Waiting For the Sun

Can you feel it  / Now that Spring has come / That it’s time to live in the scattered sun. Our tuk tuk driver, Sing, was promptly waiting for us in front of our hotel at 4:30 am. It was still pitch black out. Luckily, Shiv had packed our headlamps. We were headed to the Phnom Bakheng temple to catch the sunrise. Most people come to this temple for the sunset, but, in the hopes of avoiding too much tourist traffic, we opted for the sunrise. Our plan was to catch the sunrise, come back to the hotel to eat breakfast, and then hop on a day-long group tour of Angkor.

Phnom Bakheng

The 4:30 am start time allowed for us to drive over to the ticketing area, stand in line for our tickets, drive from the ticketing area to the Bahkeng area, and then hike the 15 minutes up to Phnom Bakheng. You’d be surprised at the number of people up at this hour wanting to do the same thing. We got our tickets within 10 minutes time and Sing brought us to the trail head up to Phnom Bakheng. With headlamps on, we set foot up the trail in the darkness. This area is still a jungle, so I was hoping we wouldn’t have any unwelcome visitors during the dark hike. Thankfully, we reached the top without any surprises.

We had no idea where to go once we got there as signage was confusing and, like I said, it was dark. In a twist, I, the one who can’t find her way out of a paper bag, was the one who eventually found the stairs leading up! Good thing, too, because Shiv was starting to get grumpy, thinking he would miss the sunrise after making the grand effort to get up early. Amazingly, we were the first ones there! And for a time, the only ones there. Shiv found a good spot to set up the camera. While he did that, I explored.

Phnom Bakheng was built in the 9th century and was originally dedicated to Shiva. It predates Angkor Wat by two centuries and marks the move of the capital of the Khmer empire from Rolous (where we were yesterday) to Angkor. Later in its history, Phnom Bakheng, like other temples in the area, was converted to a Buddhist temple.

The sunrise didn’t end up being so fabulous, but it was cool that we hiked in the dark and were the first people there. We grabbed Sing at the entrance, headed back to our hotel for breakfast, and then waited for our tour group to pick us up.

Touring Angkor Wat

Normally, Shiv and I aren’t the tour group kind of travelers. Besides just wanting to do our own thing, it is often tedious to move around in a large group.  But there is so much history here, so much ground to cover, that we thought it best to join a group for at least one day. It was $13 each, and they picked you up from your hotel – so, a pretty good deal. Our group of 10 consisted of 2 Eastern Europeans, 2 Brits, 2 Thais, and 4 Americans.

Our tour guide was a curious little Cambodian, very proud of his culture and its people. He mostly threw shade at the Thai people for trying to ruin their culture and stealing all of their statues and gold (did you notice that there were 2 Thai people on our group tour – aaaaawkward!) Often times during our tour, he would stand and face no one in particular and loudly spout off fact after fact after fact, as if he was making a speech. It also took me half of the day to recognize that when he was saying dizzy he actually meant disease. So, we got the tour and the added (non-planned) entertainment of our tour guide.

Ta Prohm

Our first stop on the tour was the famous Lara Croft Tomb Raider temple, also known as Ta Prohm. This is the temple that has a lot of the tree-in-temple photo opportunities. The massive fig and silk-cotton trees grow right out of the side of the temple, upwards towards the sky, while their roots dig into the ground. Originally Buddhist, it was constructed between the mid-12th and early 13th centuries by King Jayavarman VII.

We spent an hour and half here exploring in the hot rain. We did not bring our umbrella, so we got muddy and wet, but I guess that’s part of the fun. It really did feel like we were Indiana Jonesing it out there.

Angkor Thom

Our next stop was Angkor Thom, a 3-kilometer walled and moated royal city that was the last capital of the Angkorian empire. By this time, the rain had stopped and the humidity just hung heavy in the air, and so we remained wet, not knowing if the wetness was rain or sweat.

There are five entrance gates, and our guide took us through the Victory Gate, which leads to the Royal Palace area. Included in Angkor Thom are Baphuon, Bayon, Terrace of the Elephants, and the Terrace of the Leper King.

Bayon

Probably the second most famous wat in the area due to the many recognizable, giant stone faces, Bayon has 37 towers, most of which support 4 carved faces on each side. The identity of the faces aren’t known for sure, but many speculate they are Loksvara, Mahayana Buddism’s compassionate Bodhisattva, or perhaps a combination of Buddha and King Jayavarman VII. This temple has unfinished carvings on the wall, likely indicating the death of King Jayavarman VII and, thus, his building campaign.

Shiv and I, at the behest of our tour guide, took a picture in front of the ‘happy Buddha.’ We put on our best what? no, we aren’t dying of heat stroke faces.

Buphuon

This temple was recently opened in 2011 after over twenty years of extensive restorations. It was built in the mid-11th century by King Udayadityavarman II and was dedicated to Lord Shiva. It’s massive and you have to climb a very steep staircase to get up to the top, but it’s worth it. Like Bakheng, this temple was later converted to a Buddhist temple. We did this exploration in the heat and humidity, too.

Terrace of the Elephants

A 300m long terrace of carved elephants. Not much more I can say here.

Terrace of the Leper King

A statue on a terrace. Why it is called that is under debate still, with some arguing that when the statue was found, its condition gave it the appearance of having leprosy. Others argue that it is the leper king of Khmer legend (and now you see where our tour guide kept saying dizzy, actually meaning disease). The statue on display is a replica. The actual statue is in the National Museum in Phnom Penh.

Lunch

At this point, we finally headed off to lunch. Thank goodness because I was getting hangry. Our guide promised an air-conditioned lunch area, so our group of stinky travelers felt relieved. AC there was, but good food there was not. Shiv’s dish was the laughing stock of our table because what he ordered and what he got was completely different. They even gave him the ol’ same, same excuse when he asked the waitress about the mystery dish. Must be a SE Asia thing!

What he got instead was so disgustingly foul that all we could do was laugh. It was a plate full of floppy, skinned cucumbers and two bits of sallow chicken smothered in gelatinous orange goop.  I shared my massaman curry with him as he (rightly) refused to eat his dish. The tall Angkor beer made up for any lingering hunger.

Angkor Wat

After lunch we headed to the crown jewel of Siem Reap, Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world. King Suryavarman II built this temple during the 12th century and dedicated it to the Hindu god, Vishnu. It really is breathtaking. Filled with bas-reliefs of devatas (deities) and apsaras (dancing nymphs), amongst many other carvings of battle scenes and everyday life, there was so much to take in here. Also, our tour guide made sure we all knew that he found the topless apsara dancers to be very sexy.

One of the items I really liked was the statue of Vishnu. As I mentioned before, the temples that used to be Hindu were all converted to Buddhism, thus removing any evidence of Hinduism, statues included. Through a number of different ways, all but a few of the Buddha statues were beheaded. I heard about looting from the Thai, about the Khmer Rouge banning all religion and cutting off the heads, and finally about local people desperate for gold during the civil war.

So, it was nice to see a real (headed) statue. Only 3 of Vishnu’s arms have been replaced. By his feet, you can even see some of the original painting. I made Shiv visit Vishnu twice with me.

End of the Day

Our group stayed at Angkor Wat until about 6pm. Have I mentioned that it’s really, really hot and humid in Cambodia? Well, it is and everyone was tired and smelly from the long, but educational day. Before leaving, however, we made sure to get some time in with the temple monkeys. I thought they were cute, but I’m sure they are pesky.

Dropped off at our hotel, we couldn’t wait to shower. Our hotel was equipped with a disco shower nozzle. This means that it has blinking, color-changing lights on the nozzle. It’s a party every time you shower, which was an amusing novelty. I couldn’t wait to party my sweat away. I hopped in the shower first only to discover that there was no water pressure. Shiv called the front desk and, long story short, I was half-showered and still stinky and Shiv didn’t get a shower in before dinner. We didn’t look the part, but we sure did smell the part of hippy backpackers.

One more sunrise at Angkor Wat

We had one last chance to catch a juicy sunrise. After a dinner of Cambodian BBQ (mix lime juice with salt, sugar, and Kampot pepper for a great dipping sauce), we got to bed early again. We arranged with Sing to pick us up once again at 4:30 am. Knowing full and well that it was going to be a zoo, we still had to try. It’s all about setting the right expectations.

Though we were hesitant to do the tour the day before, it did provide us a good amount of research in having a more successful sunrise day. We had scouted out a spot near the edge of the lake and crossed our fingers we’d be able to get a spot to setup Shiv’s mini tripod.

As we entered the area, we could already see hordes of people setting up (see picture proof above). When we came to our predetermined area, we found that it was empty! Perhaps Vishnu was smiling upon us? Not only that, but a lady selling coffee offered us her small plastic chairs for $1 to rent. Best investment ever! We set up shop, Shiv with the camera, me with the GoPro, in that perfect, little area. All while sitting comfortably in our chairs. Let me tell you, it got very heated with the crowd. I saw people pushing and shoving and carrying on arguments. If you venture for a sunrise at Angkor Wat, be forewarned.

And now we present to you our time lapse of the Angor Wat sunrise. Watch for the natural blue and red sunrays that happen!

Since we had some time before we needed to get to the airport, we had Sing take us to one more temple.

Banteay Kdei

This temple is in much the same condition as it was found. Since we were by ourselves (no tour guide) and practically the only people there, we had a blast exploring on our own and taking some fun pictures. This temple was built using an inferior grade of sandstone and poor construction techniques, so the deterioration is quite apparent. But I think that made it more fun to explore – looking for clues and following design patterns.

After an hour, we headed back to our hotel to finally take a shower and pack up for the airport. With still a little more time, we snuck in a bit of shopping, a $2 fifteen-minute massage, and shared a cold Angkor beer.

Shiv and I really enjoyed our introduction to Cambodia. The people were super nice and the atmosphere was traveler-friendly. While we loved experiencing its ancient past, we recognize that there is a more recent past that we need to better understand. Phnom Penh is somewhere we’d like to incorporate at the end of our trip, where possible, to learn more about the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge.