Angkor Wat
I'm glad we waited a couple weeks instead of coming here first thing. The anticipation has been building and it was well worth the wait. We stayed in a small guest house in Siem Reap. Siem is pronounced seem, and reap sounds like ree-up. It means destroy Siam and is the site of a battle between the Thai and Khmers, which the Khmers won.
Our first day, Anisa suggested going to see sunrise over Angkor Wat, the main temple, which sounded like a wonderful idea to me. I didn't realize that if we watched the sunrise at 6am we would have to leave town in our tuk tuk, which is a rickshaw, attached to the back of a motorcycle at 5am. That meant waking up around 4:3O. It was actually a pleasure to be up at that hour since it's not swelteringly hot and humid at 5am. 7am is another matter. That sun is strong.
The temples left me speechless. I'm not sure I can put them into words. I tried to write in my journal earlier and came up with lots of adjectives "overwhelming, extensive, pervasive, majestic, dominating, awesome, massive, towering, incredible." It just doesn't really give you the feel of the place. I took photos, although unless they were several hundred feet tall, they can't really give you the whole idea either.
Since Anisa is a genius we managed to avoid all the crowds and tour busses by following the opposite of the usual itinerary. The halls we visited were silent. The courtyards were empty. The entirety of the experience invades you. The forest and the temples really are one, except for Angkor which was never abandoned to the jungle and has survived much better than Ta Prohm, which is where some scenes of Tomb Raider were filmed.
There are musicians on some forest paths and it's so nice to walk through the forest listening to traditional music. Most of the musicians are landmine victims and very talented musicians.
On our second day, the temples we visited in the morning were not as massive as Angkor, but just as majestic and full of mystery. One question I still can't find an answer to is if the stones were carved in place or, if they were carved somewhere else and assembled later at the temple site. Either way, they fit together perfectly.
The day's itinerary included Bayon, Preah Khan, Ta Som, Neak Pean and then the Roluos Group, which are temples another 20km away. We made it to Bayon by 5:30 and had the place to ourselves, even the guards, nuns and vendors weren't there yet. Nuns give out incense for a "donation" so you can offer incense at the altars they set up around the Buddhist statues. Most of the temples were originally Hindu, but many are now used as Buddhist temples where Hindu symbols like lingas are replaced with Buddhas. A "bayon" is a head with four faces.
At Preah Khan, there were no long hallways, one doorway led directly to another in an endless maze of small (maybe 8x8 foot) rooms, each with four doorways. There was a lot of restoration work going on here, a cooperative project with the French government.
Ta Som was "cute" in the sense that it had the beauty of the other temples, but not the commanding presence. Neak Pean had been a pool with statues in it and surrounding pools. I was very impressed to note how high the ground level was around it. Most temples stood up high above the ground, but Neak Pean was well below ground level. The amount of excavation that had taken place there was incredible. The Roluos Group was beautiful, but we were too hot and tired so I'm afraid I didn't appreciate it as much as I might have otherwise. The stone work was very different there: the stones were much smaller, they almost looked like brick, and it had deteriorated much more than some of the temples we visited earlier in the morning.
Our third day, we found my favorite temple: Banteay Srey. It's an hour away by tuk tuk, and I was glad that I didn’t have to do that bumpy road perched on the back of a moto after the Bokor experience. Since the Lonely Planet put it much better than I could, I'm including a quote here: "Banteay Srei is a Hindu temple dedicated to Shiva. Considered by many to be the jewel in the crown of Angkorian art, the temple is cut from stone of a pinkish hue and includes some of the finest stone carving seen anywhere on the planet... Banteay Srei means "Citadel of the Women" and it is said that it must have been built by a woman, as the elaborate carvings are too fine for the touch of a man."
Most of the Hindu temples we have visited have lingas (described in guide books as phallic symbols and basically just a big stone phallus). Banteay Srey had flowers on pedestals in the entrances instead of lingas, yonic symbols if I've ever seen one.
Besides all the female power emanating from the temple, the ride out to it was beautiful. The villages we passed through were quaint, all the yards were swept clean and the cows were fat. We got caught in rush hour on out way out, but luckily the crowd was streaming the other way - towards Siem Reap. We passed hundreds of people on bicycles, the women with their heads wrapped in the traditional Khmer krama (scarf) and them men joking and laughing together. Overall it was a very fun morning and we managed to avoid all the crowds once again.
Anisa suggested that we go see Angkor Wat tonight because the sunset throws perfect light on the temple and I will have a chance to see what a real crowd of Angkor tourists looks like. With her itineraries, I was beginning to doubt there were any other tourists here. After Banteay Srey we went to Banteay Samre, then back into the main complex to see Bayon again. I hadn't walked around the outer wall to see the carvings there before. I finally had my artwork question answered when I found a wall of unfinished carvings. Answer: the building and walls are assembled and the carving done in place. I still would guess most of the pillars and statues were carved elsewhere.
That evening we did go back for the sunset at Angkor Wat, because that's supposed to be the best time of the day to see it. This also means it's the best time of the day to see just how many tourists there are at the temples. I finally saw the crowds, after avoiding them so perfectly the other days. We were expecting it to rain any minute, but it held off, though the "perfect light" everybody comes to photograph Ankgor in was somewhat diminished by the overcast sky. We did have a good time sitting around in the first stages of dusk, watching the tourists come and go, clicking frantically with their cameras. I did my best to join in, taking far more photos that I need, but eventually tired of it. We went off the main pathway a bit and sat out in a field to watch the crowds from a distance and wait to see if the sky cleared and we would be rewarded by a spectacular sunset.
The clouds never parted, but we had plenty of other entertainment. A couple of small children wandered over and I tried playing with them a bit, counting in Khmer and letting them tug on my hair and play with my toes. Eventually, they tired of us and wandered off to play on the rocks and fallen bits of temple. Two monks came up next, and I had a lot of fun chatting with them. I asked them about their English and they explained that since they hadn't had the money for English lessons when they were younger, they had to take beginner lessons with little kids, even though they were teenagers. Their English lessons include American and British culture and history and I was surprised by how much they knew about George Washington and Margret Thatcher. One of them spoke to me about the school that was being constructed for monks just outside of his hometown. He explained that lack of funding had halted the construction and asked me if I could help. I got the feeling he has asked quite a few people for help, but I took a picture of his photo upon request and promised to ask around to see if I could find any support for him. He also gave me a note written in very neat handwriting that reads: "My name is Kiem Sovanna Ret. I live in thmey pagoda also Called killing field. Email sovan_forinlove@yahoo.com." The capitals ,and lack of, are his. If you or anybody you know would like to help sponsor a Buddhist school please feel free to email him. He was very eager to have me put his information on the web.
After the enlightening discussions on Thatcher, Khmer Rouge, monkhood, popular music and Buddhism in the United States, the monks had to go. Anisa and I were asked to leave not long after since it was getting dark and the guards were trying to clear the tourists out of the temples.
Leaving the temples for the last time that evening, I still felt overwhelmed. The area is so huge and each temple is so awe-inspiring that it is difficult to take it all in, even when the tour is spread over several days. It is somewhere I would love to go back to. I don't think the effect would be at all diminished a second time, the place is just incredible. Besides awe, my memories are full of the wonder and endless unanswerable questions that the temples produce. The mystery and wildness of the complex also left me speechless. It's not hard to pretend you're the first person in a few hundred years to emerge out of the jungle and come upon these immense buildings - especially early in the mornings when mist replaces the throngs of tourists and vendors. It is a magical place.
Angkor Wat is a must for any tourist to Cambodia. It's the Paris of the Khmer people, their pride and heritage. And not for nothing. They should be proud of such an amazing place. The rest of the country is beautiful, at least what I saw of it, but the temples around Siem Reap are something else.
