Exploring the wonders of Angkor

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It was a late start today after a restless nights sleep in the muggy Cambodian heat. David had told me that it was unseasonably cool for the time of year, with temperatures usually reaching the low to mid forties with humidity. I felt like I hadn't done anything active for weeks so after a quick TRX workout in my room I headed down stairs for breakfast. I ordered a bacon and cheese omelette and was presented with a perfectly fluffy omelette filled with what seemed like an entire pack of bacon. It tasted great and was accompanied by a freshly baked baguette from the local bakers. While I was having breakfast Perry, Charlie's older brother, came and said hello and told me he'd be my driver for the day. I was pleased as Charlie had had an absolute skinful last night and would probably be in no fit state to do anything today.

We set off at about 10am and it was already hot. Our first stop was the world famous Angkor Wat. As we rounded the corner the long bridge that spanned the moat around it cane into sight and I could see that it was already heaving with tourists. Perry said that i had an hour to look around as we had so many temples to see on the grand tour so off I went. I could see the top of the Wat in the distance over the bridge and beyond the outer wall of the ruin. I was already sweating as I got to the end of the bridge which was not a good sign of things to come. The land between the Wat and the wall was vast and contained small dried up lakes and out buildings listed as having been libraries. I continued up the path to the temple and the huge scaffolding that surrounded most of it - this is why Melissa had recommended Wat Pre Rup last night for sunset. The interior was amazing with stone carvings hundreds of years old etched into every corridor that surrounded the main prang. I eventually made it through the maze of corridors to scale the central prang, and it was hard going. I was a very sweaty mess as I got to the top, but the view was worth it. Looking out onto the whole Angkor Wat site from an ariel view gave me real perspective on the sheer scale of it.

After an hour almost to the minute, I rejoined Perry and sped off to the next section of the tour at Angkor Thom. Thom means 'big' and this site certainly was. Although Angkor Wat is the more famous, Angkor Wat is certainly the bigger and more interesting in my opinion. It houses several temples and monuments that even though are maintained, aren't as well manicured as Angkor Wat. The site was split into several pieces all walking distance from one another. Perry dropped me at Bayon and told me he would see me at the Terrace of the Leper King in an hour and a half. I set off to walk around Bayon which is probably better known for being the home of the prangs with four faces on them. The gallery contained similar reliefs and you could see the difference between the worn concrete and the newly placed sandstone. The restorers had done a fantastic job in dismantling the wall replicating the pieces and rebuilding it. Again I scaled to the second floor in search of the most smiley of the many faces to take a photo of. I ended up staying a while longer and saying a prayer at the Buddha shrine in the heat of the dark central prang for the Songkran new year before leaving.

My next stop on the trail was Baphuon. It was a huge temple again accessible by a long bridge with a lake to either side. This was closed for whatever reason, presumably restoration or being unstable, so I could only walk around the outside of this one. I walked along a trail and through a wall where trees had taken root amongst the brickwork and came to Phimeanakas. Similar in shape to Baphuon but on a smaller scale and only open to be climbed on one side. Although there were sturdy wooden stairs leading to first level from the ground, I chose to take the worn stone steps to the top. Some of these ruins were a long way up and even though I had overcome my fear of heights while I'd been traveling I still found it easier to look at the steps as my legs propelled me to the top. Once there I looked for a way to get to the top most point and circling the first level found one. I reached the top and found a guy, with another small shrine, sat quietly on his own. He greeted me and offered me a jos stick which I took, and with beads of sweat dripping down my face said another prayer.

Once I had moped my brow and bounded back to the bottom, i made my way across a clearing to the Terrace of the Elephants. It was a long walkway leading towards some worn statues of the three headed elephant with finely carved closed lotus flowers at the base. Other than this there was not a great deal to see as I continued down the stone stairway to the Terrace of the Leper King. This was a narrow walkway snaking between two walks with row upon row of carvings of figures lining one side. They were in various states of repair with some having been freshly renewed and some being so worn that the faces were barely visible. Like the galleries in the Wat's they had been dismantled and rebuilt to try and preserve the facia and I wondered how much preservation they could do before it was no longer the original stone work. I went and met up with Perry at the tuc tuc and asked if there was time to grab some lunch. So he walled me over to the restaurant hidden in the shade of the trees and made sure that I was ok before going to get forty winks in the back of his ride. I'm glad he did as they various vendors selling fruit, drinks and souvenirs didn't want to leave me alone, amazing selling everything for the price of only $1. I ordered a simple coconut curry and ate as much as I could of the huge portion put before me. It was very tasty filled with sliced onion, beef and a little chilli. It was enough to keep me going for the rest of my tour as we continued further into the jungle. 

Our next stop was Preah Khan one of the longest walks of the tour. Perry dropped me off and said he would meet me at the other end. It was a seven hundred metre walk through this sprawling temple and there wasn't anything much to see if I'm honest other than the huge dead tree that had overgrown a section of the temple. It had been lopped quite significantly to stop it growing and prevent further damage to the site. All it's bark had been removed making the white tree look almost ghostly against the green background. We drove a short way down the road to Neal Pean which Perry told me was used as a hospital. The central prang set in the middle of a large square lake which had four smaller square lakes on each side. The four lakes were meant to represent the four points of the compass as well as the four elements. As I read the information board it said that the site had originally been in the centre of a reservoir measuring nine hundred metres by one thousand three hundred metres. As impressive as the site would have looked the now dry reservoir was filled with tall trees and shrub which I was told became submerged during the wet season.

As I only had a quarter battery left on my camera we headed straight to Ta Prohm, known locally as the Tomb Raider temple. It was really dilapidated and had trees growing over, on top of ad through the ruins. As you can imagine it looked nothing like the temple that Lara Croft explores in the movie but the beauty of the ruins certainly wasn't generated by movie wizardry. Trees that stood two hundred feet tall and ten feet wide had taken over sections of the ruined temple, with only their huge spade like roots to hold them upright as they emerged through the bricks. Sadly I only managed to get three or four snaps before the camera totally died on me. It was a real shame as some of the views and the ways that the trees and brickwork almost became one and the same was quite breathtaking. I tried not to let my spirits drop as I had had an amazing day exploring the ruins of Angkor. As we drove back to the hostel I couldn't help but wonder how magnificent they would have all looked when they were first built on a landscape so different from that of today. 

I needed to get the dust and dirt from the days templeing out of my eyes so I tool a blissfully cool shower. No sooner had I got out the humidity in the room made me start to sweat again as I tried to towel off. Ironically after I'd left to get food, it was cooler outside on the street than it was inside my fan cooled room! I got a grilled chicken stick from one of the vendors on the corner and walked to the night market for some last minute gifts. There wasn't anything particularly inspiring so I only bought a couple of bits before heading back to the hostel to get an early night. I hadn't spent nearly enough time in Cambodia and definitely not seen enough of Siem Reap and the wonders it contained, but time was pressing and I had to complete the final leg of my tour of Southeast Asia. 

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