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Published: November 16th 2015
We decided four and a half hours sleep was more than enough, so we rose at 4.30am to head off to Angkor Wat in time to see the sunrise. The Japanese speaking guides tell our guide, Nin, that he's dropped on by learning English instead of Japanese because Japanese tourists insist on this every day of their stay. The English are satisfied with just the one sunrise.
Nin had been up even later than us because the leader of the opposition party was due to fly in to the local airport at 10.15pm, and over a thousand Cambodians were there to support him. Despite being labelled a democracy, Cambodia is incredibly corrupt, far more so than democratic democracies. During the last election, there was a power cut during the count for 20 minutes and, lo and behold, the Communist Party won yet again. Everyone knows it's a fix, but what can they do? Nin says the opposition leader is a top guy who cares for the people of Cambodia and so he has had to flee to Korea because the Communists plan to arrest him. I'm not sure how those 1000 supporters would have stopped that last night, but he
never turned up anyway and Nin didn't get to bed until 1am.
There must have been over a thousand tourists at Angkor Wat, glowing like fireflies in the pitch black with their torches and phones. Twice a year, the sun rises directly over the temple, crowning the centre tower. Today was not one of those days, so we moved to one side to get the sun behind the temple and to avoid as many tourists as possible. There's been an ongoing joke that Steve and Yiyi are constantly on the internet, in every restaurant, in every place we visit where there's wifi (which is most places), and right on cue, Steve asked if there was wifi at Angkor Wat as we all sat there waiting for the sun to rise. To be honest, it was a bit of a disappointing sunrise, but I'm happy we went.
Angkor Wat is the largest religious monument.... wait for it.... IN THE WORLD! It is currently owned by a (corrupt) private company who put very little money back into the upkeep of the site. Over 3 million visitors come each year, day passes are $20 and three day passes are $40, so
there's a lot of wedge coming in that no Cambodian sees the benefit of. However, the Government have announced that they will take it back for the people at the end of the year and everyone is happy about this.
Visiting Angkor Wat at 7am is a good idea as it's relatively empty and though sweaty hot, not oven temperature - yet. As you would expect of the largest religious monument in the world, it is huge, but it only took 37 years to build. Those Cambodians didn't fart about! It was partly built by slaves but mostly by people who thought it was an honour to do something for their gods. I guess with no wifi back in those days, people had to find a way to occupy themselves.
After breakfast I managed to snatch 40 minutes sleep before it was time to go out again. Ta Prohm has to be my favourite of all the sites. It's been the location for film scenes in 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom', 'Lara Croft: Tomb Raider' and 'Two Brothers'. Like all the sites in the area, it was overgrown by jungle for four hundred years - the
Banyan trees growing upwards through the roofs and the parasitic Trang tress engulfing and killing the Banyans, spreading over the ruined temples and causing them to fall down. The trees are wrapped around the ancient structures like giant snakes crushing a crumbling corpse. There have never been any earthquakes in the area, all the ruin is down to the trees and plants. It's amazing to see how destructive they've been as the temples have been painstakingly restored. There are photos to show them before and afterwards.
There are a lot of orange clad monks hanging about and I've tried to photograph them, but so far they've proven too nifty on their feet for me to catch them.
Now that the sun was particularly scorching, it was decided we should climb up the incredibly steep steps of Pre Rup (which was a crematorium). I was glad to get away from the red ants who were gnawing away at my feet giving me the best stinging action they've got as Nin briefed us on the history. I asked why the steps were so steep (even for Glyn) when Cambodian people are generally small. Nin says it was because 1000 years
ago Cambodians were 2 metres tall with long arms and extremely muscular. He sent us to the top of the kind of stone steps that you could probably fry an egg on to see a great landscape and mountain. It was sweltering at the top and we saw no mountain, so Andy said he was going to 'chin Nin' upon his return - worry not, this is Scottish humour!
Steve quote of the day: "Pre Rup was the third temple of the day IF you include Angkor Wat"...
The Fourth Temple of the day was after lunch - the Ladies Temple, named so because it's small with intricate carvings. It's one of the smallest temples with libraries and stone in various colours. I think that most of the temples used to be painted a variey of colours but time has faded them away.
We completed our temple bonanza at Kbal Spean, a gentle hike for 1.5 kilometers, climbing uphill through wonderfully shady jungle, over rocks, under branches with lots of vines and roots to trip over. Obviously we still sweated buckets and having long thick hair is certainly a nuisance (it keeps me warm in England). At
the top were fragments of carvings, small waterfalls and a man with his small boy selling cold drinks. It may have been a temple once, but now the carvings and stones seem almost natural within the scenery. We only saw a couple of people up there, so it was extremely peaceful and another bonus was that we didn't get lost. Nin had backed out of coming due to a jippy belly - always a concern when a local gets ill, but I think it may have been also down to him just getting three hours kip last night.
On the way back we stopped at a small lake to photograph the sun setting over it. Like all places where tourists may stop, you are immediately surrounded by kids trying to sell you fridge magnets and various trinkets. They are particularly insistent and if you buy something from one, others demand you buy from them too as they saw you first. Or alternatively they can't afford to go to school if you don't buy from them, Nin assures us that this isn't true. However, I came out of there with my pockets stuffed full of fridge magnets and bracelets. Glyn
bought a flute for $1 that he'll never learn to play no matter how hard he tries at the back of the van. Thanks Glyn!
It goes dark after 6pm, so it was dark when we arrived at the hotel. This did not stop us having a moonlit swim (ok, it was dimly lit by hotel lights too) with bats skimming over the surface of the pool, followed by a visit to the bar.
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Stephen Drake
non-member comment
None of the Indiana Jones movies were filmed in Cambodia
It's me, Steve, of the "Quote of the Day" in this day's blog. I went through the "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" movie in detail and there's no temple resembling anything we saw at any temple in Cambodia. So I did some internet research. Although there are many websites claiming "Temple of Doom" was filmed at Ta Prohm, all credible movie websites and Indiana Jones websites show that no Indiana Jones movies were filmed in Cambodia. "Temple of Doom" was filmed in Sri Lanka and the U.S. Websites about the movie including IMDB, Wikipedia and specific Raiders websites that list all filming locations never mention Cambodia. Even the Wikipedia page for Ta Prohm doesn't mention Indiana Jones but does mention the Lara Croft movie of which pictures of the movie at the temple are easily searchable. http://www.theraider.net/films/todoom/filming_locations.php