appearing...
The guide got a lie-in as we decided we didn't need his help to see the sunrise, we only needed the driver, so we agreed to meet the guide back at the hotel at 7am, and to then whizz off and see as many other temples as we could before we collapsed with exhaustion !
The only problem seeing the sunrise is that this meant paying the driver an extra $4 (fair enough), and we also had to pay him an extra $5 to go to the furthest away of the main temples, which was a 90 minute drive away.
I think we were paying the driver $15 a day (so $24 tomorrow) and the guide was paid $25, so the 2 days would cost us $79 for their services, plus $40 for the tourist passes, a grand total of $120 before any food/drink etc.
So it's not a cheap thing to do on top of hotels & meals (unless my brain is thoroughly twisted after trying to keep within tight budgets ?!), but we figured that it is one of the true "must-sees" in the world, so it would be worth it. There is no doubt whatsoever that we did the right thing, as I'm sure I'll tell you tomorrow !
We both were out like a light as soon as we stepped foot in the room, and went to sleep thinking about some of the fantastic sights we'd seen today, it had been a truly memorable day.
Lots of love,
Al & Katie xx
