Temples of Angkor

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DAY 21: We woke up early this morning to catch the river boat from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap - the home of Angkor Wat. We jumped on board and went straight for the roof which offered the best views during our trip up the Tonle Sap River which runs parallel to the Mekong River and into the Tonle Sap Lake. We had a great ride - it was a pretty basic boat but it did have a toilet in the back at least. A boat like this would never exist outside Cambodia though, as it was lacking basic safety standards such as an edge to deck. Therefore getting from the roof without steps, while moving was interesting but made for half the fun! The journey took 5 ½ hours which went pretty quick. The scenery was great and gave us an insight into the real Cambodia - the people here are amazing. So many children playing by the side of the river waved excitedly as we went past, not to mention the fishermen who waved from their boats. The wind and the sun became pretty ferocious, luckily we had warning from other travellers to be careful of the sun so we headed below deck after about 3 hours - good thing we did because we were both a little burnt already and it was only 11am (when we arrived at the guesthouse the owner asked us about the boat and we said we had sat on the roof outside - he was very surprised. He said that normally people who sit on the roof end up in hospital from the sunburn!) We were collected from the pier by a driver from the guesthouse as we walked to the tuk-tuk a group of young children, the oldest was probably 7, the youngest 3; started following us saying ‘Water, water, water’ we initially thought they were trying to sell us some but when we got in the tuk-tuk they surrounded us and started pointing at the half-full water bottle in the back of my day pack. I gave the bottle to one of the girls and she immediately started drinking from it. It was a strange and heartbreaking thing to have children begging for nothing more than a drink of water and the empty bottle to sell on afterwards. After an enjoyable but dusty 30 minute ride we arrived at our guesthouse - which is more like a hotel really. We eagerly awaited the morning and our first trip to the temples.

DAY 22: Today we finally reached the Temples of Angkor. The temples of Angkor are breath-taking, amazing and incredible. They were mostly built between 850AD and 1200 AD. We visited Angkor Wat first, the largest single religious monument in the world. What struck us was the size of the moat - absolutely huge and almost 200m wide. We walked along the causeway and through the gateway to the temple grounds. The gateway is covered with intricate cravings on all the doorways and walls within. Once inside the temple itself is 1km square and sits within beautiful grounds that include two pools of water that sit to the left and right of the causeway to the temple. We made our way to the temple itself and found ourselves a tour guide. Our guide talked us through the long history of Angkor Wat and explained the bass-relief carvings to us; most of the carvings depict important Hindu stories and legends. We spent a couple of hours walking around the temple. It was an incredible experience. We then went on to visit all the major temples including Bayon, which has towers with carved faces pointing north, south, east and west; Pre Rup which is a grand pyramid which we climbed to get a view of the surrounding forest; Ta Prohm which was a monastery only partially cleared of the forest; plus others. It was a very tiring day so we headed home for an early night.

DAY 23: We woke up at a very sprightly 4.30am for a 5am pick up by our driver. The drive in at that time of the morning was surprisingly cold. We walked into the Angkor Wat with a chorus of ‘lady, black coffee, tea, you want tea, lady?’ We carefully navigated the causeway in the dark so we didn’t fall into the moat (at this point we were glad we already knew the layout) and moved with the hoards towards the temple. We set up position in front of the left pool which provides some of the best dawn shots and patiently waited for sunrise. It was absolutely stunning and well worth getting up for. We then went back to the guesthouse for breakfast and a nap. We arranged for the driver to collect us in the afternoon and we visited a couple of the smaller temples and then went to Phnom Bakheng for sunset. After some deliberation we decided to shell out $20 USD (a small fortune in Cambodia) for a 15 minute elephant ride up the hill - it was worth it. The ride was great fun and the sunset was beautiful. After the temples we headed down to the famous ‘Bar St’ for some well deserved fun - it’s a great place. It’s very relaxed and you can still get good food and drinks at very low prices. We had an excellent Cambodian BBQ for dinner which I highly recommend. In the tables they have ready for you a hole filled with charcoal and a cooking steamer for you to grill and boil your own food. We ordered our meat and they bring you noodles, rice and vegetables for you to make your own soup out of. It made eating more of an experience to remember.

DAY 24: We ventured very far out today on a tour to some of the far flung temples in the area. The most interesting was Kbai Spean (River of 1,000 lingas) which is an amazing place and well worth the trip. The river is at the top of a scared hill and there is a great walk uphill through the jungle (it does involve some light rock climbing) for 1.5km. We arrived at the river to find patterns carved into the riverbed and scenes depicted on rocks. It was very beautiful and quite different to seeing the temples. We also saw a lot of the local village life and rice paddies on the way to and from the river. The standard of living here is very basic with most houses build from bamboo and flax. The villagers draw water from wells and cook in iron vats placed over open fires. The children were always waving, laughing and getting excited when they saw us. We also paid a visit to the landmine museum which was very educational. It was set up by a man who used to be a boy soldier for the Khmer Rouge. He was never given a name and doesn’t know when he was born. As a soldier he planted thousands of landmines across Cambodia. He defected from the Khmer Rouge to fight against them with the Vietnamese Army. After the war he began to walk for the UN to help clear landmines from Cambodia - as he has a great deal of knowledge about these weapons. He continues this work and estimates that he has cleared over 50,000 mines. However, it is estimated that there are between 3 million to 6 million landmines still in Cambodia - people are maimed by them daily, mostly farmers and their families. It is something that with continue to affect Cambodian’s for years to come.

DAY 25: We are travelling to Sihanoukville for some relaxing beach time this evening so we decided to have a relaxing day and enjoyed a massage at one of the local spas. We had lunch and just chilled out; we’re currently waiting for our 8pm night bus and hoping the roads have improved from what the apparently used to be like.

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Photos

TC on the Tonle Sap
Teresa travelling on the roof of the river boat - warning high speed winds!

Bayon temple
A myriad of faces across the temple

Ta Phrom - Jungle Temple
One of the few temples where the jungle has not been fully cleared

Angkor Wat at sunrise
Definately worth getting out of bed

Riding the Elephants
Riding the elephants to Phnom Bakheng for sunset

Kbai Spean - River of 1,000 Lingas
Amazing carvings into the riverbed

Comments

[Jax]

Amazing
Hey guys Haven't been getting the blog updates unfortunately. Just picking my way through them now. Angkor looks amazing, would love to go there, am sure I will one day! Glad your having fun. Enjoy the rest of your travels, will login to check for updates xx