This last week was one of pure fascination and amazement. Sunday morning we woke up early to catch our plane through Pakse (in southern Laos) to Siem Reap. Siem Reap is the tourist-infested town that re-emerged in the late 90s as a result of the growing publicity, and popularity of the Angkor Ruins. It was 9:00 when we landed at the airport and emerged to find Ta, our tuk tuk driver with a sign for Sophia (who’d made the reservation). Ta spoke little English but smiled well and was always franticly trying to help. He took us through Siem Reap and north toward the ruins, where our hotel was. It was a nice place to stay because it was quiet and we escaped the downtown Siem Reap scene. Crowds of tourists fighting through mobs of Cambodians of all ages, trying to sell them anything they might buy.
After dropping our bags in our room, we took off to buy our passes and head to Angkor Wat. We each bought seven day passes, which ran us a total of $120 US, the most we’d spent on anything during our time here, other than our plane tickets, even the hotel for the five nights didn’t cost as much. In the end though, we were glad we went for the seven day passes, the next option was $40 for a three day pass.
Like we’d been told, and read a number of times, the first view of Angkor Wat was impressive to say the least. A moat the width of more than a football field surrounded the grounds, with a west and east entrance. The west entrance is the one we entered through; the main entrance where tour buses crowded the lanes of the road off-loading and loading their cargo. It was about 11:30 when we arrived, so it was peak tourist time, not too early and not too hot.
The walkway to the gate has been restored twice since the 70s, owing to the immense foot-traffic it endures. First built in the 1100s, everything is stone, giving it a sense of permanence and importance. In this case, the setting is nice, in the jungle and surrounded by a man-dug moat, which also likely served as a drainage reservoir. But it is not the setting which gives Angkor Wat its supreme quality, it’s the architecture and the carvings, the creation itself. Symmetry is easy to find in all of the temples built in around this World Heritage site, adding to the perfection of its construction. For me, I naturally have to compare all of Angkor to Machu Picchu and what I have known of the Inca cities and temple I’ve visited in central Peru. Although Machu Picchu was built a good 200-300 years later, and in a completely different part of the world, its magnificence lies in the materials of its construction, giant boulders perfectly carved into rectangular cubes to fit perfectly together; airtight. This is something you don’t see at Angkor Wat. But the religion of the Inca empire lost, the Hindu and Buddhist carvings and statues present at every turn serve to give Angkor more of a connection to the times we live in. Both seem surreal, and make your imagination reel.
We spent about 3:00 hours on our first visit, crawling into corners, through crumbled window-frames, and out onto walls originally unintended for visit. Ropes and signs exist, but in stark comparison to the littering treatment they receive in the US and many European historic sites. At 14:30 we returned to find Ta outside the front gate, as we were mobbed once again by kids selling guidebooks, bracelets, water and coke, magnets, hats, t-shirts, baskets, the list goes on…
The clouds began to crowd the sky and Ta said it would rain as we drove through the south gate of Angkor Thom, the Ancient City, passing by the path (on the left) to Phnom Bakheng. The south gate was adorned with a giant Buddha head and preceded by another bridge and a moat surrounding the entire city. The driveway through the trees slowly revealed Bayon, a large temple supposedly in the very center of the city. We drove around Bayon and on the other side I hopped out to take a photo. Ta hopped off his motorbike so I grabbed the FE and snapped one of him after he let out a few buttons on his shirt. It began to rain.
The Terrace of the Elephants was at the right and the Terrace of the Leper King just north of that. Across the street, to the west, Baphuon, the biggest temple inside the city stands high behind its long (200m) bridge walkway. Baphuon itself is closed to visitors, and two cranes assist the hundred workers inside who have been working since the mid-90’s to restore the temple. Still, its grandeur is apparent, and it clearly towers above any of the other temples nearby. Before passing the Terrace of the Leper King, but after the Terrace of the Elephants, we took a right onto the road heading out to the east gate. Past the east gate, we drove by Ta Keo, and Ta Prohm (to name the two that are most memorable) and then past Srah Srang (The Royal Bath) and Banteay Kdei. At this point it was pouring rain and we headed quickly back to the hotel, excusing a few stops for rain-soaked pictures.
The night that followed was, as I previously described in an email to my family, a night of impromptu drinking on Pub Street, a closed off, seemingly requisitioned block for higher-priced ($4-7) food and watered-down drinks for farangs, but protected from pesky saleskids. We met an (to use his adjective for us) interesting German, who looked much older than he claimed (19). He took a quick liking to “us” and at the end of the night we agreed to meet up again with him the following evening for food and drink.
Sunrise at Angkor Wat the following morning was a mix of blues and pinks, and tourists at the exterior wall, soon headed back to their hotels for the second half of their beauty-sleep. Even in our state, whatever that was, we stayed and enjoying a peaceful morning in the temple, without the hordes. Sophia fell asleep on the floor of the first terrace, next to one of four pools outside the cruciform walkway. I walked through to the east gate of the temple, an almost un-touched relic off under hundred-year-old trees and connected to the crumbled eastern exterior wall. I returned to the temple to take more pictures and to find Sophia, as it was about 7:00, and we’d shown up around 5:45. Sophia was nowhere to be found, but plenty of pictures were! I also met a very nice guy named Vannak who was working with a filmcrew who was there that morning filming some touristy spots. He was really nice, and very interesting, with the hope to travel to the US where “everyone has money and is really nice.” I tried to tell him off and find a better reason but he seemed content with perception of the US, I wish I had so much optimism all the time. At about 9:00 I still hadn’t found Sophia but had taken another 200-some photographs. I walked out the west gate and found Ta, gave him my tripod and returned to find Sophia. I found her sitting on the wall above a pool kitty-corner the one she had been sleeping by. We slowly made our way out but stopped to see some monkey fornication and monkey fighting and monkey cleaning and monkey chillin’. It was 10:30. We spent the rest of the day sweating our way through Angkor Thom. I won’t go into too much detail on all of these ruins, because you can see for yourself when I post pictures on flickr. But we did get a tour of the Terrace of the Elephants from some kids making money for their crippled schoolteacher and school (probably a scam) and they showed us a giant spider, that for some reason we had no choice but to walk under. This thing gives me chills every time I think about it. Its body was about half the size of my fist and was glistening black with blue and yellow decals. It probably weighed a good half-pound but nonetheless perched itself comfortably facing the ground in midair on its massive web. For the rest of the trip I freaked when I walked through a spider web, thinking that thing was going to come chasing after me. One kid said it was harmless the other said “very dangerous.” I’ll go with very dangerous.
Here’s the rest of our Itinerary:
Day 3 - Rolous Group: Lolei - A set of four towers outside of a crucifix with well-preserved carvings and original Sanskrit engravings in the doorways.
Preah Ko - A temple complex between Lolei and Bakong also with many well-preserved carvings and six temples built on a large platform terrace with another temple to the southeast, right inside the gatehouse.
Bakong - A large Temple with a series of levels, elephants at each corner and on each level. The steps are gradual, not steep in comparison to other temples such as Ta Keo and Phnom Bakheng. The complex is surrounded by a beautiful moat, and like many other of the ruins, a new Buddhist temple is just inside the moat, off the causeway.
Phnom Krom: This was one of my favorites. We saw no tourists except for a family of eastern heritage who laughed farang as we sweat our way past them. The climb to the temple is an easy one, a set of stairs and a curving road at a slight incline and a final stairway for a total of a few-hundred feet. But we did this in the heat of the day, around 11:30, with the sun piercing down on our backs. Our newly-applied sunscreen sweat off after a few minutes and I burned slightly as a result. There are six towers at the ruins, at the very top of the hill over the lake, three of them sit up about five feet off the ground on a platform similar to that at Preah Ko. After about ten minutes walking around and taking pictures we were approached by a group of official-looking individuals (two of the seven(!) had APSARA uniforms (APSARA is the government company that maintains the Angkor sites)) who told us we needed letters of permission to take pictures. Meanwhile, one of these goons pulls out his Sony point-and-shoot and starts snapping pics of us on-site. Talk about ironic. We’re convinced they were just trying to extort us, but we refused to play their games, and we already had a number of good photos, so we walked back down to the new temple a 50 feet below, a beautiful Buddhist temple with lots of white, orange, and blue. I also saw about 4 HTC Droid phones during my visit to this temple and 0 whities. It was a beautiful site and well-preserved. Well worth the small hike and large loss of water.
Lunch: This should be recorded, on the way back to Siem Reap, we stopped just out of town and had lunch at one of the many restaurants lining the lake. We chillaxed in some hammocks while we waited for our fruitshakes, which we had two rounds of and the Amok Soup was incredible. Amok is a fish that Cambodia is famous for. This was the best food I had during my time there.
We headed back and rest up for an hour. At 3 departed for Ta Keo.
Ta Keo: This temple rises out of the ground in a hurry, and is a scary climb on the way back down. Not to be done in the rain. This was, for me, the most astonishing architecture we’d seen because of its steepness and size. Four towers at the penultimate terrace corner the center tower, the base of which is another 30 or so feet above. This is a common design.
Ta Prohm: We came back here for our final morning as well because we wanted to make sure we got the most out of it. This temple is rather flat but is scattered in the jungle and its grounds are massive. From either west or east entrance, you walk a good quarter-mile until you can make out the temple. Giant trees tower above the complex and grow out of, from, through, on, seemingly with the crumbling jungle ruins of this temple. It is man vs. nature most literally. This place is a must-see.
Right when we got there, it started pouring rain, and Sophia left her pass in the tuk tuk. The tourists stormed out and Sophia caught a motorbike to the west gate, where Ta was waiting for us to get her pass. I walked through quickly with my gear and covered in my rain jacket to find her on the opposing walkway. Then we entered and enjoyed it solemnly as the sun faded away. She was eventually caught (around 5:45) by a worker and escorted to the entrance where she was dropped off. Ta was no supposedly waiting for us at the first gate (where I entered). I wasn’t caught and emerged right at 6:00. It was a ghost town, no one was at any of the thirty stands usually stocked with drinks and trinkets and kids selling to you shamelessly. A man stepped out from behind a tree with a walkie-talkie and saw me. He spoke no English, and I no Khmer but eventually he called a motorbike over, and fifteen minutes later, $1, and a nighttime ride around the walls of Ta Prohm gripping my tripod and the bike in either hand I found Ta and Sophia, and we went home.
Day 4 - Sunrise at Phnom Bakheng, Just south of Angkor Thom and Northwest of Angkor Wat, we climbed the spiraling elephant path behind some annoying Brits. We were most offended because they kept saying, “Do you think anyone is up here before us?” Sophia and I were proud to be the first to the site that morning but were stopped at 5:15 by a guard who made us wait until 5:30. Of course, these three kids show up, hop out of their tuk tuk, pull out of their flashlights and head right up the path right at 5:30, no one saying a thing to them. The guard tells us we can go, so we got to follow them up. FML.
Sunrise was beautiful there, and there were only maybe ten people there total. To the south, you can see the hill where Phnom Krom is, and Angkor Wat is just to the right off the eastern exposure of the temple. Unlike other temples the penultimate terrace has a number of towers, maybe eight, some in ruins, maybe 12, and the final has four towers at the corners and a large shrine in the middle.
Angkor Thom: We took more time to explore Baphuon and the grounds of the Royal Palace and the temple therein. Then through the gate of yet another crumbling wall to Preah Palilay. An older American guy with a Canon 5D Mark II and a tripod told us to walk back there, so we did. It was awesome. Two trees grow out of the southern steps to the temple, worth a great number of photos, and we didn’t see any tourists, despite being in the middle of Angkor Thom.
Rest
Preah Kanh: Lunch on the way to Preah Kanh made me sick, or maybe I was sick before, but I ended up running the two miles through Preah Kanh to find the toilet and then re-entered. The grounds, once again were huge, and the temple very cool. As opposed to many of the more squarely configured temples we’d seen, Preah Kanh was the first we saw which was very long and narrow. If there is no one walking through, you can see all the way through the main corridor to the opposite side. The temple architecture itself isn’t that impressive, but there is an uncharacteristic Romanesque shrine at the eastern end of the complex and on the other side a tree’s root that stretches down along the wall like an elephant’s trunk. Very cool.
Neak Pean: I still don’t know how to say the name of this, but its’ awesome. You walk through the jungle on a wooden walkway over a lake, until you reach the first, the arrangement is again cruciform, with four small square pools surrounding one large pool. In the middle pool, a circular platform rises from the water in step form, and two snake statues point toward the east and a tower stands atop. The reflections here are incredible. While we were visiting a number of women monks were visiting each of the small temples which separate the main pool from the side pools.
Srah Srang: There isn’t much to see at the Royal Bath, just a small pedestal above the water, and a lot of kids swimming and fishing, and a giant reservoir, worth a quick stop though, as its right across from Banteay Kdei.
Banteay Kdei: Some carvings here are well preserved. We went at sunset and the light coming through was fantastic. The layout is very similar to that of Preah Kanh, but it is much smaller. A nice tree grows out of the wall to the left of the main entrance. If you walk all the way through to the back and then take a left, you can get a memorable view of the temple off of what water there is in what used to be a moat. The sun sets just over the temple if you are at the east entrance, and is nice through the trees, but no grand vista by any means.
Day 5 - Since we’d mostly been visiting the temples around Siem Reap, we made our way out to Banteay Srei, a temple built entirely out of pink sandstone, and Banteay Kbai Spean.
Banteay Kbai Spean: We got here at 9:00, it took us a little under 1 and a half hours to get here from Siem Reap (it’s about 12km past Bantear Srei). We made the quick walk up (about 25 minutes) the rock strewn path, only, what’s marked every 100m, as 1500m. The waterfalls here are nice, but even cooler are all the carvings. Sophia got a free tour by a girl at the top. I saw many, but I don’t think all of the carvings, most of which are under water. There is one carving of a woman lying on her side somewhat preserved and is at the top of the falls. You can walk through the water below the falls, at some places only ankle deep. Sophia and I took a quick dip and did some awkward camera posing, before the place was overrun by tourists. It quickly was.
Banteay Srei: Pretty cool. Despite there being this incredibly annoying British family with a frantic and screaming mother, a family (I might add) that managed to sneak into every one of my shots with complete disregard and cause me to be bit by red ants. But that’s enough complaining. This place is really cool. Everything is very well preserved, better than any other site we visited. The carvings are very depictive, and a small moat inside of the outer wall gives nice reflections of the small temple. On our way out, two kids were walking along, in my normal way, I said hello, “Soo s’dtay,” and both responded in kind. The girl 15, the boy 4, but both spoke clearly and the girl good English. I asked to take a picture of them as they sat in the window frame of the east gate gopura. They asked for a dollar, which I honestly didn’t have, despite it, they happily obliged and both gave lovely smiles. I took it on film, as I have many of the people here, so I can’t share it now, but maybe one day… Anyway, Banteay Srei was small but worth the visit out of town, if not only to see a little bit of the countryside.
We did Friday morning at Ta Prohm, and though the sunrise was hardly visible, we needed another visit to this fascinating site. I would do sunrise at Ta Keo and then immediately head to Ta Prohm (right next door) if I had more time or were to do it again. Then we went back to the hotel and left for the airport.
Though the food was more expensive than it should have been, and completely unremarkable, we paid about $70 for personal tuk tuk driving to all of the sites we saw (we made Ta work hard), and $65 for the room for 5 nights. It was an amazing trip and I’m glad we had about 5 full days, but it still seemed like hardly enough, just so much to see. Even just after the first two days, if someone we met told us they were just there for a day or two, we felt bad for them because they were certainly missing a lot. So, go to Angkor, and then go to Machu Picchu. And check out my pictures on flickr please.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexkrengel/sets/72157625092797953/
