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Published: March 5th 2006
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We headed to Cambodia the next day to see the incredible Angkor temples. They were the centre of Khmer civilisation: between the 8th and 13th centuries a succession of Hindu and Buddhist kings created magnificant stone temples, thus most of the remaining temples are wonderfully incorporative of both religions. At 7am we caught a minibus to the Thai/Cambodia border; stopping off for an inexplicably long time at a random restaurant - think our visas were getting done. The landscape on the way was flat and dry, occasionally lapsing into green fields and banana trees. We got to the border and on meagre instructions from the guide, we muddled our way through immigration. We all got rounded up again and put on another bus - very different from the air conditioned, reclining seats of before: now 25 people were crammed into a space meant for 15. Makeshift seats sprang out of nowhere down the isle. One poor lad infront had no proper backrest, and had to balance sitting hunched over. Except he was the only one on the bus who slept almost continuously and it was very amusing watching him sway violently around, crashing into the people on either side of him,
wake up suddenly and apologise, then return to doing exactly the same 10 seconds later. The road to Siem Reap was red dust potholed track - we swerved all over it trying to pick our way through, and the bus had no suspension, so we (of course being above the back wheels) were thrown around like ragdolls at every minor bump. I was bouncing so violently I even left my seat a few times. The scenery grew a bit greener, but still very flat, and life passed by outside - people working in fields, cows and buffalo grazing, the odd town where absolutely everything was covered in a thick layer of red dust - there had obviously not been any rain for quite some time.
Eventually we reached Siem Reap - and a decent road. (Apparantly there's only two in the country, at Siem Reap and from there to Phnom Phen). We got dropped off as usual at a random guesthouse, but it was late and we accepted the tout. Turns out the 'Side Walk' guesthouse was incredible. Big, clean, but most of all friendly. The staff there were so nice, offering free water and free rides into town
on motorbikes. The food was superb, too. We had certainly landed on our feet. The next day we got up early and two scooter drivers took care of us for the day, first taking us the 10km out of town to see our first temple, the 10th century Banteay Srei before the tour groups started to pile in. The sun was just coming up, a huge firey red, and the roads were already busy with people on bikes and tuk-tuks, and children on their way to school. The outskirts of Siem Reap became leafy and green, with large lakes on either side of the winding road. The temple was gorgeous, and worth the numb bum after an hour and a half perched on the back of a bike. It was peaceful and isolated, in wooded surroundings. It's unique, different from the other Angkor temples in its miniature proportions, lovely pink colour, and its incredible state of preservation. The carvings are still wonderfully intricate, hardly faded. They show scenes, like most of the temples, of Hindu mythology as well as Buddhist. We then headed on to Ta Phrom, which became my favourite. It's a stunning 12th century temple-monastery, which instead of
the usual restoration, has been allowed to crumble into disrepair. The jungle around it has enveloped it, and entwined itself through the very bricks - huge roots of silk-cotton trees smother the stone walls, snaking through the windows and doors and making the whole place seem like something fom a fantasy. For those of you who care, Tomb Raider was filmed here, hence Miss Jolies penchant for Cambodian babies. I could have spent hours wandering around, lost in the atmosphere - there are so many nooks and crannies, it was very easy to find yourself alone. But we had to press on - next stop, Ta Keo, an imposing 'temple-mountain'. It's small, but steep and the steps up to the terraces above were narrow and precariously steep. Then we headed to Angkor Thom, late 12th century, a huge site with much of its splendour broken down. The highlight was the Bayon, a beautiful temple, famous for the huge carved faces on each of its 54 towers. It was an utter maze, a confusing mix of different levels, galleries and corridors due to the original layout being experimental, and being built on top of another monument, then itself being added to
over the centuries. Yet it was all the more lovely for it.
Finally we visited the most famous one of all - Angkor Wat. There was certainly no avoiding the tourists here, as we could do at all the others. People swarmed over the site like ants over a picnic. The site is massive - the worlds largest religious monument, with the layout, surrounded by a wide moat, representing the Hindu universe. We walked the whole circumference in the galleries, all 600 metres of narrative carvings: incredibly detailed, we were left in awe at the sheer scale of the work involved. The temple proper is not so hard to navigate, and we wandered happily around, climbing up those ubiquitous vertical stairways to higher terraces. Finally we turned for home, tired after a whirlwind tour, but i for one was so happy we'd done it. I had loved my brief affair with Cambodia, and wished we could have spent more time exploring the country. We booked the bus back to Bnagkok - i was running seriously low on cash, and scraped together the fare, handing over a dodgy combination of 1 dollar, 260 bahts, and 27000 riels! We had some
great food for dinner again, then chilled before the dreaded bumpy return journey.
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