Angkor

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10/11 - Goodbye Hanoi, on to Siem Reap, Lauren’s Birthday!

Well I won’t bore you too much with the details of this day because we were mostly at the airport! We did however manage to buy some new underwear, because neither of us have any clean pairs left! We decided it would be much cheaper to buy some new underpants than to wash our existing ones, so we headed off to “Underwear Lane” - a little tiny alleyway lined with underwear stalls (it no doubt has a real name but I can’t remember it!) Finding some men’s underwear in Andrew’s size was quite a challenge - but in the end we found him some charming XXXL ones.... and after wearing them all day today (11/1) he assures me there is no chance we will ever have children! Poor Andrew and his little men!

At about 5pm we landed in Siem Reap - and what a charming town! It has a lovely atmosphere and there are bars and restaurants everywhere. Of course, it is not that simple - and we have been confronted by a lot of sadness in the dozens of landmine victims. Andrew has already banned me from giving away any more money to them but I just get so sad, because there is no social welfare program here, and nobody wants to beg but it’s hard to work if you have no legs.

For dinner we feasted on truly heavenly Cambodian tucker at “Khmer Kitchen” - and all up our whole meal and three drinks cost $8 US. Interestingly, most of the ATMs in Siem Reap dispense American dollars! I haven’t even seen the local currency yet. I think they had some problems with the notes not being worth enough. Given that the Khmer Rouge abolished currency (along with the postal service) and destroyed their central bank I think we’ll forgive them for using a couple of different currencies though!

11/1 - Angkor / Siem Reap

Up bright and early at the super happy awesome time of 4:30am for a sunrise trip! I did lots of research on the plane to work out exactly where tourists like to go for sunrise - so we could do just the opposite!

We hired a “tuk tuk” - which in Siem Reap means a covered trailer pulled by a motor bike - and driver for $15 US for the day. You can get it a bit cheaper but unless you are really pinching pennies I think it is nice to pay the local people as much as you can - I actually gave him US $23 in the end.

We arrived at the “Bayon” site, part of the larger Angkor Thom area, in the pitch black without another soul in sight. Our driver had looked at us like we were crazy when we said we wanted to go to the Bayon for sunrise - and tried to talk us out of it - but I wasn’t going to listen. When he arrived, he said “See? Nobody here.” and he started laugh. “That’s perfect.” I said.

We had the most amazing sunrise sitting in the ancient Bayon ruins all by ourselves. To quote “Ancient Angkor” by Freeman & Jacques, “This, the State Temple of Jayavarman VII and his immediate successors, is one of the most enigmatic and powerful religious constructions in the world. The temple is extremely complex both in terms of its structure and meaning, having passed through the different religious phases from Pantheon of the Gods, Hindu worship and Buddhism. It uses, uniquely, a mass of face-towers to create a stone mountain of ascending peaks.”

Basically, one of the highlights of the Bayon is the crafty little smile on the numerous gigantic heads. (See, this is why I put the quote in because I am nowhere near as articulate as Freeman and Jaques!)

After this we visited the almighty mother of Temples - Angkor Wat - after the sunrise crowds had moved on. If you don’t already know, Angkor Wat is the one temple that virtually every visitor to Angkor will come to look at. Again I would like to refer to Freeman & Jacques: “Angkor Wat...was not only the grandest and most sublime of all the Khmer temples, but also a city in its own right. It was built during the reign of Suryavarman II, in the first half of the 12th century, both as the capital and State Temple dedicated to Vishnu.” Vishnu is a Hindu god. The dimensions cited for Angkor Wat (Freeman & Jacques) are 1.5km E-W by 1.3km N-S. Angkor Wat is surrounded by a huge moat which is 190m wide.

On a less technical note, Angkor Wat was truly beautiful. We sat for a couple of hours here and there in little spots where there were no tourists - and it was pretty amazing just to watch shadows move and take it all in.

Sadly, at Angkor Wat I was attacked by a monkey and I am still recovering from shock. As most people - especially Andrew - know, I am intrigued by primates. Anyway, I was taking photos of the temple monkeys, and I was thinking “How wonderful, aren’t they tame. I am literally one metre away from this monkey and he is just going about his business rifling through the garbage.”

Anyway, a DIFFERENT monkey didn’t want me to be there and he ran up to me and showed me his teeth and grabbed my left leg. Now it may be some years since my biology classes but does anyone remember the “fight or flight” response? I always wondered, hmm.. if something attacks me, would I fight it? Clearly when the “something” is a garbage-eating monkey, my response is - FLIGHT! I jumped over a metre off a big stone block and ran away. Of course my second instinct was to protect the camera, so I must have looked like quite a clown running away from a potentially rabid monkey clutching a camera as if it were my baby.

Andrew ran up to me because he thought it had bitten me, but it didn’t even break the skin. I must have been too much of a speedy Gonzales for it! hehe, sucker...

Next we visited Ta Prohm - evidently an extremely popular temple judging from the hundreds of tourists who were there. The key highlight for many visitors is the fact that Ta Prohm has been maintained in approximately the same state it was found in. Here is the story from Freeman & Jacques: “This was the temple chosen by the Ecole Francaise dÉxtreme-Orient to be left in it’s ‘natural state’, as an example of how most of Angkor looked on its discovery in the 19th century. This was an inspired decision, and involved a significant amount of work to prevent further collapse and enough clearing of vegetation to allow entry. It has been maintained in this condition of apparent neglect..... The trees that have grown intertwined among the ruins are especially responsible for Ta Prohm’s atmosphere... There are two species: the larger is the silk-cotton tree....the smaller is the strangler fig. In both cases, the plant takes hold in a crevice somewhere in the superstructure of a building, usually where a bird has deposited the seed, and extends roots downwards to the soil. In doing this, the roots work their way between the masonry, so that as they grow thicker, they gradually wedge open the blocks. Eventually, the tree becomes a support for the building, but when it dies...the loosened blocks collapse. In this way, the trees are agents of destruction.”

Ta Prohm was built by Jayavarman VII (as were 3 out of 4 of the structures we visited today, the exception being Angkor Wat) and was dedicated to his mother. The principal deity was Prajnaparamita (the ‘Perfection of Wisdom’) and was represented at Ta Prohm to resemble Jayavarman VII’s mother.

When we came out of Ta Prohm and back onto the main road, Andrew picked up a copy of the Nepal Lonely Planet and informed me that we will be going there on our way to South America next year (he has been dying to go to Nepal for some time!). With all these travel projects on the horizon.... I think it’s time we were home and earning money again!

Anyhow, next we visited Preah Khan, built about 5 years after Ta Prohm, which is the same idea as Ta Prohm except this time Jayavarman VII dedicated it to his father. Unlike Ta Prohm it has been restored as much as possible. Preah Khan was not just a temple - it also served as a university (with over 1000 teachers), and a city. It includes an optical illusion - when you first enter the main entrance, it appears that the corridor is extremely long. Actually, the doorways get shorter as you go along. I think this is very interesting because it tells us that these people 800 years ago had some grasp of visual perception.

We have had a nap and we’re now hanging out in downtown Siem Reap..I’m gearing up for some Goodbye Cambodia & Vietnam cocktails. It is time for us to say “Goodbye” for now, because it is time for us to go home! (Work on Monday!) Goodbye Cambodia, Goodbye Vietnam, thanks for having us!

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Photos

Ta Prohm, Angkor
Late 12th to 13th century, now overtaken by nature.

Ta Prohm, Angkor III
This is the temple in Tomb Raider I believe.

A Cambodian bride at Angkor Wat
Unlike the Vietnamese brides, who frequently wear Western-style white dresses, this Cambodian bride wears pink.

Monkey
It was this monkey's buddy that attacked me!

Angkor Wat II
Not exactly a technically inspiring photograph due to the inconvenient location of the sun (or more accurately, the earth)... however it does give an idea of the detail at Angkor Wat

Goodbye lovely Vietnam!
(Perfume Pagoda, Hanoi)