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The Temples of Angkor Wat
Entry 58 of 64 | show all | print this entry |
Oh, where to begin... Siem Reap, the closest city to the temples, is a fast little town completely made over for tourism. They have a Pub Street and Alley Street where all the restaurants and bars are, a market for cheap textiles and goods and thousands upon thousands of tuk-tuks and touts vying for your attention and money. We met a girl in Luang Prabang the night before we arrived who recommended the Golden Banana B&B for a place to stay. At first, Rory thought it sounded like a giant golden dildo so he was unsure of what to expect, but the place turned out to be fantasic. Well, except for the constant pounding of hammers and buzz saws. Construction sucks.
We rose at the crack of dawn on our first day to try and beat the rush to Angkor Wat, but mostly to beat the heat. We arrived at the front gates around 7:30 a.m. and headed straight for the grand temple of Angkor Wat. The entire 2km squared outter stone wall was surrounded by a huge mote with only one large walkway leading to the main gate. This temple is truly magnficent. It's said to be the largest religious building in the world and approximately 1000 years old. It's amazing that any of the temples are still standing after the jungles took back over and the Khmer Rouge invaded in the early 1970s. But they are and a lot of the detailed carvings are still intact. As we wandered around the corridors and passageways, I wondered how long it must have taken these people to put a temple like this together. I guess when you have nothing else to fill the time, you carve rocks. Sure sounds boring to me, but thank god they were determined.
Our favorite temple was Ta Phrom. It was used to film the movie Tomb Raider so you may recognize it from the photos we send out. The trees have completely taken over the temple and grow in, around, on and even through the stone walls. The stone has molded a bit and is now slightly green in color giving it a mossy glow. It made me feel like a kid playing Indian Jones.
The rest of the morning was spent visiting a few of other other temples, but by noon the sun was beaming overhead and we were drenched in sweat. We had to head back into town and take full advantage of the lush gardens and pool at our hotel. We had another day of visiting temples so we made it an early night after our killer burgers at Burgers Without Borders. Who would of thought Cambodia serves up good burgers???
We headed out to Bang Mealeay the next afternoon, stopping at the Land Mine Museam and another smaller temple beforehand. We hired a taxi to take us because the ride was around 2 hours and the road were dirt and full of pot holes. We saw many other travelers on small tuk-tuks dying in the heat and we waved as we passed them in our A/C car. Very polite.
Bang Mealeay is a lot like Ta Phrom in that it has been taken over by trees and bush, but it's about twice the size and in much worse condition. Many of the walls have come tumbling down and there are huge piles of rocks to climb on and get lost in. The temple is so far our that not many people were there so at times you felt like you were all alone in this amazing place in history. That is of course if there wasn't some Cambodian teenager or kid following you around trying to give you a tour. I know your tricks little boy. They start telling what things are and what used to be there, like this was the library and that was the out house. If you don't tell them to get lost they'll ask for money when you're ready to leave claiming they gave you a tour even though you didn't ask. It's a bit annoying at times because they won't go away, or they'll pretend they don't know what you're saying, but it's hard to be too grouchy because you know that they have so much less than you can even imagine. I think my favorite line they use when trying to sell you water is "Ok, lady, you buy water from me?" "No thanks." "Ok, well, maybe later when you're done seeing temple. You buy from me ok. I remember you." "Maybe, we'll see." "Ok, I remember you two, together." Then, when you actually do come out of the temple that person is right there saying, "You said you'd buy my water when you were done. One dollare please." And if you say no, they will beg and follow you to your car or tuk-tuk and sometimes even run after you laying on the guilt trip. It's actually really sad. I wish I had a $1 for all of them, but I figure that I don't have a job and about $60,000 in school loans to pay off, I might actually be pooer than they are.
After another sweaty day, we cooled off in our A/C and decided it was time to try and much bragged about Happy Pizza. A medium cheese pizza split between the two of us - pizza a la ganja that is - and we were back on the streets waiting for the effects. I'd have to say that I've never been so high in my life. We were giggling like crazy, but really had no idea why. My eyes felt like they were sinking into the back of head and my mouth was so dry! I tried to water it down with beer, but nothing helped and I just got super drunk. By the next morning we were still feeling the effects and decided that Happy Pizza may be a little too extreme, even for us. But I definitely don't regret giving it a go.
Day 3 was a lazy day for us. We were all Wated out and needed some TV time in our room. CNN sure is boring after a few hours. And HBO is crap, but beggars can't be choosers. We were moving on again the next morning and couldn't be happier snuggled under our icey cold fan.
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