Advertisement
Published: January 24th 2010
We were both up and ready in reception for 4.30am,bleary eyed but excited as we were heading to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat one of the 7th wonders of the ancient world.It was built in the early 12th century for king Suryavaman II as his state temple and capital city.Firstly hindu dedicated to god Vishnu then Buddhist. It is the symbol of Cambodia and is the prime attraction for visitors to the country.
We met our tuk tuk driver for the day Denny and headed off into the night sorry morning. It was still pitch black at this point but the amount of people out and about at this time was suprising. We arrived at the checkpoint to buy our day pass for $25 and have our photographs taken. Both taken aback by the amount of all the other tired looking Barang's(foreigners) going to see the sunrise also. Hopping back into the tuk tuk it felt a bit like wacky races as we were overtaking loads of other tuk tuks to get to our destination.We quietly cheering Denny on everytime he over took somebody! Turning around in the tuk tuk all we could see was hundreds of little lights from the tuk tuks lighting up the road,theres no street lights around so it feels really exciting!
We pulled up at Angkor Wat and Denny pointed us in the right direction,we headed off trying to be as careful as possible as we could'nt see a thing and there were steps and upturned rocks everywhere! Why didnt we bring a torch hpmh! We made our way through the first gate at Angkor Wat and all we could hear was bats! On our way back later we looked up to see hundreds of them hanging from the ceiling looking down eek! Anyhow we folled some voices telling us the way and were welcomed by some chairs and cups of tea and coffee for a $ dollar each! Best seats in the house happy days! We were sitting right at the edge of the moat which encompasses Angkor Wat,the moat is cover in pretty lilly's and flowers,it has birds and dragonflie's swooping down for a drink every so often.... As the light started to creep up being we could just make out the silhouette of this grand structure,it was beautiful even in the dark. The shapes of the towers were the same as the flowers in the pond..ironic? There was a cute little puppy that was growling and tumbling around on the grass next to us which grabbed the attention of everyone for at least 5 minutes..it was funny we had travelled all the way to see this place but this little puppy stoled the show for a good 5 minutesThe amazing thing about this place is the 5 towers are all in alignment with the movement of the stars and moon.Once the sun has risen and we had seen the place in all its breathtaking glory we headed back to our tuk tuk as we needed to go and meet our guide for the day. We had some breakfast at the hotel and met the very english named Richard who was actually Cambodian.
We were going to do the small curcuit for the day, we started at the Bayon Temple which was beautiful filled with towers with typical Cambodian smiling faces on each four sides of the tower. Richard showed us the galleries which are etchings carved into the walls which each tell a different story. The amount of work which must have gone into this is astonishing! We headed over to check out the elephant terrace,I bought some rubbings of the Aspara dancers for tony.Which were the girls who would dance for the kings.
The Angkor Wat complex has five gates one at the north,south,west and two at the east.There is a victory gate and a death gate,when the Khmers would go to war and win they would enter through the victory gate,if they would arrive through the death gate then they would have unfortunately have lost.The amazing thing about the area is that each king when he would come to power would try and outdo the last with the granduer of his temple.This resulted in the amazing complex Angkor now is.It used to be the capital of Cambodia up until the 13th century. You have to try and imagine what this place would have looked like when it was discovered by french explorers when it was covered by jungle,they have all been refurbished to as close to there natural state as possible,we seen temples througout the day which were being refurbished through funds from Japan,Vietnam,China and Germany.
Ta Phrom is the one temple which they have left as it was found,this gives you an insight into how the place could be over run with jungle if they had left them.The huge trunks split through the stone to give it this amazing look! Ta Phrom was definately our favourite,it was also were some of Tomb Raider was filmed!
We tipped our guide richard who has been great throughout,his knowledge on the area was great and he was happy to answer any questions i had about the politics of the area and the Khmer rouge.
After a long and very hot day and after numerous sporadic water fights to keep us cool we called it a day and headed back to the hotel around 4,had a dip in the pool,a well deserved chang and a foot massage! Off to Phnom Penh tomorrow to see Debs and Alex cant wait!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.062s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0402s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Aries and Rinka
Aristeo Rinka Lucea
Your description although vivid, seems like I was reading a paperback novel, hehehe. I hope you can include the pics next time. This got me so excited as I will be going to Ankor on August. And I also checked out the Kool hotel as mentioned in your blog. Did you use the tour service of the hotel or you just hire your own tuktuk ad for how much? And your transfer from Siem Reap to the hotel, was it from some random tuktuk driver or was it arranged by the hotel? and how much was it? I ho[e you can helpme with my questions. Thanks