Angkor-Part One

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We spent the majority of our stay in Cambodia in Siem Reap. It was a really nice city, surprisingly small but with the most tourists. I guess it gets even more crazy during the high travel seasons so we were lucky.

We spent the days going around to the Temples of Angkor, on the first day and 3 on the second. Our guide chose to show us his favorites since there are over 200 in the area. The temple basicly fall into 2 distinct styles but each one is still very unique; the temples are built in either a Buddhist (everything is on the ground) or a Hindu fashion (tall towers and lots of steps) by the Kings. It is believed that when the Kings die they join the gods, so each King builds one or sometimes more temples for himself in his afterlife, therefore the Kings never live in the Temples but only go there to pray. This is also why the temples are described as a 'heaven on earth'.

The first one we went to was the "Tomb Raider" temple, it was still in the process of being restored, like many of the temples, so alot of the paths and rooms were blocked by fallen stones but in all of the temples you can pretty much crawl around and go wherever you want. It was kind of strange because if this was back home everything would be fenced off and would have to go on a very specific path, however people also abuse this freedom and many of the heads have been cut off the statues and the designs on the wall taken off to be sold in the black markets or just because people want them. They are much better with security now but the guide showed us many parts of the temple that used to be covered in gold and jewels, all stolen. There where also these giant statues of warriors by the entrance, every head was removed and the guide said that many have ended up all over the world, there are even some at the Met in New York.

On the drive to the next temple we stopped at on of the "tower temples" with the tiny, very steep stairs. The stairs are designed like this so anyone climbing to the temple will have to bow and be on their hands. Only three of us very brave enough to climb, half way up it got pretty scary, some steps were literally 3 feet high and you have to pull yourself over but getting to the top was pretty awesome there are little kids every that just scamper up and down like it's nothing. Climbing up you realize just how amazing it is that they built a structure like this with their limited technology. Getting down was surprisingly easy.

We then went to the Hindu and Buddhist temple (bayon i think) it was designed to bring the 2 religions together and has 4 entries one for Budda and 1 for each of the Hindu gods. The temple has around 50 towers each with 4 faces, the faces are of the kings but also respresent the Cambodian people. Each face is smiling and they range in size from bout a foot to a few meters high.

The last stop of the day was Angkor Wat, the largest religious structure in the world. It is surrounded by a huge moat and then a huge wall. Once you get across the bride\ge and through the wall you have to walk down a long raised stone path to get to the Temple. This is all designed to represent the journey to Heaven. Then temple itself is covered in carvings depicting different stories of the king and the gods. In the center are 4 large pools and the central tower. It was definiety the biggest but I didn't think it was the most impressive.

Anways, I have to go but I'll make a "part 2" on the other Temples and get some photos up in the next few days.
-Erin

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Comments

[J]

My god (harhar)! You'd better have loads of pictures of these temples for me to marvel at. Sounds incredible!