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Published: June 13th 2009
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The Temples of Angkor are the heart and soul of Cambodia and are a source of enormous pride and inspiration to all Cambodians. The main temple, Angkor Wat, is on the national flag, the national beer, bottles of water, the national cigarettes and pretty much anything else that is made in Cambodia and even some things that aren't. The temples were built mostly between the 9th and 13th centuries and served as capital of the vast Khmer Empire that stretched between Burma and Vietnam. The city of Angkor contained one million people at a time when London was a little town of 50,000 inhabitants! Every year two million people visit the temples and we wanted to be among them so, after collecting Diane from the airport on the morning of the 2nd of June, we booked onto a tour for the following day and settled down for a couple of beers and some food to let Di recover from the long journey and culture shock.
There are over 1,000 temples across the large area of Angkor, ranging from ruined piles of bricks in rice fields to the enormous and stunning Angkor Wat. Enough has been written about the architechture and
legends of the temples and I know my blogs have a tendency to get a little long so I'll keep this brief because to go into the history of each and every temple that we saw would take forever and I'm sure that few of you would still be reading at the end!
The next morning our guide picked us up in a minivan at 5am so that we could see sunrise at Angkor Wat, the world's largest religious building. After buying our 3 day pass for the temples (40 US dollars each!!) we made the short drive to the huge grounds. Getting out of the van and walking up the long pathway over the moat to the entrance as the sun slowly appeared was incredible. The only disappointment in the experience was that there was some scaffolding that was being used for restoration work around some of the towers but when the sun started to rise above the building and scorched the sky behind it I have to confess to feeling a little tingle down my spine regardless of the metal poles. We explored the temple for nearly two hours with our excellent guide, learning about all of
the various stories behind the intricate and well preserved carvings on the wall and the history of the temple itself. Even the grounds of the temple are gorgeous with pools, sprawling gardens and two crumbling libraries near the moat.
Next up we drove to the fortified area of Angkor Thom which is surrounded by a huge imposing wall that stretched for over 12km. We entered through one of the five gates and drove to Bayon, another of the most famous temples. There are 216 faces carved into the walls of Bayon, supposedly bearing the image King Jayavarman VII who ordered it's construction, and that of more temples than any other Angkorian king. We walked around the temple under the watchful gaze of the king before heading onto another of the smaller lesser known temples around Angkor Thom including Baphuon, Terrace of Elephants and Terrace of the Leper King, so named because the Buddha there is covered with moss in the rainy season and looks like he has leprosy. Nice.
After Bayon and Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm is the final of the three most famous temples in the city of Angkor. It was the temple used in the Tomb
Raider film and I can't imagine a more fitting natural film set. The temple is in worse condition that many of the others but this has actually added to its beauty as moss covered bricks tumble from the walls and huge trees strangle the stonework. Ta Prohm has been left largely as it was when it was found by French explorers in the early 19th century and it looks like the whole building is in a slow epic battle with nature that has already spanned centuries. And so far it looks like nature is winning. Much has been made of the cycle this represents with man conquering the jungle to build this sprawling monument before the jungle fights back and starts to destroy it. It was without doubt my favourite temple.
After taking literally hundreds of photos of Ta Prohm's maze of corridors and tree covered walls we were driven around a few more temples before finishing our first day of the tour with lunch at a local cafe. That night, exhausted after a 5am start and 7 hours of trekking around the temples in the blazing sun we treated ourself to a few beers at the infamous Angkor
What?! bar in the centre of Siem Reap. A few beers turned into several and then culminated in us drinking a bucket of local whisky and coke while chatting to some fellow travellers to the backdrop of rock anthems. What a day.
The next morning we woke at the comparatively late 7am and trudged back into the waiting minivan nursing some rather fearsome hangovers. Our second day was thankfully less intense that the first as we only visited six temples and the temperature had dropped to a more sensible level. That's not to say that the temples we did see were any less impressive and we all really liked The Temple of The Coiled Serpent, a rececced monument dug into the ground that looked more like a Roman or Greek amphitheatre than an Angkorian temple. We learnt how this temple was used as an ancient hospital for the citizens of Angkor who would collect rainwater that ran through the holes in the heads of the statues and drink or bathe in it to cleanse them of their illnesses. We also saw Ta Som, a tiny temple that has been taken over by the trees in much the same way
that Ta Prohm has been overrun. The difference being that as Ta Som is tiny and less celebrated we had the whole place to ourselves.
After a shorter second day we headed back to the guesthouse for a shower and some lunch before catching a night bus, sadly with seats rather than beds, down to Sihanoukville for some relaxation by Cambodia's most famous beach.
As a final note, seeing as I have discovered a mild obsession with all of the marvellous creepy crawlies that we've been finding on our travels so far, I thought I should mention the cool wildlife we saw around the temples over our two days. While walking back to the minivan, through the grounds of Angkor Wat, our guide suddenly jumped and shouted at us to stop in our tracks while a snake slithered from one side of the path to the other a couple of feet ahead. It didn't look particularly menacing and was less than a metre long but when we were told it was poisonous I didn't fancy getting bitten to see if he was right. At the cafe we had lunch in the first day, Diane (who is fairly arachnaphobic)
had been to the ladies and returned before I took my turn to visit the little boy's room. Hanging from a web in front of both the ladies and gents was the largest spider I have ever seen in real life, a Golden Orb. Fortunately Diane had somehow managed to not spot it! When I pointed it out to one of the guys in the cafe he nonchalantly removed it with a large stick as if I was fussing about nothing. Finally, I found the coolest looking millipedes in the grounds of Ta Som on our second day and had to place my sunglasses next to one of them for a sense of perspective. When he looked at them as if he might put them on and walk off I decided to quickly snap the picture and take them back.
I've gotten a little behind with the blogging over the past couple of weeks with our rather manic schedule but I'll try and catch up over the next few days. Keep an eye out for some more stories and pictures!
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