Angkor – The heart of the ancient Cambodian/Khymer kingdom

Wednesday 13th of September

Having got to bed around 11.00 p.m. last night we woke up at 6.30 a.m. this morning in the lovely Sokha Hotel in Siem Reap. After showering (what a lovely powerful shower) and dressing We went to Breakfast at 7.00 a.m. (1.00 a.m. BST) in the Lotus Restaurant in the hotel (see food section below).

I must admit that when we agreed to pay the extra money to do this three day trip it was because I had heard of Angkor Wat but knew very little about it. Little did I know how much there was to see, or how impressive things were going to be here.

The Khymer Empire was at its height between 802 and 1220 A.D. a time when Europe was in what history has called the dark ages. The well developed, culturally rich, empire was at the time at the height of civilisation while we were going backwards.

The Angkor city includes over 200 stone buildings which represented the capital city of the empire including palaces, public buildings and accommodation for the king, his ministers and their support staff. At its height the city was 15 miles long by 15 miles wide but much of the city was wood construction which has not survived.

Angkor Wat is one of the temples in the City, more details later, where the ruling kings had their primary temple and palace. Hence the confusion in my mind that we were going to see one big building, not a whole range of sites until going to Angkor.

Angkor was overpowered by the growing Thai power in 1431, when Thai armies attacked and the Cambodians moved their capital (it took another decade to finalise the move to Phenom Penh then in the centre of the country) and kings palaces, in the following year they abandoned Angkor which was left to decline. The name of the current town in this area, Siem Reap, means Siamese (Thai) town. What happened between the end of Angkor and start of Siem Reap is best told in the words of this website

Angkor was forgotten for a few centuries. Wandering Buddhist monks, passing
through the dense jungles, occasionally came upon the awesome ruins. Recognizing
the sacred nature of the temples but ignorant of their origins, they invented
fables about the mysterious sanctuaries, saying they had been built by the gods
in a far ancient time. Centuries passed, these fables became legends, and
pilgrims from the distant reaches of Asia sought out the mystic city of the
gods. A few adventurous European travellers knew of the ruins and stories
circulated in antiquarian circles of a strange city lost in the jungles. Most
people believed the stories to be nothing more than legend however, until the
French explorer Henri Mouhot brought Angkor to the world's attention in 1860.
The French people were enchanted with the ancient city and beginning in 1908
funded and superbly managed an extensive restoration project. The restoration
has continued to the present day, excepting periods in the 70's and 80's when
military fighting prevented archaeologists from living near the ruins.

The temples were places not for the worship of the kings but
rather for the worship of god. Precisely aligned with the stars, constructed as
vast three dimensional yantras and adorned with stunningly beautiful religious
art, the Angkor temples were instruments for assisting humans in their
realization of the divine.

Jayavaram VII, spoke of his intentions
in erecting temples as being:

“full of deep sympathy for the good
of the world, so as to bestow on men the ambrosia of remedies to win them
immortality….By virtue of these good works would that I might rescue all those
who are struggling in the ocean of existence.”

Having got onto the tour bus at 8.00 a.m. we first went to the temple of Ta Prohm.

In many ways Ta Prohm is more striking than any of the temples. Unlike the other temples at Angkor, Ta Prohm has been left as it was found, the tropical forest and the building have become so linked over the years that to move one would lose the impact of the other. I hope this is shown in our photos where the link between the live trees and the old stone is magnificent. The temple was built in them late 1100s by King Jayavarman VII in honour of his mother’s death and was a Buddhist Temple and significant university in the city.

The second temple we visited was Bayon which is another built during the reign of King Jayavarman VII but this time later in his reign in the mid 1200s. The most significant thing about Bayon is the many faces inlaid into the building. The guide told us these symbolised the four faces of life (but I didn’t get what those four characteristics were. They may well have been designed to represent the face of the king. This was also designed during the Buddhist period in Angkor, but some of it was amended early in the next century by one of the Hindu kings.

As we moved through the temples the temperature in the 80s is less of an issue than the Humidity - 93% - which means that even your sweat starts to sweat!!

Next it was on to the Terrace of the Leper King – this is named for a statue that was found on the site in the 16th century and made people think it was of a leper. However the original statue was of the Hindu God Yama which had deteriorated over the time that Angkor was empty.

Next to this terrace was the Terrace of the Elephants, this is where the king would oversee his armies and meet with overseas visitors. The details of this part of the complex of Angkor Thom (the great city) is known because Chinese diplomats visited the king here and wrote a detailed account of the decoration which was finer than any of the cities known to the Chinese. The stone that remains is nothing like the decorated and embellished home and palace fit for a great king that this diplomat records.

Having passed through the gates of Angkor Thom we went to the Angkor Tonie restaurant for lunch. The monsoon arrived soon after we got into lunch.

This afternoon it was out to see the most famous of the sites at Angkor – Angkor Wat:

Angkor Wat, built during the early years of the 12th century by Suryavaram II,
honours the Hindu god Vishnu and is a symbolic representation of Hindu
cosmology. Consisting of an enormous temple symbolizing the mythic Mt. Meru, its
five inter-nested rectangular walls and moats represent chains of mountains and
the cosmic ocean. The short dimensions of the vast compound are precisely
aligned along a north-south axis, while the east-west axis has been deliberately
diverted 0.75 degrees south of east and north of west, seemingly in order to
give observers a three day anticipation of the spring equinox.

For more on Angkor Wat see the Wikipedia entry. While the rain poured down, we hardly noticed due to the amazing sites of this temple. I would put this on the must see list of anyone who is planning a holiday in the next few years. Its impact is phenomenal.

At about 4.30 we headed back to the Hotel for an evening meal and Apsara dancing. The Cambodian version of the dance mixes the Thai and Indian styles of dancing

A brief visit to the bar and it was bed at 10.30 p.m.

Food and Drink

Breakfast was an excellent buffet, with a wide range of European and local dishes. I opted for Orange Juice, Grapefruit Juice and Pineapple Juice followed by fresh fruit (papaya, water melon, melon and pineapple) and then Bacon and Sausages. Drew had a little less juice than me, but added Hash Browns to his cooked food. As usual this was supplemented by Coffee for Drew and Tea for me.

At lunch we were at a Restaurant in the Angkor complex. Yet again it was a buffet – there was nothing special about the food at lunch. The dishes were more like Chinese food than Cambodian food, but as we had had a good breakfast this didn’t matter. Drew washed it down with a ‘Angkor Beer’ I had a water.

The restaurant at Angkor was not brilliant and the toilet there was even worse, not only was the flush intermittent, but the toilet roll was so thin it was unusable. I’m so glad that from the age of 7 my mother always got me to pack toilet roll for my travels – while as I’ve got older it has migrated to kitchen roll – it came in very handy indeed this lunch time!!!

Dinner this evening was amazing. The range of food, including a whole cow cooked in a clay oven, was amazing. Having had a starter made up of Cambodian Spring rolls (very spicy like the Vietnamese version yesterday) and some noodle salad with chilli and ginger, I decided to try the noodle soup. This is managed like an Omelette station. i.e. there is a large pot of stock boiling away, you then select vegetables (I went for bean sprouts, pak choi and cabbage) and meat, beef for me, and this is then put in the stock (in a device, which I’ve seen in kitchen shops but did not know the use for, which has a handle and is like a thin pointy strainer) to cook. It then is served with some of the stock and spices can be added. Wow this noodle soup was beautiful. Drew had the same with a slightly different mix of ingredients. I couldn’t resist having some of the beef from the whole cow, how tender it was. This was accompanied by oyster and shitake mushrooms, fried rice (again a lovely spicy Cambodian version of the dish) and stir-fried noodles. I joined Drew in an Angkor Beer for the meal.

We had three G&Ts in the bar before bed.