The Temples of Angkor

Much like the Great Wall of China and the Great Barrier Reef, the (great) ruins of Angkor did not disappoint us despite being so full of hype and expectations.  Also like the Wall and the Reef, it is difficult to explain what made visiting the ruined Angkor temples so special.  Photos don't really do the crumbling sandstone blocks and overgrown structures justice, and words can't quite convey the sense of history and mystery the decaying splendor of Angkor and it's 300 plus temple ruins give off.  The temples are very photogenic, but their full scale and brilliant detail don't translate in photographs.  Standing below, around, and in some of the most impressive existing structures from any ancient civilization, it is easy to imagine the former glory that was the Angkor civilization even as the temples lay in ruins.  Anytime the old, collapsed version of something makes you stop and ponder in amazement, you know something impossible was built there long ago.  We often just stared in awe, imagining the temples in their heyday.

The oldest temples date from the 9th century, while some of the most famous, including Angkor Wat, were constructed in the 12th century.  The Angkor civilization spanned from the 9th to the 15th century and during that time some 30 plus kings attempted to out-do one another by building their own temples.  The result is over 300 beautifully collapsing and rebuilt versions of temples about six kilometers from Siem Reap. The temples have a fascinating combination of Hindu and Buddhist influences, and sometimes one religion would be removed from a temple entirely and replaced with the other.

Our lovely guide Kanha

One way to see the Angkor temple area, and the way that worked well for us, was to hire a tuk tuk driver and a tour guide for the day.  The tuk tuk allows you to see more and rest your feet once and a while (and the breeze of an open-air tuk tuk is heaven-sent on those very hot days!), and the (English speaking) tour guide allows you to gain a deeper understanding of what you are looking at.  The temples and ruins are all very beautiful and alluring, but without a guide it is difficult to grasp the finer details, history and meaning of the temples.  As we've mentioned before, the number one rule when sightseeing with a tour guide is that the sight is only as good as the guide.  Angkor Wat might be an exception, but the rest of the temples in the Angkor area (and our day as a whole) were vastly improved by our excellent tour guide, Kanha (pronounced Khan-Ya).  She was the perfect blend of friendly, informative, and funny.  Although we learned somethings about the Angkor temples from Kanha, our favorite conversations with her were more personal ones about her family and about us.  Kanha has three siblings, the oldest of which (her big sister) was taken from the family by the Khmer Rouge to a "reeducation camp" when she was a child (thankfully, she was reunited with her family not long after).  The highlight of the day was sitting in Angkor Wat for a half hour talking about Seattle, Cambodia, her life, and ours - everything but the temples.

Our conversations and day with Kanha aren't to say that we didn't enjoy exploring and learning about Angkor Wat and the other temples we visited.  Kanha added an additional level of interest with stories and descriptions of things we would have otherwise just stared stupidly at, and perhaps flicked a meaningless photo of.  We were accompanied on our second day at Angkor by a different guide, Kanha's friend Ra.  Kanha had another group coming in to town, so she was unable to show us around on our second day, but her friend Ra was a great guide too.  Ra was maybe a bit more history, story, and information focused, which was a good contrast following our friendship bonding day with Kanha.  We learned in more detail about each site we visited with Ra, though he also talked a bit about his personal and family history growing up during the time of the Khmer Rouge and the civil wars that plagued Cambodia from 1979 to 1999. 


The best way to summarize our two days at Angkor might be a quick breakdown of our favorite sites:


Ta Prohm
Featured in the film Tomb Raider, Ta Prohm looks like something straight out of Indiana Jones.  The temple has been left much as it was when the first Europeans stumbled upon it, overgrown and crumbling.  Some trees seem to grow right out of the temple itself and they seem to be winning in the age-old battle of man(made) versus nature.


 
Angkor Thom (Ancient City)
This enormous ancient city was the center of the Angkor empire.  It was a bustling city of over 1 million back when London had around 55,000 people!

Bayon
This is one of the most famous temples around Angkor for its countless four-sided Buddha face towers.  Bayon was Jeff's favorite temple and the best, just before Ta Prohm, for taking awesome photos. 

Baphuon 
Some have called this the world's largest jigsaw puzzle.  Archeoligists deconstructed it before the civil war but their progress was interrupted by the Khmer Rouge.  Now, twenty-five painstaking years later, it has been put back together after no shortage of sweat and difficulty.


Angkor Wat
What can we say?  Angkor Wat is one of the world's most famous man-made structures, and for good reason.  It is impressive from far away, close up, from above, from below, and especially at sunrise (a typical sunrise at Angkor Wat brings about 1,000 tourists out at about 5:30 am).  The remarkably large and detailed carvings detailing ancient stories and histories of Angkor were as awesome to look at as the enormous temple itself.



Sunrise at Angkor Wat
Beautiful! Astounding! Breathtaking! Totally worth getting up at 4:30am to see (and Annette wouldn't say that about many things).

Landmine Museum
Though not officially part of the Angkor complex, this nearby museum told the story of Aki Ra, the founder of the museum and several other impressive ventures.  His is a truly heroic and amazing tale.  It is hard to do his life's work justice here, but we'll gladly tell you what we learned sometime over dinner or a beer.  In short, he has spent the second half of his life finding and disarming landmines and Unexploded Ordinances (UXO) that plague Cambodia's rural areas.  He spent the first part of his life as a child soldier for the Khmer Rouge planting many of those same landmines.  Most estimates put the number of landmines and UXO that dot Cambodia's countryside at about 6 million.  Aki Ra has disarmed over 50,000 of what remain himself, and heads his own de-mining organization as well as founding a school and safe-haven for young victims of landmines.  He is truly a hero and an inspiration, and his museum is an excellent introduction to his work and the many ways the civil war and Khmer Rouge (and the relentless bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam war) still affect Cambodian's everyday lives.