It was an early start for us and our 20,000 closest friends this morning. We woke up at 4:45 in time to meet the smiling Siya in our hotel lobby. The plan was to check out sunrise at Angkor Wat, then come back for breakfast. The girls were pretty pumped once they woke up fully.
On the drive, I noticed a growing number of Tuk Tuks and cars on the road, and I figured we would have lots of company. We drove through a security checkpoint and made it in short time to the outside of the grand most. There we sat and waited for some morning light to come up. Beth and I were pretty amazed that we had done this same thing, with nobody there 18 years ago. There was a pretty big crush of people sitting with us, and even more making their way across the most into the outer temple walls. There were even a fair number of monkeys around stealing food and leftover snacks from people.
After the sky started lighting up, Siya said it was time to go inside to watch the sun come up. We made our way across the impressive stone road that crosses the moat, and stepped in through the Western gate into,the grounds of Angkor Wat. Abby was oohing and ahhing and I had chills running down my spine. We went in front of the inner South pond and waited. The view was spectacular.
After sunrise, got a small taste of the main temple. We went inside,for a quick look, then went along the front,wall,to,check out one of the,impressive bas reliefs. One of Angkor Wat's most impressive aspects in the hundreds of meters of bas reliefs or sandstone carved figurines and murals. At Angkor, the outside tell different Hindu stories - one scene only in each section that is perhaps 100 meters long, for a total of 8 sections around the temple. We looked at the story of the monkey king, with Siya pointing out small details that we would surly have missed. Again, I was really impressed with the girls.
We went outside and had a look back from where we came. As I think about it now, although it was "busy", compared to more accessible man made wonders of the world like the Taj Mahal and the Colleseum, the area still had plenty of space to breath.
We headed back for breakfast. As soon as we ordered, Abby sitting across from me said "Daddy, look!" Too funny...
After two of us had naps (you can guess which two), Siya picked us up and we headed back to Angkor Wat for a closer look. This time, we went to the rarely used East gate. Angkor Wat, like many of the temples, was designed with perfect symmetry in mind, and even though there was only one road crossing the most on the Western Side, there were four gates at each point of the compass. However, the French had built a causeway on the eastern side (and knocked a @&$?ing hole in the ancient wall next to the gate) in the early 20th century to make it easier to build a modern Buddhist temple inside the grounds to one side.
It was very quiet as we approached from the east. The main temple got bigger and bigger as we walked up - the scaled of it and the age (finished in 1150!) really makes you pause. We looked at the very impressive bas relief of the Hindu story of the "churning of the sea" on the east side, and a huge mural of heaven and hell on the south side.
We climbed up the expansive second story. Since the monument is supposed to represent the religiously important Mount Meru with it's five peaks, the foundation of each floor is solid filled, so every floor you group, the temple narrows. To get into the Bakan, the uppermost level and most sacred, you had to cover up, which mean pants or long skirts for the girls. Luckily, Siya had told us that you couldn't just wear a wrap to cover up, as we saw women in line getting rejected. We climbed the really steep stairway and really took the time to enjoy the peaceful upper level (they only let in a hundred people at a time).
The climb down was uneventful, though some of the tourists were going so slow, I think the risk of heat stroke is greater than the risk of falling down.
Mid morning, we left Angkor Wat. I can't say I won't be back because I definitely enjoyed coming back for the 2nd time... Who knows. On the way out we stopped at an early temple (9th century) named Kraven that was made almost entirely out of clay bricks. Impressive here were the carvings on the wall of various incarnations of Vishnu.... Carved from the clay brick?!
My stone mason, Tom, is very good, but even he will tell you it's virtually impossible to carve fine shapes and curves into bricks - they are so brittle and crack in straight lines. To see these perfect carvings that were over 1150 years old left us with our mouths open for sure.
After Robin had her natural energy drink fix, we headed out for a bit of a drive on our way to the so called "ladies temple". When we were almost there, we stopped for lunch and yet another sample of one of the great local beers they have here.
Banteai Srei is about 32km north of Angkor Wat is very unique looking. They figure that women were the sculptors of this 10th century Hindu temple because the detail of the sandstone carvings are more intricate and beautiful than elsewhere. The colours of the sandstone, pink, green and yellow tints make it even nicer. The female side of the family was especially pleased with the ladies temple for some reason.
Beth and I were not allowed to visit this one in 1997 because of militants in the area and the risk of land mines. Now, the grounds around the temple are beautiful, and the grounds are surrounded by land that would make an Irishman blush.
Our last stop was at the Rolous group, which was about an hour drive from the ladies temple. There was head bobbing by the ladies...
Pre Rup was the temple we visited in the Rolous group. It was like a mini Angkor Wat, built using brick and sandstone and surrounded by a wide moat. The scene was quiet. It was nice seeing these outlying temples - both to give us a sense of scale of just how much ground this kingdom covered and to avoid crowds which gave us a real chance to pick Siya's brain.
A good guide is not just there to provide rote memorization of the facts and figures of a building. A good guide can teach you how things tick - how society works (healtcare, government, money etc), what challenges the local people face and how everyday people behind the tourism curtain live. Siya provided this insight and more over the two days. I caught the girls listening intently when he would talk about the struggle to get educated and the "universal" healtcare system where you would still die in the hospital of neglect if you didn't have money change hands. I poked and prodded on land ownership and he painted a picture that told me the rich get richer and the poor had better keep quiet and be satisfied with what they have.
We learned about weddings - guests bring money as gifts as is common elsewhere, so people tend to invite a thousand people to weddings.... It gets paid back by getting invited to a thousand weddings! When I was at one temple, a policeman tried to sell me his badge. Beth asked what would happen when he told his boss that he had lost his badge. Siya laughed and said, "he would tell his boss he sold it and his boss would be happy as he would get some of the money". This is how it goes - like seemingly everywhere else - from communist to capitalist - as Tony Soprano once said, money runs up hill and shit runs down.
Siya dropped us back home in the late afternoon. We said heartfelt goodbyes. We really came to like him and I promised to keep in touch.
We quickly headed to the pool to cool off. We were all pretty tired and it was a great refresh.
We went to Pub Street for dinner and landed on a Latino place.... Well ok, it was a Tex Mex place. It was good food - there are so many expat businesses in the area, it's really hard to believe.
We topped the night off with a visit to a mobile Nutella pancake vendor. Mmmm... Late night pancakes!
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