My trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia

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When I stepped off the plane on to the tarmac in Seim Reap, I saw a small airport with only 4 gates. After we went through security, we got into a bus that took us from the airport to our Hotel, Angkor Sohka ($120 a night, 5 star.) After we unpacked, we went to dinner on a Tuk-tuk. The lights were different then in other countries, the man on the walking sign was walking and when there was only 5 seconds left, the man started running! We ate Kebabs for dinner.

TA Prom

After we ate at the big breakfast buffet, we drove to Ta Prom. We drove by a baray, a former reservoir the ancient Khmer built. The reason for the barays is unknown. Up until the last decade, archeologists thought the Barays were catch basins in the wet season and irrigation of fields in the dry season. But recently, satellite images showed the canals don't led to any agricultural areas but are connected to all the temples. So maybe it was used for bathing and drinking. Or maybe it was religious plan.

When we reached Ta Prom, we first walked through a gate that was on the outer wall then walked 0.25 kilometers through a forest to the moat where there was a bridge (The moat didn't have any water in it.) Since the bridge was under re-constuction, we took another bridge across the ditch. When we got into the inner temple walls, Mom took pictures and we just wandered around. I saw a bunch of Pagodas and lots of passageways. Most of the buddhas were headless, their head sliced off by tomb robbers and sold on the international black market, probably ending up in some rich guy's house. Any complete Buddha with its head intact had incense next to it and had someone taking care of it, protecting it from tomb robbers.

The trees were growing all over the temple and one buddha head was peaking out from the roots of a tree in a courtyard.

Ta Prom is over 1000 years old and is the burial ground for a king's wife. The chamber that held the tomb has a bunch of holes that were once filled with gold and diamonds, but those were stolen during the 16th century when the Thai invaded.

Then we hired a guide and he showed us a carving of a dinosaur. He also showed us the Echo-room. When we beat our chests, it sounded like a drum. It was really cool! The Echo-room was for chanting to the Buddha.

Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat was built by King Suryavarman 2. When we arrived, we had to walk across a moat that was still filled with water and the railing was bunch of cartoonish-looking snake heads. (A good part of the railing was broken. The causeway was roughly 0.35km long and at the end was the first gatehouse.) At the first gatehouse there were several doors which were broken. The middle one was for the king, the two doors around it were for high officals and generals, and the two outer ones are for normal people.

We went through the middle one anyway, even though we weren't kings! I wanted to explore the gate house but mom insisted we keep moving. Past the gate house was a raised walkway that went for 0.5km. I wanted to explore the two libraries that flanked the walkway 0.25km past the gate house. 0.2 km past the libraries are two ponds, one represents Women and another represents Men. After that we climbed a stair case to level 1, on level one there were four ponds, to represent the four elements--water, fire, earth, and air. Then we went up another staircase that went up to level 2, there were two ponds and grass, then we went up to Level 3 and looked around the plaza. On the other side there was a monkey twisting off a bottle cap and drinking it like a human would!

The temples were based on a geometric plan with emphasis on the East-west axis because that's where the sun rose and set.

Then we went back up and there was a long hallway that wrapped around the 4th Level. In this hallway there were several carvings. One done by the Khmers in the 16th Century showed the Gods and the Demons playing tug-a-war with a snake(the same one that was on the causway) that was wrapped around Mt.Meru(home of the King of the gods.) While they were playing tug-a-war, Mt.Meru started sinking into the Ocean so the King of the Gods turned into a turtle to stop Mt.Meru from sinking. There were three carvings depicting this scene.

Some other carvings depicted the demons stealing Immortal water from the Gods. So the gods sent some dancers to distract the demons so the King of the Gods went to assasinate the King of the Demons before he bathed in the Immortal water. The King of the demons had already bathed to his waist by the time the King of the Gods got there so the King of gods cut him neatly in half so the King of Demons only had his Immortal legs to do his dirty work.

Another carving showed Heaven and Hell. In Heaven, all the people were lounging on comfortable beds with people fanning them, but this one bad person tricked them because he was in heaven while the good person was in hell, so when they found out, he was pushed down into Hell while the good person was pushed up to Heaven. In Hell there were people pinned to nails and cactuses while enduring tortures.One person sold bad fish when he said it was good, a married couple betrayed each other and so on.

We didn't go to the 5th level because the line was to long to get there. We went through another Echo-room and saw one of the libraries and most of the Gate house before going back.

Boat Ride to Floating Village

After we went back to the hotel, we ate lunch and swam in the pool. Then we went in a car for 45 minutes to the Jetty at Tonle Sap. On the first part of the drive we saw lots of poor stilt houses on the outskirts of Siem Reap. Later, we saw a lot of villages that would become floating villages when Tonle sap goes up.

Tonle Sap goes up between May and November when the snowmelt from the Mekong floods so much, the narrow channel is insufficient and the extra water goes up the river (reversing the flow) into the Tonle Sap river and flooding the Tonle Sap lake. The Tonle Sap lake nearly triples in size. The ancient Khmer people used this cycle for fishing and farming, trapping the fish when the water recedes. It also made for good rice growing land and was one of the reasons historians think the Khmer built their city here.

During our drive to the lake, we saw a bunch of rice fields extending to the horizon with mangrove swamps here and there. After a while we saw a mountain on the horizon, called Phnom Kron which had a temple on top. At the base of this was a big village with a school that can float but was not floating at that time.

15 minutes later we reached a bay with a ferry terminal. Once we got to the ferry terminal, we took a boat through a submerged forest. It was in April, but by July, the water level would be roughly 25 feet higher (8.6 meters) than the current water level. You could see the old water line on the submerged trees. Plus trash and plastic bags were hanging high up in tree branches which was weird, but this was because that's where the old water was.

After 35 minutes the channel opened out into the Tonle Sap lake and we could see palm trees in the distance. 15 minutes from there was the floating village. At the floating village they had a crocodile farm,a crocodile mueseum, a crocodile gift shop(that had crocodile skin and other clothes and souvenirs), and a crocodile cafe (were you could eat croc meat and other local delights.) At the farm, there was a pool filled with fish eating some shells and other little sea creatures, then a pool with bigger fish eating some of the small fish (they served this fish at the cafe too!)Then the crocodiles ate the Big fish. There was a little floating school with a floating Multi-sports hall and dorms.

Angkor Thom and Bayon

The next day we went to Angkor Thom, the originial old city, but today it's in ruins. We first went through the South Gate, one of the only gates you can drive through, and went Bayon. Bayon is in the middle of Angkor Thom. The first floor is a pavilion surrounding the building. In the front are two libraries that have really steep stairs. The the second level has lots of passage ways. There is an ancient deep well and a bucket and you can get water out of the well. We also saw a little room with bunch of fake doors carved in the rock and one real door (that door rotted a long time ago.) The second level is the same except there is no well. On the thrid level you can see a bunch of pagodas rising from the second level and a bunch of big Buddas faces. In the middle is a towering pagoda and inside the pagoda is a big,tall room with a budda in the middle. Then we went down and I climbed one of the libraries and it had a good veiw.

Then we went over to Baphoun, unfortunately we weren't old enough to climb it, even though it didn't have nearly as steep stairs as the Library we just climbed. Then we went over to Phimeanakas, it was roughly 3/4ths of Baphoun's height. The temple used to be part of the King's Palace but the rest of it rotted away. The temple had some steep steps and there was a 2nd level with a passage way around it. On the third level, there was a ruined-looking building with an old woman burning incense.



Then we went down and went past two pools. One stood for Women and one stood for Men. Then we went through the gate to the Palace and went on top of the Terrace of the Leper King and we took this to a parking lot were our car was waiting. The next day we went back to the airport and left Siem Reap. We stopped in Phnom Phenh and the airport only had 12 gates. I really enjoyed looking at the ruins of this ancient city!

The End.

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