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Published: January 11th 2010
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Day Nine - Tomb Raiding with the Giant Grosvenor Girl
We had arranged two tuk tuks to drive us around the Angkor site the next day. Without going into it too much, Angkor is the ancient capital of Cambodia, built from the 9th century and abandoned a few hundred years later. It spanned an area the size of modern Paris and no other city in the world was as large as it until the 20th century. Googler it, it is impressive.
We first went to the pay station and I expected the same dodgy bureaucracy as Phnom Penh but was to be pleasantly surprised. Kids under 12 were free and when we produced Leanne’s passport it broke the usual icy administrator atmosphere - the Khmers all laughed and were amazed as an 11yr old Khmer is about the size of a 7yr old at home.
It is amazing how teeny tiny they are, a sad legacy of the poverty caused by the civil war and the perfidious rule of the Khmer Rouge. In addition, around 70%!o(MISSING)f the population are under 30, which is the most shocking. The older people really stand out as unusual here.
Anyway, with delighted and amazed giggles still ringing in our ears we made our way to our first stop - Angkor Wat. The heat was scorching and unrelenting as we doused on suncream and guzzled water but it was well worth it. It is truly stunning, easily giving Pompeii or Leptis Magna a run for their money.
After being abandoned following Burmese invasions, it was only ‘discovered’ by French archaeologists in 1906 and they spent the next 65 years clearing it. There is major work going on now to strengthen the temple due to the number of tourists - I’d urge people to get there soon before it get overrun as Cambodia can only get more and more popular and accessible.
After exploring in the heat of the day (“only mad dogs and Englishmen...”) we took a break by the lily pond and had a few soft drinks gazing at the magnificence of the place. We headed back out and rejoined our drivers to head to our next stop, Ta Prohm. This was the temple used in Tomb Raider and has been left much as it was found - the jungle is still entwined to parts of
it with trees growing out of doorways etc.
As this was shaded, it was more fun to explore and was pretty magical. It was here we stopped for lunch to recharge before our final stop, The Bayon in Angkor Thom.
W e started with The Pavilion of the Elephants and the Pavilion of the Lepers. The carving on the facades was fresh looking all thanks to the protective covering of the jungle for the centuries. Goodness knows how long it will be before they start having to apply a fix or worse still, replace them with modern fixes.
The modern fix was evident at the Basuphon, a smaller version of Angkor Wat that is being reconstructed. Described as the World’s Biggest Jigsaw, the French had taken it apart, labelled it painstakingly, designed plans how to repair it and had got under way when the Khmer Rouge came to power. Although they never they never touched Angkor itself, they were destroying all remnants of foreign writing and destroyed the plans and ripped off the many labels. One of their lesser crimes but symptomatic of their idiocy.
We circumnavigated the moat of the Basuphon before walking to our
final site - the Bayon. This temple is adorned with over 200 stone faces. In the setting sun, it was my favourite part of Angkor. Although we took in the major sights/sites, you could spend weeks going all over the area - next time...
On our way back to the guest house we saw dozens of monkeys out by the road at the South Gate, the little buggers clearly knew sunset was when the tourists would head home and maybe stop to throw them a morsel or two.
Dinner was at an Italian on Pub Street before the girls again tackled the market to barter for dresses taking advantage of cheap Cambodia before we moved onto Thailand.
Today’s Highlights The Khmer reaction to Leanne’s age; the magnificence
of Angkor; and the sun setting at the Bayon
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