Visiting the Temples of Angkor

Once again, I am suffering from a massive hangover. I am much too lazy to type up a new post, and yes, I realize I have been neglecting the blog. I promise to make it up to my loyal readers next week. 


So because last night was an epic dance-a-thon, I am going to post a journal entry from my visit to Siem Reap. There are days when I am homesick for the states, and there are days when I am homesick for Southeast Asia. Today all I want is a fresh mango shake. Oh god, I can almost taste it. But before I launch into my thoughts on the temples of Angkor, I thought I would share this photo from last night:

Yeah, I don't know either. But as you can see, it was a great time. 


So on to Cambodia....




We spent three days seeing the temples of Siem Reap, spending hours walking up and down stairs in the hot sun to discover their magic. We saw 19 temples or so and most of them were pretty incredible. Some were better kept than others, but each was a beautiful reminder of the empire that once was.

First we went to Pre Rup on our way out to the popular Banteay Srei. It was beautiful and since it was our first temple, I thought it was huge. Later on I would compare it to Angkor Wat and Beng Mealea which were truly gigantic but at the moment, as our first Cambodian temple, it loomed above us. Since it was early there were just a few people around and my friend was able to get photos without tourists interfering. He will sometimes wait 10-15 minutes for people to move out of the way so he can take a picture. Unfortunately, in busy temples having a tourist-free shot was tough to achieve. Eventually a bus of Americans arrived and did block his photos for long enough that he gave up and we headed onto Banteay Srei.

Banteay Srei was crawling with tourists and my friend had to give up and allow some people in his photos, or had to zoom in on the amazing detailed carvings. I wandered around just taking it all in. What was left of the temple were walls covered with intricate carvings of lions, women, snakes, lotus hands, etc. I was blown away by the attention to detail as well as how well preserved it was for being hundreds of years old. Unfortunately that is when it started to get hot again and I started to sweat in my temple get up of tshirt and pants. They were loose pants, almost gauchos if you remember that fad, but it was still a bit much for 90+ weather. On our way out some Asian tourists grabbed us for photos (they love taking pictures with pale people....it's so weird. What happens to the photos when they get back? Are we up on facebook with all these people with their friends commenting on them?) 

Our next stop was my idea. I had read in Lonely Planet that you can see Phnom Bok if you are out the direction of Banteay Srei and since I wanted to be helpful I pointed the blurb out and suggested we visit. We asked our tuk-tuk driver to go there next and should have sensed the obscurity of the place when he told us he had never been there before. We kept on though and soon arrived at the bottom of what I would say was larger than a hill, but a bit too small to be called a proper mini-mountain. Didn't look too daunting and hey, Lonely Planet didn't say anything like, "Beware, this may kill you," so up we went. As we started climbing up temple prayers started blasting over a loudspeaker and we were still thinking this was going to be a normal temple visit. But wait, what's this? We turned the corner to see the longest, tallest, highest set of stairs I have ever seen in my life. At that point I laughed - because I still had no idea what we were in for here. About halfway up we were both literally dripping wet and we had to stop to take a few rests before we reached the top. We sat for a bit and looked at this pillar, all the while I was thinking "This is what we climbed those stairs to see???" Fortunately we caught sight of some other ruins just a few more meters up so we headed for those. 

Have you ever read The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis? It's the first book in the Chronicles of Narnia series and it begins with the main character somehow landing in this magical other land of quiet ruins. Of course a bad witch shows up a few minutes later but that scene C.S. Lewis describes could have been written about Phnom Bok. They looked like something out of a movie: crumbling towers, pillars at strange angles, carvings barely visible, sloped steps and giant trees growing out of the whole lot. If taking in Bataad from the viewpoint was like sitting on the edge of a postcard, then exploring Phnom Bok was like being transported into a novel where mythical creatures existed and anything could happen at any moment. 

Before we headed down the mountain my friend and I played the jelly bean guessing game. Think back to third grade when your teacher had those jars of candy corn and jelly beans and everyone in the class got to guess how many pieces of candy were in the jar. The person who was the closest won the whole jar and took home the candy. I never won at those but I figured at least this time I had a 50/50 chance of beating my friend. He guessed there were 550 stairs and I said 620. I'm not kidding, there were A LOT of stairs! And we had climbed all of them in the blazing hot Cambodian sun! Anyway, guess how many stairs there were? 628. (as a side note...I later climbed Adam's Peak in Sri Lanka which has something like 4000 steps so at this point, I really had no idea)

We saw 5 more temples after that: Banteay Samre, Eastern Mebon, Preah Khan, Preah Neak Pean and Ta Som. Bateay Samre was nice but I wish there had still been a moat like there was when it was built. It would have made it even more impressive - plus it would have been fun to walk over a moat. I really enjoyed Eastern Mebon because of the elephant statues posted on every corner. I was really hot and disgusting though which was starting to make me a bit crabby; not to mention exhausted from the 7am start time and all day in the blazing sun. We carried on to the next three temples where I discovered Ta Som was to be one of my favorites. 

Ta Som was a jungly temple with giant trees growing out of the ruins. Unlike Phomh Bok though, it was shaded by nature and in a bit better repair than the mountain temple. This was the first temple we saw with the large faces carved into the entrances. These temples are incredibly impressive, even though nature has clearly won the forever battle. 

When we returned home to the Golden Banana (our wonderful hotel) all we wanted to do was slide into the pool and rest our tired feet for a bit. I was also starving from the kcals I burned but barely had the energy to eat. We had been relaxing for so long in Vietnam that I hardly remembered how exhausting sightseeing can be!

We began our second day with the heaviest of heavy hitters: Angkor Wat. As a disclaimer: Any description I write will not do it justice...so I'm not going to try. It was absolutely breathtaking and more than I could ever have imagined. From the moment the tuk-tuk drove by part of it to drop us off at the entrance, I was entranced. It is increadibly wide and then you have to walk what seems like the length of a football field to get to the entrance. Once there you walk through an archway and are again faced with a huge expanse to traverse in order to get to the actual temple. And the temple is HUGE. I think photos illustrate this better than words. 

If you look closely you can see my friend posing...this is just one of Angkor's inner walls

In my journal I wrote a lot, A LOT, more about Angkor Wat. However, I felt this was already way too long and that those of you who are still reading probably are waiting for me to get on with it. 


Banteay Kdei and Sr Srang were our next stops. Banteay Kdei was another temple that I doubt people will be able to climb around wherever for much longer. It had a mysterious air about it and all the collapsed areas allowed for interesting photos. Apparently it was hastily constructed those hundreds of years ago which accounts for the severe damage it's suffered. I enjoyed that one a lot as it felt like no matter which way you walked there were more pathways and hallways as if it was a neverending maze. I had a fleeting thought about playing hide and seek there, but figured it would take much too long to find anyone.

Ta Prohm was our next stop. This temple was used in Angelina Jolie's famous movie, Laura Croft: Tomb Raider. Because of it's fame it was being restored, but unfortunately it also had walkways and wood stairs everywhere that you had to follow. This was the one temple we couldn't just hop around anywhere. Unfortunately the walkways interfered with some great photo possibilities in two ways. The most obvious was that the wood entered the picture and that took away from the ancient stones and jungle crawling over them. The second problem was that the walkways set up photo ops - so in areas where serious photographers were trying to get shots of the temple, other tourists were taking group shots in front of the most interesting parts. It definitely took away from the air of ancient wonder that could have permeated every part of Ta Prohm.

Our tuk-tuk driver drove us back to Angkor Thom (the huge enclosure that holds several of the sights and is surrounded by a long low wall with entryways marked by huge stone guards) and let us out at the Terrace of the Elephants. We walked around and admired the wall that held more intricate carvings until we couldn't take it anymore and went in search of water. It was quite ironic - most of the day we had to fend off children selling trinkets, young men selling bootleg books and dvds and women competing to sell us cold water. Now when we needed it most we had to seek out one of these women. We crossed the road to where several stalls were set up and only one woman ran over to us, "Cold water?" she asked. Without a word I started nodding and she laughed. We must have looked horrible - dripping sweat, hadn't eaten all day, exhausted and practically begging for water. The going rate is 1.5 liters for $1, which we gladly paid and sat down for a few minutes. 

After a brief rest we walked along the Terrace of the Leper King before heading into Bayon. Bayon is an amazing temple built in the 12th century with something like 200 faces carved into the many towers. Even compared to Angkor Wat, Bayon was my favorite temple in Siem Reap.

Bayon is truly wonderful and is very hard to describe. Everywhere you walk is something even more exciting to look at and again, you're able to climb on anything you want. My friend was also very happy because he is on a perpetual "Monk Hunt." This is what I call his desire to have Buddhist monks, draped in bright orange or red cloth, in his photographs.

As you can see, it was his lucky day as there were several wandering around in Bayon. He managed to get several photos with these unsuspecting men (or do they know people are constantly trying to get them in the frame?) exploring the temple. Unfortunately we had to leave eventually, so sadly we walked down the steps and out to our tuk-tuk driver who would take us back to the Golden Banana and our lovely swimming pool.