Advertisement
Published: June 17th 2009
I have seen the temples of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom and they are as amazing as everyone says!
In Thailand the temples were (and are) mostly built of wood - teak is the best, apparently - so when they fall into ruin little is left apart from the stupas rising above the ashes of those buried there. The viharns and the bots, all the rooms used for living and worship, are gone. But in this part of Cambodia, at any rate, these were built out of carved sandstone and have survived - though lost for a while when buried under encroaching vegetation.
My flight to Siem Reap went smoothly and I had no problems getting the Cambodian visa. Hopefully, I'll get a Thai visa on the way back which will cover me until my flight to India. My original Thai visa expires tomorrow. Bangkok airport had a great many shops and restaurants - I had not realised that Caffe Nero was associated with Black Canyon - and was a complete contrast to Krapi airport. There was a large display of statues denoting the Churning of the Sea of Milk and, by coincidence, this is also one of the
The path to Angkor Wat
Inform Health and Safety immediatelyscenes depicted on the walls of Angkor Wat.
The flight took only one hour. On arrival in Cambodia I had to fill in loads of fornms declaring that I was not suffering from Bird or Swine Flu and hadn't sneezed or coughed much recently. I booked a taxi from the airport to my hotel for $7. The Cambodians have their own currency - the riel- but do not use it much. Instead the US dollar is used for most transactions. However the US cent is not used, with change to the value of less than a dollar being given in riyals at an exchange rate of 4,000 riels to the dollar. Thus this morning when I bought a bottle of water on the way here I was quoted a price of 2,000 riels. I didn't have that much in riels so I gave one US$ and got 2,000 riels change. THe actual exchange rate today is 4,145 riels to the dollar but the Cambodians pragmatically take 4,000 as it makes the arithmetic easier.
The taxi driver wanted to drive me about all day. Apparently, in low season, he can only go to the airport to make pick ups
once a week, so he has to make the most of it. He waited for an hour at my hotel for me to get changed and showered and then took me to Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. He wanted me to engage him for the full three days I am here, but I was happy for just the one day at $30.
The main temples are only about a ten minute drive from the town of Siem Reap. Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom are vast! Angkor Thom's grounds seem from my map to be about twice the area of Siem Reap itself - a town of 30,000 people - and Angkor Wat is scarcely smaller. It may be larger if the whole island is included - like some wats in Sukothai it is surrounded by a massive man made moat.
The main temple building of Angkor Wat is accessed by a long causeway across the moat and, after exploring outlying buildings, libraries and the like, you find yourself in the main building with long corridors extending around it. Most of the corridors are decorated in bas relief and these were once painted, though almost all the paint has
Image with umbrella
He was ready for the monsoon - unlike me now faded and gone. Angkor Wat was built as a Hindu temple and much of the decoration looks distinctly Indian in style. However, what worship now takes place there is Buddhist.
Much of the temple is in course of restoration with the aim being not to restore the temple to how it was when first built but to keep those parts that are still in situ in as good condition as possible and free from the further encroachments of nature.
The temple was built at much the same time (slightly later) as Edward the Confessor's original Westminster Abbey and it is clear that the Khmer architects were much more ambitious than those of King Edward. From a distance the famously unmistakable five pranged profile looks other worldly and close up you see the immense detail that went into the wall carvings. When they were fully painted this would have been a sight to behold!
My taxi driver - Eng Li - had been talking about taking me to see "Uncle Tom" and I had finally realised that this was the Khmer pronunciation of Angkor Thom, so we went there next. Not that he mispronounced the ame, of
course. It's just that, given the ambiguity if "r"and "l" in eastern countries, Angkor sounds a lot like Uncle and ever since Ms Beechar-Stowe's book Tom is also often linked to the avuncular noun.
You know you've reached Angkor Thom because on either side of the road - a busy road used by tuk tuk drivers and motos as well as cars - there is a procession of 54 gods and giants gurding the entrance. The entrance itself is overlooked by a weather beaten tower and only after looking at it for a while do you start to see the outlines of a giant (but godly) face. Then you move around to the other angles - all four sides of the entrance tower, east and south and west and north, are topped with immense faces. The faces are all similar but not the same but all look serene and one can see why it came as such a surprise to the Khmers when the temple was overthrown by the Vietnamese, protected as it was by all seeing gods at every angle.
Because that's only the first face tower. The Bayon, the main religious area, has many such towers
all with their faces looking out. As you wander around even now it seems sometimes that the gods' eyes are on you - what must have it felt like in the twelth and thirteenth centuries to those who then frequented the temple grounds?
This temple was built a short time after Angkor Wat as a Buddhist temple. It is in a state of decay, though it is possible to imagine how it once was. From the Bayon the terrace of the elephants stretches northwards. Only the side walls of the terrace remain and, as one might suppose from the name, they display lots and lots of elephants. This terrace snakes its way to the Terrace of the Leper King, which displays bas releifs of war scenes and something which may represent a leper king. I think I remember a legend that the city of Bath was founded by such a one.
I found it impossible not to think of Shelley's Ozymandias as I looked around. This was a gigantic building site indeed - nine square kilometres in area, about four times the size of the City of London. On every side large blocks of stone lay where they
had fallen or been dragged to, the whole vast design once fully realised and now frustrated. Look on my works, ye mighty . .
By now I was tired and hungry, having eaten nothing since breakfast, so I asked my driver to take me back to my hotel.
I changed and showered again and went out onto the streets of Siem Reap. Thailand wasn't so bad. The tuk tuk drivers here find it hard to take no for an answer and they congregate in groups. The first one will ask you if you want a tuk tuk (not "Where you go today?" - my impression is that Khmers' command of English is, in general, much greater than that of their Thai counterparts). You will say "No thanks" or some variation thereof but then all the others will, in due turn, ask you the same question. They don't care if you have said no five times in quick succesion, maybe you will want the next guy's tuk tuk. And I can see this working - it isn't easy to keep on saying no, or to ignore people like that.
A particular problem here is vendors with no legs
or with both hands missing who try to sell you stuff and street children who tell you that their mama and papa are dead and that if you don't buy their postcards / books / souvenirs they and their whole family will go to sleep hungry. Maybe one should try not to give or buy but I have ended up with several books I dobn't really need . . . Also the last chap I bougt a book from, a land mine survivor, didn't have change of my $10 so he got this chap with no hands to change the note. I ended up paying him $7 and giving the $3 change to the other guy.
I ate at a Mexican resturant but ordered a Cambodian meal of Cambodan Fried Rice with Chicken. I got a beer too and altogether it was only $3.
The monsoon came and the streets largely became rivers of mud.
Then I went and explored the night market where I ended up buying two Cambodian style shirts - I'm wearing one as I type this - three silk ties, a picture of an ansara and three types of tea. gGood salespersons, these
Long corridors
Lined with reliefs recording historical and mythical battles Khmers. The alleys of the night market were covered in small stones, so there was no mud there - the access way in and out was another story!!
I also had a fish massage.
I haven't mentioned it but, if anything, there are more massage shops here than in Thailand. This one was different, though - you put your feet into a pool with hundreds of tiny fish and they nibble at your flesh, tickling you and taking off the hard skin. I think the fish were called Garra Rufa and it was very pleasant and unusual feeling.
Today and tomorrow I hope to go to Ta Prohm and the floating village, but also to relax a bit!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.048s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 8; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0238s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
