33 km

We were up at five a.m and out at six this morning to ride the 10 km or so to the Angkor Wat temples. We bought our ticket at the ticket office on the way, US$40 each for a 3-day pass. Then we rode down a paved road into the jungle and saw what Cambodia is supposed to look like. It was green, misty and cool (remember that we are now acclimated to SE Asia), and much more humid than the road to Siem Reap. The birds were squawking in their forest hideouts and we had visions of ancient days when the forest was full of Asian lions and elephants.

Angkor Wat is the name for the entire system of temples and monuments in the area, which were built over the course of a few centuries by many kings, each trying to outdo the last. Most were Hindu kings, so the temples of their cities honored Hindu deities, though the most active builder, Jayavarman VII, was Buddhist.

The grandest temple complex is also called Angkor Wat and it was the first temple we came to. Angkor, built in the 13th century, is surrounded by a wide man-made moat that is larger than any I’ve seen around the castles in Europe. Inside the moat there is a great outer wall that in its day housed the massive temple as well as en entire city. The only structures left now in all the area are those made of stone, laterite, or brick, which were only used for walls, temples, and monuments, so the rest of the city is long gone. Angkor Wat is the world’s largest religious monument, built to honor the Hindu god Vishnu.

Next we rode to Baksei Chamkrong, built in the early 10th century to mimic the nearby hill called Bekhong. It is a brick tower on a brick and laterite pyramid and is not considered very important since it was not a state temple.

Angkor Thom came next, another walled city with temples, monuments and even royal palace structures. The entrances on the East and West are lined with carvings of men holding up a serpant. We only looked at the temple, Bayon, and decided to leave the rest for another day. Bayon, built in the late 12th to 13th century, is unique for its many complex face-towers and its bas-reliefs depicting daily life as well as Khmer battles and history. It was a state temple that was the symbolic center of the universe.

We looked at the minor “twin towers” of Chao Say Tevoda, which was “fully restored” in the 60s and to me looks ridiculous and incongruous, and the mostly un-restored and original Thommanon.

Then, late in the day, we visited Ta Prohm, built in the late 12th to 13th century. This site was chosen to be left nearly as it was when all the temples were discovered. All the others were cleared of the jungle that had hidden them and re-constructed or re-inforced in places to stop their slow their decay. Ta Prohm still has the jungle within its walls, even within the temple itself. It is like entering a mythic fairy tale, and there are so many hidden corners that you can feel like you’re the only person there. We decided we would need to come back to visit this temple more.