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Published: October 5th 2007
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Ok, more catch-up. We got to Phnom Penh, the capital city, on the 9th of August. We met up with Brittany’s 2nd cousin Nikki, her husband John, and their 3 kids who are living in Phnom Penh and had dinner at their house that evening.
On the 10th we headed just out of town to the Killing Fields site. This is the location where, under the rule of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, thousands of Cambodians were killed and buried in mass graves. There are some 140+ mass graves of which 84 have been dug up. The skulls, bones, and cloths of those un-earthed have been stacked in a large memorial. It was amazing to see and hear the brutality that occurred there against the Cambodian people by their own leaders. As we walked around the area we could still see bones and cloths from the victims sticking out of the ground. We heard stories of how the prisoners were brutally killed so that bullets could be saved to reduce costs. It was a very sobering experience.
In the afternoon on the 10th we walked to the National Museum where they had some excellent exhibits of some of the great
stone work from the different Angkor ruins, some excellent sculpture, and other relics from the area. From there we walked around the outside of the Royal Palace grounds. That evening we had a great Khmer meal with Nikki, John, and the kids.
The next day we got a bus up to Siem Reap which is the town located near the majority of the Angkor ruins. The bus ride took a good bit of the day due to the limited road system. We finally got in, got to our hostel, and worked out a deal with the tuk-tuk driver who took us to our hostel from the bus station to take us around the Angkor ruins for 3 days.
On the 12th we purchased our $40US 3 day passes for the Angkor ruins and headed in. The area around Siem Reap contains over 1000 ruins from the Khmer empire that date from the 9th to the 15th centuries and so with just 3 days we had to limit ourselves to the largest and most well known places to get just a small feel of the place.
Our first stop was Angkor Thom which is one of the “newer” capital cities
built in the 12th century by King Jayavarman VII and covers 9 km2 (5.4 sq. miles). We passed below the massive serene faces on one of the gateways of the great stone walls that enclose Angkor Thom and headed to the Bayon temple in the middle. The temple is a massive sandstone structure that has some amazing bas-relief sculpture and 50+ towers with massive heads facing out in the four cardinal directions. From Bayon we headed to the Terrace of the Elephants, the Terrace of the Leper King, and Phimeanakas which are all structures contained within the walls of Angkor Thom.
In the afternoon we headed over to the temple of Ta Prohm which was built in the late12th to early 13th centuries and was founded as a Mahayana Buddhist monastery. The temple has been left mostly untouched and un-restored so there are several sections where the temple has been literally swallowed up by the surrounding jungle. This gives the place a very interesting feel and really does make you fell like you are a tomb raider (part of the movie Tomb Raider was filmed here).
Our last stop of the day was the famous Angkor Wat. This capital city
was built by King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century and is the best preserved of all the sites. The site is considered one of the largest if not the largest religious monument in the world. The complex is surrounded by a huge moat and large stone walls. There is an amazing array of bas-relief carvings throughout the temple. It was a great way to end our first day.
On our second day we headed to Banteay Srei which is approximately 30km from Siem Reap. The temple was made in the 10th century and is dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. The structure is made from pink sandstone and has some of the best preserved bas-relief carvings of all Angkor sites. The detail of the sculpted walls was amazing. The site is also not as large as the others which was a welcome relief to the legs. We headed back to the main area of the ruins, stopping off at Ta Som and some of the other smaller ruins and then spent more time at Angkor Wat.
No trip to a once war-torn, third-world country is complete without shooting some guns so I got one of the guys from
the hostel to give me a ride out to a shooting range on his motorbike. For the bargain price of $45 I was able to fire an old, fully automatic AK-47 and 9mm pistol. They had tons of other guns you could shoot including the monster Rambo machine gun I’m holding in the picture (don’t worry Mom, I didn’t fire this one) and even a rocket launcher. You gotta love SE Asia!
Back in the cultured world… on the 14th we checked out some of the smaller temples in the area. We started the day off with Preah Khan which was another 12th century temple which is set on top of a large hill and has a nice view of Angkor Wat. The rest of the time we saw more small temples that were in various levels of repair. That evening we headed to the markets in Siem Reap and checked out the shops for some good deals.
On the 15th we boarded a bus in the morning for the long, dusty ride back to Bangkok. In typical SE Asia fashion the people organizing the bus claimed that one of their buses broke down so that they could pack more
people and stuff then there was room for in our nice “VIP” bus. We ended up with bags in the aisle and a couple of people sitting on their bags, but we were all getting where we needed to go. The road was paved for about the first 20 km (12 miles) and then turned into a rutted out dirt road for the rest of the 250km or so. We were lucky that it hadn’t rained but it was still a rough ride. We finally got to the border, lugged our bags across the boarder check, and found our bus on the other side for the ride into Bangkok.
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Mr. D/
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Beauty
I remember the beauty of Vietnam during the war and this reminds me of it. However, this looks far more peaceful and sophisticated. Also it looks quiet - not many people around. Thank you for the picture.