Angkor Wat
We were moving at 4:30 am and down to the hotel courtyard about 20 minutes later. Our regular driver was waiting with his van and a few moments later our guide, Mr Cheong, arrived a few minutes later on his motorcycle. After brief formalities we were on our way.
First stop was the Angkor Wat ticket office, north-east of the city and some distance from Angkor Wat. The large complex there was bustling with tuk tuks, cars, tourists, and guides. Our guide led us in to obtain tickets. We had paid for them in our package but he had to buy them with us present because a photograph of the ticket holder is printed on the ticket.
That done we went back to the van and were driven to the western entrance to the Angkor Wat complex. Sunrise was not until 6:27 am this morning so it was dark when we arrived there sometime before 5:30 am. We had to walk some distance along a road and a causeway across the wide moat, through the west gate of the complex, and toward the area from which the temple could be viewed as the sun rose behind and to the right of it.
Our guide found us an area where there were large rocks to sit on and left us for a while. As the sky lightened over the next 50 minutes we took occasional photos. There were low clouds in the east so while the sky lightened and there were patches of colour we were unable to see the sun as it rose. Despite that we got photos of the towers silhouetted against the morning sky. Once the sun was up we moved forward to see and photograph the reflections in the pool in front of the temple.
While most of the crowd seemed to be entering through the main gate on the west side of the temple our guide skirted the pool and took us to the north side of the temple. We paused there for some explanations of the history of the site and the significance of the figures represented in the carvings. In common with the broader region influenced by India, the area had been successively Hindu and Buddhist. Angkor Wat was built in the 12th century as a Hindu temple but later used by Buddhists. It was abandoned as capital in favour of Phnom Penh for causes including drought around the 16th century, rediscovered by a French archaeologist in the 19th century, and damaged during civil war in the 20th century. There are now ongoing efforts with international support to restore various parts of the complex.
Construction took 37 years with volunteer labour using rock brought from some distance further north. Facings are sandstone with some internal construction using volcanic rock. Most of the outward facing stone is carved into large figures or, on flat surfaces, in bas-relief.
We mounted stone stairs to the first level and walked along a colonnade flanked by very detailed bas-reliefs of battles on the wall. There were more stone stairs to the second level and then wooden stairs for the steeper and higher climb to the third level. We walked the perimeter there enjoying the views over the surrounding area before going back down and leaving by the east gate.
Our driver met us there. Our itinerary indicated that we would return to the hotel for breakfast. Last night when we met the driver to go to the circus he was talking with reception about breakfast being ready to go with us in the van. Evidently the guide had suggested that but we had only the itinerary and said we understood we would come back for breakfast. With no breakfast to come in the van this morning we were off back to the hotel for breakfast. We arrived there just before 8:30 am and agreed we would be ready to go again at 9:00 am.
After breakfast we drove to Angkor Thom, a larger (3 km square and surrounded by a moat used for boat races) city area just north of Angkor Wat. We entered there by the South Gate which is reached by a causeway across the moat. A feature there is the line of statues pulling the Naga snake on either side. The Buddhist images on the left are smiling while the Hindu images on the right seem uniformly unhappy.
Once inside Angkor Thom our driver collected us for the kilometre or more we needed to go up the road to visit the Bayon temple. It served as a Buddhist temple and was built by the grandson of the king who built Angkor Wat. Smaller than Angkor Wat with a more complex architecture featuring many towers, it was constructed using smaller blocks of sandstone on the same basic three level design. We spent some time exploring the building, admiring the complex carving in the stones where it had not been worn away. As with Angkor Wat there are efforts to restore parts of the structure.
We walked out of Bayon into an area of light forest inhabited by long and short tail macaques. Our guide informed us that the short tail variety are friendly, if shy, but the long tail kind can be aggressive. The two kinds seemed friendly enough with each other as we watched them in small, sometimes mixed, groups.
On the other side of the small forest area we came to the Baphuon temple, which is approached along a long elevated pathway. It is older than Angkor Wat and provided some inspiration for that construction. We did not explore it but passed on along the Terrace of the Elephants, which is above an open area used in the past for racing elephants and other purposes. It is bordered by a wall that features many sculptures of elephants.
Our driver collected us there to drive us to Ta Prohm temple, a location used in the Tomb Raiders movie. Unlike the other temples we had visited that had been overrun by jungle and cleared, in this one the strangler figs that push their roots between blocks of stone and collapse buildings had been allowed to remain. We wandered among the buildings, some in various stages of restoration, amazed by the size and evident strength of the roots pushing blocks of stone apart. As elsewhere, there were crowds of tourists enjoying intriguing photo opportunities. Our guide had mastered the art of taking interesting photos and took some for us.
By then it was approaching noon. Our driver took us to a nearby restaurant where we ate lunch. Ben and I had fried rice with pork which was plentiful and tasty but not spicy. Majella had green mango salad and reported that she thought she had diminished her dementia risk again (last year she was in a research study on the effects of capsaicin, the active ingredient in chillies, on dementia). Perhaps the salad we made yesterday was toned down for tourists.
After lunch we drove back to Siem Reap. Majella had asked the guide about crafts and he offered to take her to a shop where she could see some. It was a high end store with many exquisite items that we did not need. Majella escaped with a silk scarf that was not cheap but was one of the more affordable items in the shop.
Our guide left us at the hotel. We will meet him again at 8:30 am tomorrow for another day of adventure.
It was approaching 1:30 pm. We spent the next couple of hours relaxing in our room before going down to the pool later, after the sun had dropped and there was shade.
We had time after our swim to relax for a while before setting off at about 5 pm for Cheers where Majella had arranged to have dinner with T. While in the pool we had been talking with a man we met yesterday from Sydney and he had recommended a new food store. As best we could work out from his directions it was in the direction we would need to go to Pub Street so we walked that way. We didn’t find the store.
T greeted us as we arrived at Cheers and we sat at street level out the front. Drinks were first order – pineapple juice for Ben, lychee martini for Majella, and local draft beer for me. For dinner Ben had a stir fried beef dish with lots of green peppercorns. Majella had the fish amok and I had the Tom Yam seafood. They were all good but my Tom Yam did not seem to be as spicy as the one Majella reported for the one she had on Tuesday evening. T ate dinner with us and not long after we arrived another family that Majella had talked with in the pool and recommended the place turned up for dinner. She should be on the payroll.
After we had eaten and talked with T we said farewells and walked back up the street. At the corner Majella decided she needed to explore the ice cream rolls she had seen advertised. She ordered one with dragonfruit and mango. Ben opted for mango with coconut. The process involved placing the ice cream mix with fruit on a very cold metal surface and then mixing, scraping, and chopping with a pair of paint scrapers until the mixture was reasonably uniform. Then it was spread in a rectangle and scraped up in narrow rolls that were transferred to a large cardboard cup. It was very labour intensive but the result was delicious.
We walked to the end of the street eating ice cream rolls and caught a tuk tuk back to our hotel. It was about 7:30 pm and Majella declared that (almost) time for sleep. It had been a long day. Fortunately tomorrow has a later start.
