14th November - Ankor

Angkor Thom (literally  "Great City" in Cambodian) is the ancient capital of the Khmer Empire, and is situated in the jungle just a few km from Siem Reap.  It was abandoned at some point around the late 16th or early 17th century when the capital was moved to Phnom Pen.  The whole site is around 9 square km, so it is impossible to see it all.  Most of the population lived in wooden housing, with only the temples and important buildings being made of stone.  Only the stone buildings survive.

The whole city is surrounded by 3km walls on each side - each with its own gate, and encircled by a massive man made moat that could be mistaken for a lake.   We crossed the bridge and entered by the South Gate.  

The first building we visited was Bayon Temple. The temple has many towers all topped with Buddha faces - 216 faces in all.  Parts of the temple are in rough shape and various international organizations are busy repairing what they can.  Despite this we were allowed to walk around pretty much anywhere within the building.

After Bayon we moved on to Ta Prohm.  This is one of the iconic temples that has been largely overcome by vegetation, with huge tree roots growing out of the walls.  It was used in the filming of Angelina Jolie's film: Tomb Raider.  Ta Prohm was in worse shape than Bayon - the few parts that hadn't collapsed were being held up by metal scaffolding.  Again, some international organization was doing repair and restoration work.  The collapsed stones are a gigantic jigsaw puzzle - and these days they scan them into a computer and let the computer work out how they fit back together.


 After quite a physical morning navigating broken stone flooring, climbing over large stone blocks and avoiding tree roots, it was a short bus ride back to the hotel for lunch. .




In the afternoon we drove back again to visit the jewel in the crown: Angkor Wat.  This is the best known of the temples, and also seems to be the one in best repair.  It's also the largest, and features on Cambodia's national flag.  Today's fascinating fact is that supposedly Cambodia is the only country in the world to have a building on its national flag. 

The one thing that put a downer on the day were the ever present hawkers trying to sell you cheap silk scarves, post cards, books about Angkor, etc.   I'm  kind of surprised that the government allows them onto the site.  As soon as the bus pulls up they cluster around the door and keep thrusting stuff in your face yelling "one dollar one dollar! YOU BUY! YOU BUY"  and so on.  They follow you around the temple complex doing this - it's almost like running a gauntlet.  The psychology escapes me - why would they think I'll buy something if they shove something in my face a 5th time when I've shown no interest the first 4 times ?

The evening was free for us to do what we wanted, but both Denise and I decided an early night was in order as we had to be up at 4am to go and see the dawn at Angkor Wat.  So we were in bed (and asleep) by 7pm.