Cambodia Log, Friday, September 22, Day 1 small circuit continued

Onward to the next temple. Actually our next stop was Angkor Thom (also RenownTravel link) which was the walled royal capital city with several temples inside. The wall is 26 feet high running for 7 ½ miles surrounded by a moat 330 feet wide and 1.8 square miles in area!!! You get the idea, huge! Angkor Thom is also described as the City of Faces. There is a gate to the city in the middle of each side – South, West, North, East – with a 5th gate on the East side which Mr. Nara later named as the “Victory Gate” that leads directly to the Royal Compound. We were dropped outside the South Gate and Mr. Nara explained the significance of the symbolism on the causeway and the gate itself before we walked across the causeway and through the gate. Again, too much to put in words when so much is written about it but the imposing aspect is the 4 faces high on the gate facing in each direction. All the five gates are the same exact design.

Mr. Thom picked us up on the inside of the South Gate and dropped us a mile further on at the Bayon Temple. Bayon Temple (also RenownTravel link) is in the center of the royal city with its four temple entrances lining up with the four gates and roads into the city. It had 49 towers that were all decorated with gargantuan faces; four on each tower facing four directions just like the gates (many towers have collapsed but restoration is ongoing.) It has bas-reliefs intricately carved all around the outside temple walls, most of which are still in good shape.

The path to Baphuon Temple took us through the park-like trees and we walked past a stand-alone modern day Buddha busy with active worshipers. Baphuon Temple is shaped like a pyramid and was one of the earliest temples built in Angkor city. We learned from Mr. Nara that almost all the temples use limestone rock for the base of the temples due to its strength. The earliest built temples used red clay bricks covered by stucco for the exterior finish and as a base to carve the art. But later temples used sandstone blocks that were quarried in the Kulen Mountains and transported to Angkor for the temple construction. Sandstone supported the artistic carvings better. All early temples were built to honor the Hindu gods but later Kings converted to Buddhism. In their desire to maintain religious harmony in the general population, rather than replacing everything Hindu, Buddha was integrated into the existing temples, creating a merging of the two religions. Baphuon, for example, had a huge reclining Buddha built into the side of the temple. I decided not to climb to the top of the tall pyramid-shaped Baphuon so I got a photo of Mr. Neil and Mr. Nara on top. This temple is also known as the world’s biggest jigsaw because in the early 20th century French archaeologists took the temple completely apart, making meticulous notes so they could rebuild it with better support. However, the notes were lost during the civil war in the late 20th century and it became a giant complicated 3-D jigsaw puzzle process to rebuild it.

We proceeded past the small pretty temple of Phimeanakas and on to the Royal Enclosure which was the palace home of the king and queen. There is nothing there now but forest. When we asked Mr. Nara, he explained that homes were built of wood and only the temples and terraces were built of stone. In fact, the wood used for ceilings and roofs of the temples has long since rotted away. With his explanation, I was able to picture a bustling city of wooden structures for homes and business with the stone temples rising high above.

We walked out of the Royal Enclosure onto the Terrace of the Elephants which looked out on the army’s practice field and parade grounds. It was said the king would often watch his soldiers practice. The 2nd East entrance road goes straight out from the Terrace of the Elephants and is where the army would march out to battle. Ordinarily, this road and gate were reserved for the exclusive use of the king, so marching out of it was a huge honor and carried the Royal blessing. If the battle was successful, they would come back through the same gate, and thus it came to be known as the Victory Gate. Incidentally, the other East gate became known as the Death Gate. Prior to the Victory gate, the east road intersects the 12 towers of Prasat Suor Prat. During certain festivals, cables were stretched between the tops of the towers and acrobats would perform on them! Imagine performing so high above the ground with no safety net! Also, the towers would sometimes be used for resolving difficult civil cases. If a judgment could not be reached between two parties, they were each put in separate towers, and the guilty party would get sick thus identifying the innocent. This often took many days and was sometimes fatal to the one who got ill.

Mr. Thom picked us up at this point and we put-putted east through the Victory Gate to the Ta Prohm temple (RenownTravel link). This temple was dedicated to the king’s mother who was a teacher of dance. It is full of images of beautiful dancing women. Although there has been much restoration in this temple, they decided to leave some of the huge iconic trees still in place. There are huge Spung trees covering many of the walls. This temple is famous for being used in a scene in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Also it is famous for one of the carvings that is still unexplained: a clear carving of a Stegosaurus dinosaur!

(Neil’s side note: Looking back through my photos I noticed a stone wall with curved tight joints that reminded me of the ancient megalithic construction techniques of South America and the Levant. I contacted an archeologist about it but he couldn’t point me to any comparative studies. In recent decades scientists have found temples in SE Asia and elsewhere at least 26,000 years old. And decades ago a paleontologist found dinosaur bones in Montana about that age that still had soft tissue cartilage attached. Very curious!!)

We had lunch at a place next to Ta Prohm and then visited a bonus temple right nearby.

Banteay Kdei is in the process of being restored. There was a crane and several craftsmen fitting stones into rebuilding the entrance gate. There were stones laying everywhere that had fallen out of the temple walls and towers. I can only imagine that most of the rediscovered temples looked like this before a great deal of restoration work was done and this temple gives evidence to the amount of work needed to restore.

It was hot and humid for our day of exploring and we were happy for a shower and rest before heading for dinner at a street corner restaurant popular with locals, and narry a tourist in sight. It was easy to call it an early night since we were still adjusting to the time change.