Much of the complex was built a thousand years ago in the 11th century, and there was a rather inexpert reconstruction attempted in the 16th century. A lot of the stones fit together like those of the Incas in Machu Picchu and other sites in Peru, which are only half the age of these, and are smaller sites (but amazing in their own right). Piecing together a 3D puzzle of fallen stones is difficult, as Deb and I saw in Borobudur and Prambanan.
In the past two decades, many countries of the modern world, such as India, have assisted Cambodia in trying to reconstruct the main temples close to the town of Siem Reap. They realize that it is a world heritage site and a tourism gold mine - one of the few generators of foreign income that they have, apart from garments, textiles, footwear and some agricultural crops. It has to be remembered that Cambodia is only thirty-four years out of a decade long occupation by Vietnam, following their disastrous four years under Pol Pot. Thoroughly ill-conceived and botched attempts to invade Vietnam and recover territory they believed belonged to them led to Vietnam's much more powerful and well-trained army invading in return, and turfing the leadership. Not a moment too soon for a few who were just about to become further victims of the genocidal madman.
It got hot, so we drove back into town for a nap and a lunch of pomelo salad and coconut soup. We returned at 4 p.m. to see Angkor Wat itself before the sunset - it is a ritual here, as at many other wonders of the world, to experience sunrise and sunset at the temples. To experience sunrise, however, we'd have to get up at 4 a.m. That wouldn't happen. After all, it's only sunset in reverse, isn't it?
Last night when we arrived we reconnected with Charlie Whight, a young lady we travelled with on our Mekong Delta tour, bumped into again on the streets of Phnom Penh, and connected with here by email for a dinner date. She's a former philharmonic clarinetist who saw the error of her ways after a couple of years and went to law school. She gets to tour S.E. Asia now before beginning her in-service training in September. She hired a driver for the three days who told her he'd been a Buddhist monk for a year, and then again once for a spell. Many men become monks here, but it's usually short term rather than a life commitment as it is in the west. He first told her he became a monk because he thought it would bring luck to his family; later he admitted it was also so he could get half-price English lessons at the Buddhist university, which was an important prerequisite for making a living in tourism.
The sunset was unspectacular.
Dec 14th: We saw a final few smaller temples (really, the first two days would have been sufficient) and then spent three hours in (you guessed it!) the museum. The Angkor National Museum isn't cheap or free, as western museums are; it's obviously a revenue generator for them, but it's also quite well done. I came away with a better "connect-the-dots" awareness of the Hinduism and Buddhism which formed the backbone of society here for the past thousand years. I got to see many of the better statues from the temples, which are no longer in the temples themselves.
It got hot, so we drove back into town for a nap and a lunch of pomelo salad and coconut soup. We returned at 4 p.m. to see Angkor Wat itself before the sunset - it is a ritual here, as at many other wonders of the world, to experience sunrise and sunset at the temples. To experience sunrise, however, we'd have to get up at 4 a.m. That wouldn't happen. After all, it's only sunset in reverse, isn't it?
Last night when we arrived we reconnected with Charlie Whight, a young lady we travelled with on our Mekong Delta tour, bumped into again on the streets of Phnom Penh, and connected with here by email for a dinner date. She's a former philharmonic clarinetist who saw the error of her ways after a couple of years and went to law school. She gets to tour S.E. Asia now before beginning her in-service training in September. She hired a driver for the three days who told her he'd been a Buddhist monk for a year, and then again once for a spell. Many men become monks here, but it's usually short term rather than a life commitment as it is in the west. He first told her he became a monk because he thought it would bring luck to his family; later he admitted it was also so he could get half-price English lessons at the Buddhist university, which was an important prerequisite for making a living in tourism.
The sunset was unspectacular.
Dec 14th: We saw a final few smaller temples (really, the first two days would have been sufficient) and then spent three hours in (you guessed it!) the museum. The Angkor National Museum isn't cheap or free, as western museums are; it's obviously a revenue generator for them, but it's also quite well done. I came away with a better "connect-the-dots" awareness of the Hinduism and Buddhism which formed the backbone of society here for the past thousand years. I got to see many of the better statues from the temples, which are no longer in the temples themselves.
Mr. Tan dropped us at the hotel for our afternoon nap, and we stepped next door where a lovely young girl practiced her English on us - she has put in her first year of English study at the university, apparently - and served us two large bowls of soup, more like a stew of rice, pig offal, bean sprouts and other green and brown ingredients, into which I stirred freshly squeezed lime wedges and chilis; two bowls plus a large pot of delicious jasmine tea and two cups came to a grand total of $2.
In the late afternoon Mr. Tan took us on a final "about town" cruise of Siem Reap, showing us the nicer features of the town by tuk-tuk, including the villages and rice fields in the surrounding countryside, and a great locals-only market that spanned both sides of a paved road just out of town for a kilometre. We thanked him and paid him for his three days of service.
In the late afternoon Mr. Tan took us on a final "about town" cruise of Siem Reap, showing us the nicer features of the town by tuk-tuk, including the villages and rice fields in the surrounding countryside, and a great locals-only market that spanned both sides of a paved road just out of town for a kilometre. We thanked him and paid him for his three days of service.
I spent the next few days working on over 300 photographs, trying to whittle them down to 60 or so that'll make an interesting photo album. Here's a site with, frankly, much better photos than mine, even though they are all exactly what we saw over the past three days, and often photographed from exactly the same perspective: http://www.lovethesepics.com/2012/11/laura-crofts-tomb-raider-indiana-jones-temple-of-doom-ancient-angkor-pics/ I'll try not to compete with these, and perhaps I'll focus on the whimsy and a few cheap laughs in my slideshow, or a few cheesy ones with Deb in them.
Our challenge tonight will be the Cambodian birthday party next door, on our side of the hotel. The music is "ballady", and would actually be quite soothing if it weren't for the ridiculous level of unadorned bass. Sometimes I think we give bass players a lot more credit than they deserve, as musicians; except for friend Martin, who is tasteful and intelligent about his bass playing. We'll be up at 5:30 to eat some fruit and wait for the tuk-tuk that takes us to the Mekong Express coach back to Phnom Penh.
Dec 15th: John Money and Dara Deng were both incommunicado when we arrived in PP. We went directly to John's address, but had no idea how to get inside. He told us later that he'd been working through the afternoon on painting and renovations. After fussing about it for a while, I hiked around the corner and found a "guest house" that was clean, had a nice foam mattress, small room and no window, but had A/C, so when they quoted me $14 for the night, I took it. Later that evening John finally recharged his cell phone and read his email, and suddenly realized what he'd forgotten about all afternoon. He'd checked his email at noon, although my last email said we'd arrive "mid-afternoon". He felt very regretful about standing us up, and bought us a street-food supper, gave us a gift of a couple of sampots, and we had a good conversation for a couple of hours.
Dec 16th: We got up bright and early to purchase onward tickets, but could only catch the last bus of the day, at 2 p.m., so I worked on our photos for part of the day. It was an uneventful return to Saigon on the Mekong Express, a seven hour trip - at least one hour taken up by the border crossing, where Vietnamese agents scanned everyone's bags, but not their persons, and let lots of bags slip by while they questioned one or two travelers.
Our challenge tonight will be the Cambodian birthday party next door, on our side of the hotel. The music is "ballady", and would actually be quite soothing if it weren't for the ridiculous level of unadorned bass. Sometimes I think we give bass players a lot more credit than they deserve, as musicians; except for friend Martin, who is tasteful and intelligent about his bass playing. We'll be up at 5:30 to eat some fruit and wait for the tuk-tuk that takes us to the Mekong Express coach back to Phnom Penh.
Dec 15th: John Money and Dara Deng were both incommunicado when we arrived in PP. We went directly to John's address, but had no idea how to get inside. He told us later that he'd been working through the afternoon on painting and renovations. After fussing about it for a while, I hiked around the corner and found a "guest house" that was clean, had a nice foam mattress, small room and no window, but had A/C, so when they quoted me $14 for the night, I took it. Later that evening John finally recharged his cell phone and read his email, and suddenly realized what he'd forgotten about all afternoon. He'd checked his email at noon, although my last email said we'd arrive "mid-afternoon". He felt very regretful about standing us up, and bought us a street-food supper, gave us a gift of a couple of sampots, and we had a good conversation for a couple of hours.
Dec 16th: We got up bright and early to purchase onward tickets, but could only catch the last bus of the day, at 2 p.m., so I worked on our photos for part of the day. It was an uneventful return to Saigon on the Mekong Express, a seven hour trip - at least one hour taken up by the border crossing, where Vietnamese agents scanned everyone's bags, but not their persons, and let lots of bags slip by while they questioned one or two travelers.
We spent the next few days planning our next lily pad on the way up the coast toward Hanoi, and reconnecting with Tam and Truong, who've been following the blog. Truong wants to finish studying idiomatic language in Inception. We hope to arrive in the north as the spring begins to arrive, so that when it approaches highs of 40 degrees in Saigon, we'll be in a more temperate climate similar to North and South Carolina. We have to fly back home out of Saigon in March.
Here are two Siem Reap photo albums: the temple complex, and scenes in and around the town. In addition, here's a direct link to a Youtube video called City of the Gods, in six ten minute segments, which is a really excellent history of the temples: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSNqdIz0jYI&feature=youtu.be
Here are two Siem Reap photo albums: the temple complex, and scenes in and around the town. In addition, here's a direct link to a Youtube video called City of the Gods, in six ten minute segments, which is a really excellent history of the temples: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSNqdIz0jYI&feature=youtu.be
Next entry: Phen Thiet and Mui Ne
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