Temples of Angkor
Trip Start
Jun 09, 2005
1
45
105
Trip End
Jun 08, 2006
Siem Reap,
Cambodia
Sunday, November 20, 2005
We find out that there is a local train going to the airport in about one hour that costs only 10 Bart (GBP 0.15) each, so we squeeze on board, hoping that we can change our flight time to Siem Reap, Cambodia, to something earlier than 3pm.
At Bangkok Airways ticketing office we collect our (expensive) USD$120 tickets and find that there is just one empty seat on the earlier flight leaving at 11am. We go on the waiting list, hoping that someone else won't turn up for the flight
01 Sunrise over Angkor Wat, Siam Reap
. At 10.30am we go to check in again, and after a few nail-biting moments we're relieved to find out that there's another 'no-show', so we rush to the gate to catch the flight.In Siem Reap we're first off the plane and first in the queue to buy the USD$20 visa-on-arrival. The green uniformed officials work slowly and methodically to process the forms and hand us back our passports complete with attractive colourful visa, and a receipt that is dated two days previous. Rachel reckons they are recycling an old receipt and pocketing the money for themselves, and I think she's right. Cambodia is a country wracked by poverty, and officialdom is widely reckoned to be the best passport to easy corruption.
We exit customs to an unexpected throng of taxi touts eager to take us into town. We find that the cheapest option is to hire two motorcycles for USD$1 each - the drivers put the packpack between their legs and we ride pillion with our day sacks on. I enjoy the ride on Honda Dream 125's through the hot afternoon sunshine, but Rachel is reminded of her fear of motorcycles as she closes her eyes, clenches her teeth and grasps the bike frame with white knuckles.
We arrive at European guesthouse and manage to negotiate a lovely timber-floored high-ceilinged room with private bathroom and fan for USD$5
02 Angkor Wat
. After checking in we find the motorcycle drivers are still hanging around eager to discuss our transport needs for the next few days. We have three days in Siem Reap to look round the vast array of temples that are spread over an enormous area north of the town. Getting a tuk-tuk or motorcycle is reckoned to be the best way to see the sites. After a lengthy and painful discussion, our drivers offer us a tuk tuk for three days for USD$42, however we don't want to accept because we think we might be able to get it cheaper elsewhere. One driver agrees to return at 8pm in the evening to see if we want still want to go with him.
I talk to another driver, recommended by some other travellers, who happens to live just across from our guesthouse. He offers us the same package for USD$40, so we accept - trying not to think too much about letting down Driver 1 when he will appear later. Driver 2 agrees to pick us up at 5am the next morning in time for the sunrise over Angkor Wat.
Siem Reap is a fairly characterless tourist town, although it reminds us a bit of India with its dusty streets, beggars, roadside restaurants, and buzzing motorcycles
03 Asparas at Angkor Wat
. In stark contrast to the poverty, there are oases of capitalism such as duty free shopping where you can buy diamonds and gold for thousands of dollars, and hotel rooms where you can pay over USD$1000 per night. If you are rich enough you can be sheltered in these oases from the crippling povery that defines most Cambodian's lives.We go to bed that night thankful that Driver 1 has not appeared, so no bad news to break. I have just fallen asleep when I sense a quiet knocking on the door and find Driver 1 standing there sheepishly. He rapidly descends into a pit of depression when I tell him his services are not required. After listening to his stories of poverty for about 5 minutes I take pity on him and offer him the third day of business if he wants it.
In the morning Driver 2 is nowhere to be seen which is annoying when one has got up for a 5am start. Fortunately he's just across the road though so I awaken him and he bustles around getting his tuk-tuk ready. These tuk-tuks are two wheeled two seater trailers that attach to a drawbar that is mounted on the rear frame of 125cc bikes. After some messing about we are ready to go and we shiver in the dark as we head north the few kilometres towards the main entrance to the temple complex. We buy a three day pass for USD$40 each, which contains a photo of us in which we both look like rabbits startled in the headlights.
Outside Angkor Wat we are immediately amazed by the scale of the complex as we gaze at it from across a wide moat. On foot, we follow the crowds along the bridge and through an imposing stone gateway into the main temple compound, which is surrounded by tall walls
04 Looking out from Angkor Wat
. From here we see a long wide road that leads straight ahead to the temple itself in the distance. In the immediate foreground there are thousands of tourists snapping away frantically as the dawn sky grows brighter silhoueting the spires of the temple. The road is made of large irregular shaped stone slabs, each custom cut to fit accurately with the adjacent ones. The body of a mythical dragon-like serpent, a naga, forms the stone fencing on either side of the road.After walking down the road for 250m or so we are at the steps in front of the temple. Despite the crowds of tourists that we see during sunrise, it is suprising that all the temples are all relatively quiet inside. Heat from the day before radiates from the interior walls and we see a network of water channels which were used as a natural cooling system.
Steep and narrow worn steps lead precariously to the tops of towers where we are rewarded with views of the symmetrical complex of structures warmed by the early morning sunlight. We admire the 1000 year old masonary work and intricate carvings that seem to have survived amazingly well. Our guide book tells us that Angkor Wat wasn't rediscovered until the mid 1800's. It was part of a flourishing Khmer kingdom until successive invasions by the Thai's finally topled it in the early 1600's. From then, until its rediscovery, it was hidden by dense jungle.
After eagerly looking round Angkor Wat for a couple of hours our driver takes us to the Angkor Thom, an even more massive complex about four times the area of Angkor Wat. We drive through a spectacular gateway crowned with four giant stone faces pointing in each of the cardinal directions
05 Carvings at Angkor Wat
. From there its a surprisingly long drive to Bayon temple in the middle of Ankor Thom. Bayon has 37 tall stone towers most of which have the same theme of four giant stone faces. We wander through the temple looking at the intricate bas reliefs on the temple walls and stone carvings on the fallen masonary littering the temple grounds. From there we wander through a number of other temples within Thom, such as Baphuon and Phimeanakas, and find an long terrace of carved stone elephants. We marvel at the construction which parallels the pyramids of Egypt in scale, complexity, organisation, and art.Our driver takes us to Thommanom, Ta Keo, and Banteay Kdei temples beyond Ankor Thom, and my favourite, Ta Prohm. Ta Prohm is a sprawling monastic complex which has only been partially cleared of jungle. Giant fig and silk cotton trees with thick coiling roots organically sprout from the crumbling walls and towers. Parrots flit from tree to tree and through the green we spy carved apsaras (beautiful female figures) in the walls of the standing buildings. The dark interlinked rooms in this vast temple complex must be the inspiration for computer games like Doom, and films like Tomb Raider.
After the last temple in the afternoon and we are completely zonked. We head back to town in the tuk-tuk enjoying the wind in our hair and cooling down a bit after the heat of the day. When we get back to Siem Reap I tell Driver 2 that we don't need his services on day 3 which sends him into a spriralling mood of doom and gloom.
We eat in a Cambodian restaurant that night and the food is really excellent. Main dishes cost about USD$1 each, and favourites include Amok, an aromatic and spicy fish curry served in a coconut with steamed rice
06 Entrance to Angkor Thom
. Next day, Driver 2 tells us that he no longer wishes to take us and sends us with his brother instead. Fortunately his brother, Sukry (Driver 3) is a much more cheerful character who is young enough not to be too badly corrupted by the taxi driving profession.
We take a grand tour around Pre Rup, East Mebon, Ta Som, Neak Pean, Preah Khan, and Phnom Bakheng. The highlight is Preah Khan which is a highly explorable complex complete with monster trees and beatiful Apsara carvings. We see the sunset over Ankor Wat from the hilltop temple at Phnom Bakheng. There are crowds of people climbing the steep path and some of the lazier ones opt to be taken up on a switchback route by friendly black elephants for USD$15. We walk down the elephant trail after sunset behind an enormous female elephant carrying two Japanese tourists. We have a scary moment when another elephant catches up and we are sandwiched between them briefly before we hold our breath and sprint past the leading elephant.
That night Driver 1 arrives and discusses with us the itinery for day 3. After spending about 15 minutes agreeing where we will go, what we will see, and when we will leave, he announces that his tuk tuk is broken
07 Bayon temple
. Rachel and I scratch our heads in amazement as he instead offers to take both of us pillion on one motorbike. I decline, wish him good luck with his tuk-tuk repairs, and show him the door. Driver 3, Sukry, has no problem with the itinary, his brain, or his tuk tuk, and agrees to take us the next morning.
Just after dawn we head north from Siem Reap to Bantreay Srey. It is surprisingly cold in the mornings, and I find it almost refreshing to be shivering as we bounce along the potholed road. Around Siem Reap we see fertile rice fields of bright verdant green, forests of tall harwoods, children cycling to school, and people busy working in the front yard of their homes. We see people making baskets, making palm sugar by boiling it in huge vats, mending farm tools, and tending their animals. The water level everywhere is very high, and there seems only to be a few inches between the land level and the water table. Most of the houses are built on tall stilts to keep them off the damp ground.
We take a look around Bantrey Srey which turns out to be a bit dissapointing because it seems so small in scale compared to the temples we've seen
08 Workers in Bayon temple
. After breakfast in a roadside cafe, we head back to south, stopping in Banteay Samre on the way back to town. There are a band of variously injured landmine victims playing mesmerising music on the temple approach, and we toss in a few Real's into the collection pot. We are amazed to learn that nearly 70 people get killed every month in Cambodia from landmines. These are an unwanted gift from the Americans and the French who refuse to offer proper help to clean them up. We learn that the finincial cost to the Americans of a single day in the Gulf war would cover the clear up operation many times over.In all the temples there are an amazing number of young children, especially girls, selling postcards, silk scarfs and snacks. I wonder why some of them are not at school and I am informed by a local that they go in the afternoons. Another time I ask the same question in the afternoon and I hear that its because they go to school in the morning. I suspect that a lot of children, especially the girls, don't go to school at all.
We take the road west of town and head to the Rolous Group which are the oldest conglomeration of pre Angkorian temples. We see that many of them are made of brick construction - but without mortar, and the sandstone carvings are very heavily eroded.
With a rising feeling of TSS (Temple Sickness Syndrome) we head back to town and book up our bus tickets to get to Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia.
