Quik Thinking

On our 2nd day in Cambodia we woke up at 5am to watch the sun rise at Angkor Wot. By the time we reached it, there was already a substantial crowd of tourists gathered there in lawn chairs. On a whim, May thought it might be a good time to visit the temple itself without being bothered by anybody else. That turned out to be a stroke of genius that would prove useful for the rest of the trip. By starting very early, we found ourselves with nearly two hours of relatively uncrowded time at Angkor Wot.

The temple is extremely large and is currently under renovation by groups from a variety of countries: Japan, Italy and Germany; the entire axis from the 2nd world war, interestingly! Despite its size, even the surfaces of walls are covered with intricate designs. Some of them have scenes from the Mahabharata, which is not even part of the local culture any longer!

When we were done with the temple, I was quite hungry and decided to eat a young coconut, only to discover that, unlike in KL, not all coconuts in Cambodia have flesh in them. Meanwhile we were besieged by a horde of children hawking postcards. At 10 for a dollar, they seemed like a pretty good deal so we all bought some. Only later did we discover the subtle scam behind this seemingly innocuous enterprise. But the kids were fun to talk to and seemed to know a surprising number of languages!

Our next stop was a 1500m hike up a hill to see stone carvings near a stream that date back to the 10th century. There were also many butterflies at the top, drinking salt from the moist earth. After descending and eating lunch, we headed to another temple that had awesome statues of monkeys and then finally we went to yet another temple to watch the sun set. 

Hitting the temple circuit early had worked out so well that we did it again the next day to see Angkor Thom. Although we were the first ones there, our idea wasn't unique as a few other tourists did show up shortly after us. Even before entering the temple we could see the giant stone heads for which the temple is famous. Upon walking inside and up to the top, we found many more such heads, some better preserved than others. There were also a multitude of stone lions scattered around the temple. Somewhat removed from the giant stone heads were a collection of small temples buiult in honour of the king's 12 wives. They're nowhere as interesting as the heads and I would't have visited them if they hadn't been near the toilet.

Also nearby is an enormous stone statue of a reclining Buddha. It's currently under rennovation following centuries of neglect and wear but it's still possible to discern the outline of the face in the wall. Interestingly, this is the second time it is being rennovated; it was previously rennovated in the 16th century, when it was four hundred years old. Perhaps it will need to be rennovated again in four centuries...

A little further up is the elephant terrace, which was built as atonement by the losers of a war in which all the Cambodian king's elephants perished. The terrace has a few different types of elephant statues but it also includes a maze containing a five-headed horse and a seven-headed naga.

We began our final day with a visit to the jungle temple, so called because it has become overrun by large trees that dominate the stone structures as they slowly desroy them. The sight of centuries old trees crushing even older temples is so remarkable that the Fench restoration authorities decided to avoid restoring this particular site to its original state. Apparently the trees are the result of birds droping seeds on the roofs of abandoned temples. The seeds slowly grew into trees with their roots growing downward around the walls and enveloping the structures.

After that we went to see the hall of dancers, whose ruins depict dozens of dancing figures, both carved into walls and as frestanding statues. Kim took her cue to strike up some awesome dance poses before we ended our temple tour with the oldest building we'd seen yet. This one was constructed in the 10th century with brick instead of stone and has stood up to the ravages of time far better than any of the more recent temples, although it's also far less interesting as it lacks the cornucoia of stone carvings that add character to the other ruins.