My vacations this year had already brought me to one Wonder of the World, the Great Wall, and now on our sixth day of the tour, we came to the second. It's so difficult to capture the wonder-ous-ness of these places in words. But there's a tingle you can feel in your body and a sense of awe that takes over. There's the incredible craftsmanship that went into the building, which was constructed in the 12th century, a time when Europe was still in the Dark Ages, and the incredible jungle scenery surrounding it. But also, for two days, I was able to feel like Indiana Jones and it was fantastic.
The most famous building (above), the one you see in all the postcards, is of the Angkor Wat temple and it is magnificent. However, the complex of Angkor Wat is huge and consists of dozens of temples spread out over 400 square km of land. Each temple has its own "theme," so to speak. Some focus on preserving the architecture and stone carvings (like Bayan and the Ladies Temple) from the jungle growth while others let nature take its course, even if it means some of the temples suffer from invading tree roots and such.
Bayan in Angkor Thom was the most architecturally impressive, but also the least enjoyable. The crowds were a bit crazy and we were led around by our tour guide at a little brisker pace than we wanted. He was probably trying to escape the tourist hordes too. So while the Buddha faces hewed into the rock were great fun, it was a bit of a relief to move on to the next temple. Also, it was at least 35 C/ 100 F with about 95% humidity, so being pressed in with so many people was that more unpleasant.
We passed through some really cool elephant terraces, where the trunks were used as a decorative column, on our way to the next temple of Preah Khan.
Preak Khan was much, much less crowded than Bayan. The architecture was less stunning but the ambiance was better. The lack of tourists really made you feel like you were an explorer in the jungle who had just stumbled upon this wondrous ancient place (which, btw is actually how Angkor Wat was "rediscovered" in the mid-1800s when a French explorer published his travel notes about the place). The dilapidated state of the temple - which is on purpose - really added to the experience of wandering through the lost city in the jungle.
By now it was midday and we were drenched from the humidity and all the climbing around. Our excellent tour planned well by letting us go back to the hotel for a leisurely lunch (in that it took them over an hour to serve us) and a quick dip in the hotel pool, a shower and change of clothes and we were off again to the Ta Phrom temple, aka the Angelina Jolie.
Yes, this is the temple where they shot part of the Tomb Raider movie. And here was where you could really see the battle between nature and civilization. There were so many gnarled trees that had broken through the walls of the temple and become intertwined with them. Many of the temple's preservers wanted to knock the trees down to save the buildings, only to realize that if they did so, they would also destroy the temple. Here's a video clip of one part of the temple. You can hear all the birds/weird bugs in the background. So jungle-y.
In what felt like an Indiana Jones movie plot, we had to rush through Ta Phrom to make it to our last temple before sunset, or the consequences would be dire. Actually, we just planned to watch the sunset from there and needed to move along or miss it. Soon we were at another spectacular temple, with several other tourists. We sat with some other members of our tour and chatted with a cute, whip-smart Cambodian girl who was trying to sell us some tour books. We finally relented after she aced a geography quiz given to her by an Irishman from the tour, when she correctly answered "Bern" for the capital of Switzerland. She nailed all the other answers, and was even able to greet us with an "Annyeong haseyo" when we told her we were living in Korea.
Finally, after the long day, we had a fantastic dinner with some tour-mates at a Cambodian barbecue place, where we ate crocodile, kangaroo, ostrich, prawns, and some less interesting chicken and beef. We then made our way back to the hotel for as much sleep as we could get before the four a.m wake-up call for tomorrow's sunrise over the temple of Angkor Wat.
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