Angkor WHAT???
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2004
1
36
44
Trip End
Dec 22, 2004
Siem Reap,
Cambodia
Sunday, December 5, 2004
Maybe, though, we should begin our story with Siem Reap and the spectacular ruins of the ancient city of Angkor:
Siem Reap which was our base for visiting Angkor, though the main tourist area of Cambodia, was quite small and fairly poverty stricken. Most of Cambodia, what we saw anyway, was actually worse. The country is probably still recovering from the effects of Pol Pot's evil, communist Khmer Rouge regime in the late 70's.
"Bas-Reliefs"
After a long, long journey from Bangkok and a lot of messing about by our guides, we finally arrived in Siem Reap at 10.30pm, we'd left Bangkok at 7am. The guides had pretended about 6 times that there were breakdowns and things wrong with the bus - all a ploy to get us to stay at the hotel which gives them comission! We'd read about such scams and so vowed to go to the government registered TAT office, book it there and pay more money so as to avoid scams, however, such was not the case. The bus, oh, you have to hear about the bus... it was a ramshackle of a thing to say the least - how that thing moved an inch is a miracle! The engine had to be started by banging a screw on it, and the engine wasn't where a normal engine would be, but right beside Jilian's seat, and when the engine conked out due to overheating and the sparks started to fly, we were scared! There was of course, no air conditioning and so the windows had to be opened, until a passing something approached (be it motorbike, banger, cow or donkey) we quickly had to close the windows before we'd be once again covered in dust.
Anyway, after refusing point blank to stay at their hotel, we found another one, a brand new hotel called Rithyrin - pretty flash and not too expensive, checked in right away, had a quick shower to wash all the dust and dirt off us and went straight to bed, we were absolutely shattered. Before hitting the sack we organised a taxi to take us around Angkor for the next 2 days, it's far too big to get around by yourself when you've just a couple of days to do it. Next morning we were still exhausted, so we decided just go to Angkor for sunset that evening and to properly explore it the next day, starting first thing in the morning at sunrise.
A Better Part of the Dirt Track
Sunset at Angkor was beautiful, but naturally the place was crawling with other tourists, it's the main reason people visit Cambodia. We walked up a steep hill with high steps and then some more steep steps up to the top of the temple and strolled around the first main site Phnom Bakeng for a couple of hours, just taking in the magnificence of what we were looking at and trying to imagine what it must have been like in its hay day. Most of the tourists there all congregated at the one spot to watch the actual sun set, but it didn't set over the temples, only at a field, we couldn't understand that they didn't realise what they were missing. As the sunset, the colours of the sky became beautiful and made the temple appear magical, with different colours everywhere, bringing life to what was ruins. We've some amazing photos of Phnom Bakeng, the sunset making it seem somewhat mystical. After our memory card was full, we ascended the many steps, then returned to our hotel for an early night - up the next morning at 4.30am to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat, and to spend the whole day visiting all the different sites of the ancient city.
Sunrise was just as beautiful than the previous night's sunset, with more amazing colours and different light. We watched the sun rise over Angkor Wat, which was Angkor's centre of power when it was populated
Andy Thought he saw a King Cobra here
. Next, we set off for Angkor Thom which consisted of Bayon, the Terrace of the Elephants and the Terrace of the Leper King. Bayon was spectacular, it was a large temple-like structure topped with massive granite strucures of faces of different kings of the Khmer Empire, of which Angkor was the capital. All over the stones were so many different carvings, and we spent so long simply in awe at how they were made, how long it must have taken them to do it and how wonderfully intricate the whole thing was. The Terrace of the Elephants had hundreds of carvings of elephants all around it, some with 3 heads strangely - we're sure this has a meaning, but as yet, we haven't read the whole book. The Terrace of the Leper King was a similar structure, though much smaller than that of the Elaphants and was dedicated to a Khmer king who died of Leprosy.Bantaay Kdel, our next stop, was similar to Bayon but not quite as spectacular. Apparently the king had died before finishing it, so there weren't very many carvings or anything too spectacular really. To reach the top of the structure, we had to climb what must've been the steepest set of steps ever constructed. On the top of Bantaay Kdel were small Hindu and Buddhist shrines, and a great view of the whole of Angkor.
After Bantaay Kdel, we had some lunch just outside Ta Phrom and tried to appease the little kids as much as we could, who were desperately trying to make a living so they could pay for school - we did believe this because our guide said thay have to pay for courses and explained they work in the mornings, then off to school in the afternoon
Angkor Thom
. Cynical us not sure to believe it, but the kids were certainly needy, so we bought a few souvenirs. Ta Prohm was the strangest of Angkor's sites. The place was very run-down, most of the buildings crumbling and a lot of rubble lying about, but we actually really liked this because it's how it should be naturally and really lets you know that it's now ruins - what was once great, though in ruins can still be beautiful. Some of the other buildings were somewhat too preserved, which looked slightly unnatural, and stepping into Ta Phrom felt like a new world, lost to time. To top the experience of this temple off were the massive trees that grew up between the cracks in Ta Prohm's walls, which gave the place an eerie look. Andy also saw what looked like a pretty large black snake crawling through some of the fallen stonework. King Cobras, with enough venom in one bite to kill an elephant, are known to inhabit some parts of Angkor, and we were warned to stay out of dimly lit places - was it? - we'll never know, but happy we didn't find out!From Ta Prohm, where we stayed for quite a while, mystified and puzzled by the ruins and trees, we returned to Angkor Wat to have a proper look around the massive complex, and weren't disappointed. The giant towers that adorn the top of Angkor Wat are spectacular in their own rite, and the inside of the palace complex is just what you'd imagine the centre of power of an ancient empire to look like
Angkor Wat - the Biggest Temple
. There are giant rooms and the walls are adorned with intricate carvings of past battles of the Khmer Empire, and of Hindu and Buddhist legends. It just makes you realise how young our civilisation is compared to those in this part of the world, us Europeans were living in mud-huts while in Asia there were grand empires. There were a lot of tourists aroud Angkor Wat, but again they all seemed to congregate together in specific areas, and we really feel they must've missed out, because we explored the whole temple and found so many peaceful quiet places, where you could follow the stories on the walls in solitude and spy monks having peaceful moments in their sacred temple, without some tourists trying to join them in their travelling quest of "all things new and different". So, totally satisfied with everything we'd seen at Angkor, and deciding too much of a good thing can destroy the experience, we thought it was time to leave, amazed by yet another great beauty of the world.It's so hard to do justice to Angkor by writing about, you'll see what I mean when you see our video and photos of it.
In our guide book, we read that when you first set eyes on the Temples of Angkor, particularly Angkor Wat, you will see that they are as impressive as the Great Pyramid at Giza and as intracate as the majestic Taj Mahal. Not to undermine the wonder of Angkor, we weren't as impressed as the time we saw the Pyramids and I suppose in a couple of weeks, we'll be able to comment on the Taj Mahal - yes, we're showing off now!- but with the long journey and such terrible roads, it is debatable whether it's worth it. No doubt the temples are spectacular, but if you're thinking of going, make sure you chose the best route and know what you're in for - we didn't! Possibly our bad experience with the bus has clouded how worth it it was to come see Angkor, but the pain of the bumpy dirt track is still too easy to remember. Oh our poor bums!
A & J.
