Trip of a Lifetime

Angkor What?

Okay so, you all remember I've mentioned this name a few times - Angkor Wat. Well by now you may be wondering - what the heck is Angkor Wat? Some of you may even be getting tired of reading the words. Well if I'm going to bombard you with information, I might as well first tell you how to pronounce Angkor Wat, so that you don't all sound like George W Bush when he tries to pronounce the names of other countries. The "Ang" is pronounced as the "oung" in "young", and the "kor" is pronounced as "caw". "Wat" is pronounced just like "water" without the "er", and means Buddhist Temple. Okay, everyone say it with me now... Angkor Wat. Very good. Now, on to some specifics. Angkor Wat is just one of about 30 temples within a 300 square kilometer space near Siem Reap, Cambodia. Before I tell you about those, how about some impressive statistics: Angkor Wat itself is the largest religious building in the entire world, larger than any church, mosque, or televangelist on this planet. It measures approximately 1.3 by 1.5 kilometers, while at it's highest point standing approximately 80 meters tall. This thing is freaking huge. A moat surrounds it's entire outer wall at the Western exit (oddly this temple faces West, most Hindu or Buddhist temples face East). There is an 800 meter naga (snake) bridge leading from there up to the grand front door of the temple. Inside the temple there are several kilometers worth of reliefs (sandstone carvings inlaid into the walls) on the lower walls, depicting various events in Hindu mythology. I could tell you more but pictures will do even better. Now on to the rest of the temples of Angkor. Built between the 9th and 12th centuries, by more than 10 different rulers (most Hindu, some Buddhist), the temples of Angkor represent the peak of Angkor civilization and architecture. The Angkor realm encompassed present day Cambodia, and most of Vietnam, Laos and Thailand during it's heyday. The temple we visited in Thailand, named Phnom Rung, was indeed of Angkor origin. Basically, the temples of Angkor rival the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China as wonders of the world, even though many North-Americans have never heard of them. Just north of Angkor Wat is Angkor Thom, an enormous walled city where most of the people would have lived. The wall is about 4km X 4km, making the city 16 square kilometers. Within Angkor Thom are various temples, and just outside it is a huge reservoir of water that they used to irrigate their crops. Any guesses on how big it is? The reservoir is 8 km by 2 km, and about 8 meters deep (give or take a few feet). Remember people, they didn't have bobcats and starbucks back then; they just had shovels, rice, and a lot of time. Also, if any of you have seen the movie Tomb Raider, parts of it are filmed in Ta Prohm, another of the Angkor temples here. This was my favorite temple - after spending most of their money restoring other temples, the company that owns Angkor decided to leave Ta Prohm completely to nature. The jungle has utterly penetrated this massive Prasat (Hindu Temple), and there are trees growing through doorways and around brick, slowly dismantling it. Understandably, there are many many tourists in Angkor Wat - they come from all over the globe, but mostly France and China. France has actually put a lot of money towards rebuilding and maintaining Angkor, and it's a French company that owns it now - they're making huge profit from ticket sales. Alright, enough blab, time for some pictures! I'm gonna break this down into days - the first day we only caught the sunset (it's free with a 3 day pass for the following 3 days), and we've taken better sunset pictures elsewhere, so I decided not to include any. I might add that our first day was slightly shocking, as we were not prepared to be sharing the sunset with the 600 other tourists who happened upon the same temple (Phnom Bakeng). At any rate, on to day two, Wednesday the 9th. We rented a tuk-tuk (you should know what this is by now :D) and went all over the place. Our driver was a very nice 19 year old who spoke excellent English. He made us call him Chin, though his real name was Seiha, we found out later. http://www.geocities.com/spiker43915/P1010094.JPG We made it as far as Banteay Srei, a temple 40 km from Angkor Wat, which is dedicated to women. http://www.geocities.com/spiker43914/P1010029.JPG Intricate stone carvings saturated this small temple, it was quite beautiful - but again, the droves of people made it difficult to enjoy it for more than just carvings and stone. Gosh, it sure is tough having to share wonders of the world with other tourists... :D Next we made it to Pre Rup, one of the middle age Angkor temples. It was simple yet impressive, and there was almost no one there. http://www.geocities.com/spiker43914/P1010022.JPG Next, a large man-made lake named Sras Srang http://www.geocities.com/spiker43914/P1010062.JPG And finally Ta Prohm, which turned out to be my favorite temple of all. Take a look for yourselves. http://www.geocities.com/spiker43914/P1010072.JPG http://www.geocities.com/spiker43915/P1010087.JPG http://www.geocities.com/spiker43915/P1010082.JPG Now, after a 10 hour day, home for a rest and some delightful Cambodia cuisine. If any of you ever get the chance to try "Amok", don't pass it up. A wonderful coconut based dish, it's comparable to curry, but sweeter and even more savory. We haven't stopped eating it since we arrived in Cambodia. On to Thursday. We rented bicycles for this day, and I ended up biking about 40 kilometers, while kailyn was feeling under the weather with a cold, and "only"got in about 32. We saw some more amazing stuff, starting with The Bayon, the main temple in Angkor Thom. This is one of my favorite pictures, of an old woman praying at one of many Buddhist shrines inside this large temple. http://www.geocities.com/spiker43915/P1010105.JPG http://www.geocities.com/spiker43916/P1010107.JPG http://www.geocities.com/spiker43916/P1010109.JPG This is a view of The Bayon from outside. If you zoom in you can see many of the 4-faced towers (there are 64, one for each Angkor Province when this temple was built, and each face faces one of the 4 points on the compass) http://www.geocities.com/spiker43916/P1010112.JPG Here's Elephant Terrace, just outside of The Bayon http://www.geocities.com/spiker43916/P1010117.JPG Lastly we went to Preah Kahn, but there was nothing extra special about the pictures we got there. It's laid out exactly like Ta Prohm but it's not nearly as cool! And so, in true Spiker style, we acted like complete idiots and took funny pictures. Observe - Shiva-Kailyn and Headless Chris Holding Sword http://www.geocities.com/spiker43917/P1010128.JPG http://www.geocities.com/spiker43917/P1010132.JPG Lastly, we saw some monkeys sitting on the side of the road, so, in my infinite wisdom, I decided to feed them bananas (our lunch). It was fun, as you can see here http://www.geocities.com/spiker43917/P1010123.JPG That was, of course, until the much larger monkeys came running from the forest and attacked me, in search of not one, but all of my bananas. Scared crapless, I threw the bananas in the air, and they were caught by one of the two attacking monkeys. The other, quite angry not to have any bananas or have killed any tourists, ran after me for a short while. Good thing I had my runners on I guess... Especially since I never got my rabies shots? Hey, at least the locals got a kick out of it! On to day three (after another installment of Amok). We got up at 5:30 this morning, Friday, to catch the sunset at Angkor Wat, which we saved for the last day. Our efforts were certainly not fruitless - check this out. http://www.geocities.com/spiker43917/P1010153.JPG We stayed at Angkor Wat for the rest of the day, and tried to stay off the beaten track and get some "us-and-the-temple" time. As you can see, it was rather crowded http://www.geocities.com/spiker43918/P1010180.JPG We listened to some music and browsed the Bas Reliefs (Bas is French for lower, silly), which were simply stunning. Here is my favorite - the churning of the seas of eternity (I think). It's said that the demons (on the left side) and the Gods (On the right) quarreled over this sea, churning it up, until the essence of eternity (I think) came forth. The Gods then grabbed it before the Demons, and there you have it. It's basically depicted as a big tug-of-war in this relief, with a huge Naga (Snake) as the rope, an Vishnu in the middle. http://www.geocities.com/spiker43918/P1010161.JPG http://www.geocities.com/spiker43918/P1010178.JPG I'm not completely certain of this, perhaps my Step-Dad, who happens to have his PHD in Eastern Religion, can help us out with an informative post? Hint, Hint? And this last picture, to give you some idea of scale - This stairway I climbed was almost a ladder. This is from the second tier of the temple to the third, which is the top. http://www.geocities.com/spiker43918/P1010163.JPG The Angkor believed that only Gods were priviledged enough to live under stone, which is why there are no houses or farms left, they were all made of mud, grass and palm leaves, and is also why the stairwells are so difficult to climb. Now, even after seeing all these pictures of temples, monkeys, sunrises, and whatever else, you have a decent idea of what Angkor looks like. However, the real magic behind Angkor has nothing to do with it's majesty or it's architecture. At least it didn't for me. My favorite spot was a tiny outer wall in Ta Prohm where I could sit and listen to music - undisturbed, unabated - and simply exist in one of the wonders of mankind. Well this post took me absolutely forever to write, mostly because of all the pictures, so you'd better enjoy them :) If you have any questions about the temples, or anything else, just ask - I sure won't know the answer, but someone else might... However, whatever your question is about, I've probably got a picture of it. In 3 days we managed to use up about 120 pics... Our next post will likely be from Ko Pha-Ngan, an island paradise on the east side of Thailand's coast. There we get to be part of a Full Moon party, which happens every time there's... a full moon. Want to get an idea of one of these infamous parties? Think 12 thousand people on a beach partying until 11 am. See you there? Spiker

posted by Spiker @ 3:22 am