12 Jan 2019

Angkor Wat and beyond

We got up early for our free breakfast and to meet up with Mr Vichet, our tuktuk driver for the day tour of Angkor National Park. What an amazing place!  Angkor Wat itself  was built by a Khmer King, Suryavarman II in the early 12th century, as the capital of the Khmer Empire, and is the best preserved temple in the park, but there are literally hundreds of them, scattered over about 500 acres.

They are breathtaking. You can climb in amongst them, and you'll find a maze of passageways, twisting and turning every whichway, usually ending in an amazing photo oportunity. The Cambodians have tried to renovate some of the more crumbled buildings, but, tbh, the crumblier temples were much more interesting. Especially Ta Prohm, it was completely tumble down and almost overtaken by the jungle, which made it absolutely fascinating.
Ellie and I were blessed by a monk in one of the temples. He ties a bracelet on you, whilst jabbering away in Thai, and spraying you with water. For a donation of course.


But before we got there, we saw Angkor Wat itself, Bayon Temple and Angkor Thom. Angkor means 'City', Thom means 'Great', and Wat is temple. Angkor Thom is full of temples and other buildings with enormous faces carved into the rock. It's mostly the same face, sort of smiley, and archaeologists believe the faces to be of Lokeshvara, the Bodhisattva of compassion. Whatever that means. But I think Steely Dan wrote a song about it.


There was a lunch stop at a beautiful outdoor cafe (had a little indoor A/C place thank god) and it even had proper loos! The soap was boiling hot though, being in the sun all day :)
After lunch, we reclined on platforms built in a pond filled with fish. Ellie was afraid I would put my feet in, to have them nibble away at my hard skin, but I refrained, just for her.



But back to Ta Prohm. Tomb Raider was filmed here and it was almost totally overgrown, with massive tree roots becoming part of the walls, and huge piles of rubble where the trees had finally won the battle. And massive crowds of bloody Chinese tourists, getting in everybody else's way, so it was hard to take a photo without one of them in it. We dubbed them 'Twitters', mainly so we could talk about them without being offensive. This was mainly for Ellie, I am quite happy to be offensive on occasion, hah.:)

We were hoping for the sunset view over Angkor Wat, but it was too cloudy, so Ellie and Will are coming back in the morning for a sunrise view. But I am not, too flipping early for me. I watched the sunrise over the Grand Canyon once, and decided that it was enough for me, and that I didn't need to watch any more. Sunset is just as good, and it can be enjoyed at a sensible time, with a glass of wine in hand. It's a no brainer. (I really hate that phrase, but can/t come up with anything better)

My day bag, which has been with me for years, decided to break as soon as I got here. So I bought another one in a Chiang Mai market for £4, and it's very lovely and Thai flavoured, but unfortunately, has now broken too. I have a lovely rucksack from Mountain Warehouse, and I wish I had brought it with me .......  next time......................
Luckily the nice people at the lovely Bokre Angkor Hotel had a sewing kit, so I managed to sew the straps back onto the bag, so that it will live for another 2 weeks. Hopefully.

Later on that evening,we looked for the Tomb Raider movie online so we could watch it, but couldn't find it anywhere. Just as well really, I checked it out later, and it was complete rubbish. Great scenery though.







This is the view every takes at sunrise - as long as there is a sunrise of course 


































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