Day 26: Angkor Wat and the water world of Tonle Sap

Today I saw the sun rise over Angkor Wat.  I had been working towards this moment for 2 days.  It was tough getting up so early. Mr Lai picked me up at my hotel at 5am. It was very dark out and it had been raining most of the night. By the time we arrived at Angkor Wat, the rain had stopped and the clouds were beginning to part. I walked through the west gate into the complex and could begin to see a massive shadow rising up through the darkness–the peaks of the temple towers ascending to the sky. I found a little spot by one of the pools and waited.  It didn’t take long for nature to do its thing, and the first sun rays to light up the sky with lavenders and pinks.

First rays of morning behind Angkor Wat

The sun continues to rise

Once the sun rose higher in the sky, I made my way into the temple.  Some basic information on Angkor Wat: This is the largest religious building in the world.  Built in the 12th century by Khmer King Suryavarman II, this temple-mountain was first a Hindu temple and then later a Buddhist temple. Angkor Wat has become a symbol of Cambodia and even appears on the Cambodian national flag.  I’ll leave off there–you can look up the rest.

View of inner gallery

View of a tower

Steep steps up to one of the towers

Upper Level

I didn’t walk up the towers at Angkor Wat.  Apparently it was the “Buddha’s day” today and the upper level of the towers was closed off to visitors.  Well, almost.  A guard said that if I gave him $5 USD he’d let me up.  I had had enough steep steps on this trip and decided I didn’t need to break any rules for a better view.

This meant I had more time to spend looking at the carvings on the walls. Angkor Wat has some splendid high relief carvings along all the gallery walls.

Carvings at Angkor Wat

Relief carvings

I walked all over the interior of the temple, and then decided to walk toward the moat around the complex for a different view.

View of Angkor Wat moat, along the eastern side of the island

Structure at the eastern side of the Angkor Wat complex

I walked around the complex some more and then headed back to the east side of the island to meet Mr Lai.

View of Angkor Wat from the West

View of Angkor Wat from the North, with the Naga (seven-headed snake statue)

I spent about two and a half hours walking around the complex and taking it in this morning.  At 8am I went to find Mr Lai, who promptly returned me to my hotel where I took a long nap.

Angkor Wat

In the afternoon, Mr Lai picked me up at 3pm to take me to Tonle Sap Lake.  He drove me to a river near the lake and then we took a boat to see a floating village on the lake. Tonle Sap is the largest freshwater lake in South East Asia.  It is an unusual ecosystem for two reasons: first its flow changes direction twice a year, and second the water level of the lake changes dramatically between the dry and rainy seasons.  It’s the dry season right now, so the water level is incredibly low.  Our boat, as well as other tourist boats, proceeded in a very tight single file through the middle of the river in order to get to the lake.  Any deviation from the middle and the boats would get stuck–that’s how low the water level is at this stage.

Dock where the tourist boats leave to go to the lake

I think the floating village I visited is called Chong Kneas, although I’m not positive.  It was a quick tour.  The boat took us past a community market, a school, a church, and we docked at souvenir market/restaurant/crocodile farm so we could take photos from the second and third levels where there was a better view of the village.

As the name states, the floating village is, well, exactly that.  All the houses are either on boats or floating docks of some sort.  I believe the villagers move around the lake depending on the season.  They have restaurants and markets and schools and hospitals and police stations and everything…except it’s all on the lake.  It’s interesting to see.  I’m not sure it was worth the $25 ticket for the hour long boat ride.  Maybe in the rainy season it’s more interesting and there is also the option to visit the flooded forest (which isn’t flooded right now, obviously).

House boats in the floating village

Community Market

To the right of the market you’ll notice a fan of tree branches coming out of the water.  These are the anchors that the villagers build and use for each of the floating structures. This one is the anchor for the community market.

Floating School

Floating Church

Floating Villager Homes

Floating Village Houses

The floating village was interesting; a true water world in its own right.

Scam Alert: I head read numerous reviews on Trip Advisor and other sites about scams on Tonle Sap Lake.  The guys driving the tour boats will dock at the community market and guilt the passengers into buying expensive bags of rice for the children at the school.  According to these sources, this is a scam to squeeze money out of tourists.  My boat driver suggested stopping at the community market, to which I promptly said no.  It bothered me that at the one stop we did make (the souvenir/restaurant/crocodile farm — literally, it was all three of those things) the boat driver was also pushing me to buy souvenirs for which I had no need.  It wasn’t a great experience.  Seeing the floating village was alright but certainly not a highlight of this trip by any means.

Overall this has been a fairly pleasant though exhausting few days here in Siem Reap.  I think I tried to do a little too much in terms of temple visits.  There was one temple I wanted to see, which I missed (Kbal Spean) because it was quite a bit far.  Otherwise I saw everything I set out to see, and I think I’m all set on visiting temples for awhile (well, until I get back to Bangkok next week).

I’d like to make a few restaurant recommendations here in Siem Reap.  I met a couple of well-heeled travelers over lunch a few days ago, who gave me some terrific dinner recommendations.  I went to all three that they listed for me: Viroth, Square 24, and Nest.  They were terrific.  Very trendy and cool ambiance and decor, with great food.  I splurged tonight at Nest and had a $30 meal–the most expensive meal I’ve had on this trip by far, but that was because I opted to have the Western dishes on the menu which are pricier (I really needed a night off from curry, rice, and stir fry).

Tomorrow I fly back to Bangkok, where I round off my trip with a few days on the beach.  In the end I’ve decided to go to Koh Samui (instead of Phuket).

Day 24: Visiting the Smaller Temples at Angkor

I started my tour early today, at 7:30am.  My taxi driver, Mr. Lai, drove us north from Siem Reap and stopped at the ticket office so I could by my ticket. You can buy  one day ($20), three day ($40), and seven day tickets ($60) for Angkor Wat park (I got the 3 day ticket). Despite the crowd of folks at the ticket office, I was in and out of there within a few minutes.

The tour I’m doing builds up to Angkor Wat on the last day, so today being my first day, I saw a number of smaller temples. To get to the first temple, Mr. Lai drove us around the periphery of Angkor Wat and through the South Gate and North Gates of Angkor Thom (another huge temple complex here). We stopped to take a few photos at the Gates. We’ll be coming back tomorrow, but I couldn’t resist snapping a few shots now.

North Gate of Angkor Thom

The first temple I visited was Preah Khan. Mr Lai dropped me off at the East Gate of Preah Khan and I walked through the temple and met him at the West Gate where we continued onwards. Preah Khan was built in the 12th century under the reign of King Jayavarman VII and is located to the northeast of Angkor Thom and just west of the Jayatataka baray, with which it was associated (a “baray” I learned is an artificial body of water, and a common element in Khmer architecture). One of King Jayavarman’s largest temples, Preah Khan is thought to have been a city as well as a Buddhist university. The site is largely unrestored so there are many trees growing among the ruins.  It was the largest group of ruins I visited today.

Moat around Preah Khan

Preah Khan East Gate

Carved designs on the stone

Around the Preah Khan Ruins. There was a monk visiting the ruins.

Ruins at Preah Khan

Trees and vegetation growing around the ruins

Crossing the moat outside the West Gate

Next we went to Neak Pean to the east of Preah Khan.  Neak Pean is an artificial island with a Buddhist temple.  Similar to Preah Khan, Neak Pean was built during the reign of King Jayavarman VII, in the late 12th century. The temple was originally designed for medicinal purposes and might have acted as  a type of hospital.  It is thought that the pools and waters at Neak Pean may represent Anavatapta, a mythical lake in the Himalayas where the waters are thought to cure illness.

This was a small series of ruins.  To get to the artificial island you cross over this swamp/marsh on a wooden bridge.  At the island, in the center of the pools you see the temple.

Wooden bridge/plank to get to Neak Pean

Neak Pean temple

Horse statue on the left coming out of the water

In this last photo you’ll notice there are some people in the water.  They work for the Angkor Wat park and were clearing out foliage and vegetation from the water.

Next we visited Ta Som, which is east of Neak Pean. Ta Som is a small temple that feels quite remote. It’s also overgrown with trees and vegetation, and features a few face-towers.  It’s a very charming miniature temple, built in the late 12th century under the reign of Jayavarman VII, and then was later enlarged by Indravarman II in the 13th century.

Face Towers at Ta Som. I’ll see more of these tomorrow

Ta Som ruins

Overgrown tree on the ruins with face tower

After visiting Ta Som, we made our way south east to East Mebon, in the East Baray.   East Mebon was built in the middle of the 10th century under the reign of Rajendravarman. East Mebon is located within the massive East Baray, which was built about half a century before the temple as the water source for the city here.

Main Temple at East Mebon

Guardian Elephant at East Mebon on the south east corner

East Mebon

We continued a little further south of the East Baray to Pre Rup. This temple was also built in the middle of the 10th century during the reign of Rajendravarman.  This temple looks a lot like East Mebon, but apparently Pre Rup is a “temple-mountain” (the structure is meant to look symbolically like a mountain) whereas East Mebon is not.  You can tell the difference when hiking up to the top.  Pre Rup is crazy steep and has a lot of steps to go up, whereas East Mebon has a series of terraces but really isn’t that high up.

Pre Rup

View from the top of Pre Rup

After Pre Rup, we went quite a ways south east to see a group of temples called the Roluos Group, which consists of three sites: Bakong, Preah Ko, and Lolei.  These temples were the oldest that we visited today, dating from the 9th century. We first visited Bakong, the first significant temple-mountain built in the area.  It  was constructed in the late 9th century during the reign of Indravarman I.

Bakong pyramid

One of my favorite aspects of the temples I saw today were all the gorgeous high relief carvings and sculptures like these.

High relief carvings at Bakong

Next we stopped a short ways away at Preah Ko, a 9th century temple with 6 towers featuring some very beautiful carvings on the doorway lintels.

Preah Ko

Detail of lintel carving at Preah Ko

Another detail of lintel carving at Preah Ko

Carved writing on a wall at Preah Ko

The last temple of the Roluos group is Lolei, a tiny 9th century temple formerly on an island and now undergoing some heavy restoration.

Lolei

It was 1pm by the time we finished visiting all these sites–almost 6 hours of touring.  It was pretty exhausting, but luckily it was lunch time. Mr. Lai dropped me off at Pub Street in town and I had a little lunch in the area.  After a bit of post-lunch shopping and wandering through the boutiques and galleries near Pub Street, I made my way back to the hotel to relax for an hour before Mr. Lai picked me up to go to a smaller temple called Phnom Bakheng to see the sunset.  We headed up at 4:30pm since this temple in particular gets pretty filled up with tourists for the sunset.

Phnom Bakheng is a 9th century temple on top of a hill about 1.5 kilometers away from Angkor Wat.  The reason for its popularity among tourists is that it provides a nice vantage point for the sunset over the West Baray, as well as a view of Angkor Wat.

View of Angkor Wat through the trees from Phnom Bakheng

A little closer view of Angkor Wat from Phnom Bakheng

Carvings on a doorway on Phnom Bakheng main temple

Sunset over the West Baray

Sunset through the towers of Phnom Bakheng

Once night fell, Mr. Lai picked me up and I went to dinner at a lovely local restaurant called Viroth.

Tomorrow I continue my touring early, once again, so off to bed for me!