Indiana Jones and the Temple of Angkor

We arrived in Siem Reap excited to see Angkor Wat, the world's largest temple, as well as other temples built by the Khmer Empire from about 800-1400AD. The Khmer, once the predominant power in South East Asia, built scores of temples surrounding Siem Reap. The area, collectively known as Angkor, was the largest preindustrial city in the world, with nearly one-million inhabitants, at a time when London was home to only fourty thousand. After the collapse of the empire, the temples were abandoned, and suffered severe decay from wet weather, jungle growth, looters, and vandalism. They were "discovered" again in the mid-1800s by a French explorer (brought there by a Khmer guide) who popularized them to the west. Many of the temples remain in ruins, from centuries of neglect, although some survived or have been partially restored by various NGOs.

We arranged for a tuk-tuk driver to take us around the temples over three jam-packed days and on our first day, we were joined by a tour guide. The guide helped us understand the history, symbolism, and stories of each temple. We started out with sunrise over Angkor Wat at 5:30am, and didn't quit that day until nearly 4pm. The next day, we took in another sunrise and lasted til sundown, making our way to some of the outlying temples. By day three, we skipped the sunrise and stopped midday, suffering from some severe temple fatigue.

Angkor Wat, the Cambodian people's favorite, also proved to be ours. The temple is surrounded by a moat 2 miles long, rises to 65 meters, and was constructed around the same time as Paris' Notre Dame. It was built as a shrine to the Hindu god Vishnu, although has fluctuated between Hinduism, Buddhism, and a combination thereof throughout its history. Our first glance at dawn (pictured below) was an amazing sight and made us consider just how different it is than any other structure in the world.



Covering the outer wall, 800 meters of bas-relief carvings record various historical or religious stories in great detail. We spent a lot of time learning the significance of each of these. Below is a picture of one of the most famous bas-reliefs, the Churning of the Sea of Milk story, but I'll leave out the long explanation of it.



On the last day, Steve took a hot-air balloon ride to get an aerial view of Angkor Wat. Those pictures are in the online album, and show you the grand scale of it all.

Another favorite was Bayon. Built by a king who clearly liked himself, the temple looks out over the land with 200+ faces that are a combination of his own and buddha's. While there are also various carvings here, the faces were the main attraction. Steve couldn't resist this opportunity:



Our next choice was Ta Prohm, which you'll likely recognize from the movie Tomb Raider. This temple, torn apart by jungle growth, was not fully restored and allows visitors feel like they are discovering it themselves. Only the largest trees remain, but it still feels like you are Indiana Jones walking through the ruins.



The last one I'll mention is Bantaey Srei and while minascure by comparison, has some of the finest details in its carvings.



Another great moment was sunset atop one of the temples.



Aside from temples, we toured the Cambodian Landmine Museum to learn a bit more about the six million mines that have been laid here by the Khmer Rouge, various other Cambodian governements, Thailand, Vietnam, America, and Russia. The head of the museum was a former Khmer Rouge soldier who laid thousands of mines and is now doing his best to remove them, having so far personally removed over 50,000.

We had planned to do some volunteer work here, but ultimately decided against it. While there are plenty of opportunities to visit orphanages, it is difficult to determine if showing up for a day is good or bad for the children. Most places either charge you a significant amount of money (which may or may not go to the children) or require a monthly commitment. Instead we bought some students lunch at the market and handed out some toys to children who were working.

Our last stop in Siem Reap was to their night market, which was unlike every other market we've been to and must have been established exclusively for tourists. The shops here had a bit more variety and creativity than we've seen elseswhere, and as a result we made some purchases. We picked up some souvenier tshirts, Cambodian scarves, and silver trinkets which are popular here.

Today we fly to Laos, to swing through trees with gibbon monkeys and celebrate the buddhist new year! Cambodia has been a great stop and we really recommend it to everyone.