The temples are awesome

If the temple ruins at Angkor aren’t on your ‘bucket list’, you’ll be missing one of the world’s greatest destinations. It didn’t have quite the same metaphysical tone as Uluru, but the size, variety and intricacy of the Cambodian sites are mind boggling. How people centuries ago could have conceived, much less constructed, such wonders is difficult to fathom. Having seen the results in Cambodia, we now want to see the sites in Egypt, in Mexico and central America as well as Machu Picchu in Peru, Stonehenge in England and others to be named later. Oh, to be young and rich.
After a rather uneventful overnight in Bangkok at the Sananwan Palace, we left early so we could have plenty of time to wait at the Bangkok Airport. The Sananwan is no palace but they did a good job with airport pick-up and delivery. It’s an older place, all angles and with a family residence feel. There was a/c in the bedroom only and the shower was part of the w/c–no separate stall, water everywhere. The flight to Siem Reap was delayed an hour or so but we finally got off the ground. Though the flight lasted only an hour, we were served a lovely boxed breakfast. Talk about an efficient crew.
Efficient isn’t the word that comes to mind for our passage through Cambodian customs. First off the plane, we were the last to make it to the baggage carousel. Some confusion as to what forms needed to be filled in when and where. Guess we should have opted for the e-visas. In any event, we’re finally here and the guide we’ve hired, John Teng, is waiting with a driver to take us to the hotel. He’s already had to set the Angkor Holiday Hotel straight as they had us arriving tomorrow.
It’s hard to say enough good things about John. He came highly recommended and fully lived up to his billing. Hiring him may be the best decision we’ve made this trip. He’s very good with English, very knowledgeable about the ruins and the area and very passionate about the future of his country. He made our time in Siem Reap a wonderful experience.
We drove first to the South Gate of Angkor Thom–the road lined on one side with gods and on the other side with demons. What an opening. We continued on to explore the three levels of the Bayon, with its 54 towers and 216 faces of Buddha. It is a magnificent temple and the detail in the carvings is awesome. Simply amazing workmanship. The same amazing detail was visible at the ‘Terrace of the Elephants’ and the ‘Terrace of the Leper King’. You could spend a week on just this one area. We exited through the Victory Gate.
Our next stop was the temple at Ta Prohm, where the most outstanding features are the tree roots which are somewhat holding the temple together. We entered through the west gate and walked through to the east gate. Restoration is clearly an ongoing process and there are jumbles of large rocks everywhere. It was interesting to hear John explain just what an international effort is involved with the French doing this, the Japanese doing that, the Koreans, the Germans, and on and on. Of course, it is such a colossal job that it requires that kind of commitment from the world at large.
We started the next day at 5:30 so we could watch the sun rise at Angkor Wat. (Us and hundreds/thousands of others). We stayed at Angkor Wat until about 6:45 am and then drove out to Banteay Srei. This is a very small but beautiful temple built in the late 900's. John’s timing was perfect–as we were leaving the site, the crowds started to arrive. On the way back, we stopped to visit the Land Mine Museum, a tribute to the tragedy that befell Cambodia during and after the Vietnam War. Canada’s flag is proudly displayed in recognition of its role in developing the museum and in promoting the international effort to ban land mines. After our mid-day break, John took us back to Angkor Wat so we could explore it in the afternoon light. This temple is magnificent. John kept us moving and we spent an enthralling two hours wandering from one fantastic sight to another, equally beautiful and compelling.
We managed to do the dinner and show at the Koulon II just down the street from our hotel. The show was interesting and the dancer’s costumes (especially the women’s) brought to life some of the carvings of apsaras we’d seen on the temple walls. But, two consecutive 5 am mornings take their toll, at any age, and we crashed early.
On Sunday morning, we didn’t start until 8:30 so we had a relaxing breakfast. (Saturday, the hotel had provided us with a boxed breakfast and we ate in the car as we drove out to Bantrey Srei.) John took us to the local market–the real, local market–not the ‘Old Market’ promoted in the tourist literature. What an experience. It was like a large food market combined with a large WalMart. Very different from our market experiences in Tokyo and Seoul but just as vibrant and chaotic. Very similar to our experience in Port Vila, Vanuatu but much larger in scope. Everybody in Siem Reap seemed to be here shopping and there were motor bikes and bicycles parked everywhere outside.
After the market, we visited the Roulous group of temples. These were the first temples built in the area (they date from the 800's) but were later abandoned for the Angkor area. Preah was the first clay block temple and Bakong, the first sandstone temple. Our last stop for the morning was Lolei, a very small temple in very poor condition but with an active Buddhist monastery. That afternoon, we started at the North Gate of Preah Khan. It looked like a small temple but the more gates we went through the larger it seemed to grow. Lots of doors and windows. Even an afternoon rain shower couldn’t diminish our enthusiasm.
Our last stop was at Phnom Bakheng, the site of the first temple in Angkor. It is on a hill but the trek isn’t too difficult. The ancient Khmer had cut the top off the mountain so that the base for the temple was bedrock. The climb up the temple steps from level to level was harder than the hike up the hill, with narrow risers on a steep slope. Coming down was just as, if not more, dangerous. But the view from the top was worth it–just to see the towers of Angkor Wat rising from the jungle and to realize that you couldn’t even see the vast complex at Angkor Thom. There were lots of people gathering along the western edges of the temple to wait for the sunset but, since the temples lie to the east, we didn’t join them and headed down the hill, drove back to the hotel and said our farewells to John and Giwa, our driver. They’ve both done an excellent job and made this a remarkable experience.
We checked out the ‘Old Market’ in the morning as we killed time before heading to the airport. Not a patch on John’s market. Got to experience the perils of being a pedestrian in a city where pedestrian traffic is low man on the totem pole. They don’t seem to have any parking along the streets so cars, scooter, tuk tuks, etc. all park on the sidewalk and you have to navigate around them. We took a tuk tuk back to the hotel. The flight to Singapore is taking us through Danang but we won’t get to set foot on Vietnam soil as we are restricted to the plane during the layover. At least in Hong Kong, we got to walk around the airport before re-boarding (but, I guess it would be incorrect to say we touched the ground in Hong Kong).