Day 57-59, Siem Reap

- C'est encore nous.
- Angkor Wat?
Ah ah ah ah

We decided to take a break in Siem Reap and leave the bicycles in Phnom Penh for three days. It takes six hours by bus to get there. We chose to stay an entire day in Siem Reap to visit the most famous temples; it is not too much considering there are plenty of them in this area.

There was nothing interesting about the bus journeys and so I will consequently focus on our day tour in Siem Reap.

We took $15 group tour to do a typical small circuit of temples from 8am to sunset. We were with two other couples and an official guide. We agreed to do the tour anti-clockwise, starting from Angkor Wat. This was to avoid the likelihood of meeting swarms of tourists. (Two news words I just have learnt, I’m showing off!).

Two pictures on the same side.
First time in this blog.

So, we visited Angkor Wat first, which is the eighth marvel of the world. I will try not to use too many superlatives to describe the twelfth century site: it’s awesome. It is both Hindu and Buddhist, as a result of the beliefs of different kings. The walls of the inner temple are full of bas-relief telling stories about religions and wars: the battle of Kurukshetra, Heaven & Hell... Indians first used acid to restore this place; it wasn’t a good idea at all. As an apology, they are restoring another temple (without acid this time).  The stairs to access the top level of the temple have recently been deadly dangerous. There is now a wooden staircase to avoid accidents but it is still impressive.

We shouldn't stay here too long
if we don't want to become part of the roots

Ta Prohm is a temple that has been swallowed by the jungle. Trees have been growing everywhere even on walls and statues. One of the tourists in the group asked if the wall was built after the tree, no comment. If you are fond of Lara Croft, you can have a picture for free at a place used in Tombraider, the film.

Step by step, ooh baby

The temple of Ta Keo is not as interesting as the others but going up these sloping stairs is an exploit. That is why I did it and Katie more sensibly waited for me at the bottom with the guide. I met a guide on the top that, after begging me for some money that I didn’t have, kindly showed me the best way to go down, guaranteeing me that my group would be waiting for me here. He actually lied to me and they were waiting for me at the opposite end of the temple...

How many faces can you see?

Angkor Thom, was a fortified city 10 square km in size. All the houses were built in wood because stone was only used for temples. The result is that none of these houses still exists and temples are restored. At the entrance there is the terrace of elephants, a 350m long terrace used to hold public ceremonies. Bayon is a unique place inside Angkor Thom. This place has 54 towers with big smiling faces on each side. (Just convert 54 into binary and put two zero on the right side. You have 11011000 base 2 that represents 216 smiling faces. A totally useless way to work out for us who don’t think like computers...). We were not allowed to visit Baphuon because it is currently the world’s largest jigsaw puzzle, being put back together by the French, cocorico.

Top fashion 2010

At 3pm the tour was already finished and the other tourists wanted to be taken to their respective guesthouses. We decided to stay there and make the most of our $20 entrance fee to visit at least another temple and wait for the sunset at a place with a scenic view. The guide’s behaviour was quite unfathomable, he didn’t want to leave us, nor to stay with us even though we had paid for an entire day. These are the disadvantages of booking a group tour. He finally phoned his office and managed to get a car for our return after the sunset. It sounded great, except that during all this dead time, the weather changed badly. 

Katie vs the rest of the world

Nevermind, we got off the bus, bought non-stylish ponchos and walked up the Phnom Bakeng hill.  This place is the most popular attraction at the sunset. We were on the top two hours before it, and we read and chilled out until we gradually realised we were surrounded by a crowd also waiting for the sunset, as if we were approaching land in a boat. We left.