Manly Clambering

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My timing of when to go travelling ideally would have been better. However work constraints meant that I could only travel in the latter half of spring and during the summer. If I were Interailing round Europe this would be ideal. However I wanted to go to India and South East Asia. This desire caused an outcome that can be best summed up as damp. In India, dampness came from the sweat, in Thailand, from the rain. The sky's precipitation has replaced my own, but it has done so in Cambodia to an unexpected, but welcome, effect: the Angkor temple of Ta Prohm looks fantastic in the rain.

Of course all the Angkor temples are stunning and undoubtedly something everyone should endeavour to see once in their lifetime, but I think Ta Prohm will always be my favourite. Partly because it was the first temple Yvonne and I visited in Siem Reap, and consequently we saw it before temple apathy set in. But mainly because it just fits precisely with my idea of what the temples should be like.

Ta Prohm is overgrown with trees and creepers, something that hasn't, surprisingly, happened to the other temples and makes it seem extremely old. This impression is also facilitated through many of the walls being partly ruined with entire blocks of stone strewn around the site sometimes blocking off corridors in the temple itself. This in turn means that the complex is more difficult and complex to navigate than the other Angkor temples, most of which are boringly linear affairs. Then the final element: rain.

The rain makes everything become very lush and the stone turns a vivid dark colour. Even better lots of puddles formed on the tourist pathways which ment that I was given an excuse (not that I needed one) to climb all the fallen rubble to avoid getting my trainers wet. Much to Yvonne's amusement I must admit I got a bit carried away. I started deliberately seeking out rubble to climb and started trying to get from one place to another as quickly as possible while making (in my head) daring leaps from stone to stone. The first four bars of the Indiana Jones theme tune were very possibly being hummed. In my defence the whole experience reminded me of climbing rocks on the Devon Coast when I was the All-Star Under 7s Putsborough Beach Rock Climbing Champion. The entire thing was some of the most fun I've had on my trip.

I realised in hindsight that the moment when I really got carried away was when I ducked into a corner room where the two exits were half blocked with rubble and in this confined space I scaled a wall to take a photo of the view over the top. Unfortunately I slipped on the wet stone, fell backwards and landed with very little grace on my left side, narrowly avoiding concussion. The grazes and bruises on my hip and arm cut short my desire for further ad hoc exploration. Besides after I'd squeezed out of the corner room I saw a red and white sign politely asking me not to climb on this particular section of their ancient and precious monument. I acquiesced fairly quickly.

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