Angkor's Big Three Temples (Videos): Day Two of Pondering Rubble and Beauty

---

30 Dec:Further to my post earlier today (if you haven't seen it you can find it here:www.travelblog.org) here are a few videos from the first person scrambling through the temples and temple ruins. Even videos don't do these ruins justice, so you'll just need to trek to Cambodia yourself to take it all in.

Angkor Wat

The following video was taken about 8am in the morning at the entrance to Angkor Wat proper (you can see the steps up to the causeway about halfway through the video). The number of tourists, busses, cars, tuk tuks trebled in the two hours that I was such that it was nearly impossible to find my driver as there were hundreds of people and vehicles milling around.

Don’t let the number of tourists discourage you from going, just ensure that you take every opportunity to get away from the main tourist path and make your own quiet discoveries.

The following video was taken at the upper temple level. This is the temple’s famous central tower. It was more eroded than I was expecting, almost as if it was a melting ice cream cone .

Angkor Thom

We had to pass through the southern gate of Angkor Thom on the way to Bayon. In this next video you can see the face tower and interestingly life size elephant figures stand sentry on either side of the gate. It’s fortunate that ancient vehicles/elephants were the width of modern day cars such that the gate opening width accommodates today’s modern vehicles.

Te Prohm

The following two videos give a very brief glimpse at the extent of ruin and decay at Te Prohm. They do appear to be trying to put certain elements of the temple ruins back together at various locations across the site. I wondered how many people get injured in places like this from going into areas where they shouldn’t and disturbing precariously stacked blocks. I did learn that across the wider Angkor precinct tourism is putting at danger many of the ruins/temples, be it from theft/vandalism, vibration from the constant stream of tourists’ feet or trespassing into sensitive off limit areas.

I hope you enjoyed these. Apologies for the light saturation, it’s so difficult to film/photograph these locations given the harsh light, numerous material surfaces with varying degrees of reflectivity and dark shadowed corridors and galleries.

---