Siem Reap

Siem Reap is a rather strange city.  The city’s main purpose is to serve the hordes of tourists who come to visit the temples of Angkor.  It still manages to retain a small town feel, but certainly has a commercial aspect with “pub street” being at the heart of the tourist district.  It was good finally finding somewhere with cheap beer on tap, 50 cents for a schooner was the going rate.  We quickly slipped out of old man mode, almost enjoying the party atmosphere and had a fair few late nights. 

Of course we were in Siem Reap to visit the temples of Angkor too.  I bought a 3 day ticket whilst Nev opted for the 5 day long haul option.  The ticket offices open at 5pm, you can visit the temples the same day without your ticket being stamped effectively giving you a freebie sunset preview. 

We went straight for the biggie, Angkor Wat.  My expectations were very high for this one, maybe a bit too high.  The approach was very impressive, a massive moat encircles the temple, along with a rectangular outer wall.  There are gates on each side, but the main entrance, which we took, has a very long walkway decorated with interesting statues. 

The main thing that strikes you about Angkor Wat is the size of the temple, it’s huge.  It’s regularly touted as the largest religious building in the world.  It has three levels, with towers on the second and third stories.  Rising 31m above the 3^rd level, 55m above the ground is the central tower, it is an imposing sight.

The other thing that’s unmistakable is how well preserved it is.  It was never abandoned to the elements and it shows.  Each story has an enclosed gallery with decorative flourishes and extensive bas-reliefs.  Some of the stone carvings are incredible, my favourites were the mesmeric asparas (heavenly nymphs).  There are over 3000 in Angkor Wat and every one of them is unique.

The whole spectacle is amazing, but on our first visit, I didn’t really appreciate it that much.  I think maybe my hopes were too high, and we were a bit tired to take it all in.  The other thing that didn’t count in its favour was the amount of scaffolding, with green tarpaulin flapping around in the wind on each side of the temple. 

The next day we opted for a guide and a tuk tuk to take us round the small circuit.  When we arrived at the gates of Angkor Thom I was instantly engrossed, the main gate has the famous Angkor faces at the top of the arched entrance.    Four faces point in each direction, they’re very well preserved and they look fantastically weird.  

Our first stop was Bayon, it was heaving with tourists but that wasn’t enough to put me off enjoying the profoundly bizarre experience.  An evidently eccentric and narcissistic god king built this temple.  Bayon is dominated by 54 gothic towers which are decorated with smiling Buddha faces, thought to bear more than a passing resemblance to the god king himself.   Everywhere you look faces glare down upon you, from multiple levels at every angle.  There’s a tribal feel to the place, it’s obvious the god king was wanting to convey his absolute power to his people by building it.  There is a certain magic to Bayon, I know I’ve written this a few times on my blog, but I’ve never seen anything remotely like this building before.  Weird doesn’t even come close, taking a step back and looking at all the faces staring at you is one strange spectacle.     

We went round a few more smaller temples before lunch with the next notable temple we visited being Ta Prohm.  It’s been left pretty much as it was found by the European explorers, overtaken by the power of the Jungle.  It looks like something out of an Indiana Jones movie, in fact it was used in one scene of the classic Tomb Raider film.  It feels organic, with vast root systems and huge trees growing right on the top of the temple walls.  The temple is exceptionally atmospheric with eerie shadows and green moss covered brickwork.  It was an awesome sight.

We finished off our day tour with a return visit to Angkor Wat.  I was more taken with it on my second visit, we could also climb to the top of the central tower, we arrived too late the previous day to do so.  The view looking down is rather special, you get a better impression of how massive the temple complex is.

Angkor Wat Central Tower

 On another day we decided upon visiting a temple that was further afield.  Because we liked Ta Prohm so much we opted for another overgrown temple called Beng Mealea.  Unlike Ta Prohm, where the jungle has effectively been pruned back, Beng Mealea is totally raw.  It was a bumpy journey to the temple, we frequently had to get off to avoid getting wet when driving through massive puddles.

As soon as we arrived we were approached by a female guide.  There isn’t an obvious route round the temple, and when she started to show us around we followed her.  It was really cool scrambling over temple bricks and big roots.  It was great to get involved with the temple, it felt like when I was a child hiking in woods and discovering a deserted run down old house.  I had the same level of excitement I had in my youth when exploring the ruined debris, thinking what it would have been like in its heyday and imagining people at worship.  Our guide was excellent, she didn’t speak much English but knew a perfect route to find the temples beauty spots.  It was pretty hard going, scrambling over the ancient brickwork and jumping over big boulders, we were even more impressed with her when she showed us she had a prosthetic leg. 

I had a couple of days break from temple visiting, I didn’t want to get temple fatigue.  On my final temple day we opted to cycle round.  This day ended up being my favourite.  It was a pleasant to be able to approach the temples slowly, taking in the scene, and stopping whenever you wanted to.  Having a few days rest helped, and I was eager to make the most out of my last day at Angkor.  We visited the big three again, Ta Prohm, Bayon and Angkor Wat.  Each one looked more even more fabulous.  We finished off the day by going on a fixed line hot air balloon for a view of Angkor Wat.  It’s a quick up and down, 20 minutes total trip time, but it was worth the hefty sum. The view of Angkor Wat was terrific, it was a wonderful opportunity to see the whole temple site at once, the giant moat, the temple walls and towers all at the same time. 

In Siem Reap we were a lot more active in the evenings than we had been.  Our friend Marley had a university friend, Al, who owned a bar in town called the Warehouse.  We met Al on our first night in Siem Reap, and we spent a fair few nights drinking in his fine establishment.  We also attended and came fourth in the Warehouse pub quiz.  It was a bit shit, with a lot of Scottish questions which should have been a major advantage to our team if there weren’t a bunch of other competing Scotsmen in the bar. 

We’d spend our nights playing the odd game of pool, smoking the occasional Sheesha and drinking into the wee small hours.  Our definitive travel plan was still to be ironed out, with a possible route through Laos and Vietnam involving some pretty horrendous sounding bus journeys.  It was on one of our drunken nights that I’d managed to persuade Nev to abandon his flight embargo and splash a bit of cash on a luxury that would make our onward travel plans much more convenient.  We booked flights to Luang Prabang in Laos the next morning.