Temples of Angkor

My first stop over in Cambodia has been the small town of Siem Reap. Thanks to the rains that have recently come it floods everyday and is a joy to wonder around. Though I have come to love this place, there is an old and a new market here that have been fun to stroll around. The haggling of prices here is quite amusing, in fact anyone could really do it, as long as you say 'no' to whatever they offer the price will drop. There have been the nice paintings of the temples in the town and I was just curious at how much they cost, not interested in buying one, so as I woked away after she told me the price magically dropped in half. Tempting I thought. You can also get Lonely Planet books here for $2, kinda crazy since they cost $15-30 at home.

The recent history of Cambodia is about as gruesome as it comes in the world, but so far I haven't been exposed to too much of it. Siem Reap has to be the place most tourist come, especially with its close proximity to Bangkok and they are coming for the temples, not the recent history of the country. But evidence of it is still everywhere. Landmine victims hobble around begging for money, and at the temples here they have even created their own little band, albeit simple, to play music to the guests and sell CDs that they have made. I found there ambitious quite admirable since they refuse to beg as they would rather live with dignity. There are also billboards that I've seen around showing a cartoon war and one half and sunny skies with kids playing and rainbows on the other saying how the country no longer needs guns because the streets are safe again. I am very interested now in heading over to the capital, Phnom Penh, to check out the real sites where the massacres actually occured, though I'm assuming the trip will be intense.

Nonetheless, Im in Siem Reap to see the temples of Angkor. They were built in the 12th century as religious monuments for the Khmer dynasty. Back in the day, 12th century, this area of the world boasted over a million people, at the time London had about 50,000 occupants. The empire they established spread from the borders of present day Thailand to those of Vietnam, so the area of their influence was not to be discounted, nor is the shear beauty and magnitude of the temples that they built. The most famous of which, Angkor Wat, is the largest religious structure in the world. It takes a solid 2 hours to stroll around it, and that would be without taking in much of it. The other temples are generally smaller and in various states of decay.

To get around the area you hire tuk-tuk or motobike drivers for the day. A tuk-tuk is a motorbike that pulls along a cart that 2 or 3 people can sit in, they are norm in terms of taxis for the area. I, along with someone from my guesthouse hired a driver for the day and were off. We both got 3 day passes to the temple complexes at the entrance and our first stop was Angkor Wat. The temple is surrounded by an enormous moat, probably 300 feet wide and stretching about a mile on each side, possibly more. From the 'main' entrance you cross a causeway where little kids jump off into the water to cool down towards the outer wall of the temple. Its characteristic towers loam in the background and create the typical Cambodian viewpoint. Angkor Wat is on everything here, its the name of half the guest houses/restaurants here, its on the money, and on nearly every sign. The temple is simply iconic and its beauty is deserving of its fame. The walk up to the temple is over a quarter mile long and the views are incredible. These temples were built by tens of thousands of workers in the twelfth century and still stand today with marginal help (in some cases its a lot of help) from re constructive projects, but the beauty of them is something to behold. Angkor Wat is in the shape of a crucifix (though it is a Buddhist temple) with concentric square walls slowly rising up to the main courtyard where the temples 5 pinnacles stand symbolizing Mt Meru I believe, all are ornately decorated. Along the inner wall of the temple is a string of bas reliefs (carvings) that span all four sides of the temple. Each side has to be a few hundred yards long and the reliefs have a ridiculous amount of detail in them. Each relief (8 in total) depicts some religious scene or scene from a battle that the ancient empire took part in. The characters in the relief are beautiful and aside from erosion, remember they are 800 years old, in some parts the detail of them is still there. One of them, the Churning of the Ocean of Milk depicts angels and demons (170 or so in total) trying to churn the ocean to bring up the elixir of immortality...thats a good one to have I'd say. Despite the towers of the temple being the iconic simple of all of Cambodia I found the reliefs to be my favorite part of the temple.

After a solid 3 hours Angkor Wat is was off to Angkor Thom, which is a walled in city that contains several other temples, the most impressive of which being Bayon in my opinion. All of the temples here feature certain statues or reliefs that display an insane amount of detail. At Bayon, there are over a hundred giant faces, each the size of an adult looking out into the forests. The faces aren't carved out of a single stone but rather several stones neatly piled together. So over the course of 800 years some portions of the stone broke away, were defaced by invaders, or eroded by other means (like stupid tourists climbing on them) making portions of the faces be missing. The art certainly wasn't perfect, but in its character and age you could still see the beauty. All of the artwork here was made using a series of smaller stones that are linked together so that they all line up properly, and in some cases the original stones have simply fallen away and lay in huge ruins in the middle of these temples. In others recontructive projects have put in new stone as a replacement and they look somewhat amusing. On the left you'll see this old faded stone, on the right is an immaculate clean stone. It didn't detract too much from the feel of the temples, especially considering that without them the temples would probably fall apart even further or they would be very difficult to figure out what you were looking at.

From Bayon we saw some smaller temples, the pyramid shaped Ta Keo and the larger Banteay Kdei, but my favorite of the visit thus far had to be Ta Prohm, or the Jungle Temple. Remember the jungle ruins you see in Indiana Jones' Raiders of the Lost Ark? Well the scenes basically came from here. Most of the temples here have been cleaned up a bit so that they landscaping around them is suitable. Cambodia is in the tropics and trees would take over if left to their own devices. Place like Angkor Wat and Bayon have largely been cleared out, but by and large the temple of Ta Prohm gets its name because the jungle kind of took it over. The temple itself isn't that impressive because of the carvings or the structures here but the unique harmony between the temple and the jungle. The trees literal explode through some of the walls of the temple ripping them apart. Its difficult to describe without seeing it, but the tress grow through and around the walls and in many cases the trunk of these massive trees sit right on top of the walls with the smaller roots curving down to the ground. The stones at this temple have green moss covering parts of them which truly make it feel like a jungle temple. One of the trees here that is snaking its destructive path through a section of the temple here is said to be the most photographed tree in the world. A few of the other temples here have these characteristics as well, my favorite tree blasting through a temple is at the smaller and less popular Ta Som. Its gorgeous and I promise I'll put pictures up as soon as I can.

I've still got one day left at the temples and will be heading to the farther out ones today. Lonely Planet says that one of them is so overgrown with jungle that it makes Ta Prohm look like someone forgot to mow the lawn, can't wait to see it.