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10 June (Siem Riep/Angkor Wat)
We were up at 04h25! We had 30 minutes to finish up before meeting out guide (Tuk Tuk driver) at the corner of the street. We made it in the nick of time, we jumped on and headed for Angkor Wat, one of the 7 wonders of the world. Entry fee for 3 days is $40, but its worth it. He drove us first to Angkor Wat where we would watch the sun rise. We huddled outside the complex waiting for the sun to rise, being asked every 5 minutes whether we want coffee of breakfast. Unfortunately for us it was cloudy and the sun rise was a bit of a disappointment.
We headed into the complex, built in 1112 to 1152 by King Suryavarman 2nd to honour Vishnu, his patron deity and to be his funeral temple. The temple is surrounded by 800m of exquisite bas-reliefs (wall carvings), the most celebrated is the "Churning of the ocean of Milk". Depicting 92 demons and 89 gods in a tug of war to extract the elixir of immortality. Very elaborate stories....:-) The city is surrounded by a moat is 100m wide and walls of 6m high to hold protect the city from would be invaders.
We wandered through Angkor Wat for almost 3 hours before returning to our Tuk Tuk driver, who then proceeded to take us to Angkor Thom. Angkor Thom, is not like most people believe a Wat/temple, rather it's a city containing different Wat's. There are 5 entrances to the city, being the East, South, West, North and Victory Gates. We entered the East entrance which was guarded by the 7 headed Naga, serpent being, who is held back by a type of angels as a bridge railing over the moat. The moat surrounds the city built in a perfect square of 3km by 3km being 12 km long in total. The walls are 6m high all round the city and 8m wide.
The first Wat we visited was Bayon Wat, made world famous by the four faces on each tower, numbering 216 in total, staring down on the visitor. The other extraordinary feature of Bayon is the 1200m bas-reiefs (hieroglyphics) depicting life of ancient Cambodia, with cockfighting and kick boxers, in total there are 11 000 figures. We really liked the faces on the ruins.
From here it was Baphuon, built in 1049, it is a pyramidal representation of Mt Meru. Although huge it wasn't that spectacular to us, mainly because it was taken apart by archaeologists before the civil war to be restored. During the madness of the Khmer Rouge the blueprints were lost and it now represents the worlds largest jigsaw puzzle, the most ambitious restoration project in Angkor. We walked over to the Elephant Terraces, a 300m long elaborate wall with bas reliefs of elephants, before continuing to the Terrace of the Leper King. A 6m high wall with 7 tiers of meticulously carved seated Apsara (Dancing girls or Nymphs).
We had gone as far as we could walk and the Tuk Tuk picked us up to take us to the next set of temples, quite a drive away. The first we stopped at was Ta Keo, not to be climbed by those with a fear of hights. One must climb up on all fours to reach the top of this temple, built in a pyramid style rising more than 50m within relatively few steps. The building was stopped due possibly to the death of the King or lightning striking it. The temple is therefore not adorned by the elaborate decorations of its counterparts. The one characteristic that remains unchanged at all temples are the multitudes of children and parents trying to sell merchandise to tourists. Almost anything is sold for $1, whether shirts, flutes, bracelets, unfortunately not the paintings!
Ta Prohm was probably the most special for both of us except for the first two we visited. Made popular through the Tomb raider and two brothers movie, this temple is overgrown by trees and plants, much as it was in 1860 when the temples were discovered. According to the inscriptions on the walls it took an incredible 80 000 people to maintain the temple, I wonder how many Angkor or some of the other temples 10 times it size required! The temple is a maze of narrow corridors and crumbling stone work, much which has been roped off in fear of falling walls. We finished up with a few more small temples before heading back to our guest house, it was now 14h00.
We tried to take a noon siesta, but the children outside made it impossible, at least we managed to relax in relative coolness when compared with outside. We decided to go looking for the night market and also sample what Siem Riep had to offer. Along the way we stopped at 3 travel agencies to find out about a bus to Phnom Phen before stopping at a random restaurant for a traditional Khmer fish dish and fried chicken, pineapple and rice.
The night market was a flourishing array of stalls all interlinked, mostly offering exactly the same products. We even found a bath filled with fish who for $5, remove all dead skin from your feet! We ended up buying a table runner of pure silk and a dancing Apsara girl on it before making our way back home.
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