April 27, 2015

Trip Advisor has recently released a list of the Top Landmarks. #1, beating out Machu Picchu, was Angkor Wat. I am glad we were able to add this to our list of sites visited.

Angkor Wat means 'temple of the capital' and it is the largest spiritual building in the world. It is a fairly recent addition to the manmade 'wonders of the world' list and has become a symbol of Cambodia.

Brief History

Angkor Wat is part of a temple complex. It was built in the early 12th century by King Suryavarman II. The work on the temple ended after his death. You can see evidence of that as some of the relief work on the stone walls just end. It first served as a Hindu temple, then both Hindu and Buddhist and finally, just Buddhist,

The new King Jayavarman VII restored Angkor 27 years after the death of King Suryavarman II. It is surrounded by a moat and an outer wall that is 3.6 km long. At one point a million people had lived inside the walls at a time when London had 30,000 inhabitants.

Angkor Wat was in its glory for almost 500 years. Our guide informed us that a siege by the Mongols collapsed Angkor. It became neglected, and while the moat provided some protection from the jungle, Angkor ended up in a strangle hold of trees for centuries.

Angkor Wat was rediscovered by the French in the early 1900's and described it as the jewel of the jungle. It was looted shortly after. Angkor Wat had to be protected. It required considerable restoration and various countries have joined in the effort to help Cambodia with this project. Restorative work was interrupted in the 1970s and 80s by the Khmer Rouge. It wasn't until the 1990's that tourists began visiting Angkor Wat.

Our Experience

All of Southeast Asia is hot at this time of year, so that must be considered when planning an excursion. Many tourists opt for the experience of watching the sunrise behind Angkor Wat. They wake up at 3:30 or 4 in the morning to get to the site by 5:30.

Now if you know the Collins Family, then you know none of us are keen on waking up that early. We have done it to catch a flight and it generally does not go well. Add to this that the sun may not be seen due to cloud coverage and you have an easy decision....not getting up that early. I googled sunrise at Angkor Wat and saw some lovely pictures and that was good enough for me.

We had a hearty breakfast at our hotel at about 7 and prepared to leave for our tour. We prebooked a car and guide. We had to arrange for larger car because we needed to include our tour guide. Taking tuk-tuks is a cheaper option, but knowing that an air-conditioned car is waiting with a cooler of water to transport us to the next temple was definitely worth the extra dollars.

The temple complex is huge. I am glad we had a guide to assist with ticket purchases. We skipped a huge line and made our purchases with ease. Tickets are $20 per day or $40 for a three day pass. Liam was free!! Maeve is costing us more and more money now that she is 13.

I become absolutely giddy when we arrive at an epic location. I simply love exploring new places. I will apologize in advance for the number of photos or length of this blog post. I have tons more pictures, and really had to decide to narrow it down. Also, Maeve took some excellent photos of Angkor Wat and you can see them on her Cambodia post.

The entrance to Angkor Wat is majestic. It starts with huge walkway surrounded by a moat - how cool is that?

Across the moat, left side original-right side restored.

I frantically jotted notes as our guide informed us about the building, the art and the history. It was a lot to take in. It was nice to have a guide though and he even took some family shots for us.

Our guide points out bullet damage from Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s

Phenomenal relief work throughout the building. There is a reason for every pose and hairstyle.

Always time for a quick pose. Bottoms of colums erroding from heavy rains containing large amounts of acidic 'bat shit' (our guides term). There are nets preventing bats for hanging on the ceilings now.

We chose to see Angkor Wat first because there is so much to see. You want to make sure you have enough energy to go through everything. Some people choose to visit other temples first to avoid crowds. It just depends on the amount of time you have and how hot it is. Remember ladies must have their legs and shoulders covered when entering temples. I'm glad we explored Angkor Wat first. We were melting by the time we finished.

We were told that 9 is a lucky number. Many architectural features dealt with that number in some way. 216 faces (numbers added together make 9) 54 posts on each side of a bridge, etc.

The tops of the temple were built to resemble the buds of the lotus flower

No other building in Siem Reap is allowed to be taller than Angkor Wat

View from above. Liam was not allowed up (too young) so he waited below with our guide.

I think the climb down was worse than it looks.

From the other side. Smaller buildings on the grounds (to the left) were once libraries

"It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome...." said Henri Mouhot's, a French explorer, who made the site popular in the West after his visit in mid 1900's.

Another amazing excursion for the Collins Family, even if we did not see the sunrise. However, we did return for sunset. It was included in our tour, but our guide had plans and just sent us back with the driver. Our hotel found out and was very upset. They credited us $15 from the tour and said the guide should not have taken the job if he could not make the sunset part of the tour.

The driver did not speak English. He dropped us off near a hill and we followed all the other tourists. We had to hike uphill for about 20 minutes, then climb stairs to the top of another temple to view the sunset. We were too early and ended up spending quite a bit of time up there trying to find somewhere to sit and stay cool in the limited areas of shade.

The sunset was a bit disappointing. There was quite a bit of cloud coverage at the end so we tried to make an early exit to avoid the throngs of tourists trying to get down the stairs and hill. That experience just validated our decision to skip the sunrise.

The temple at the top of the hill...still some climbing to do

Early sunset picture before the clouds came in and took over

Overall, a great day. We explored some other temples too, so stay tuned.