Siem Reap: Angkor Wat

Days 74-76

We have seen the last must-see sight of our trip and that is the Khmer Temples of Angkor and the huge Angkor Wat. The temples were magnificent and it was a long held ambition of mine to see Angkor Wat so I am particular pleased with seeing them now. Tomorrow we head back through Thailand and hopefully to our next country Laos.

I also have to admit making a mistake in my last post regarding the death of the King. The guy that died last month is actually the current King’s father. He abdicated to his son, the current king, Norodom Sihamoni in 2004. I have learned that he was a somewhat controversial figure as he had associations with Khmer Rouge and had to live in exile during the 1980s, but he appears much loved by the people none the less.

After the Vietnamese deposed the Khmer Rouge in 1979, the brutal regime fled to the more rural parts of the country herding much of the country’s population along with them. With the chaos that ensued little rice got planted and many people died in the resulting famine, another cruel twist in the fate of the long suffering Cambodians. From our bus ride to Siem Reap it was obvious that another rice shortage is out of the question this year at least. Rice paddies stretched across the flooded plains as far as the eye could see for almost the entire length of our journey from Phnom Penh, only the usual suspects of banana and palm trees breaking the sea of rice stems.

Siem Reap is the gateway town for the thousands of tourists that come to visit the temples in Angkor every year and it has developed into an enjoyable place with lots of hotels, restaurants and pubs. Many foreigners actually make this place home as it’s cheap with all the amenities you require. The food is a welcome relief from the frog’s legs, red ants and miscellaneous insects of the local cusinine and decent western food is widely available here. Best of all though, the beer is cheap coming in at $0.50 a glass, to be fair it’s not great but no worse than the standard lagers available at home. One establishment was even screening Pro12 rugby.  As I watched Munster beating Cardiff with a last minute try on Setanta Asia I wondered if my attempt to see the All-Ireland final back in September would have been more successful in Siem Reap.

Cambodia these days is overshadowed by its large and more successful neighbours Thailand and Vietnam. But it is a far cry from the time when the mighty Khmer Empire ruled the roost over the entire region from the 9^th to the 15^th centuries. At its height it ruled over all of modern day Cambodia, Laos, Thailand as well as healthy chunk of Vietnam and Burma from its powerbase at Angkor. Angkor in its day was the largest city in the world with a population of one million living over a wide area approximately the size of modern day Los Angeles . Europe by comparison was languishing in the middle ages and London at the time was a town of only 20,000 people. Just as it feeds Cambodia today the floodwater of the Tonle Sap was the life blood of Angkor as it provided irrigation and transport for the city. Reliance on these waters left Angkor vunerable and drought may have been the beginning of the end for the Empire. Once weakened, the increasing strength of the Thais and Vietnamese happily provided the nail in the coffin and after Angkor was sacked a few times by the Thais, it was abandoned. Although it was never forgotten about by Cambodians, the city was discovered by a French explorer and it has been intermittently on the tourist trial ever since, political instability being the main threat. Thankfully despite destroying many religious buildings, the temples of Angkor were given a pass by the Khmer Rouge and after the civil war, the tourists have been flocking to Siem Reap and Angkor with good reason: the temples are magnificent 

Our trip to Angkor began with a 4.30am start on Tuesday (6^th Nov), required for the popular sight of sunrise over Angkor Wat.  Transport for the day was provided by the Cambodian version of a tuktuk, which is basically a little carriage hitched onto the back of a motorbike. We sped the few miles to the temple and battled the crowds to get into the temple grounds for the sunrise money shot beside a pool before adventuring around the levels of the temple. The grounds of the temple are huge, sitting on a moat enclosed island and measuring roughly 1km square. The various grand entrances and pathways lead up to the main temple which is a three tiered pyramid crowned by 5 lotus flowers all combining to form a very grandiose setting. The interior of the temple is lined with images of the Hindu epics and scattered with temples and statues of Hindu Gods, but 3 hours was adequate and we headed for breakfast.

Although Angkor Wat is the most famous of the temples, there are hundreds (maybe even thousands) of other sites sprinkled over a large area. Many people spend a couple of days sightseeing, but we were only spending one (very long day!) there seeing the main sights. After breakfast we headed to the next temple; Bayon. This temple is a pyramid with 37 towers adorned by a four stone carved faces. The lichens grow all over the sandstone partially obscuring and eating away at the carved details but they add they create an overgrown affect making it feel like ancient and lost. We visited a few more temples within the Angkor Thom complex before heading for lunch, which due to our early start almost felt like dinner.

Indeed the overgrown theme was taken to new lengths at our next temple after lunch, Ta Prohm. The roots of the jungle canopy have attempted to retake the temple for nature. The affect is dramatic with tree roots becoming intertwined into the buildings and statues and with trees actually appearing to sprout out of the top of temples. The half overgrown theme and narrow corridors of this temple created a newly discovered affect and Indiana Jones wouldn’t have been out of place leaping around the ruins. Indeed the pretender to his throne as Hollywood’s leading archeologist, Lara Croft in Tombraider was filmed here in 2001.

Our tour of Angkor was reminding me of our visit to Tikal and Caracol the year previous. These ancient Mayan cities in modern day Guateamala and Belize were also abandoned and retaken by the jungle. But although I believe that a visit to any site should be appreciated for what it is on its own merits, I couldn’t resist a comparison between the two. I was favouring Tikal’s dramatic pyramids right up until our last stop revisting Angkor Wat, but the afternoon light (and fully woken mind!) provided us with a better appreciation of the scale and setting of the temple. So Angkor shades it by a whisker ahead of Tikal, just! Its also easily the greatest sight in South East Asia and the only thing that cold challenge India's incredible sights.

 We headed back to Siem Reap and then out for dinner and we got an introduction to sex tourism in South East Asia. It seems to be rampant throughout the region with middle age white men deciding to use their money to get what they couldn’t get at home. So in major tourist areas there are always a few white men hanging around with young scantily glad local women. To be fair, they are all consenting adults so it’s really none of our concern but it was starting to encroach on us at our current restuarant. The establishment like many of the tourist hangouts in Siem Reap was foreign owned by a German man. A very large and very drunk German man, who continued to get drunk and shout orders and make cheeky remarks to his wife who appearing to be running the place. His wife a local who was serving us was a genuinely lovely lady and tried to make little of her husband’s ridiculous behavior to us. But as he staggered around the place he made us feel seriously uncomfortable and we beat an early retreat feeling sorry for his wife who was stuck with him when she went home.

After spending last night availing of the 50 cent beers we have spent our last day in Cambodia lazily watching the election results coming in America. Our visit to Cambodia has been short but enjoyable, the people are great, the temples of Angkor are magnificent and Phnom Penh a cool little city. The Khmer food in Cambodia is mostly awful with anything liable to appear on the menu, but that is nullifeid by beers costing $0.50. Tomorrow we have another epic journey ahead of us when we try to make it to Vientiane in one day. It does appear to be possible but we shall see, doubtless though we will have a tale to tell.