Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom - check one off my Bucket List

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This is the day I've been looking forward to since after the Tiger Monastary and why we booked this trip so I have a lot to 'ooh and ahh' about.

Although we refer to the whole area as Angkor Wat, the entire area is called Angkor and includes many temples and sites in addition to Angkor Wat. It was the capital of the Khmer empire from the 9th - 14th centuries. I was also spurprised that the park is still inhabited with villages that may even date back to the original Angkor period. There is a plant specific to the area that looks like a type of grass but when you touch the leaf, it folds up like a venus fly trap, then reopens.

We spent the entire day at the Angkor Archaeological Park seeing the various temples. The site has been a World Heritage Site since the 1990's so there is more help with preservation and prevent commercial resort building and keep the temples and forest in tact, however people are still allowed to climb, sit and crawl all over the ruins. It's great for people like me who love to be up close and personal but it is somewhat dangerous here because of moss, slippery stones and uneven edges. But I climbed it anyway, at least a little, and loved it. It really feels like you are in the jungle. Away the Chinese tourists, you hear parrots, bullfrogs and crickets (whatever the Asian version is). That made the experience even more moving.

The first few temples are outside the moat of Angkor Thom. Built in 948 AD to honor the Hindu god Shiva. Many of the temples were originally dedicated to Hindu gods. One of the exceptions is Angkor Thom which was built by the only Buddhist King of Angkor. In the 16th century, the King of Angkor was a Buddhist and changed every temple to Buddhist. He did leave some Hindu representation to make the temples open to everyone but the next King was Hindu was destroyed most of the Buddha statues.

We know so much about Angkor Thom because of a Chinese man who stayed there in 1296-1297 and wrote a memoir detailing life there. It was translated into French around 1880. This was an incredibly magnificient city in it's height. Angkor Thom (angkor means city) was the last capital of the ancient Khmer Empire in the late 12th century. It's almost 2 miles in area and included the King's residences. In 1066, it was recorded that there were approx. 1 million people living in Angkor Thom, making it one of the largest cities in the world at that time. As comparison, London had only about 300,000 people at the same time. But I will say these people were in great shape because there are steps, climbing and walking in plenty.

We entered the South Gate since it had been reconstructed and we could see the more of the way it was meant to be with the statues lining the bridge over the moat and the Buddha representations in the gate.

We moved on to the center of Angkor Thom, Bayon Temple built in 1181. There were originally 54 towers but when the next King destroyed much of the Buddhist parts of the temple only 35 are left. Buddha faces were constructed with 4 sides so with 54 towers there were 216 Buddha faces.

Across from the Bayon Temple is a very large Buddha from the 16th century. It is a very active prayer site now and people from the area will come to pray, take care of the Monks and sit at the statue for hours in respect.

Temple Baphuon to the west of the Bayon Temple was built in 1060 which makes it older than both Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat. It was dedicated to Shiva. In the 16th century it was included in those temples converted to Buddhist. The French began reconstruction in 1908 and have been instrumental in reconstructing the Angkor complex.

There is Elephant Terrace north of Bayon Temple where the King would go to observe dances and games on a large field in front. It's called the Elephant Terrace because of the figures of elephants all along the wall of the terrace. This was a pretty cool viewing platform and lots of wide open space to view. It's thought that there were dancers on top of towers opposite going all the time making for a good show, I'm sure.

We had lunch at a nearby restaurant in town getting a much needed rest after all the walking. The touring was made more difficult with the hoards of Chinese tourists and all that goes with them. The menu was a preset so I was able to try some dishes I'd never heard of featuring some fish from the local lake.

There was a rainstorm during lunch that came and went as tropical rains do so we thought we had the rain out of the way for the afternoon. However, we went on to the next temple and were barely out the car when the sky opened. Nothing was going to prevent me from seeing as much as possible of these temples so I'm walking. The downside was that Ernest was limited in the pictures he could take during the rain, but as the rain never lasts too long, he didn't miss too much. The temple is very open with covered corridors and rooms to get some relief from the rain but the outside was very muddy and hard to walk in.

The first temple in the afternoon was Ta Prohm Temple. This is also known as the jungle temple since it has been left untouched by archaeologists so it is easy to imagine how things looked when the temples were discovered in the last 1800's. These trees are in the ficus family and the root systems have so entrenched themselves within the buildings that to destroy them would collapse the entire structure. This temple was also used in the film 'Tomb Raider' with Angelina Jolie in 2002 and reconstruction started in 2004 by India so it looked even more overgrown. Our guy tried to steer us in opposite directions of the Chinese masses which made seeing and gaining understanding of the sites much easier.

We next went to see my dream, Angkor Wat. This is a wonder of the world, official or not. It is the largest religious structure ever built (1113-1150) and contains the largest bas-relief in the world. Dedicated to Vishnu, it remained largely unencroached by the jungle like the other structures mainly because the integrity of the moat remained and kept the jungle back. Again, as with other temples, it was converted to Buddhism in the 16th century.

There were some visiting Monks at the temple and provided such good background for shots in the temple. It's a breathtaking place. The architecture, the sculpture on the building faces, the basic layout are more than amazing and the fact that it was all completed in about 30 years is more amazing.

After our 'must have' picture on the backside of Angkor Wat, we climbed to the first level to view the large bas-relief. Afterwards we climbed to the 2nd level (yes, I did) to view the open courtyard and conical temples. The other 2 tour group members climbed to the 3rd level and could walk the perimeter for views. This is where we would have seen the sunset but the clouds were not cooperating with us. So we went out the front to see the reflection pools. There was enough sun to get some good shots of the reflection of Angkor Wat in the pools.

We finally left around 5 or so. It was a very tiring day, and yes, I was a little sore, but I was not going to miss anything I could possibly see in this amazing site. This was a dream come true for me and I never will lose the feeling of awe from being in this magical place.

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Comments

[Trina]

Loving it!
Melly, I am so glad for you!!!! And thank you for the travelogue. I am so enjoying visiting vicariously. XXOO

[venkat]

Thanks so much for creating this! Great resource