10th – 13th October 2011
Needing a relaxed day after arriving so late the previous night we decided to rent a couple of bikes to navigate the waterways that the roads had become. Most of the town was fine but the river, appropriately named Stung Siem Reap (River Siem Reap) had burst its banks and flooded the lowest areas around the central market area where most of the hotels and eateries were based.
In lots of places the water was at least ankle deep and in some places covered the knees. Nevertheless life went on as usual and the roads were navigated by people on foot (very, very slowly), people on bicycles and those on motorbikes and in cars, the wash created by the latter pushed me off course and almost of my bike when I wasn’t prepared for the mini current.
We pedaled to the undercover market, which was also flooded in places and got ourselves some much needed breakfast. By this point I had relaxed a little bit, not having fallen victim to imagined potholes in the road that couldn’t be seen under the water. After a couple of baguettes and a lemon shake we looked through the market which sold mainly fresh produce, big bowls of fresh rice noodles where swirled enticingly next to stalls piled high with fresh fruit and vegetables. Stalls with fresh chickens their legs poking into the air sided with stalls butchering still squirming fish. Having had our fills of the sights and smells of the market we got back on our bikes and cycled over to Artisans d’Angkor, a school set up to train rural village kids in old Khmer Arts.
After some egg noodles and amok (a traditional Khmer dish; a thin coconut flavoured curry) at a small restaurant on the road, we picked up some bananas and mangoes from the market and then headed back to the hotel to rest.
The next morning we got up very early to try and catch the sun rise over Angkor Wat. Just before 5.30 we were out the door, bleary eyed but fully dressed pushing through the water on our bikes fuelled by a couple of bananas and some crackers. We cycled like fury to reach the ticket office before the sun came up, my wheels were slightly smaller than Djalma’s and my little legs struggled to keep up. We eventually made it to Angkor Wat, a few kilometers later. Already sweating like mad we parked up and joined the throng of tourists waiting at the legendary site.
You should probably know a little about Cambodia’s main tourist attraction and its national emblem and why it’s considered to be so important. The Angkor Wat we went to see, is what’s left of a once great city, the centre of an ancient Khmer empire spanning 600 years (around 800-1400AD). Interestingly (or not) Cambodia once included whole or large parts of Vietnam, Laos and Thailand, in fact a large part of the North East of Cambodia was, until fairly recently, part of Thailand (a treaty between the French and Thais returned it to Cambodian territory) meaning that Angkor Wat and its satellite city, Siem Reap were in Thailand.
The dude who started it by spreading the word that he was Shiva’s representative on Earth, and therefore a God King, was called Jayavarman II, he was followed by a numerous succession of kings who added to and bettered the complex, each trying to outdo the former ruler. The resulting architecture is a mix of styles, I couldn’t tell you how they were different, but they were really cool, especially the 216 big heads at the Bayon and the tree of life (from The Tomb Raider) in Ta Phrom.
The temple complex covers a rather large area but the roads are flat and in good condition, we were also lucky that recent flooding had receded to leave the roads dry and easily navigable, we didn’t see any residences or building other than temples and post-visit research reveals this is because stone, and therefore permanent dwelling, was fit for only the Gods, everyone else had to make do with wood, long since gone.
History lesson over and back to the tour. After pulling up at Angkor Wat (the complete site takes the name of this one -possibly a funerary- temple) we joined the tourists gathered along one edge of water waiting for the rising sun to provide a silhouette of the structure. I left Djalma and his time lapse business to go and explore the temple while it was still quiet. He joined me and we ate crackers and wandered round, admiring the carvings and the light on the East facing wall.
We walked round, exploring the temple of a 1000 Buddhas, there were only a few left on display when we got there, and more carvings and ate more crackers.
Back outside we found our bikes and set off, at a rather more sedate pace, to see some of the rest.
We came across one small temple, rather small, which like most of the others was covered in ferns and plenty of moss, racing across the ground where countless beetles making their way from the woods and into the temple it was a mesmerising spectacle.
Back on our bikes we decided to stop at the next temple we saw – there were some tiny people at the top, suggesting a fun little hike and wonderful views.
Up we climbed, the steps were tall but really shallow and in some places, alarmingly wobbly. Apparently the steps were made this way to show that ascending to be nearer to God (or something to that effect) was not an easy task and the physical effort was to be symbolic of the spiritual and mental effort. Whatever, I don’t think a fat king or an obese priest (or his later day equivalent) would have made it to the top without having a coronary on arrival. The views were lovely, green as far as the eye could see. Djalma having left his T-short at the base wasn’t allowed in to the little shrine at the top, but I being sensibly clothed, was. There wasn’t much there, just a lady trying to sell incense like in every other well frequented temple in Angkor. We clambered back own and pedaled onto Angkor Thom.
Angkor Thom is a large walled city with entrances at the North, South, East and West walls, the most popular and busiest is the Southern gate which has been restored and of the 54 gods and the 54 demons lining the road, most of them have their heads. We cycled through the city, past Bayon (of the famed heads) where tourists where paying through the nose for a quickie tour round the temple.
We headed over to Ta Phrom, which is famous for the tree of life and a scene in The Tomb Raider where a foxy Angelina Jolie stops to pick a jasmine flower before falling through the floor. We are now downloading Tomb Raider I & II, for our imminent viewing pleasure.
The Buddhist Temple, built around 1190, was amazing. The place was surprisingly large, although deceptively so when compared to the resident trees which grew in, around and through the walls, windows and doors.
There were narrow dark corridors snaking through the buildings which often ended abruptly with an enormous and ancient tree trunk blocking the way. Tumbled blocks of carved stones, covered in shocking green moss lay jumbled about.
The inner corridors were lined with the same brilliant green, the whole place was covered in this wet emerald velvet, and it was utterly beautiful. We wandered round for a long time, we’d had breakfast at around 9am (some heavily discounted yellow noodles with beef) and weren’t in a hurry. People used to be allowed to climb over fallen stones and up trees but health and safety concerns have since put a stop to that (I know! H&S in Cambodia!) It didn’t stop Djalma swinging off the tree roots though.
We continued walking to the end of the walled city where a plague of small hopeful children descended on everyone making their way along the path, I stopped to look at some postcards. BIG MISTAKE. I never stop to look at something unless I really and truly intend to buy it, as was the case that day. The postcards in Cambodia are so expensive – I hadn’t seen one postcard for less than a dollar. I can get cheaper postcards in the UK, it’s shocking. So when this little urchin, who couldn’t have been more than 6 or 7, produced a packet of ten for a dollar (and of reasonable quality on initial inspection) I thought, why not? Why not indeed, 2 of the proffered 10 looked to be any good and I felt awful as I looked at them, looking for a redeeming feature but finding none.
I gave them back and said sorry and started to move on. Desperate pleading followed me and as I continued saying no and sorry and good luck, I got tears. I made a small boy cry. I felt awful. I kept feeling awful for quite some time until Djalma asked me if I had looked back as we walked away, he had and he saw the young boy laughing and playing with his friends just seconds after showing me his pitiful and heart wrenching waterworks. Feeling much better we carried on back to our bikes.
Lots of our time was spent cycling between places, even though the roads were flat, some of them were flooded and in one place we had to take the long way round, the day passed slowly and quickly at the same time. We finished the crackers, glugged down coca cola and ate another plate of yellow noodles with beef and vegetables. I was ready to leave at around 3pm but Djalma had rather picked up by this point and, unusually for him, was enjoying our day of tourism. Both of us were sweating non-stop, our clothes sticking to our bodies, my face red (as always with any physical exertion) and I felt that I’d seen plenty of temples. We clambered round a few more, the strain on the knees (I felt) not really worth the same view of unchanging green from the top of temples, not anymore. We climbed up one last temple and after being told that we weren’t allowed to use the (very wide) steps of another to enter the site (and therefore had to go around to get in) we decided to head to Bayon and then call it a day.
Heading straight to the centre of Angkor Thom we came face to faces with the image of Jayarvarman VII, the dude who created this temple of awesomeness. People don’t really know why the temple was built, who it was dedicated to and for a long time they didn’t know who had it built.
It doesn’t really matter because it is, aside from Tomb Raider Ta Phrom, easily the coolest temple around. It is also one enormous jigsaw puzzle, apparently it was dismantled to be restored, pre-Khmer Rouge and then the Red Khmer’s came along and all the paperwork was lost.
If you look at the photos you’ll see that each face constitutes a rather large number of huge blocks and that they don’t line up where you would expect them to (because they aren’t symmetrical not because they were just thrown back together willy nilly). The temple has 54 gothic towers and I believe each of them are decorated with 4 faces of the God King himself.
I was enchanted, Djalma was knackered. He had to drag me away. I snapped and snapped and snapped so many pictures it was ridiculous, they all looked the same: COOL! I didn’t care that I was essentially taking the same photos over and over again. Eventually Djalma dragged me out of my shutterbug fog and we left.
Well, we tried to. The place was an absolute warren, we got so lost, on each side things looked the same so we headed down to try and find the way out and back to our bicycles. It took us so long and was so frustrating that Djalma did a little dance when we eventually found the exit.
I got off my bike to take two more pictures, after that I solemnly promised to my sweaty husband that my bottom would not leave the seat until we were back in Siem Reap and dropping off the bikes. I kept my promise except to click my legs and remove ever present wedgies (fortunately I could do the latter while still on the bike).
We arrived back in Siem Reap early evening. We’d had a whole day of sightseeing and we were ready for a shower and beers and a pizza. We got everything we wanted, my skin felt reborn from all the dust and grit and sweat, I even washed my hair. The luxury. We got in a cute remorque-moto and asked him to take to the restaurant with the happy pizzas where our queries were answered and our food was served by a girl of no more than 12, it felt so wrong. But the beer, oh the beer. It was our first since arriving in Cambodia and despite having promised ourselves Angkor beer, we ended up with the crisp refreshing goodness of Anchor beer. Well it sounded the same and it was gooooood. Unsurprisingly we were in bed and asleep by 9pm.
The next morning we were up and out and on our way to Battambang, unfortunately not by a leisurely boat ride but by bus. It only took four hours and while my legs and knees where thankful for the lack of motion my bottom was not quite so pleased to be bearing all my weight yet again.
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