10-28 Angkor Wat

Today is Temple Day – we have Mr Leng and a guide all day to hit the major temples. But first breakfast - holy guacamole! It’s huge! You can choose anything on the menu, so we get the omelets – they are just monstrous = and they come with thick sliced fresh toast and coffee. Oh wow! No need for lunch – and we’ve got that coming too in our “temple” pack.

So now that we’re stuffed, we roll out the gate to meet our guide, Lim. He’s a great guy – has been working for the Villa, well Anthony and Fiona, for about 3 years – met his wife at the Villa actually – and is a newlywed of 5 months. Very cute! And as knowledgeable as he is personable.

We head off at 9:00 for Angkor Wat, the centerpiece of all the temples in the area. It’s already brutally hot, but we’re prepared. We sweat our way across the “rainbow” bridge that crosses the main made moat surrounding the temple and enter through the “middle class” entry hall, one of the 3 main entrance halls (Royals had one and the poor had the other). It’s just stunning all too much to take in all at once, but we make a valiant effort!

Once inside the complex we gaze at the huge pyramid structure with the 5 towers and surrounding protective walls. In front of the temple on either side of the walkway are libraries and two pools (lagoons). The pools were used by the middle class to wash before they came to the temple to pray. The Royals had a pool as well, but it’s in the main part of the temple which is closed for renovation. The poor pools were outside the main part of the temple area.

On the inside, we walk down huge hallways with porticos protecting us from the sun. On the inner walls are fabulously detailed carvings depicting the 3 stages of judgment (to determine whether you go to heaven or hell). It is said that it took over 6000 carvers to complete the artwork – one half came in and drew the initial art in outline, the other half followed and made the carvings deeper and completed the bas relief. It’s beautiful and tells fantastic stories. There is also a wonderful carving depicting the churning of the sea of milk. The serpent was used to turn the mountain to churn the sea (they were trying to find immortality, I won’t bore you with the details…because I’d probably mess them up!), and the carving shows men on each side of the mountain almost in a tug of war pulling one or the other side of the serpent.

One of the very interesting things about all these temples is that they depicts both Hindu and Buddhist beliefs. With Angkor Wat in particular, it was built as a Hindu temple, so Vishnu is prominently featured in the carvings. However, when Buddhism became the dominant religion in the 14^th Century, Buddha replicas were added to the main temple. Most all the temples are similar, with both beliefs in evidence today.

Incredible!

As we are leaving, of course, we are accosted by hawkers. Postcards lady, t-shirt sir. We normally ignore them, but the cutest little girl, maybe 4 years old, walks up and is trying to sell us postcards (which we need like a hole in the head), but she’s counting them out to us – 1,2,3,……- and she is just too darn cute. So – yeah – we have another set of postcards. But you know…..

The day only gets better. We visit 5 temples today – our favorite being Bayon, which has a series of towers (37 still standing – used to be 52 for all the provinces of Cambodia) with 4 smiling faces on each. It’s really a fantastic little temple – one of the last ones built by Jayavarman VII (the King who built most of the temples in the Angkor area).

We stop after Bayon for our picnic lunch – only we stop at a stall restaurant to eat! Funny! Leng and Lim (yeah, well, what can I say?) eat from the restaurant food, we unpack our little picnic lunch and order an extra beer. We’ve got chicken and mango salad and Thai Beef salad for our lunch – it’s all good, as usual, and fun sitting there in the shade watching the other restaurants, the hawkers (not so bad here) and the vendors in the markets go about their day.

After a couple more temples, the final stop is Ta Prohm, which has been intentionally left in a semi-restored state so everyone can see how the jungle takes over these ruins. All the temples were in a similar state when discovered, and it’s truly amazing how they have been restored and reconstructed when you see these huge fig trees and their snaking roots strangling the stone that make up the temple. This is where Angelina Jolie filmed the Tomb Raider, which would be really cool if we were into the movie,b ut unfortunately I keep confusing it with Harrison Ford and Raiders of the Lost Ark – so I’m a little disappointed when I figure it out! And of course Ed just thinks I’m nuts coz I keep doing the Raiders theme music when Ta Prohm gets mentioned or when we are walking around! Ha!

After Ta Prohm, we hit the road back to the Villa for relaxing and unwinding before our Folkloric dance/dinner tonight. It’s early enough that we decide to go cool off at the pool. Mr. Leng dutifully appears to drive us over there (we could have walked but they won’t hear of it!). It’s close by, so we give him the afternoon off by deciding to walk back when we are done. The pool is at another hotel a few blocks away (name has been completely forgotten!!!). It’s a gorgeous pool, one of those infinity ones with a great spa – it’s all salt water too which is so soothing after the heat and the sun. We swim around and hang out in the spa in absolute bliss for about an hour, then drag ourselves out and back to the Villa. Ed goes out to the garden for beer and internet, I head up to the room for the first of my 2 massages. It’s pouring again, so good timing!

Massaged and relaxed, we head to the Folkloric show thorugh the flooded streets of Siem Reap. It really floods here – and this rain has been torrential – but only in spurts – we can’t imagine what it would be like in the true rainy season. We’re heading to the Folkloric show and the tuk-tuk can barely make it – we’re more floating than driving! We get to the show a little damp, but overall in tact! We would typically avoid this kind of thing, but it comes with the package, so we’ll go. What the heck? And it’s really not too bad. A little cheesy, but you have to see it. The dancing is nice – Khmer and Aspara (butterfly) dancing – and the buffet is actually extremely good. Different stations all over the room – noodle station, soup station, spring roll station, main entrees and dessert station. It’s all quite nice – we had beer and wine – and as we sat through the dance, decided we wanted to leave a little early to beat the crowd out the door. We asked for our check 45 minutes early, it never came, so we got up, left, found Leng waiting for us right at the front door – and heading straight to Pub Street!

This time we went all the way to the end – and out of Pub Street to the X Bar – which was at the top of a 3 story building. Dive! But fun – with a nice view of Pub Street (nice being a very euphemistic term!). Beer, wine, nothing happening there – it’s too early – so we wander back past Molly Malone’s – nothing happening there – no singer – back past In Touch – not going there – too expensive – just as we thought we were striking out we finally found Angkor What? The bar that started it all 10 years ago.

This place is cool! It’s kind of like OBX’s The Pitt, only in Cambodia! Decent wine, great beer, cool t-shirts. We sit outside like locals and watch the crowd parade by on the street. A cop came in, got some water and left –but we’re convinced the cops have an APB out on us for the beer and wine we stiffed at the folkloric place. Sat a while more, a few more cops, they’re still looking for us, bought a t-shirt ($4 US – at a bar!!!! This place is crazy cheap!) then hopped a tuk-tuk back to the Villa.

And guess what was waiting for us? The bill from the folkloric show!! Too funny! The little girl at the desk said “oh, you did not pay your bill”, we said “Oh, we asked for the bill and it never, ever came, we’re happy to pay it now!” What a laugh!