Angkor Wat

Epic and awesome are often over used words – but in a case like this it is fair to say that the impressive Angkor Wat is both of these things! Angkor Wat is the largest religious building in the world. There are hundreds of temples, and many of these are apparently worth visiting, and although we were going to barely scratch the surface of what was to be seen we thought we would get a three day pass to try and do justice to some of the more popular ones.

The first day we hired a tuk tuk driver who took us firstly to the gates into the city of Angkor Thom. I might sound like a stuck record in this blog as I run out of ways to try and describe the scale and impressive nature of these structures. Each of the gates had four large faces of Avalokiteshvara and were still incredibly detailed considering they were built around 1181!! The whole ‘complex’ of temples and structures are set within a kind of park land which for me added to the epic but still peaceful feeling of the area.

Our first building was Bayon, this was a very large building, and there were signs around the ruins explaining what some of the rooms would have been used for including a library. It was stunning and although they were ruins there was a lot remaining, including corridors and structures that you climb up to get magnificent views. One of the things that was fantastic about the place was there was no restriction to where you could wander, climb and explore making the place wonderful to get lost in. The same face that we saw at the gates appears here 216 times (bless the guide book of facts we had)– every time as big as me in size. Combine that with many intricate and wonderful carvings and you have a place where I just kept finding things that were amazing and impressive.

We then visited Baphon which is in the process of being restored, so you could only look from the outside while they were still reassembling areas of the ruins. We visited the Terrace of Elephants which is aptly named as it is a 300m long terrace with bas-reliefs of elephans and garudas (mythical human –birds). Then we took a brief visit to the Terrace of the Leper King before catching our tuk tuk to see some of the slightly further away temples.

The next set of temples were far more ruined, and were slightly smaller but no less impressive. The jungle had been allowed over 100’s of years to begin reclaiming the land and there were many areas where tree and their roots engulfed the stonework. Apparently there were areas of these temples where Tomb Raider was filmed, and it was indeed a perfect area. I also found the forest helped me gain a sense of age of the ruins. I also felt they were more interesting and amazing to look at than some of the more restored temples. These were called Ta Prohm and Preah Khan. That was to be the end of our first day. Awesome.

The next day we decided to tackle the temples by bike. Angkor Wat was only a couple of Km from Siem Reap, so we jumped on our bikes and firstly came to Angkor Wat an obvious first choice as we had left that one out from our first day. It’s scale was unbelievable. It has a large moat around it, and then there is a temple within a temple. To get to these you walk along a causeway where you pass over the moat. After walking about 500m from the entrance it turns more into a large wide path and either side there are large square pools which reflect Angkor when the light is right. Then through a massive archway and I find myself inside the ‘first temple’. Here there are many corridors to explore, wonderful carvings to look at and large pits which apparently used to be pools. Once into the middle of the ‘first temple’ you see the temple within the temple and this was a funerary temple of a deity called Vishnu. Unfortunately this temple was not opened to the public but was still fantastic from the outside as it is 55m tall! However, much to our surprise we turn round to see Chris and Brian being lead up the stairs into this temple by one of the police officers that was on patrol at the temple! It turns out that they had managed to bribe him for a few $’s each to take them up there. They said it felt great to see apart that is not often seen by members of the public, and we looked at their photos with some jealously!


We managed to spend most of our day in this temple and after a quick bite to eat we jumped back on our bikes and decided to cycle one of the inner squares of the complex and try and catch a few of the smaller less popular temples before it went dark. We saw a few before it was time to cycle back. One had been partly restored and had many areas where it was very obviously stuck back together, I can’t help thinking that sometimes things are better left incomplete or as ruins. The last temple we got to see was very different in that it was all made from red brick rather than large grey stone blocks.

We were loosing light so decided it was time to cycle home, just as we had made the decision it started to rain; then it started to pour; then the heavens really opened! I can honestly say I have never seen rain as heavy – let alone cycled in it! It was quite an experience as the thunder and lightening started up! We were drenched very quickly indeed so decided there was no point stopping we should just get home as fast as possible as we had no lights (and the streetlights weren’t on either), Rob’s saddle kept falling off and my brakes didn’t work so it made for a very funny ride home! A hot shower has never been so welcome!

The final day at Angkor was just spent watching the sunrise behind Angkor. Me and Chris (both very stoned at this point!!!) and Brian (who had to put up with me and Chris) sat by one of the square pools to see the reflection forming in the water as it slowly became light. It was very strange watching the shadows begin to form on the stonework and the reflection form on the pool (or was that the space pizza?) but unfortunately the sunrise was pretty unspectacular as there were no colours and it was a little cloudy to really see the sun. I am still very pleased I did it despite Rob insisting he was also very pleased to stay in bed!

The whole experience was awe-inspiring and one of the most impressive pieces of man made history I have ever seen.