Jan 16th - Siem Reap, Angkor Wat, Wat Thom

Jan 16^th – Seam Reap

South Gate of Angkor Thom

We started today by visiting Ankgor Thom, which was the capital in the 12^th century built by the prestigious temple builder Jayavarman VII.  The complex is vast and surrounded by a 100 metre wide moat extending more than 12km.  Within the moat is an 8 metre high wall which would have been manned by sentries for these were blood thirsty times and warfare a part of life.  To put it into context, about 1 million people lived in this area compared to London which had a population of as little as 5,000 in the same time period.

We entered by the very impressive south gate which took a long time as the entrance is narrow and only one lane of traffic wide.  We crossed a causeway over the moat to get to the south gate which is bordered by sculptured balustrades of nagas or serpents  gripped on one side by Gods and on the other by demons.  The 23 metre high gate features 4 buddha faces.

Some of the large enigmatic faces

Once through the gate, we visited The Bayon, which is Jayavarman VII’s temple mountain.  It was built in the late 12^th century and finishes early in the 13^th century – at least 100 years before Ankgor Wat.  It is a 3 tiered pyramid temple with a 45 metre high tower topped by 4 gigantic carved heads.  This is surrounded by 51 smaller towers facing each of the compass points.  Overall, there are over 2000 large faces carved into the complex.  The 1^st 2 levels have magnificent intricate carvings telling the story of Jayavarman VII’s battles –both sea and land and are just mind blowing with their level of detail.  Top Joe, our very well informed guide, gave us a super tour and wanted us to really appreciate and understand the carvings so we spent a lot of time looking at them very slowly as we walked round them.  Eventually, we ascended to the 3^rd level where we could look in closer detail at the carved Buddha heads.  It was very crowded though so took some time!

The elephant terrace

We exited The Bayon by the north gate to visit the Royal Enclosure.  In front of it, right in the centre of Angkor Thom is the Grand Plaza with the recently renovated Terrace of the Elephants, a 300 metre long wall 2.5 metres tall, from which the king could watch games being played including tug of war and kick boxing.  The walls are adorned with carvings of elephants hunting and the terrace is guarded by garudas (birdmen).

We then walked through another gateway to the Phimineakas, another pyramidal temple, which is in a pretty poor state of repair so we could only look at it as no-one was allowed on the structure since an unfortunate Chinese tourist fell to his death a few years ago.  Stone lions guarded all 4 stairways leading to the top level, but only a few remain.  To the north of this temple lie the enormous women’s swimming pool where the King’s wife and his 600 concubines bathed and then the slightly smaller pool where the King and his sons could swim.

The ladies pool

I haven’t mentioned that all this walking was done in 35 degree heat with incredibly high humidity so we were all very red faced and dripping with perspiration and had to ensure we drank a lot of water. 

Next stop was a fantastic lunch beautifully served on banana leaves and flower petals – our best meal to date.

Ankgor Wat seen from the far side of the moat

After lunch we visited Angkor Wat – finally I achieved one of my life time ambitions!! It was built between 1113 and 1150 and is believed to be the biggest religious monument ever built.  It covers 81 hectares and is comparable in size to the Imperial Palace in Beijing.  Contemporary structures in the west include Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and Durham Cathedral in the UK.  It is dedicated to the Hindu God Vishnu and is aligned east to west.  It’s famous 5 towers are included on the Cambodian flag and art historians consider it to be the prime example of Classical Khmer art and architecture.

One of the libraries

The temple complex is surrounded by a moat and we approached it from the west by a long causeway lined by nagas balustrades.  At the far end of the causeway is a cruciform platform known as the Terrace of Honour.   It is entered through the colonnaded processional gateway of the outer gallery.  Beyond that is another transitional enclosure with long galleries once full of Buddha statues.  Lining the gallery walls are exquisite carvings of the Hindu epic poem Ramayama which tells the story of Rama and Sita who was abducted by Ravana the King of Lanka.

The top terrace

We then walked across another long path with 2 libraries either side of it to the 2^nd terrace.  Within this is the cluster of the 5 central towers 12 metres above it, where only the high priests and the king would have been allowed.  It would have originally been accessed by 12 incredibly steep stairways, but today access is strictly controlled by a wooden stairway at shallower gradient, but still hard for me to climb as I do suffer a bit from vertigo.  Sadly, this was shut on the day of our visit due to it being a holy day so we vowed to come back tomorrow.

Travelling like a king!!

By this time is was almost 3pm, and we needed to get moving to try to beat the crowds who gather in their hundreds on the top of Phnom Bakheng, another temple on top of a mountain to view sunset over Angkor Wat.  We decided to splurge and rented 2 elephants to take us up the hill, which was a fun experience.  Our guide picked a leaf of a passing tree and serenaded us with various tunes by whistling through the leaf.  Chris and I also attempted to make some music – Chris managed some screeches and I only managed a sound a bit like a wet fart.

Angkor Wat lit by the setting sun

When we got to the top, a huge queue had already formed, but Top Joe had contacts so managed to get us near the front of the queue.  So, we waited and waited and waited....they only allow 300 people up there at a time so we had to wait for someone to come down before we could go up.  Eventually, one person came down so Kim went up 1^st and then I got her ticket and Chris got mine.  The views weren’t that good but I got a nice photo of Angkor Wat in the setting sun, but we didn’t consider the wait worth it at the end of the day.

After that, we came back to the hotel via a shop that sold high price carpets and lacquer products, shot inside for a very necessary shower before being dropped off at a local restaurant for an okayish dinner.