We flew directly to Siem Reap, home of the famous ruins of Angkor Wat. The landscape was sparse and brown as we flew into the airport, and marked with what I suspect were the scars of land mines. When we got out the air was hot, still and dusty. Immigration and customs was not a problem; we got in our taxi and were whisked off to a guesthouse. The street was wide and bumpy and covered in fine red dust. Compared to the compact bustle of Vietnam, Siem Reap felt like the old west -- except of course, for the Royal palace and gardens, the temples, the funny writing on everything, the scooters...
We settled into our hotel and then walked into center of town to explore, have lunch, and buy our onward tickets to Bangkok.
It was really hot. We've experienced many, many kinds of heat since arriving in Australia 3 months ago. There's dry heat and humid heat. Very, very hot and just kind of hot. Muggy hot. Pretty darn hot but not very humid and there's a nice breeze blowing. I'm constantly sweating hot. Direct sunlight hot and burning-air hot. All these things make comparing the temperature from one place to another very difficult. For example, I seem to recall I sweated the most in Hanoi, which was one of the lower-temperature hot places we've visited. Nha Trang, on the other hand, was bathed in sunshine and had high temperatures but the ocean breeze kept everything nice and pleasant. Siem Reap, it should be noted, is a dry, intense hot which doesn't abate in the shade.
As we'd travelled in Vietnam, we weren't sure whether we wanted to visit Cambodia. It was between Vietnam and Thailand, both on our must-see list, and offered a convenient overland route. But then we heard that the overland route wasn't that convenient -- it was many, many hours of poorly maintained roads. We considered skipping Cambodia altogether, and using the saved time to explore Thailand or Malaysia in more detail. In the end, though, we settled on a compromise: we would fly into Siem Reap on our way to Bangkok and visit the ruins of Angkor Wat, Cambodia's biggest drawing card. We'd heard too many good things about the ruins to pass them up, especially considering that we were (more or less) in the neighbourhood.
We arranged for our taxi driver to drive us to the ruins early the next morning. As usual, he pulled a bait-and-switch on us: he had "car trouble", and instead his cousin would do the driving. His cousin spoke less English, but all he had to do was drive so it wasn't really a problem.
We left our hotel at 6:30am and drove north to the ruins, about 5 km away. The ruins are spread over a huge area, and there are probably close to a hundred sites to visit if you're really interested, but the most interesting ones are clustered together within a few kilometers of each other.
Our first stop was the south gate of Angkor Thom, a huge walled city. We crossed an ancient bridge over a wide moat. The bridge was flanked by carvings of gods and demons carrying a naga (a water serpent demigod), and the main archway was crowned with a wide gentle face. On the other side, we encountered our first temple: Bayon.
Bayon was my favourite temple of all those we visited, although that may be because we visited it while it was still bathed in mystical morning light. It was intricate and impressive. Huge stone faces gazed down from its five towers onto hidden passageways. In little nooks and crannies monks lit incense and offered prayers on behalf of tourists. The potential for photography was amazing.
We scrambled all over and around Bayon and then continued on. We visited many ruins in the morning, of various types. There were terraces and galleries and porches and dark, quiet rooms. Some were old and broken, some had been nicely restored. All of them were intricately carved in high- or low-relief, depicting dancing female spirits or elephants or warriors or gods. They impressed on many levels -- architecturally and artistically, in both size and detail. Kate's favourite was one of the "jungle" temples, which was crumbling and overgrown. Many trees had taken root in the walls themselves, casting giant tubers down the sides of the structures. After an exhausting, hot morning, we returned to town for lunch and to take a break.
Lunch was delicious. We declined the tourist restaurant our driver delivered us to and instead ate at a street kitchen next door. I had beef with a massive amount of shredded ginger; Kate ate fried noodles. We returned to our hotel, washed the sweat and dust off our bodies, and relaxed in the air conditioned room for about half an hour before heading back out into the sun.
The afternoon was saved for the biggest temple of them all: Angkor Wat. This place is big -- even the moat is impressive in size. Inside the moat is a complex which is a monumental architectural feat. It is a mastery of presentation -- as you walk towards the complex along the causeway, you catch glimpses of the five towers. Then you pass through the galleried gopura, or entranceway, and the splendour of the main temple is presented. As you walk closer, you can see more detail. Finally, you are inside, and there are carvings and rooms and towers and galleries everywhere. It is intricate in detail, but never overwhelming. Nearly every surface is carved with apsuras (female spirits) or with warriors or intricate leaf designs. On the lowest level there are long, intricate bas-relief carvings depicting various legendary battles that, put together, would probably stretch for half a kilometer. We spent three hours exploring Angkor Wat. In the early afternoon when we arrived there were a few people around. When we left around five it was packed full of tourists.
Our final stop was a hill temple near Angkor Wat where everyone gathered to watch the sunset. Once again we climbed another set of stairs, this one long and (as usual) very steep. At the top we had a great view of the very flat countryside. Clouds obscured the impending sunset, however, so, hot, tired, dusty, and sweaty, and satisfied with our extensive archeological exploits, we called it a day.
We were glad we came.