Day 14 & 15 – Siem Reap

Today was the start of our 2 days touring the Angkor Archaeological Park, which is a World Heritage listed site, and stretches over 400km² with dozens of separate temple sites.  We got off to an early start, picked up by our driver Mr. Smarty at 8am and headed for the park area, which was around a 15min TukTuk ride from the hotel.  Our first stop was at the ticket booth, to pick up our passes which allow you access to the sites, $20 each per day, or $40 each for a 3 day pass, we needed two days so not a big difference either way! Once we had our passes it was on to the temples.  It is a little hard to remember the names of all the temples we visited over the two days, so I’ll probably just have to try and do a fairly general summary. 

The amount of detail is incredible

The temples around the park were constructed during the reigns of many Kings, and age from the earliest in around the year 790 to the last which were around 1234.  They are absolutely incredible to see, most of them are made from sandstone or a harder stone, and the conditions vary from temple to temple.  Many of them are suffering from significant collapses, as well as vandalism/theft by people and the imposing of the environment, with many trees twisted around the ruins.  What is surprising is the level of access tourists have, being allowed to explore and crawl over almost all of the temples, with a few exceptions of areas that are closed off.  Considering the sandstone composition, and the touchy feely needs of tourists it must be having significant impact o

n the site, and apart from a very few “no touching” signs scattered around (which like nearly all signs in Asia are largely ignored) there is nothing to protect these amazing artefacts.

While the size of the temples is impressive in itself (you have to wonder just how they could build such incredible structures by hand) it is the level of detail which I found most amazing.  Every doorway, window, even many walls are decorated with the most elaborate carvings.  It is truly amazing the depth of detail in many of the carvings considering they were all hand created in stone, and also how well many of them have held up to the tests of time. 

Carvings in the water at Kbal Spean

There were a few particular sites worth noting, the first was called Kbal Spean which was around a 25 minute drive from the main park area, and is then accessed via a 1.5km hike to the site.  The hike was fairly hairy, with a lot of rock and root hopping, and some pretty steep inclines, the kind of thing you love when you’re a kid, but not so much when you’re nearly 30 and in tropical Asian heat (though everyone keeps telling us how cool it supposedly is).  It was particularly interesting to see a lady attempting this climb in 6 inch heels, didn’t stick around to see how that went for her. 

The waterfall at Kbal Spean

Once you reach the end of the hike, you arrive at the Siem Reap river, which eventually flows all the way down to Siem Reap town.  Being dry season the flow was fairly small, however it was still beautiful, but what is really amazing is the rock carvings in the actual creek bed, which date back to the 11^th or 12^th century.  There are carvings along the creek that stretch for around 500m, with lots of different images imprinted on the rock.  It’s pretty incredible to walk along and imagine hundreds of years ago people sitting in the creek chipping away at the rock.  It’s also amazing that the water flow hasn’t eroded all the carvings away, but they are still very visible.  At the end of the walking trail along the creek you get to a decent size waterfall which is very beautiful as well, some tourists were stripping off and getting under the waterfall,

The faces at The Bayon temple

considering how hot it was we were very jealous and regretted not bringing swimming gear!

Another site which was amazing and ended up being our favourite temple was The Bayon. 

Us with a face at Bayon

This temple is dated to the late 12^th or early 13^th century, however like many of the temples it has undergone continuing modifications and augmentations as the religions of kings changed over time.  It started as a Mahayana Buddhist temple, then had Hindu additions when a king of the denomination reigned, and then again when a Theravada Buddhist king was in power.  This temple was another which we could thoroughly explore, with almost full access granted to the lower levels, however the higher levels were closed off due to the risk of collapse and the danger in climbing the steep stairways.  Bayon was in fairly good condition,

More faces

with lots of beautiful and ornate rock carvings still intact, though some areas have suffered collapse, but what really makes Bayon special is the huge imposing faces all around the temple.   There are over 200 faces gazing out, usual configured with 4 faces on one tower, all facing in different directions.  It’s a beautiful scene, and it’s amazing to wonder about how long it must have taken to build, and what it must have been like when it was first abandoned. 

The final site that should probably get its own mention is the tourist favourite, Angkor Wat.  This temple is incredible, and the approach gives you some idea of its size as you cross the bridge over the manmade moat which completely surrounds the Angkor Wat site (which literally translates to Temple City or City of the Temples) and approach the enormous main wall which surrounds the city. 

Victory Gate

Again it is interesting that this temple started out as Hindu, and was originally dedicated to Vishnu before the shift to Buddhism.  It is the largest religious site in the world, and is the only temple which has continued to serve as a religious centre since its construction.  Again, as with all the temples the level of detail on all the structures is incredible, with beautiful carvings depicting various scenes decorating walls around the temple, as well as doorways, windows etc.  What was kind of interesting was finding a couple of places where the decoration had not been completed, and where patterns in a certain place had been started but not finished, as if someone finished work for the day and forgot to come back where they left off.  

There were plenty of stairs to climb, and plenty of other tourists to battle as well, but we had a great

The bridge approaching Angkor Wat

time exploring and again, it is both amazing and concerning the amount of access you are given to such an important part of history.  At nearly all the temples we went to there were restoration works under way, carried out by various nationalities including Japan, China and Germany as well as others.  It is good to see that work is progressing to restore and protect these amazing sites, and they have done it in a way which I think is good, as while they are building some new components to replace those damaged beyond repair, they are doing it in the original style, but still making it obvious which parts are new and which are part of the original build.

Angkor Wat external wall

The temples all share similar features (as they were all built under similar influences) but they all also have their own unique styles and while it was hot and draining work climbing the multiple stairs and battling the hordes of other tour groups there (we took to calling them ducklings as that’s what they looked like as they all waddled after their tour leader with his flag held high) it was certainly worthwhile and I got some great pictures of some incredible and ancient works, which may not be around forever.  The only really sad part we found was the “monks” hanging out in the temples trying to press incense into tourists hands supposedly for good luck then demanding “donations” afterwards.  They were extremely persistent and often had unsuspecting tourists thinking they were taking part of a religious ceremony, then making them cough up before they knew any

These story walls were amazing, with an incredible amount of detail

better.  While I understand the need for people to be able to make money, it really took away from the beauty and serenity of the place, and also made it frustrating to explore while getting constantly interrupted by these scammers. 

More story wall

They also have the exits of the temples set up to shepherd you through all the various vendors outside touting their goods and imploring you to just “buy something sir”.  While again this got a little wearing I found it much more tolerable than doing it on the actual temple sites. 

So after we were thoroughly exhausted and soaked in sweat from exploring we headed back into town to a nice café we had found previously to have a quick bite to eat and a cool drink.  While we were there our lovely tuk-tuk driver invited us back to his home to meet his wife and baby, Julie.  He lives fairly close to town, and the house is shared between three families, his Father in law, his sister in law and her children, and he and his wife.  It was really lovely of him to bring us there, and it was a great view into the “real” Cambodia.  His wife was lovely, and his daughter was gorgeous so we had a great time sitting on the floor (most houses in Cambodia only have a bed as furniture so sitting on the floor is normal) and playing with her. 

Nature vs. Temple

He also showed us his wedding photos, which were amazing.  In Cambodia weddings go for two days, and the couple wear multiple different bright coloured outfits during the ceremony, all of which are beautifully decorated and bright colours.  The couple also always match, so in one picture they were both in beautiful yellow outfits, then bright blue, then green etc.  It was also interesting seeing the ceremony involved in a Buddhist wedding, which includes a hair cutting (only pretend though) to cut out all of the “bad” in their lives. 

It was a really lovely experience to be invited into his home, and is just so typical of the people here, they are just so genuinely kind and welcoming to us, and while by our standards they have very little, in a lot of ways they have so much more than we do.  Family is everything here, and keeping everyone close together is an important part of life, meal times are a great time for all the family to get together and enjoy the company of each other, and there is almost a kind of ceremony over the way they share many of their meals.  I think that while there are huge problems in this country that need to be addressed, and as a developed and wealthy nation it is part of our responsibility to help make sure this happens, we could also learn a lot off these people about what’s really important in life, and what you really need to be happy.