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.

We departed Maui on Tues Sept 19 around noon and arrived in Siem Reap, Cambodia, on Sept 21 at 10 am after crossing the international date line. It was 29 hours in transit. We flew to LA first, going the wrong way, then LA to Singapore on a 16-hour flight that included three meals, and our last flight was 2 hours from Singapore to Siem Reap. I’d heard Angkor Wat was very hard to get to but that changed around 1990 when the French built an international airport nearby. Sadly, the sweet little airport where we arrived will be closed in October, being replaced by a Chinese-built airport an hour away from town. 

 Thursday, September 21

Yay! We finally arrived! Siem Reap airport is small and quaint and mostly vacant since it’s off-season. [Siem Reap is pronounced by the locals like see-em ree-a, ending with the faintest of a ‘p’ sound similar to the ‘b’ in the word numb.] We were picked up by Mr. Thom from the hotel (to show respect, they use Mr. with a man’s first name, so we did the same). Remember seeing rickshaws in the old movies? A two wheeled carriage with long front forks pulled by a little man who runs down the street? Well, replace the man with a little motor scooter and shrink things down a bit and we have the modern descendant of that. They call it a Remork, but almost all the tourists just call them tuk tuks. 

To familiarize ourselves with the area, we had Mr. Thom take us through the main part of town on our way to the hotel and we changed some cash to the Cambodia Reil. We later found that they will take US dollars as readily as local currency and they do prefer crisp new bills especially in the small denominations. We arrived at our hotel, the Bayon Modern Residence, with a flurry of greetings and a welcome drink. We were personally escorted to our room. The room was beautiful and we were settled in by 11 am. Not wanting to lay around napping after our long flight, and wanting to save Angkor Wat for sunrise, we rested only an hour before we had Mr. Thom tuk tuk us to the Kompong Phluk floating village (Lonely Planet Kompong Phluk link) and sunset boat ride on Lake Tonle Sap [likewise, barely pronounce the ‘p’ if at all.]  On the way back we stopped at the bustling riverside district near the Old Market for dinner. Then we collapsed into bed and slept till 3:30 am.

Click on the first photo to go through the slide show.