What's Angkor Wat? {Cath}

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Until Darrell mentioned to me that Angkor Wat was one of his long time dream places to see, I'd never heard of it. He told me that it was an amazing collection of ancient temples, that it was one of the UNESCO World Heritage sites, and that it was the setting for the Tomb Raider movies. That was enough for me. As we were planning the trip, I was eager to learn as much about the temples as I could, but at the same time, very careful to avoid seeing any pictures. I was worried that with so much hype, that I might be disappointed. So much for that. I think that even if the temples were all concrete slabs, the volume alone would be mind boggling!

We arrived in Siem Reap in the afternoon, and wasting no time, we each hired a bicycle and headed off to get our temple passes and go exploring. The temples were unreal! Each aspect alone would be a reason to come and see them. The ancientness of the era in which the temples were built, the actual structure and architecture, the bas reliefs (intricate carvings on the wall that tell a story) that cover almost every inch of the km long stone walls, the sheer number of these awesome temples, and the dumbstruck, completely overwhelmed, feeling you get when you leave would all be reasons to go.

We spent the whole of our first afternoon marveling at the ancient temples and palaces, cycling from one temple to the next. It was awesome to be in such an history filled place, one could only imagine what kinds of things were going on at the time. Seeing priests, scholars, commoners or kings walking through the now long abandoned hallways, is enough to drive even the most uncreative mind wild.
We ended off our first day with a sunset over one the most famous temple of them all, the one and only Angkor Watt.

The evening turned out to be just as exciting as our day had been. Although we were both pretty worn out from our day’s cycling and excitement, we were too restless to sleep, so we decided to go and explore the town for a bit. We stopped in at a nice looking restaurant. The one thing we’ve learned really well in our travels, is that if you’re looking for a place to eat, try to find the place with more locals than tourists. This was just the place. The sign outside on the door advertised “Cambodian Barbecue” for dinner.

It was such a fun meal. The waitress brought us each a bowl and led us to a table full of raw food, seafood, meat and vegetables alike. When we arrived back at our places, there was an interesting griddle set in a hole in the middle of the table, over some hot coals. The centre of the griddle was raised and this was for braai-ing your meat on, around the centre was a moat. We were told to put the noodles and vegetables into the water. While we were cooking the meat, all the fat dripped down into the water, making a richly flavoured noodle soup. It was fantastic! The 2 young waitresses were also fantastic. They spent the whole evening trying to teach us some Cambodian words. This proved to be a bit of a losing battle. We were both so tired, and now with full tummies, it was almost impossible to concentrate on remembering anything! Poor Darrell, I thought he was about to fall asleep and drop his head right into his soup bowl!

The next day we spent exploring more temples. That’s how many there are. You could easily spend 3 full days exploring and not visit the same place twice. We woke up really early to go and see the sunrise over Angkor Watt. It was a bit of a rough start, the gate was locked and we couldn’t find either the key or the light switch! So there we were fumbling around the reception table trying desperately to locate this ruddy key! Turns out it was behind a pot plant right next to the gate.

The sunrise was worth it. We arrived just before the big event (and boy is it a popular one!), bought 2 cups of coffee and settled down with our camera to enjoy the show. It really was great. We bought a guide book before heading temple and that was probably the best decision we could have made. All of a sudden the intricate carvings (bas reliefs) covering kilometres of wall go from interesting to leaping into life, telling a story and introducing a new level of meaning to the temple. Angkor Wat was definately the biggest, most intricate of the temples that we saw. It was originally built as a hindu temple but then later taken over and converted into the buddist temple it is today. Unlike the other temples, it has never been abandoned to ruin, and even when we were there, attempts were being made to restore Angkor Wat to it's full glory. The whole of Angor Watt is supposed to be a symbol of the divine Mt Meru, surrounded by the ocean (the 190m wide moat edged with a 3.6km long bas relief coverd wall). The carvings on the walls show battles between heaven and hell and the punishments you can expect if you lead an evil life. It really is beyond modern understanding to comprehend such a massive effort. One would enter the temple over an earth break in the moat, and then through one of the 3 doors in the outer wall. Angkor Wat translated means, "temple that is a city" and on the lawn between the outer wall and the temple is where the villagers would have lived. In the guide book we bought, it said that over 1000 people lived there.
We spent another full day on the bicycles cycling through bright green rice fields and palm trees visiting snippets of history on the way.

Although Angkor Wat was amazing in all it's detail and scale, I think my favourite temple would have been Angkor Thom. This is the traditional 'Tomb Raider' temple. It was built in the jungle but then something happened that caused all the inhabitants to suddenly leave, and eventually, the poor temple was forgotten about for years and years. It was forgotten for so long, in fact, that the jungle has started growing over it again. Long corridors started collapsing under the weight of the trees, some of the tall stone roves caved in, and massive roots started ploughing their way through or spilling over the massive stone walls. It had such an exciting feeling, walking around and imagining what the temple would have been like in it's prime.

I really could go on and on about all the different temples that we saw. It was like being in another world. By our third day our minds were so worn out by all the temples that we decided to sleep in late and explore the markets in town (which were also completely worthwhile).
It was such an awesome experience.

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Photos

Faces
The faces were re-carved to look like each successive king.

The woman in the wall
Carved bricks inside one of the temples

Spilling over
Roots of a massive tree spilling down the walls of Ta Phromn

The king's bath
This dam was built for the king's ablutions

Size Counts
Elephants get right of way at the South gate to Angkor Thom

The world's biggest puzzle
This temple was taken apart for restoration, and then the plans were lost during the civil war.