Leave No Stone Uncarved
Trip Start
Jun 17, 2006
1
36
48
Trip End
Jul 07, 2007
Angkor Wat,
Cambodia
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
it. I got in Friday night without know much of anything about the
place so I bought a Cambodia guide book and an Angkor Wat one and spent
most of Saturday doing research. I decided to get a three day
pass
to Angkor Wat, $40US, and they also allow you to go the evening before
the pass is effective to get a sunset viewing in. Well their
ended up not really being much of a sunset due the clouds that night,
but it was nice to drive past some of the temples to get my bearings
and an idea of what would be coming the following days. The
temple I was at was the most popular for sunsets and swarming with
people. Half the challenge there, and at the other major temples
was trying to get a decent picture without a bunch of people in
them.
Angkor Wat is the largest, best preserved, and impressive of the
temples. But it also refers to the entire surrounding area which
is dotted with over 100 temples built from the 9th to 13th century when
Cambodia controlled most of southeast Asia. The temples started
out as brick and evolved into using volcanic rock and sandstone.
Angkor Wat means city which became a temple and describes the place
perfectly.
The driver that had taken me to my hostel set up to
take me around for the next three days. So at 5am the next
morning we met so he could take me to Angkor Wat (the temple) for
sunrise. It was pitch black when I got there and hadn't been
warned to bring my headlamp, but remembered I had a little keychain
light in my backpack. The ground is quite unlevel due to the
different height of stones and steps throughout. I saw two people
twist their ankles before 6:30. I made it in safely and got to
the steps to go up. Oh my, they are steep. I read in my
guidebook later that the lowest angle on the steps there are 50 degrees
and they had those blocked off. You literally climb with your
hands and feet all the way up. I was the first one up , but
didn't have the place alone for too long. However it was still
just a handful of people and we were treated to a really pretty sunrise
over the trees and up the path to the temple.
I stayed there for
about three hours working my way from the center point out in widening
circles. As the sun continued to rise I really got a feeling for
the immensity of the place. The outer wall close to a kilometer
square and surrounded by a huge moat (190 meters wide) which you can't
even see all of from the top. I just kept looking around
disbelieving what I was seeing and imaging the work that went into
building it. All of the sandstone used to make it came from 30
miles away and was brought down on the river. It rises 55 meters
tall in the center point above the ground. The sheer size and
shape of the temple is absolutely incredible.
Then you get to looking at it at there is hardly an inch of the
building that wasn't ornately carved and originally painted also.
It really leaves you speechless trying to think about designing and
decorating it. You just can't describe what you are seeing since
every turn is slightly different. Trying to get pictures doesn't
do it justice either since you either get the detail of what was done,
but none of the amount of it or the other way around. Plus there
isn't anywhere to get on overview except from the air. The outer
enclosure is carved with stories from Hinduism, Buddhism, and Khmer
(Cambodian people's) past. The shortest mural is about 60 meters
long and go up to 100 meters about 8 feet tall. The level of
detail and the fact that it has survived for almost 1000 years is
remarkable.
Eventually, I wandered down and found my driver and off we went to the
next temples. All of the vary some and I'm certainly not going to
go into all of them, just the ones I feel like. The next was
Bayon which is unique because the towers in it are all carved with a
large face on each of the four sides of the tower looking
outward. It is a bit a surreal site and I can only imagine how it
looked when completed and every detail would have been clearly
visible. Angkor Wat is just in a class by itself, so my next
favorite that day was Ta Prohm which has been left in more or less in
condition it was discovered in in the beginning of the 19th
century. When I saw discovered that refers to re-discovered by
the western world, kind of like discovering America, except its already
full of people! Anyways, this one had trees growing from the tops
of walls where birds would have deposited a seed, complete with
fertilizer. Wait 1000 years and a huge tree has grown which has
over taken the wall and is breaking down the stone. Some of the
scenes from Tomb Raider were shot here and I was thinking that every
movie should be made there. Its just that cool looking.
I spent a while weaving my way through Ta Prohm and sat down at the end
for a bit of water and all of a sudden I hear this girls voice, ""Hey
that looks like Brian". I looked over and it was Phoebe and
Tamzin, the two English girls I met my first day in Singapore and
traveled up to KL with. I knew they were planning on going to
Cambodia, but it was totally last minute for me and a completely random
meeting. It was great seeing them again and we caught up for a
bit and planned to get together for a few beers later on.
Day 1 completed the little circuit with plans on the grand circuit on
day 2. The two circuits overlap each other for parts and where
created when visitors starting coming here and did their tours on
elephant. I knew after going out the night before a sunrise
wasn't in my future so I met the driver at 9 and headed out
again. It was more of the same although I wasn't getting temple
burnout yet just because I would keep finding something totally
different or unexpected and we were going at a nice pace. I
really felt like I was spending more time at nearly of the temples than
most people, but I was still seeing everything I planned on for the day
so it worked out great.
The part that was getting old is hordes of vendors stationed around
every single temple. All of them selling the same stuff and you
either already bought it or really don't want it.
01- Ankgor Wat
I must have beenoffered 300 "You want cold drink mister" for every one that I did
buy. The more time that went on and the more Cambodians I spent
time with I really got to feeling bad about not getting more.
While there are more beggars here than anywhere so far, there is even
more pleading. You buying something for $1 really does mean
something to them. The little kids running around selling
postcards are just an example. They would whip through them
saying all the names, and then count them off 1 through 10 in
english. More enterprising ones would switch to Cambodian, then
French, Spanish, Japanese, German. I know I heard one girl do all
six languages. Or where you ""from mister?", America, ahh,
capital Washington DC large cities New York, Chicago, LA, population
300 million. They obviously get a worldwide education even though
they aren't in school.
I hit Angkor Wat again that day for sunset this time. The nice
thing about that temple is that even though there are so many people
there, except at sunrise, its big enough that they spread out and you
aren't elbow to elbow for it. I headed back after that and was
going to hit some of the further out temples the next day (about 30
miles away). That night at midnight I thought the person in the
room next to me was taking a shower. Eventually I figured out it
was rain and it continued to while I was picked up at 6 all the way
until we arrived at 7:30. The ticket checker wasn't there yet so
we sat around until 8. It was odd being the only people there and
having all the vendor stalls empty. This one wasn't so much a
temple as carvings into a riverbed and surrounding rocks. My
guide went along with me as it was a 1.5 mile walk out to them.
It was so gorgeous being there right after the rain and being the only
people there. We kept getting glimpses of monkey scurrying away
as we listened to all the rain falling of the leaves as the moved along
telling us where they were. We got to the riverbed and while
there still wasn't much of stream it did allow us to see more of the
carvings. There was a little waterfall just downstream and we
spent about 45 minutes poking around. About 5 minutes into our
walk out we met the next people coming in and there were groups
following every couple minutes behind. I'm so thankful that it
was pouring all night because it probably slowed them all down and gave
me the place to myself.
We went 6 miles back towards town to Banteay Srey which isn't a large
temple, but has the most detailed carvings of all of them. The
carvings would go several inches deep and just stand out like they were
carved last week. Again every visible inch would have something
done to it just leaving you shaking your head at how they built one
temple, let alone all of them over the years. The population of
this area was at 1,000,000 people during this time while London only
had about 50,000 (about the time of the Battle of Hastings) so they
were early bloomers.
That afternoon we hit one more group, and my temple capacity was
getting filled so I didn't get as much from them and didn't feel like
going to hit one of the big ones again one more time. I'm so glad
I changed my plans to include this area it really is something that
once I found out what I missed I would have regretted. I really
didn't know what my plans were going to be after the temples, but at
the moment I'm going to plan 9,401 and think I will stay in Cambodia
for a few weeks and head north into Laos (rhymes with how). This
means that I won't make it South Africa, but I'm ok that. It also
means I have lots to do in the next week to try and get some meds
shipped to me from my parents and get a Laos visa since you can't do it
at the border point with Cambodia. I'll be heading to the capital
soon to take care of those details and then heading east near the
border of Vietnam and north. As I said plan 9,401 with at least
10 more by Friday at this rate. Until then ....
02- Angkor Wat with Reflection
Comments
Battle of Hastings
Can't believe you got the opportunity to mention the Battle of Hastings in your blog. I bet all the Buksas know when that was! Thanks for keeping all of us informed and learning some history. Take care.