After a few days spent around Siem Reap, I was feeling ambitious and decided it was time to visit the temples. Rather than giving long, detailed accounts of the history and backgrounds to all the temples, I will leave it to you to do a web search for any additional information you may want to know. Here is a brief synopsis of the temples I visited with links to pictures:
Day 1
For my first visit to the temples of Angkor, I opted to hire a tuk-tuk driver to take me to the temples. The temples are about 10 km outside of Siem Reap and this seemed to be the best option as I wanted to arrive in the early dawn hours so I would be able to catch the sunrise over Ankor Wat. My driver picked me up at my hotel at 5am and we headed out. Upon the approach to the Angkor Archaeological Site, you are required to purchase a visitor pass for access to the temples. The passes cost $20/40/60 for a 1/3/7 day pass. It's not possible to see everything in 1 day, but 7 days seemed a little much, so I opted for the 3 day pass. There is no way around purchasing a pass either - all roads leading into Angkor are guarded and all the major temples have security that check tickets upon entering. The area itself is so vast and surrounded by dense patches of jungle that it's not possible to get close enough for a quick peek. And getting caught in the area without a ticket will incur a hefty fine. Since I decide to get only a 3 day pass I knew there wouldn't be time to see everything and decided to focus each day on some of the "heavy hitters" that I knew I wouldn't want to miss.
Angkor Wat (click for pictures)
The first temple I decided to visit. I arrived early enough that all I could see of Angkor was a dark silhouette of the temple against the purple/blue background of the pre-dawn sky. This in itself was pretty amazing, but as the sun slowly started to reveal itself in the horizon behind Angkor, so did the amazing detail and grandness of the temple itself. Angkor Wat, not only the largest and most important temple in all of Angkor, was also a city. Built in the first half of the 12th century under the reign of Suryavarman II, both as the capital and the State Temple dedicated to Vishnu, the Protector, the God who preserves universal order and fights to restore harmony in the Hindu Trinity. While it is frequently (and mistakenly) said that Angkor was "discovered by the Europeans", the Khmers themselves never forgot the existence of their treasures. And while the majority of their temples were overtaken by the jungles and fell to neglect, the temple of Angkor Wat itself always remained occupied and a place of worship.
Angkor Thom: The Bayon and Royal Palace group (click for pictures)
It's impossible to absorb everything you are seeing in one visit to Angkor, and subsequent visits I'm sure would reveal much more of the details and intricacies that the temple has to offer. But after several hours of exploring Angkor, I decided I should move on and come back to Angkor Wat later if time allowed. Besides, I was getting quite hungry and needed a cup of coffee so I stopped at one of the many food vendors outside the temple and had a terrible omelet and an even worse cup of coffee. After breakfast, I met up with my driver and we proceeded to the South gate of Angkor Thom, one of the largest of all Khmer cities. This is the first point of entry to the city from the road from Angkor Wat and Siem Reap. There are 5 gates that enter the city, but the S gate has been the most extensively restored and the most complete as most of the heads from the statues at the other gates have been stolen.
Upon entering the south gate you will approach the Bayon. The Bayon, widely recognized by its numerous carved faces, is one of the most enigmatic and powerful religious structures in the world. The temple is extremely complex, both in its structure and in its religious symbolism, having passed through different religious phases from Pantheon of the Gods, Hindu worship and Buddhism. Angkor Thom itself was so well fortified that subsequent kings found it easier to just re-model the Bayon rather than remove it and build their own State Temple - resulting in several architectural changes over the centuries that have contributed to this complexity.
After a couple of hours exploring the Bayon I moved on to the Royal Palace. The site where Suryavarman I built his royal palace continued in use through from the 11th to the end of the 16th centuries, and like many structures in Angkor, also underwent many restorations and transformations during this period. Recent excavations however, have revealed remains that date back even before this time.
A quick visit to a couple of nearby minor temples, Thommanon and Chao Say Tevoda (click for pictures), afterwards left me quite exhausted. This, in addition to a dead battery in my camera, prompted me to call it an afternoon. I decided to go back to the hotel and charge the battery for my camera, rest a bit, then come back in the evening for the Night Festival at Angkor Wat. This allowed me the opportunity to see some of the performances by the Apsara dancers and Angkor Warriors, as well as see Angkor one more time - this time lit up in all its glory at night.
No comments:
Post a Comment