Highlights of Vietnam and Cambodia

Day Twelve – 28 January 2015

Weather – hot and hazy

I slept like a log dreaming of a certain team winning the Superbowl…and it wasn’t the Seahawks.

The second dream about the board game Clue should have been a hint.

The Butler did it!

Breakfast is again a great spread with an omelet chef and seating indoors and out. Seems we batted .100 when it came to great breakfast buffets.

We get split into two groups and meet the nine who join us from the TT Thailand tour. All but 2 from their tour did the extension. They all go on the first bus with some from our tour and the rest of us get on bus 2. Tran splits his time between the buses and we can usually hear him on the “listening device” when he’s on the other bus. We can also hear the coughing. Apparently, someone who was sick came on the Thailand tour and spread it to the whole group.

They also got a woman who had apparently broken her foot over Christmas and was going around in a wheelchair part of the time and hobbling on a crutch at other times. Sounded like there were some issues there with their tour. I know I wouldn’t have done the tour with a broken foot. There are a lot of places one cannot go and why waste the tour unable to climb to the third level of Angkor Wat.

Travel insurance, eh?

So, we’re off to Angkor Wat and we’re like a group of kids going to the candy store. The first stop is at the entrance where we get off the bus, get our pic taken and printed on our multi-day ticket (to prevent others from using it when we’re done with it. This one is good for up to a week.

We get back on the bus and drive around to the back door. Angkor Wat has a back door. Who knew!

Tran hands us off to a local archeologist who he says is the expert. Cool. First thing he tells us is that the site is surrounded by a moat that is perfectly square. This isn’t for protection but as a symbol of the sea while the temple itself is a symbol of the mountains. As we walk in, he points out people in the water who are cleaning out the algae.

We stop at the back gate and the archeologist gives us some basic information. Angkor Wat means City of Temples and is the largest religious monument in the world and largest stone structure ever built. It was the capital of the Khmer empire and built in the 12th Century by the Khmer King Suryavarman II. Unlike other temples, this one was dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu instead of Shiva. It took 37 years to build and construction stopped after the king died.

Twenty-seven years later, it was sacked by the Chams whose king established his state temples at Angkor Thom and the Bayon nearby. The site eventually became a Buddhist temple and was never fully abandoned but was neglected for some years, the moat protecting it from encroachment by the jungle. It was discovered by westerners first in the 16th Century and again in the 19th Century by the French. Restoration began in the 20th Century and in some cases, the French had used concrete for restoration and that had to be removed and replaced with the same sandstone used by the builders. Restoration was interrupted by the Khmer Rouge. During the wars, it was used as a barracks but left relatively untouched except for the theft of artifacts – among them the heads from hundreds of statues of Buddha and some minor damage from small arms fire.

We step up to the door of the back gate and voila, there’s Angkor Wat perfectly framed in the doorway. Well, except for the ten people squeezed in there trying to get a picture. So, I squeeze by and just take a pic in the open.

Okay, I take like 12 pics.

After we’re done with our snapfest, we turn left and it’s not long before we see the monkeys in the field.

Even cute baby ones that don’t have a lot of fear of humans. Doesn’t take much to drag our attention from Angkor Wat…for a minute.

We walk to the first level and take pictures then move through the hall which has carvings in the wall.

The carvings are considered the greatest known linear arrangement of stone carvings. They show Hindu epics, procession of the first king and representations of battles as well as the Churning of the Sea of Milk.

In one hallway are several Buddha statues without their heads. The Khmer Rouge came here and took a chainsaw to the statues, selling off the heads to raise money. Some of the heads were later returned, but most remain headless. If I heard right, there were more than a thousand.

We step into the area just below the third level and look up…way way up. The stairs to the third level are very steep. We don’t use the original steps. Wooden ones were constructed with handrails to make it easy…or rather easier. At this point, knees and shoulders need to be covered and hats off.

I make the climb and turn around to take a pic. Not sure if it does the angle justice.

It’s a great view from the third level. The centre tower has what looks like four courtyards around it but they are the king’s swimming pools which are kept drain now.

We visit the reclining Buddha.

When we’re done marveling at the site and taking pics, we line up for the climb down. Some go down backwards. I look back hoping all behind me are holding on. One misstep and we’d be a staircase of dominoes.

When we’re all down safely, the archeologist takes us to the spot where we can take the iconic photo. Since its dry season, there’s not a lot of water there. Most thought the reflection was the moat but it’s actually just a pool of standing water. We go mad taking pics and turn around to see most of the group taking the long walk back. The photographers in the group take off after them.

I pass a horse all done up and stop to take some pics with Angkor Wat in the background. I offer a tip to the horse owner but he turns it down.

We say farewell to the archeologist, find our buses and head out now to the Bayon temple which is at the centre of Angkor Thom. It was built by the Buddhist King Jayavarma in the late 12th or early 13th Century.

As we get closer we realize it’s more than just a pile of rock. The towers all have faces. Pretty wild. Tran shows us spots where we can get 3 or 4 faces in one photo. Or as in this case, 5 faces.

And one spot where you can stand nose to nose with one of the faces….sorta.

Yeah, the face is like 5 metres behind him. Like Ankor Wat, there are a number of carvings depicting various events like the battle on Tonle Sap to cockfights. We weren’t the only ones in awe of this amazing temple.

We head on out for our lunch. It’s another set menu in an open air restaurant. Delicious. Since I don’t like fish, I tend to get deep fried spring rolls a lot. Yum. Oh wait…

We have no temples for the afternoon and I think that’s planned because it can get hard to do them all day in the heat. First is the obligatory factory stop to Artisans Angkor where disadvantaged youth are taught various trades from woodworking to carving.

We do a quick tour and are let loose on the shop. I like the t-shirts they’re wearing and manage to get one. Better quality than what is on the street.

We all get back to the bus early and head on to our Buddhist blessing. Tran shows us around the monastery and into the temple where we have to take off our shoes and sit on the rug so that the soles of our feet face away from Buddha. Incidentally, there’s a huge digital clock under the statue of Buddha.

Two young monks show up and sit before us. One of them takes questions and he tells us about how this monastery has a school that teaches all the subjects including the sciences. Some will become monks. Some won’t.

When the questions are done, he asks us to close our eyes and they do a chant and spray water in our direction. At least I hope that’s what I tasted.

We finish up and head out for the market. It’s almost five by the time we get there and we all agree to 30 minutes. I’m able to pick up some last minute stuff and we’re back to the hotel by 5:45 which gives us about an hour to get ready for the Apsara Dancing and dinner.

The site is only like four doors down from the hotel but we still get the bus. (Granted, in the dark, the footing would be tricky). We get another set menu and a great view of the dancers.