Day 15 -- Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom
OK, no matter what you’re doing, 4 a.m. is just an evil hour to get a wakeup call. But we all put our game faces on (along with clothes that covered shoulders, knees and cleavages) and met Samart in the lobby.
First stop was the off-site center where you acquire your entrance passes for the temples. Despite it being before 5 a.m., this place was buzzing with activity. It’s a bit of a bureaucratic headache to get your passes (kind of like a visit to the DMV, complete with photos), but Samart managed us through the process and we were back on the road in 20 minutes or so.
The van let us off in a dark parking lot and Samart guided us along with the flashlight in his cell phone. LOTS of people were making the walk along a wide path, then across a slightly alarming floating walkway over the massive moat that surrounds the entire complex and onto the grassy grounds of the temple. We perched on some rough stone blocks next to an ancient building Samart described as a library and peered through the dark as the sky slowly brightened and the iconic thousand-year-old silhouette of Angkor Wat became visible. We walked a little closer and joined a massive crowd of tourists, hawkers, photographers and guides hoping for the perfect shot of the temple reflected in the quiet lagoon that mirrors it. Glenn nailed it.
Angkor Wat is immense -- an absolutely overwhelming pile of carved stone, blackened with age and lichen, creepy, intimidating and weirdly gorgeous. Its galleries -- hundreds of feet long -- are lined by minutely detailed stone reliefs of an astounding variety of scenes: violent battles, scenes from Hindu literature, even everyday life. The most gripping is a depiction of the “churning of the ocean of milk” -- the Hindu myth in which armies of gods and demons (devas and asuras) engage in an epic tug of war in a sea of milk, using the serpent Vasuki as the rope and ultimately churning out the nectar of immortality. (Multiple guides -- including Samart -- described this same relief as depicting a defining battle between the Khmer and the Cham people, which was a little easier to get your head around, but probably inaccurate.)
As with so many ancient sites, Angkor Wat started as a Hindu temple but evolved into a Buddhist monastery over the centuries. The superimposition of Buddha among the much more varied, violent and deeply odd Hindu figures and images is disorienting. As we left, we crept past a group of clearly devout Buddhists burning incense and praying to a gold Buddha draped in bright red and gold silk -- a jarringly colorful image in the otherwise monochrome temple.
We took a break for a nice Western style breakfast back at the hotel -- croissants, avocado toast, eggs, bacon, fresh fruit juices and (according to Dave) decent coffee -- a provision it had been harder to come by than we’d anticipated on this trip. Samart picked us up again at 8:30 and we struck back out for Angkor Thom, the 12th century capital of the Khmer empire.
You enter Angkor Thom via a long bridge lined on either side with a parade of stone demons carrying a very long snake. At the end of the bridge, you go under a massive stone arch topped by a tower with four faces carved into it -- one looking in each direction of the compass. It is the most Indiana Jones-y looking thing I have ever seen and honey, I’ve been to Petra.
After navigating the demons and the gate, we took a short break at a little information center while our driver took Holly to the nearest bathroom (which was far, far away) and the rest of us enjoyed reading the quite good information boards on the preservation efforts underway and watching the mahouts texting while elephant riding.
It was now mid morning and Bayon -- the major temple of Angkor Thom -- was starting to be overrun with tour groups. All was well in the outer galleries where we spent a very entertaining half hour examining the most detailed carvings yet, depictions of pretty much every human activity you could image (including giving birth, being eaten by a crocodile and getting high). As we moved into the interior of the temple, the more claustrophobic effect of being in tight spaces with way too many people began to take their toll -- we got a look at the key features, but cut our meandering short to move on to less teeming parts of the complex.
The mostly shady walk between Bayon and Baphoun provided our one and only monkey sighting on the trip, but it was a thoroughly satisfying one. Loads of petite grey langur monkeys -- including a mother with a toddler and a nursing baby -- were hanging out among the gnarled trees and ruined stone blocks being highly photogenic.
We climbed the steep staircase to the first level of Baphoun and Mary and Samart peeled off to walk the perimeter of the first level and meet the more ambitious climbers on the other side. Holly and I intended to make it all the way to the top, but after climbing the exceedingly steep and not terribly sturdy ladder to the second level decided we’d had enough -- we navigated across on the second level through a spectacular narrow-arched gallery and felt like we’d found the coolest space in Baphoun. Dave and Glenn made it all the way to the top and I’m sure enjoyed a fabulous view. On the way back to the ground we all turned back to admire the amazing image of a reclining Buddha subtly built into the bricks of the entire exterior wall -- it’s virtually impossible to see in a photograph and feels a bit like a hidden picture puzzle even in real life.
We headed out along a long wall, stopping to admire a glamorous bride and groom having their wedding photos taken in this most dramatic setting, and then on to the Terrace of the Elephants. This huge open space is framed by a 1,500 foot wall of carved elephants, some in bas relief, some with their three-dimensional heads and trunks coming straight out of the wall. At first you think it’s utterly charming and whimsical. Closer examination reveals just how many of the elephants are either stepping on someone’s bursting head or whipping someone by their ankles in a deadly splatter against a wall. It gave me a whole new appreciation for pumpkin chunks.
So here’s a bit of semi-contrarian advice. Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom are insanely awesome, but if I had it to do again, I’d skip the sunrise thing. It’s extremely crowded and not all that dramatic. Instead, buy yourself a parasol or a good sunhat and go at noon. You won’t have the place completely to yourself, but it’ll be a lot less chaotic.
As we’d been up since 4 a.m. we didn’t feel too guilty about heading back to the hotel for a bit of R&R before our early dinner. A long swim in the gorgeous salt water pool followed by a traditional Khmer massage was just the ticket. For me, at least: Dave instead spent a couple of hours working, poor soul.
Cuisine Wat Damnak is the hottest restaurant in Siem Reap and our travel company had not been able to get us a reservation. Our new friend Tu (the Vietnamese god) had more pull, however, and we had a table for five at 6:30. We had many excellent meals on this trip, but Cuisine Wat Damnak was a uniquely luxurious, leisurely and creative meal. The chef combined local ingredients and European techniques to present the kind of dining you pay $150 per person for in DC. We had six courses plus various little extras for $31 apiece. (Sorry to keep harping on how cheap things were, but I really never got used to the fact that everything was really cheap! That amazing 90-minute massage I mentioned? 36 bucks.)
