This morning we have a flight at 9:45 to Siem Reap so we need to be up and ready for leaving at 8. In true form we leave stuff late and just about scrape in breakfast before we have to leave. I’m back on the omlettes by the way.
We grab a bus to the airport and Rafa takes charge of all the admin stuff. This time though, concerned at how much our purchases will have affected our baggage allowance, I hang around to see how much our bags weigh. Under 15 kilos a piece, so we’re still fine. We wander through security and into the premises of a splendid looking “Costa” type coffe place where most of us grab what turns out to be a very nice coffee. Before too long it’s time to board the plane for the flight and so that’s just what we do. The flight is quite a short one but they still give us a muffin and some water to help pass the time. These little flights are quite cool.
Once on the ground we admire the entirely manual baggage carousel (one man shoves bags through, the other shoves them along runners) and grab our bags as soon as they pop through the flaps. On the bus Rafaele explains the plan of action for today – as soon as we’ve checked in to the hotel we’ll set off for the temples of Angkor Wat and try to see as much as we can today, hopefully giving us more free time tomorrow and less chance of folks being “templed out.” This sounds good to all and so once we’ve checked in and ensured our attire is suitable for temple seeing, we meet in the lobby ready to board the bus.
When we return to the lobby Vantha, our guide for the next two days, is already there, and once I’ve quickly ran back to the room to get our camera we are ready to go. The temples aren’t too far away, and after what feels like less than half an hour we are there.
I’m afraid I’ve forgotten then names of the individual sites we visited, perhaps my fellow travellers can help me out there if they read this. I’ll have a look in the book too when I can. All fall under the umbrella of Angkor Wat, but they each have individual names with Angkor Wat itself being the most impressive. At the first site Vantha stops us at one of the entrances, of which this place has 5, one facing each compass direction except for (I think) East which has two. Running towards the entrance is a road flanked by a ballustrade made up of statues essentially playing tug of war with a naga, or three headed snake. This depicts a famous scene from Hindu mythology of Vishnu and the churning of the milk. Look it up, it’s a bit weird. Vishnu appears as a turtle with the mountain on his back and the demons and the good guys basically play tug of war with the naga to churn up milk from the sea. Yeah, I know. What immediately springs to attention with Vantha is his depth of knowledge. He explains everything in the most incredible detail, expressing admirable knowledge of every aspect of what we see. He is an absolutely splendid guide to have with us at sites containing so much history.
As we move on into the temple we are told of the construction methodology of the temple, which basically amounts to plonking perfectly shaped blocks of sandstone on top of one another with no bonding agent whatsoever. Looking at the buildings from any sort of distance you would struggle to see the joins as the blocks are so perfectly cut. When you do get up close you see that the Walls all around are adorned in the most detailed and intricate carvings, some entirely decorative but many depicting legendary scenes from Buddhist and Hindu tales or battles of ages gone by. In some parts the carvings are incomplete because the King who had ordered them died before the completion, and (I think) what seems to happen is the next King orders the construction of a new gaff. Vantha tells us this place would have taken around 40 years to be constructed to the level we see now, and it was knocked up in around the 8th century. For it to remain (mostly) standing after such a long time and for the details of the carvings to also still be there is pretty damn incredible. Hats off to the construction team and artisans of the 8th century.
Our next temple is one which is impressive but for different reasons. Though much of the temple is still, roughly speaking, standing, the majority is dilapidated and currently being either put back together or reconstructed. What is impressive though about this temple is that trees have began to grow atop the parts of the temple themselves. Imagine a tree just growing out of the top of your house, it’s a bit like that. We get a lot of good snaps in here and marvel at how the trees are either destroying parts of the temple, or holding it together. According to what I think was a bit of a guess by Vantha, many of the trees are over 150 years old, standing atop buildings which (I think) date from around the 10th century. As we are leaving we also see a stripey dog, one which we guess has been painted. If it hasn’t, that was one weird tiger and one crazy dog.
As it begins to get dark we round off the temples there and head back to the hotel for a nap before dinner. A long day of flying and temple walking in the sun is just cause I reckon. After the nap we round up in the foyer for our penultimate dinner as a group in a place Rafaele has booked for us in the brilliantly named Pub Street (*though this is on the signpost I guess it’s probably not the proper name for the street).
The restaurant is called Soup Dragon, and I think the food is rather nice. Though some meals come out quite late, my meal was great and Mrs Tom’s was too (though she was the last person served). Those who ordered lamb weren’t hugely impressed but their meals looked alright to Mrs Tom and myself, and to be fair it’s probably not too often they cook lamb, what with there being no sheep here and all.
After dinner we pop off to the night market to have a look round and are pleasantly surprised to find what we later decide is the nicest market we’ve seen on the whole trip. There are stalls selling things we might actually want to buy, which we’ve not really seen since Luang Prabang. I buy myself another beer t-shirt and then find a stall selling t-shirts with tuk tuks on which I decide I want, but we have ran out of money for the evening. We decide we’ll go back on our own after everyone else has gone and pick one up then.
Whilst in the market I happen across a stall selling nice looking photos with a young local chap minding things. He asks me the usual starters and I ask about the pictures. He hasn’t taken them, a Canadian man has, but it’s the basis for a little chat anyway. When he asks where I’m from he follows up by telling me he has been to Hawaii. When I ask how come he tells me that he was injured by a landmine, and shows me his blackened, skinny left leg. Local doctors wanted to cut it off, but another took him to Hawaii where he spent a year, and learned English whilst he was there. His leg is much better now, he never had to lose it, and though he cannot walk any great distance he can still walk. He’s now back in Cambodia and going to school, and working in the night market in the evening to help him keep up his English. He says that when he returned to Cambodia he had actually forgotten the Khmer language, but he’s ok with it now. His name is Sok, and he is a very brave and very nice young man. It’s easy to forget that there are so many victims of landmines in Cambodia, and a vast number were laid by their own people during the reign of the Khmer Rouge. Sok is one of the lucky ones, and good luck to him.
Commited to a very early start in the morning, we catch a tuk tuk back to the hotel and get straight to bed. We’ve decided to take the opportunity to watch the sun rise over the Angkor War temple in the morning, for which we will need to leave at 4:50….. Hmmm….