Angkor Wat?

Often known as the eighth wonder of the world - with good reason: it's known locally as the heart and soul of Cambodia - we visited this largest religious structure in the world, the Khmer people's national symbol, the epicentre of their civilisation, the source of fierce national pride.

But first we had to take a very comfortable, seven-hour, air-conditioned private bus journey from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, through absolutely wonderful rural scenery, loads of really interesting small farmsteads, most with houses built on stilts over the lotus-flower strewn ponds which were their 'front gardens', and most with two or three cows or buffalo tethered somewhere near the road.   We stopped on the way at a place called Skun village, also known as Tarantula village, because here this arachnoid, fried to a crisp, is a great delicacy (ugh!).   In the market here, there were large bowls full of live tarantulas, from which the discerning customer could choose those they'd like to have cooked for them, rather like one might in an up-market fresh fish/lobster restaurant in the West.   I have to say that, though some of our group were brave enough to get up close to these eight-legged creatures, I couldn't bring myself to get anywhere near.   Andy did, though, and managed to get a photograph of Nak enjoying this particular treat - as you'll see below!

[Incidentally, in response to JJ's comment, no, I didn't actually have to eat the frog in Phnom Penh, but I did, having eaten frogs' legs several times in the past, and to eat the whole body in one seemed a bit of a challenge. It was really quite nice, but tasted mainly of salty cooking oil and garlic! Apart from the crunchy bits, of course.  But the spider was different: I've never had spiders' legs before, and the whole spider would have taken several mouthfuls, so my usually healthy appetite took to its two legs and deserted!]

We arrived in Siem Reap, home of our guide Nak, and jumping-off point for the Angor Wat complex, at around 3 pm, and had an orientation walk with him around this mainly tourist-trap town before the sun set.   In the evening, we went to a local restaurant in, would you believe it?, Pub Street (!) where, amongst many
fairly Western bars and eateries, there were loads of places offering a seat on the side of large fish-tanks in which you are invited to dangle your feet to allow the fish to eat the dead skin from them.   We saw loads of people giggling with delight and slight revulsion, but didn't have time to try them ourselves - perhaps we will at some other point on this trip.

In the evening, we went to a Khmer restaurant in Pub Street, called The Temple, where we watched a beautiful performance by their Apsara dancers.   It's difficult to describe this ancient form of dance:   it's very balletic, though often with incredibly tiny, immensely graceful, movements of the dancers' feet and hands in particular.   The word Apsara is most closely translated as 'nymph', and I was absolutely captivated by the whole show.   I have to say, though, that it was clearly a minority interest in our group, and most of them went off elsewhere - mainly to the Halloween celebrations happening in the other very Western bars nearby - leaving Andy and me absolutely riveted to the Aspara dancers' performance.   We'll put a photo at the end of the blog, but we do also have some brief video-clips to remind us of this beautiful performance.  We also had a really nice traditional Khmer meal beforehand.

The next day, we went off to see two of the temples in the Angkor Wat complex - the Bayon and Banteay Srea.   It's worth saying that the temples of Angor are spread out over no less than 40-miles, and it would take several weeks to cover them all.  The temples were built between the 8th and the 13th centuries, and range from temples made of bricks to vast stone (sandstone or limestone) temple complexes.   They are absolutely mind-blowing, but almost impossible to describe in words.   So, we'll stick to some trivialities instead.   The whole time we were at these two sites, we were continuously stalked by this woman, whom some of you will have heard of, called Hilary something.   Clinton, I think.   The problem with being so famous, of course, is that it's difficult for us to shake off these kinds of hangers-on, and so everywhere we went, she and her entourage of security guards turned up just minutes later.   We eventually managed to shake her off, and went off with our tour-bus to a local village where we watched people boiling up sugar-cane to make into candy - very sweet indeed.   Once again, the village children all came thronging around, and joined in joyfully while we chanted the English words counting from one to ten - rather more delightful than our experience around the temples of Angkor.   At the entrances to these places, there are loads of really young children, aged from around 5 to 10 years old, all selling souvenirs in a pretty assertive (though not quite aggressive) way.   As soon as a group of tourists turn up, these children swarm all around them, offering just about everything for a dollar or two.   Intrepid Travel's policy is that travellers should not buy from these children, as they should really be in school, and it encourages them to be too materialistic and greedy.   Nak, however, says that it's not quite that simple.   Though primary schooling is supposed to be free, many teachers, whose government salaries are pathetic, demand some kind of payment from their pupils for tuition fees, which means that many families just cannot afford to send their children to school, especially given that large families are still the norm here, with most rural dwellers having 8, 9 or 10 children.

The children themselves, though, seem pretty clued-up in a number of ways.   They usually ask "where you flom?", as part of their standard patter and, whenever we said we're from England, most of them could immediately recite something like "Oh, Ingerland - capital London, Plime Mihister David Cameron, use to be Gordoh Blown, but now change".   One of our group, a Welshman who was a bit fed up with being harassed by these child-entrepreneurs, said glibly to one of them that he'd buy something if they could name the capital of Wales.  Quick as a flash, the child said "Cardiff", and Rod was duty-bound to part with $10 for a load of tatty fridge-magnets, much to the enjoyment of the rest of us.   A little later, having myself bought several bangles from one child who wouldn't stop asking me to buy more, I offered to sell him some back for $2 (I'd paid $1);  again without hesitation, the 8-year-old said "Okay, I buy for $2, but you buy back for $3".   It's a bit humbling being done-over so deftly by these kids!

That evening, Andy and I, together with Michel, a charming young Swiss man in our group, went off to the street market in Siem Reap for some real Khmer food, and found ourselves being served by an equally charming 'lady-boy' - the first we'd seen outside of Thailand

The next morning, most of our group went of at 05.00, in the darkness, to wait for the sunrise over Angkor Wat, the real centre-piece of this vast and hugely impressive temple complex.   At Nak's suggestion, we waited outside the walls of this moat-surrounded Wat, and, as our eyes adjusted to the dark and then the dawn, we became aware of hundreds of other coaches turning up with thousands of other tourists all walking along the causeway into the temple complex.   Nak's local knowledge was useful here.   Not only are the best views of the Wat from outside its walls but, once the sun had risen (sadly, not a particularly spectacular sunrise on this occasion), most of these thousands of tourists trooped back out again, to go back to their hotels for breakfast.   And so, with the Wat considerably much less crowded, our group went in for a truly fascinating tour,with Nak able to explain to us the intracies of the stories depicted in the absolutely staggering stone carvings all around this most iconic of temples.   Like the other temples in the Angkor complex, Angkor Wat replicates the spatial universe in miniature, the central tower surrounded by smaller peaks, bounded in turn by continents (the lower courtyards) and the oceans (the huge rectangular moat, 4km long and 190m wide). The naga (serpent balustrade) serves as a symbolic 'rainbow bridge', by which Buddhists may reach nirvana.

Just as the tourists started to return in mid-morning, we left Angkor Wat itself, and moved on to Ta Prohm, a strangely ruined temple, locked in the embrace of the powerful, huge, centuries-old trees from the surrounding jungle.   The roots of these mighty creatures seem to ooze down over the temple stones and doorways, creating amazingly grotesque, science-fiction like, scenes.   This particular temple was apparently the location for a film called Tomb Raider, starring Angelina Jolie, some years ago, a movie which has spawned no end of computer-games of the same name, whose central heroine is called Lara Croft.

After leaving Ta Prohm, we went off with Nak for a boat-trip to Chong Kneas, one of nearly 200 floating villages along the vast lake of Tonle Sap, peopled by as many Vietnamese as Cambodians.   Here, thousands of people live, work, trade, play, and educate their children all in floating structures of various kinds, built on huge bamboo rafts.   An absolutely fascinating, colourful, seemingly-friendly, world.  

After this day of almost sensory-overload (but in a truly positive way), it was back to Siem Reap, a nice meal in a 'Khmer Kitchen' restaurant, and our last night at the comfortable Angkor Way Hotel, to pack for our journey back in the morning to Bangkok - to complete our Intrepid Travel 'Indochina Loop'.

Should we Load our Kia this Way?

Should We Re-Paint Our Summer House?
(Floating Village on the Great Lake)

More of the Floating Village and the Great Lake.

Giant Tree Roots at Ta Prohm.

Ta Prohm Again.

Wild Monkeys in Grounds of Temple

Apsara Dancers

Samples of the Thousands of Temple Carvings

Angkor Wat at Sunrise

Several More Temple Views

More Apsara Dancers

Nak and the Spider!





Local Children Enjoying a Game with Us