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Sunrise
Out of this world Colors Angkor Wat for my birthday, a wonder of the man made world. A civilization that at one time was the largest in the world. A civilization that created a temple city whose size and majesty is unsurpassed to this day. What a great idea! And like most of my better ideas, I stole it from someone else. That someone else was a girl I met in Vientiene, Laos. We started talking and she mentioned that she would be in Angkor on her birthday, May 17th, which by happenstance is my birthday too. The coincidence sold me on the plan. Plus when you figure that my last birthday was in PHL airport taking a ground delay, well, this was a marked improvement.
The town of Siem Reap is the staging area for Angkor, and I spent a couple of days there planning my trip to the temples. Siem Reap is a interesting town, it has to be the most westernized and un-cambodian place in the whole country. When you consider that most of the people who come to see Angkor fly in and out of Siem Reap thus avoiding all the "messy" parts of Cambodia. I think we all know by
Good Morning Angkor
Not photoshopped at all now that the messy parts are always the best parts, and I almost feel bad for the people who do just Siem Reap. Sure they might get the Cambodian stamp in there passports but in reality they have not done Cambodia; kinda like eating Big Mac in Japan is not trying "Japanese Food". I will admit I was not totally against the western influences, even if for just a couple of days. No matter how good anyone one style of food is, you need variety.
You have to buy a pass to get into the Angkor grounds, they were sold in 1, 3, and a week in length. The general concensus was that one day might be a little too short and three days might be a little too long. The cost of the three day pass was much higher so I decided to do one day but hire my own Tuk Tuk driver and my own guide. Anywhere else in the western world this would have been an expensive operation, but out here in Cambo I only had to pay a reasonable 45 bucks for the whole deal. 13 hours of guided tour. You gotta love this part
Mid-Morning
Changing Colors as the sun rose of the globe.
When the big day rolled around I have to admit I was excited. Angkor Wat is one for those instantly recognizable places, one of the mark it off your list places, one of those places that your never forget. I bound out of bed at the ungodly hour of 430AM. And believe me, for someone who was going on two months on the road, where your only responsiblity is to feed yourself and seeing the sunrise was a thing of the forgotten past....It was ungodly, but well worth it. My guide and driver were waiting for me outside the hostel, and after a quick introduction we drove off into the night.
Seeing the sunrise over Angkor Wat was stunning. The air was still cool, but already starting to heat up. I joined the other hearty souls as we crossed the moat into the temple proper. An electric buzz ran thourgh the crowd as we moved beyond the outer gate and took in a sight of such perfection. The crossroads of the tireless genuis of man and the effortless wonder of nature. The perfect sunrise, climbing above the temple; casting a supernatural glow across the sky.
Reflecting Pool
The real and the reflection Few things in life ever meet there hype, this I am glad to say this was one of them. My guide, a temple expert who had been doing these tours for 15 years, knew exactly where the best photos could be take. We walked along the main boulivard and stood by one the the reflection pools for about 45 minutes. Just watching the sun slowly make its way into the sky. Every minute the light would reach a new part of the temple, slowly revealing its hidden facets to all the were present.
One misconception is that Angkor Wat is the whole deal, when in fact it is only part of a larger city. A city of many square miles that houses numerous temples of various sizes and styles. This is where my guide really paid off. You see even though it was the low season there is still a sizable amount of people exploring the temples at any given time. My guide though knew the timetables and routes of all the big package "tourist" outfits and skillfully kept me away from them. Thats right, no trongs of Japanese tourists, or semiretarded tourguides screaming into bullhorns. Nope, just the
temples and the insightful narration of my guide. He was so good infact that many times I had an entire ruin to myself! When exploring Angkor this way your imagination really hums, without trying too hard you can actually see how life was thousands of years ago.
And exploring is the right word. Angkor has a wonderfully unwestern policy of temple rules. Angkor may be a musuem, but it is truly a living one. The whole time I was there I do not think I saw one roped off or forbidden area. The temples with there mountainous stairs and crumbling walls were completly open to exploration. Sure here and there was a sign that stated the obvious like: "caution, loose rocks, high drop" But they were only a caution, not off limits. Its refreshing at times to be in a country that doesnt nanny you to death. I mean taking all the risk out of something, is taking all the fun out too. If I wanted that sort of trip I would have gone to Disney Land. The whole place was my oyster, I could explore the hidden cracks of Ta Prohm where the temple was giving way to
Monkeys
Policing the temple grounds the surrounding jungle. Or I could climb to the top of Bayon and take in the many faces of Buddha.
We returned to Angkor Wat around two o'clock, during the hotest part of the day. This cleared out most of the geratrics and childern and amazingly left the temple practicaly empty! Thats right, for a few wonderful hours of the day one of the most amazing monuments in the world was all mine. If you don't believe me look at some of the pictures I took in front of Angkor, not another soul to be seen. Even my guide was a bit suprised, even with the best planning he is usually not that lucky. As we walked throught the halls of Angkor he explaned the thousands of feet of meticulous carvings. The story, the Ramayana is one of the oldest in the world, and here it was, in painstaking detail carved scene by scene in the rock wall. As we reached the top room in the interior of we were greated by four monks. I struck up a converstion and in no time we were talking, in bad english mind you, and I was telling them about myself and
Bayon
The many faces of Bayon my travels. Just as I was thinking about how I would love to get a picture with these guys, but not wanting to offend them by making them feel like some sort of attraction; they pulled out a camera and asked to have there picture taken with me! I of course obliged and got my camera out too. Really friendly guys, its easy to forget that they are just people too.
Angkor is a place where a few steps can take you back to a time that no longer exists. Its cheating the natural process. To see these places as they were, to climb them, to feel the rocks under your feet, to smell the jungle that at all times presses inwards always trying to reclaim the ruins. Angkor is a place that showcases the dizzying heights of brialliance mankind can reach. Angkor is a place that reminds you that even massive temples of stone do not last forever. Maybe because I was turning one year older it reminded me that everything is here for such a short time, but Angkor proves that anything is possible.
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