Day 50 - Angkor Wat (sunrise)

  Siem Reap, Cambodia
Monday, October 22, 2007

When our alarm went off at 4am, Katie & I mostly thought that the alarm clock was, as it's known in London parlance, "having a giraffe" (laugh).

Sadly my secondary alarm sounded a few minutes afterwards to confirm that yes indeed, you need to get your collective butts out of bed, you sleepy Feys...

It was a real struggle, we were still tired from yesterday, let alone trying to catch a sunrise and another full day of templedom ahead of us! I tell you, this 8 month holiday business is absolutely KNACKERING... ;)

Anyway, we got downstairs on time, met our tuk-tuk driver in the murky darkness and off we set with absolute pitch black all around us. Our guide had sensibly decided yesterday that we could do this unguided without his help, so it was just us and our driver from yesterday this morning!

The driver's English was almost as good as our Cambodian (errr....), so at least we knew it would be a quiet journey!

It was an 'interesting' ride to Angkor Wat, mainly because his front headlight seemed to be about as strong as one of those pen-sized maglight torches, so I'm not convinced he could see much past his nose.

The road through Siem Reap was wide and fairly new, so this was ok, but the road narrowed and got bouncier as we got towards Angor Wat itself, where it became increasingly obvious that we were not the only people with the idea of watching the sunrise. Funny that. As a result, it was surprisingly busy on the narrow roads, so it would have been useful to be able to actually see where we were going. (Call me old-fashioned!)

Try and imagine hundreds of delapidated tuk-tuks swarming around narrow roads in pitch black with appalling headlight strength and a maximum speed of about 10 mph. It was certainly an experience...

Thankfully we made it there alive, and practically fell out of the tuk-tuk, as opposed to 'climbing' out, wondering what the hell possessed us to attempt the sunrise when we really should have still been sleeping...

Needless to say we'd both forgotten our torches (DOH !) but thankfully our driver was on-the-ball and lent us his, which I swear was actually slightly brighter than his tuk-tuk headlight...

There were only a few others (people not headlights) walking over the stone causeway across the sweeping moat in the darkness, so we hoped it would be quiet inside the gate...

We headed for the eastern wall of the entry gate, as our guide had suggested yesterday, and as usual he was spot-on, there was even a most convenient ledge from which we could park our posteriors to watch the daily solar event unfold in front of our very eyes! Marvelous.

We sat next to a group of Taiwanese (I think) tourists, and a VERY noisy group of Japanese followed us to complete the Asian sandwich inside which we sat expectantly...

I don't know where all these noisy Japanese were when I visited Japan, where everyone was so polite and reserved?! They must lose their inhibitions when they go through customs or something...

When we first sat down there could only have been about 20 people there in total, so we managed to get a great spot.

We got settled, desperately trying not to fall asleep. To keep awake I fired off a few photos, which were absolutely excellent examples of total darkness. I might even offer them to the National Gallery, they truly were something. They reminded me of 'the black cat at night in a coal bunker' that you used to find so hilarious in primary school!

I think we sat down a little before 5am, and we expected the sun to peak up from the horizon about 6am, so we knew that we had a fair old wait ahead of us.

I put the tripod up, experimented with pretty much every possible option on all cameras, took some video (bet that will be fascinating, a zombie talking over pitch black surroundings, move over Speilberg), and even then it was still only 5:30am! It was going verrrrrry sloooooowly...

EVENTUALLY there was some action on the horizon, and the sky turned... a slightly lighter shade of black. But hey, you could definitely see the towers...



Slowly some colour appeared: pink, lavender, a hint of orange...



Minute by minute the sky was coming alive all around us, and more and more people were joining us. The smorgasborg of colours continued to weave a blanket of soft pastel colours behind the temple.



Anyway, to cut a long story short (for once!), we stayed on the gate wall until about 5:50am, when there were definitely some brighter colours appearing, suggesting that Mr Sun would shortly be making an appearance.

At this point we remembered that our guide suggested we should move to the reflecting pool a few minutes before the sun appeared. He'd said the early light reflected really well on the pool, so we shouldn't miss it.

As usual, he was absolutely right.



As the sun climbed, the sky changed shade again, now there were blues, reds, oranges, greys, all blending together. Each minute brought a new mix of colours, and my trigger finger worked overtime on the shutter button, determined to catch the sunrise in all its glory. It was spectacular.







After about 5 minutes of constant photography, I acquiesed to Katie's pleas to make a move to the tuk-tuk, as we were already a bit later than our driver was expecting, and we didn't want to be late meeting our guide back at the hotel.

I later discovered that Katie also wanted to grab some brekkie before we met the guide... no wonder she was so keen to make a move! ;)

As we made our way back to the main gate (with me constantly turning around or walking backwards, to make sure I didn't miss anything!), I recognised the Kiwi couple that we'd met on the boat crossing into Laos from Thailand, about 45 days ago! I had no idea what they were called, but it was definitely them.

I stood right in front of them, totally in their body space, eyeballing them, expressionless, intrigued as to whether they would recognise me. Don't feel too bad for them by the way, the bloke was about 9 foot tall, I doubt I scared him very much!

After about 4 seconds of them visibly thinking "what IS this guy's PROBLEM?!" I saw the penny drop, and their desparate attempts to remember why they recognised me began! (Let the record state that I had no idea what the hell their names where by the way...)
 
It was a bit like meeting guys at the wedding who you met for the first time on your friend's stag party, when you have NO IDEA what they are called, so you end up calling them "mate" all day! "Mate, meet my wife Katie...!!"

So I re-introduced myself, grabbed Katie, and we had a good catch-up, comparing our journeys from the Laos border to Angkor Wat. It was amazing how different our journeys and itineraries had been, coming to Cambodia via completely different countries, having used completely different modes of transport and spending different times in different places... yet here we were again together in exactly same place weeks later. It really is a small world!

After this unexpected but pleasant delay, we hustled back to the tuk-tuk, and sped back into town at an INSANE 12.5 miles an hour. Wow, let me tell you, we were pulling some serious Gs. I felt like Roger Moore in that launch similuator in Moonraker!! Erm...

Once back at the hotel Katie grabbed a quick omlette, I looked up the sports pages on the internet to glory in the derby win, and a few minutes later we were off again, this time with the guide, who looked annoyingly rested after a full night's sleep.

We followed our guide's suggestion to make the first stop today the temple of Banteay Srei, which he said should be a less-touristed location built with red sandstone, with very intricate carvings and a unique design.

The only problem was that it was approx 45kms (30 odd miles) away from Siem Reap, so in our high powered sports car (erm...) it took us over an hour to get there! You do the maths! 

I don't think that Lewis Hamilton had anything to worry about from 4 people on a glorified metal cart with the engine of a toothbrush, put it that way.

When we arrived, the temple area was spread out, mercifully quiet, and really interesting. The good thing about it being so far away from Siem Reap is that obviously far less tourists make it here compared to Angkor Wat & Angkor Thom, so the temple site was noticeably in a better condition than those we'd seen so far.



It was great to be able to appreciate the temples without the swarms of tourists, but we knew it wasn't going to last!



The carvings here were particularly well preserved, much better than the more touristed central temples that we'd seen yesterday.



I couldn't help thinking that we consider ourselves such an 'advanced' society compared to those people living hundreds of years ago, but how many people on the planet these days would be capable of stone carvings like these? Aren't we just getting fatter and lazier, and less able to create beautiful things with our hands?



Carvings like these were everywhere, the rule rather than the exception, if you will.



We walked around for about 20 minutes spellbound by the stonework, before the tour groups predictably descended en masse in a posse of huge tour buses, and like, toootally changed the vibe, duuude...

Fortunately I'd taken some good photos before the groups arrived, so it isn't too obvious that there were about 8 million people there by the time we'd left. Ok, slight exaggeration ;)



At one point we saw three Japanse girls posing for a photo in front of some water, with one of the temples behind them. At the last second, they lifted one leg up, broke out the 'peace' signs and added crazy grins. We'd never seen anything like it, it was the most extraordinary over-pose we'd ever witnessed. 

So obviously I thought "I'll have a go", and did my best to recreate their bizarre pose, much to Katie's amusement. I'm pretty sure she took more photos than necessary just to keep me in that pose with everyone wondering what that pillock in the red top was doing!



Fortunately we'd seen nearly everything we wanted to before the big tour groups arrived, so we were able to leave shortly after they arrived.



The appearance of the big tour groups quickly managed to turn a serene temple experience into total carnage, so we practically ran around the remaining areas and promptly got the hell out of there.

As we were leaving we saw about 10 large buses arrive within seconds and parking up, before their spawn exploded out and into the temple. We thanked our guide for his foresight, and settled back into our tin opener on wheels...

On the way back to the main temple area our guide asked us if we wanted to stop off at the Cambodian Landmine Musuem, which sounded depressing but essential, based on what we'd learnt in the capital.

If I'm honest I would admit that before walked through the entrance, the only thing I knew about landmines was that Princess Diana campaigned against their use, and that they were mainly used in the 70s in Vietnam, so I thought they were a weapon of yesteryear. 

Surprisingly, this museum contained by far the most concise and informative summary of the Khmer Rouge regime we'd seen anywhere in the country, from before the regime took power, to the beginning, during and after. Most of this history was clearly explained on one poster-sized exhibit, it was excellent, and streets ahead of the battered barely legible exhibits we'd seen in Phnom Penh.

The museum also contained some very interesting exhibits on the various international campaigns to rid the world of landmines, and it named and shamed those countries who are still unwilling to commit to stop manufacturing and/or using anti-personnel landmines. (Remember that AP landmines are just one type of mine, there are 5 or 6 in total)

This "list of shame" contained countries like the USA, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, North Korea, Burma/Myanmar... and all manner of other mainly - but certainly not exclusively - communist regimes around the world.

It was shocking, why on earth are these terrifying weapons still being used, and why on earth did the USA, Russia and China, 3 of the strongest nations on earth, feel the need to use them?

The USA claims that it needs landmines to prevent North Korea invading South Korea, India claims that it needs landmines to protect Pakistani factions from invading Kashmir, Russia claims they need them due to threats from separatists... the excuses go on & on.

The bottom line is that they're cheap, and extremely effective at controlling the movement of people, but it's a very sad reflection on the world we live in that landmines continue to be used in the first decade of the 21st Century.

Some of the facts about mines were absolutely horrific, here's a few that I remember:
* AP mines cost $1 to produce and an average of $10,000 to locate and disarm after they're deployed
* the most popular style of AP mine sprays shrapnel 100 yards in each direction after activation, so these are often used back-to-back, meaning that all troops within 200 yards of the mine are likely to be killed or ("preferably") severely injured once triggered
* AP mines are generally designed to maim rather than kill, because the cost to a country of care is far higher than the cost of death.
* the locations of all landmines used to be mapped and locations recorded, but these days they are often dropped out of planes, thousands at a time, so this has become impossible. As a result neither the aggressor or the defender have any idea where mines are located. This obviously creates huge problems when the conflict ends and they need to be removed. However, by then it doesn't affect the armies, it affects the civilians trying to get on with their lives and being blown apart.
* AP mines can be remote controlled, or set on timers, which often malfunction. This means that they never expire and are permanently live, for decades after the end of the war. This is the main reason that they are so dangerous, because people are killed decades after a war ends, from forgotten mines which they could never know where there.

There were loads of terrible facts within this musuem, we learnt a lot, but it was a very sobering experience.

Particularly when we noticed that all the kids working in the grounds, digging holes and moving earth, were victims of landmines laid in Cambodia. I'm not sure why we didn't notice them when we walked in, I guess we just thought they were kids playing.

On closer inspection, we noticed that they were definitely working, not playing. One young boy had 2 prosthetic legs, yet was able to bend down and lift heavy buckets of dirt and carry them over bumpy terrain, all the while laughing and smiling like it was his birthday. Another young girl had a stump for an arm yet was determined to carry her weight of dirt, laughing with her friends as she did so.

It definitely played at your heart strings to see such young and innocent kids caught up as victims of landmines, it really made us realise how lucky we are to be able to walk all over our home country without having our limbs blown off. Others are less fortunate, and have their lives ruined, or ended prematurely.

It made me think of that fantastic Neil Young song 'The Gods of War', about the warlords and generals calling the shots sitting in their huge houses, while thousands of innocent people thousands of miles away are used as worthless pawns in their political games:

"You hide in your mansions, as young people's blood,
flows out of their bodies, and is buried in the mud". 

We wanted to help raise a bit of awareness, so we bought some t-shirts, made a donation and walked away knowing a lot more about something which until then had seemed completely foreign to us.

It wasn't easy to put everything we'd just seen to the back of our mind, but we had a long day ahead of us, and I think if anything it made us appreciate how lucky we were to be able to do what we are doing, and how these incredible temple built hundreds of years ago proved that humans are capable of great beauty, not just mindless death.

After getting back to our tourist dream team we were soon off again towards the temple of Banteay Samre, which was another temple which is a bit off the tourist route, so would hopefully be fairly quiet.

When we arrived there was no-one else around, result!



We pretty much had the whole temple to ourselves, which was fantastic. No distractions, no noise, no problem.

Another great thing about the temples was that they pretty much let you climb wherever you like, none of this developed world ring-fencing rubbish, perfect for a big kid like me. I was like Indiana Jones, jumping between levels, bounding up ancient steps, it was great fun.



This complex had a very impressive 'causeway' leading up to the temple, which went on forever. You can see it in the photo below, with the lion statues.

The temple itself was another multi-odd-level affair, similar to the second tier of Angkor Wat, except with a 'symbolic' moat (personally I would have referred to it as an 'empty' moat) running around the main building, rather than the separate pools that we saw yesterday in the main temple.



Bizarely the only way to get between the buildings was to climb down to the moat & then climb back up again to walk into the different buildings, which would have been somewhat inconvenient if the moat was full of water. Design flaw or symbolic masterpiece?! You be the judge.

When we got back to the magnificent causeway outside the temple, I noticed that all of the tails were missing on the stone lions (look closely below) standing guard on the causeway, and asked our guide why this was.



He said that the Angkor temple builders used to hide gems and jewels inside the backside of the lions, which was thought to be 'lucky' (probably less so if they tried it on a real lion), so when 'treasure-hunters' found this out, they broke off all the stone tails from the lions, and removed the gemstones. So now you won't see a single lion with a tail in the whole area, which is terrible.

In fact our guide said that all of the temples had been devastated in their own way by these impressively named 'treasure hunters' (my version would be shorter and much less polite), especially after they discovered that the Angkor people also used to hide gemstones and precious jewellery above the door frames. So, surprise surprise, most of the temples now also have big holes above the door frames.

Even worse, when we asked him how some of the temples had been destroyed, maybe by war, or by nature, he would say "no, by treasure hunters". So these scumbags not only destroyed statues or doorways, they also demolished walls, buildings, and even dug huge wholes in front of the temples, looking to steal the treasures of this great lost civilisation.

Anyway, after wandering all over Banteay Samre and admiring more great examples of stone carving...



...we headed for Pre Rup, which was another impressive temple which was used to cremate the King, and contain his ashes.

When we arrived there was a huge stone coffin in front of the main steps, where they burnt his body.

At the same time as the cremation, they would remove some of the bones used, which they then washed, and DRANK THE WATER because this was believed to pass on some of the dead person to the person drinking it?! 

Mmmmm... No offence Mum & Dad, but that will NOT be happening in the Fey household when that time comes!



The temple was very high and was exhausting to climb, but offered fantastic views over the area from the top, you could even see one of the towers of Angkor Wat, which was miles away.



After sucking in the views and having a good walk around, we headed back to the huge man-made lake where we'd had lunch yesterday, and ate at the same place; if it ain't broke etc etc...



After a tasty spicy curry lunch, our first stop was Neak Pean, which was definitely one of my personal favourites.

This was a temple built by one of the Kings as a sort of ancient spiritual hospital. That might be over-stating it, but it was a place where his people could come to get better, to be spiritually healed as opposed to medically healed.

At each point of the compass was a dry pool, at the head of which was a small stone altar at ground level. In the middle of the 'compass' was the main temple tower, which was surrounded by water.



This central temple which linked the four dry pools was really cool, shaped a bit like a pyramid and towering over a large pool which would be about 15 feet deep when full of water.

This gave the temple a unique style compared to the others we had seen, and would see. It must look amazing when the pool in the centre is full of water in rainy season.

Each of the 'altars' on the 4 compass points had a different stone animal head inside it, through which water from the main temple pool was poured. The water would channel through the altar, and come out of the stone head's mouth. The ill person would squat underneath the mouth, and bathe in the water.



The idea was that the sick would do the full circuit of North, East, South and West altars, visiting the stone faces of Man and his holy animals: Elephant, Horse and Lion. It was believed that this full circuit would help you get better. It's probably better than catching MRSA in some NHS cess-pit anyway ;)

Our guide referred to these the stone faces as 'gargoyles', but they were definitely the most attractive gargoyles that I've ever seen, which admitedly isn't saying much...

Our final scheduled stop was the temple of Preah Khan (which I could only commit to memory by thinking of Sheah Khan from the Jungle Book!), a huge and very impressive temple north of Angkor Thom.

Like Ta Prohm yesterday, over centuries seeds had blown over the walls and roofs of the temple, and naturally some had settled on the stones and grown into trees over generations, growing out of the man-made structures. This fantastic blend of man and nature combined to create some very memorable sights.



Apparently one of the larger trees in here (which was heavily integrated with a major wall/roof) is "the most photographed tree in the world", but I'm not sure who's responsible for checking that rather grandiose claim out?!

This is what it looks like anyway, pretty cool:



It was about 3pm by now and it was CRAWLING with tourists again, mostly getting in the way of all the good photos, but we still got some nice ones, and Katie even tried her hand at doing some videoing on the camera, with decidedly mixed results!

Thankfully this helped her realise that it's not as easy as it looks, so hopefully she'll quit giving me such a hard time when we play the footage back next time! ;)



Apparently this temple was built by a King who loved dancing, so he insisted that loads of carvings of dancing girls were added above most of the doors, and on most walls in the centre of the complex. I guess it was like an ancient Spearmint Rhinos or something ;)

Before we left the Angkor temples behind, Katie really wanted to see Bayon temple one last time (the centrepiece of Angkor Thom), so we were able to swing past and say goodbye to the temple and its friendly neighbourhood water buffalo!





The light in the afternoon was totally different to the light we'd had yesterday morning, so we snapped a few quick piccies and got back on the tuk-tuk.

By this time we were absolutely knackered, after a number of consecutive early starts and one VERY early start, so we were happy to go back to the hotel and crash.

After much deliberation we gave the guide & driver a couple of frankly ridiculous tips, but we figured that they'd both really put a lot of effort into helping us enjoy our 2 days here. We'd seen other guides & drivers be a lot more lazy, and our guys had never stopped trying to give us information and keep us happy, so definitely deserved our financial gratitude. I guess we were paying for some fantastic lifelong memories.

When we got back to the hotel we crashed out, and later went for one last dinner at a FANTASTIC new Indian restaurant in the main area of Siem Reap, which served up one of the best curries we've ever had anywhere in the world. Every part of each dish was a knockout, it was the perfect end to an excellent couple of days. I swear we only have meals like this when I leave the camera in the hotel!

There was just enough time for me to buy a quick souvenir t-shirt, and then we went to sleep fairly early, ready to get up early to pack for our 9am flight to Bangkok, which required a 6am alarm call.

We'd really had a fantastic couple of days looking around the temples of Angkor, and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone reading this. Make sure that you do the guide thing, don't be a cheapskate; I PROMISE that it's worth it. We'll keep our guide's details so let us know if you'd like to use him.

We've had an amazing time here in ancient Angkor, it was one of the places we were most looking forward to when we planned the trip, so it would be easy to have been disappointed or felt let-down by something that we were so excited about seeing.

However, I'm glad to say that it not only lived up to but EXCEDED our expectations in a way that only a few genuine wonders of the world are capable of doing.

The beauty of Angkor lies in the fact that HUMANS designed and built these majestic temples, over hundreds of years and with such extraordinary skill and attention to detail. It makes you realise how arogant it is to think that we have 'developed' so much as a race, and makes you wonder what happened to the Cambodians who were clearly one of the most advanced races anywhere in the world at the time they built this incredible temple complex in the middle of the jungle.

Can you imagine trying to build ONE of these temples today?! Absolutely impossible.

What an incredible, magical place.


Lots of love,


Al & Katie xx