Day 22 - Angkor

With my airport motorbike (motorbike sounds a lot better than scooter, don't you think?) guy as my driver for the temples, I set off for the temples of Angkor. What an amazing place! The price tag is a little outragious at $20/day, but well worth it for a day of sightseeing. I might have had trouble paying for two or more days, but one day was great.

Since I was doing an abbreviated tour I only had time to hit the highlights. The first stop was the impressive Angkor Wat, the place I most wanted to see here. It's an absolutely beautiful site and it's on such a massive scale with intricate carvings and stonework. I especially liked the carved figures of skinny, well-endowed women adorning most surfaces. It seems the ancient Khmer people and I have a lot in common when it comes to appreciating the female form. The focal point of the temple is a huge central spire surrounded by four smaller spires are the four corners of an outer building. They're meant to represent five holy mountains, and the steps are so steep that getting to the top feels a lot like climbing a mountain. A few times I was able to find a secluded, meditative spot to relax, but the meditation sessions were often short lived and interrupted by locals wanting to practice their English. All things considered, though, I left Angkor Wat with a wonderful impression. It's beautiful, awe-inspring, and wonderfully rebuilt/maintained.

The next stop in the whirlwind d'Angkor was the Bayon, just North of Angkor Wat, which I found to be just as impressive as the Wat and more mysterious despite its limited scale and more ruinous state of repair. Whereas the temple structure of the Wat is tall and spread out, the Bayon is jammed into a small area that's filled with little nooks and crannies, hidden rooms and corridors, and intricate stone carvings on every surface. In fact, the Bayon is probably most remarkable for the bazillion or so faces carved into the stone towers. It's a little bit creepy, to be honest, having all those faces staring at you from every angle. I found myself walking around jaw-unhinged as much as at Angkor Wat, but it's a completely different kind of overwhelming.

The next stop was Ta Prohm, heretofore referred to as the Angelina Jolie temple since one of her Tomb Raider movies was filmed here. When a French team rediscovered the temples at Angkor some years ago, they had been completely engulfed by the surrounding jungle and were in varying states of ruin - the temples, that is, and not the French. A massive clearing, rebuilding, and preservation project was started to restore the temples to something of their former glory. They decided, however, that the temples quietly coexisting with and slowly being torn apart by the jungle was a different kind of beautiful, so they decided to keep some temples as they found them, which is to say that they are meticulously maintained to make sure they look as is they're being overrun with jungle but are tourist-friendly and relatively safe from further damage.

It's hard to tell how big of a temple this was from inside since any towers have been toppled and replaced with huge trees growing out of the stones. All-in-all it's a very alluring and mysterious place and I had a great time losing myself among the ruins and hoping to run into Angelina.

On the motorbike ride to the next temle, the bottom fell out of the clouds that had been threatening all afternoon. Bikes are great except when they leave you exposed to the unpleasant elements, so the 5-minute ride through the needles of rain was a painfully exhilirating and thoroughly soaking experience. We found a big tent on the side of the road that had been set up to serve food and souveniers to the tourist hordes, but was now being used as a refuge by anyone traveling on two wheels. I waited out the storm by napping in a hammock thrown up in the tent. That might have been the most enjoyable part of my day.

When the rain ended, the sunset was closing in. The last stop for the day was a temple on a nearby hilltop that offers fantastic views of the surrounding countryside and is a popular place to catch the sunset over the jungle. When I say it's popluar, I mean that everyone and all their friends were there. After walking up a huge hill trying to get around groups of geriatric Japanese tourists, there was a line of people waiting to climb the ladder-like stairs to the top. I reached the top amidst a sea of cheering and was doubly disappointed to find that not only did nobody care that I had arrived, but that they were cheering the sun having passed beyond the horizon. I hurried to get my camera only to realize that my batteries were dead. of course. i was hoping to get some pictures of the sunset and of the mass of people taking pictures of the sunset. By the time I got my other camera out, the crowd has disappeared and the sky wasn't so impressive. The good news is that I was like last in line to get back down off the mountain.

After 5 miles of traffic jam, fumes, and honking on the back of a motorbike, I arrived at the guesthouse which had no power. I then had to try explaining to my English-challenged driver that I didn't know what time my flight was leaving, so I couldn't tell him what time he should pick me up to take me to the airport. I've never been so close to strangling such a nice guy. I finally left the guesthouse and headed into Siem Reap town for a much needed beer.