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Published: October 18th 2010
15 October 2010 - The Dawn of a New Day I say Angkor Wat, you say…Angelina Jolie/Tomb Raider/Lara Croft.
I say Angkor Wat, I think temples, I think ruins, I think “takes your breath away”.
This morning, we began our pilgrimage.
The Temples of Angkor are to Cambodia as the Great Wall is to China and were built between 802 and 1432 AD, a time when the Khmer Empire was a force to reckoned with in South-east Asia.
We had happened upon the discovery that, split between the four of us, a car rather than a tuk tuk was not an overly extravagant way to travel and our driver arrived shortly before 10am. Late in the day for a Cambodian, but five past wide awake for the rest of us. Driving towards the temple complex, and although I had seen many pictures, I really had no idea what to expect, for scale is something that one can assess only in the flesh.
The first of this morning’s treats was the stunning countryside that we slipped through on our way towards the temple complex. ‘Green’ and ‘lush’ somehow don’t adequately describe the depth of colour and
beauty laid before us.
We had decided to start with some of the smaller temples and build our way up to ‘the big one’ - Angkor Wat itself. Angkor Wat is, however so enormous and imposing that you can’t help but notice its splendour the moment you see if. I tried to avert my eyes so that when we eventually make it inside it will be nothing less than a treat.
First stop was Angkor Thom South Gate - a gate in the 12km long wall to an ancient city. The gate stands beyond a moat over which spans a bridge flanked by a depiction of ‘The Churning of the Ocean Milk’- 54 demons, matched by 54 Gods engaged in a giant tug of war. The 108 figures are complete save that many have lost their heads. Our guide explained to us that nearly all of the heads were taken many years ago but that some have been replaced more latterly.
The first, and most impressive, temple on today’s expedition was Bayon. These are ruins in which eyes and strangely smiling faces seem to follow you wherever you go. Towering over the ruins stand numerous (54 according
to the Guide book) towers and on each of the four sides of every tower, a face of Avalokiteshvara. To me, these smiling faces gave the place a certain sense of warmth.
The lower promenade of Bayon is home to 1.2km of intricately carved bass relief - depicting battles and parades and even a circus. It is impossible to do justice to the beauty of Bayon in words and I not sure that even the photographs really capture the might of this place.
A short walk from Bayon, we found ourselves at what has been described as the world’s largest jigsaw puzzle - another temple - Baphuon.
Like Bayon, work is in progress ant Baphuon. Unlike Bayon, however, the reason for the ongoing work is that restoration work to this temple was interrupted by the Cambodian Civil War. The method of restoration favoured here is anastylosis - taking it all apart before putting it back together again. Unfortunately however, the all important records were lost during the days of the Khmer Rouge leaving modern day restorers with one almighty puzzle to put back together. As a consequence of this, a huge proportion of this temple lays in
Ants
Marching across bass relied in the Bayon whilst transporting a crisp (or chip to our American companions)blocks in front of that part which ahs been restored to date.
We stopped at a couple more smaller temples before making a stop for lunch during which, the Monsoon came out to play again. We looked at the sky and assessed that it was likely to be keeping us company for quite some time and therefore headed back to town and spent the evening playing cards.
16 October 2010 Having been caught out by the rain the previous day, we checked the weather forecast which was, not unlike October in Plymouth, ‘rain’. Today was therefore hastily christened an ‘admin’ day. First on our list was to find a new hotel since we want to stay on Siem Reap but our current hotel is fully booked. Gregg set out on this particular mission whilst, I must admit, I slept. Upon Gregg’s return, we ambled in to town and found Scott & Sara at a coffee shop that we had all fallen in love with yesterday - The Blue Pumpkin. There we stayed and played yet more cards until the clock told us that it was time to get back to the hotel to log on to Skype
in order to speak to Mark & Lacey on their birthday - and it was great to ‘see’ everyone. Gregg particularly enjoyed catching up on the football I think.
Before retiring for the evening, we arranged for yesterday’s driver to collect us at 10am in the morning for another trip out to the temples - let’s hope the rain holds off for a little longer than it did yesterday.
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