Angkor Wat!

So Harv and I flew out of Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. I love the sounds prop driven aircraft make….really, it’s pretty cool. Anyway it was a really short trip from Phnom Penh, maybe 45 minutes. We hooked up with a driver (Ian), who based on the description we gave him (mid priced, w/pool), took us to a hotel. So right now I’m at the Angkor Pich Hotel. I like it, but prices here are higher than most places here, cuz this is a major tourist attraction. When we arrived it was sunny, but as we checked in it got darker and darker soon there was a hell of a rainstorm with lightning and thunder going. Harv an I went out to dinner last night, and I was thinking this is gonna be difficult to see the temple in this weather, cuz it was still raining.

I woke up this morning and it was still raining, nonetheless we went off to Angkor Wat. The first thing I saw was the moat. I was so big I thought to ask “what river is this”? Angkor Wat is HUGE. The perimeter wall is something like a thousand meters on each side and the moat is around three hundred meters across. We had breakfast, across the street from the temple, and as we ate the weather cleared. After that, we went across the street to the temple, and it was amazing. The rain had soaked the sandstone so that there was color everywhere…greens and blacks from moss, reds and purples. This temple is a thousand years old, and shows what great craftsman and artists they were. It’s really difficult to grasp it all. It’s alive too. Buddha still lives here. As I waited to take a picture of the reclining Buddha, I watched this Khmer woman make her offering of incense and then walk up and caress the statue as if it were someone she loved very deeply.

After the trip to Angkor Wat our driver (Ian) suggested we go to this restaurant that has a dinner show with Khmer traditional dancing. Now I’m not one for the traditional dancing shows, but this was really quite charming. I was sad when it ended, and diner was really good too. So tomorrow we go Angkor Thom, the ancient city whose temple I just visited.

Angkor Thom
This was a city that once was home to as many as a million people. It’s impressive gate is flanked by is flanked by 54 god sculptures on the right and 54 demon sculptures on the left. The city is walled, and there are 5 gates like this. Inside is now mostly wilderness The homes were made of wood so they have all disappeared, what remains are the temples and public buildings that were made of stone. We visited Bayon temple first. It was used in the film Tomb Raider. It is a truly beautiful place. In addition to the architecture and sculpture, it has a patina of moss and lichen that give it really great color. I’m finding these trips difficult to describe in a way that does it justice. You’ll have to come and see for yourself. I only really spent time in Bayon, and on the Elephant terrace. You could easily spend a week or more here exploring, but that would be a hard week. The walking and climbing has me pretty tired just from two days, but it’s a good kind of tired…