Feb 8 Siem Reap Cambodia

Today we started our tour of the temples, palaces and impressive ruins of Angkor Wat and some of the hundreds of temples built from the 9th to 15th in this area. The UNESCO World Heritage site “Angkor Archaeological Park” is the largest religious monument in the world, in an area measuring 402 acres. Within a few miles of us are 15 or so major sites (each with many multiple monuments) and a there are still few more major sites within about 35 miles.

Today we first visited the Angkor Wat temple complex, the most well known of the sites and containing the largest and now intact buildings. (Much restoration has been done). For a few hours we walked through a number of buildings including climbing to the highest point (in 90+degrees!) – the bas relief art throughout the temples showed amazing appreciation of beauty.

Sidebar – Angkor Wat: Originally constructed as a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Vishnu for the Khmer Empire by King Suryavarman II during the 12th century, it was gradually transformed into a Buddhist temple towards the end of the century; as such, it is also described as a “Hindu-Buddhist” temple.

After lunch we went first to the temple Ta Praham (built in late 12th century as a Mahayana Buddhist monastery) where much restoration is still taking place in spite of the huge overgrowth of silk-cotton trees destroying many of the building that weren’t already blasted during the Khmer Rouge days (the temples were used for ammo storage). This site area was used in a Tomb Raider film and Dirk and I are in front of one our the scene’s creepy doors.

By the way, we did this tour by tuk-tuk, the small carriage pulled by a motorcycle – this one had room for 4 people. After about an hour we headed to our next temple complex, Bayon.

In the Bayon complex we saw uniquely decorated towers and walls that my photos don’t do justice to. This was built as a Khmer Buddhist state temple in the late 12th/early 13th century and occupied the center of the rulers capital city, Angkor Thom.

What stands out here are the 4 smiling or serene faces on the many towers that are part of the buildings and also the bas relief art that depict every day life rather than stories of Gods. Amazing, and again lots of work needed if the temples are ever to be repaired.