Cambodia Log, Friday, September22, Day 1, Small circuit

Angkor Wat is one of the places I have always wanted to see. The history of the Khmer Empire’s dominance in Cambodia started in the 9th century, peaking in the 12th century (spreading from Vietnam, Cambodia, and into Thailand up toward China), and then declining by the15th century. Most of the elaborate carved stone Hindu and Buddhist temples fell into ruin as they were forgotten and nature took over. Only Angkor Wat (Lonely Planet link) remained in continual use. Late in the 19th century, more of the forgotten temples were “rediscovered” by adventurers. Impressive restoration work began by many domestic and international archaeologists, Angkor Wat (UNESCO link)  was declared a World Heritage Site in 1992. Angkor is the Empire’s historic name for this capital city and Wat means temple. The Khmer Empire conducted a great deal of trade with India and gradually integrated the Hindu and Buddhist religions  into their society. The kings of the Empire commissioned numerous temples over the 600 years of Khmer power. The Angkor Wat (History Channel link) temple complex was built in the 12th century and there is much written about it. By choosing to go during the Fall Equinox we were able to view sunrise over the astronomically aligned Angkor Wat complex.

It wasn’t hard to get up early as we were still adjusting to the time change. We met our hotel-arranged guide Mr. Nara (yes, his first name is Nara) in the lobby at 4:30 am. The guides for the Angkor Heritage complexes need to be licensed by passing a test and they wore official shirts with embroidered patches. Mr. Thom, our smiling driver, was standing by and we all boarded his tuk tuk setting off through the town in the dark. We showed our Angkor Heritage Complex pass (that Neil had acquired online for us before we left) at the check station and we were soon offloading in the dark with 100s of other visitors. We walked across the moat and through the west entrance gate into the temple grounds, although in the dark we couldn’t fully appreciate that the temple grounds are surrounded by a 3 mile nearly square moat with the only original access to the temple being across the 620 foot moat causeway through the West Gate. Just inside the Western Gate, Mr. Nara took us off to the side of the main crowd so we could sit on a stone ledge and be more comfortable. As it started to get light, the color in the clouds moved from red to orange to yellow – gorgeous. What a beautiful morning. 

To be respectful, I put on my wrap-around skirt over my shorts before we walked to the central temple. (No mismatch fashion comments, please.) The massive size of the temple absorbed the 100s of visitors so it didn’t feel crowded! Our guide led us to the bas-reliefs carved on the inside walls of the outside  galleries and told us some of the stories depicted in the carvings. I couldn’t retain all the information but there are websites that explain the bas-relief carvings (Angkor Wat Bas-Reliefs and HelloAngkor). In all, there is over 1700 feet of epics carved in the walls surrounding Angkor Wat. We moved inside and toured the lower level and middle terrace with Mr. Nara explaining the religious and cultural meaning of what we were seeing. There is so much to see it is beyond words to describe. I will let Neil’s photos tell the story. [For those who are interested, the merchants nearby do sell books entirely devoted to showing photos of the carvings and giving more detail to what Mr. Nara was summarizing for us.] As we were completing the inside tour, Mr. Nara took us to where there were some Buddha statues that remained complete (almost all have been destroyed by thieves or by followers of other religions.) The energy surrounding one particular Buddha was incredibly peaceful and profoundly compassionate. Neil and I both stood there in meditation for several minutes and felt blessings pour out to us and through us. It was a beautiful peak experience of our trip.

As we exited, monkeys were running around the rooftops and walls outside the entrance. They left us alone but we heard they can smell if you have food. One monkey ambushed a pair of visitors and stole their bag of breakfast. Fortunately, our breakfast to-go box packed by the hotel was safely with our driver. Mr. Nara took us to a nearby restaurant where we ordered smoothies and ate our hard boiled eggs, yogurt drink, and bananas.

We will continue our first day description in the next post! Click on the first photo below to see the slideshow arrowing through the photos with descriptions.