The temples and ruins of Angkor
Trip Start
Jul 12, 2006
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Trip End
Jun 18, 2007
Siem Reap,
Cambodia
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Our first taste of Siem Reap for real was last night when we took a tuk tuk to Angkor Wat for sunset. I was quite excited about seeing Angkor Wat, I've read and heard so much about it, and to be honest I wasn't disappointed. If you buy a one day ticket after 5pm it allows you to get in for free in the evening to see the sunset, so that's what we did
Angkor Wat
.Our tuk tuk driver parked up in the car park, which is a bit of a circus, over run with people trying to sell you postcards, books, souvenirs, coconuts or cold drinks. Across the road is the stone walkway to Angkor Wat. The first thing you can see walking up is three of the five lotus-like towers, which are very big. As you process up the walkway the three tiered pyramids come into view, which are even more magnificent than the towers. Angkor Wat is build from stone and walking through you realised just how much work and effort went into building such and enormous place. It's a bit maze like inside with lots of raised or dipped bits, lots of wooden steps to go up and down and loads of places to explore and clamber around. As the sun was going down the shadows cast through the openings around the side walls were really atmospheric. It's going through restoration so there's lots of wooden posts holding big bits of stone in place other bits are just crumbing and other bits have just been destroyed. The most impressive thing, apart from it's sheer size, is the amount of carving into the stone. There's pictures everywhere. I didn't know what to photograph first. So much detail and so intricate, it really is amazing.
Today we had a full day doing the temples
Angkor Wat lower levels from the towers
. There are so many temples here you can do various routes around the sites. It's too far to walk between them so to hire a tuk tuk to do the most basic route is $10, which is the option we took. Some of the temples are 50km away, those need a bit more dedication methinks!! We started early, getting to the temples at 9am. Some people get there at 5am for sunrise, but we'd been warned that the crowds are even bigger than at sunset so we skipped that! As we'd already seen Angkor Wat last night we headed for Angkor Thom first, which is a 3km² walled and moated royal city and was the last capital of the Angkorian empire. It's home to lots of temples and ruins. My favourite out of all of them was Bayon, which has 37 standing towers made up of huge faces. I think it's better than Angkor Wat (controversial I know). It's amazing to see all those faces, and the sheer size of them, made out of stone. It was great to climb all over and wander about, really interesting.
Another good temple is Ta Prohm because it, as a friend said to me today, it looks like something out of tomb raider and has trees growing in it, over it, through it, you name it, there's a tree poking out the stones somewhere. The roots, winding through the stones, look remarkable.
We saw over 20 temples and ruins today and after 6 and a half hours in the baking sun and a quick return trip to Angkor Wat, we both decided to head home for a well earned rest and some food
Angkor Wat tourists
. I'm surprised that Lee lasted so long, he was sweating more than I'd ever seen him do before, so we refrained from going to see any more. We've got some amazing photos and I'm really glad we saw so much today. We were trying to decide whether to come back tomorrow but we've spoken to lots of people who say that two days of temple/ruin visiting (unless you have a very special interest in this area) is a bit too much, quote 'they all blur into one'... Which I can imagine would happen quite easily really.Still, it's a fantastic place to come and if you want to see temples or ruins, then you can't get much better than here. It's a shame that there's so many tour groups about, we had to pick our way through groups as big as about 50 or 60 and if you do happen to find somewhere that doesn't have a million other people in it then you'll be swarmed by little kids trying to sell stuff. They're quite funny really, they follow you about repeating all the time "you buy postcard? 3 for 1 dollar" or "you buy bracelet? 3 for 1 dollar" no matter how many times you say no thank you, they still follow you about. Luckily I have two young nephews so am used to ignoring children!
Some of the temples are really tall, and to get to the top you have to climb up really steep stairs and I'm taking steps that are about 3 inches wide and about 8 inches tall
Angkor Wat towers
. It's fine going up, as long as you don't look down, but getting down is a bit hairy. Luckily our glaciers climbing skills have come in very handy. Anyway, at the top of one of the temples (after we'd slogged up the stairs for ages to get to the top) we found two young children, a boy and a girl (around 7 and 9 yrs old I think) already there with postcards, bangles, bracelets ready to be sold and there was no escaping. They followed us about with ease, jumping over the stones and boulders like little monkeys, while Lee and I wobbled all over the place. I had come coconut candy with me so instead of buying something I gave them some sweets which they were really pleased with and left us alone immediately to eat the candy. The little boy gave me a really big smile when he said thank you and then I felt really bad because all his little teeth were decayed and I forgot than children here don't have the luxury of toothbrushes or toothpaste - opps!Now we've done the temples I think we may leave Siem Reap tomorrow or Sunday and head back to Thailand for a bit of relaxation. Siem Reap is ok, but it's a bit of a fake town. It only exists because of Angkor Wat, the main aim of people in the town is to get you to Angkor Wat, you can't walk anywhere without being offered transport of some sort to get you there. The owners of our hotel were most concerned when we arrived and didn't go. We tried to explain that we were ill and weren't going anywhere but to bed and they honestly couldn't understand it. The man just kept asking "Well, when are you going to Angkor Wat?" when I said I didn't know, when we were feeling better, he just loked puzzled and kept saying "tomorrow?" when I replied I didn't know, we'll go when we are better, he'd just said "What time tomorrow?"... No No No No!!! and round in circles we went. Even when I went to get food the waiter was asking when we were going to goand couldn't understand that we'd been here a whole day and hadn't been. It was as if we were taking up the space of someone else that would go, therefore we shouldn't be here.
But we've been now, so time to move on.
