Angkor What??

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I'm back in Phnom Penh.

The Angkor temples have been an amazing experience. But first, a little history:

Angkor was the capital of the ancient Khmer empire, which stretched from present day Burma to Vietnam. The series of temples were built between the 9th and 13th century by the Cambodian devarajas. The temples feature both hindu and buddhist themes, often featuring carvings based on hindu fables as well as statues of buddhas.
In 1860's, the temples of Angkor became extremely popular after a French naturalist Henri Mouhot published Le Tour de Mondi, an account of his adventures.

Ok, enough mumble-jumble.
The temples are magnficent, HUGE, structures. The ones I found most impressive were:

1) Bayon, with it's gigantic Avalokiteshvara faces (more than 170 of them, 216 as per Lonely Planet). There are faces staring at every direction, and from afar, it lookes like mountains of buddha heads.

2) Angkor Wat, cuz it's Angkor Wat. HUGE temple, surrounded by a magnificent wall, and a moat. I went to see sunrise over Angkor Wat. It was quite peaceful, though I was unable to capture the atmosphere with my camera. There were initially alot of people who went to watch the sunrise, but many gave up and left as the sky turned bright but no one saw the sun. I realized how many people don't know what sunrise is like, and I'm reminded of the first time I went to see sunrise, and how I didn't know how long to wait for it. Watching sunrise, infact, requires a little bit of faith.

3) Ta Prohm, trees growing over the walls, roots wrapped around gateways, and temple burried in the tree trunks... enough said.

4) Terrace of the Leper King, it was like walking through a maze, with the walls covered with carvings of devas and asuras, one right after another in matrix. The walls were 6-7 feet tall, covered with these carvings, and no two were the same.

Ok, so a brief account of my second two days at Angkor:

On our second day, we went through some more temples during the day. This time we took the tuk-tuk (a carriage pulled by a motorbike), and covered quite a bit of ground. We also took a boat to the center of a reservoir, where there is an island with some "ruins" on it. Amit really wanted to go, so we spent $10 and hired a boat. First of all, for some reason, the people who built the mighty Angkor temples couldn't build a boat that keeps the water out. After a 15 minute splashing, I was soaked, not unlike one of those rides in the amusement park, where you get splashed as you go down a river. Except I was splashed constantly, the entire time. And when we finally got on the island, I was looking forward to a great temple waiting for me, instead there was one wall, two doorways and some wooden huts. We each took up a hut and vegged. Well actually I was more air-drying.

At night we returned to Siem Reap, and there was a power outage, and my maglite came in quite handy. We walked back out of our hostel, and hung out in a gas station. Believe it or not, the gas station store is the most fancy structure around, with air conditioning and a coffee shop inside. I had some iced mocha and cooled off (it was just like back in China when I used to hide out in banks when it got too hot, and played cards with my cousins).

The third day, let's see...
Amit wanted to go far, to see this temple built in a river, with a the river bank lined with carvings of gods. The ride there was 2 hours on unforgiving bumpy road, through clouds, no, curtains of dust. By the end of the road, I was the same color from top to bottom, and the lady at the gate offered me a little towelette to wipe myself. MY GOD WOMAN, I'm going to need a tub of cleaning solution to get all this off.
But nevermind, we must get to the magnificent riverbank, where carvings of gods and demons await!
After a 30 minute hike, we hear water, and soon we saw the sparkles and glitters under the beams of sunlight that managed to penetrate through the dense foliage above, and we quickly approached the holy... creek?
Oh, it's the dry season... so the mighty river has shriveled up into a creek, and there are 5 magnificent little statues lining the creek, some horses I think, and some gods riding the horses, and maybe an elephant... There was also a waterfall, which was kinda like a trickling of the creek down a rock.
Needless to say, I'm a little bit bitter, mostly because of the ride over being so bumpy, and that my body is covered with 5 inches of dirt.
The hike was nice though.

In the evening I rode an elephant up a hill. And it was fucking awesome.
Her name is Chi-Ban, and she's 46 years-old, and she has beautiful eyes and short stubbly hair on her head. She walks in a slow pace, and always look like she's smiling... I'm in love.
The "driver" is See-ah, and on our way up he pointed out the Angkor Wat temple from the hill, and blew into a leaf to make music, the music and the jingling of the bell around Chi-Ban's neck were the only sound around me, and it was just me, Chi-Ban, and See-ah. See-ah doens't speak english, and Chi-Ban doesn't speak period, and for that 20 minutes, I was overtaken by a sense of peace, and I felt very very happy. I'd thought that I would just ride the elephant cuz it's a cool thing to do, but instead I felt something different, a simple but overpowering sense of content.

Early this morning, we took a bus back from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, and checked back into Floating Island.

My Cambodia journey is coming to an end. Angkor was everything I'd thought it'd be and more, and I am in awe of what the Khmer people have accomplished, and even more amazed at how quickly nature has worked to reclaim it.

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