Holiday in Cambodia Day 2: Siem Reap, Angkor Wat

I am a fortunate traveller.

In the past 3 months I have both watched the sun set over Manhattan, and the sun rise over Angkor Wat. I know that I’ve also worked hard to be able to afford both the time and money to travel, so some of my fortune is of my own doing, but I’m in a count my blessings kind of mood. (Not that I’m going to literally count all of my blessings, but we can just say that I’ve probably got more than most but less than some.)

Angkor Wat, a huge, impressive temple structure, symbol of Cambodia, world heritage listed, and a monument to Vishnu. Built almost 1,000 years ago, and no words here will sufficiently describe its beauty, majesty, and sheer wonder. I doubt that any guidebooks will similarly really do justice to this place. It really should be seen and experienced to even start to comprehend.

Obviously a lot of people feel the same, it’s on all the bucket lists, and as of the day I bought my ticket, over 1,700,000 had also been here this year, or about 6,000 people a day on average. And I will say that I found generally those other folk who came to watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat with me were as respectful as any bunch of tourists I’ve encountered, possibly a little more so. Most tourists managed to at least dress modestly (though guys, and I’m talking about males here, I know it’s a slight challenge to find shorts that cover the knees but it is possible and if I can do it, so can you, stop cashing in on the male privilege where your dress modesty is policed less than for women), refrain from smoking, and only a few were acting like they were the only one there as they assembled tripods and waved their selfish sticks. Most seemed at least slightly awed that they too were viewing something pretty special (though in 25 years’ time there will be a bunch of thirty-somethings telling stories about how when their parents took them to Cambodia they were just bored most of the time, as kids are wont to do).

So yay for not all tourists are arseholes.

There are two large pools of water in front of Angkor Wat, where everyone masses around to get those wonderful water reflection shots. Most went for the southern pool, as the northern pool is undergoing some restoration work and involves stepping over a low chain link (which none of the many guides discourage in the slightest, so I’m guessing it’s more to limit numbers rather than prohibit). While most focussed intently on the towers, for me the real stars of the northern pool were a group of 3 geese, who at irregular intervals would swim across the pool, giving all of the tourists a wonderful (if possibly unwanted) ripple effect in their pictures, all for free.

As the sun started poking through, I grabbed a pic with it illuminating my head like my Manhattanhenge pic from exactly 3 months ago. It seemed right. Maybe it’s my new thing, I don’t know.

With the sun up, it was time to enter the temple. I could spend paragraphs describing the place, but I’d soon be repeating adjectives so suffice to say it’s big, awesome, majestic, impressive, and way cool. I will tell you one thing that doesn’t seem to be widely advertised:

It’s covered in carvings of topless and scantily clad women. Literally covered. Almost every wall is adorned with images of women, who I’m guessing in the standards of the time ceremonially wore, or at least in the eyes of the carving artists wore, nothing between some shoulder adornments and slim waist belts. What I’ll also tell you, which should come as no real surprise to anyone who thinks a minute, as you walk around the temple and through the passage ways, most if not all of these carvings’ breasts have been rubbed shiny. Angkor Wat, the world heritage listed temple of boobs.

I’ll chalk this one up to the privilege of viewing through a post-post-post modern lens. I’m happy to assume that, given I know nothing of Cambodian society of 1,000 years ago, such depictions were acceptable. They are certainly tasteful, decorative, nothing like the style of imagery that keeps being uncovered at Pompeii, there are just lots and lots of them.

The whole Angkor historical area is huge: Angkor Wat is only one of many many temples built during this period of Cambodian history. When you look at the maps it doesn’t seem that big, and the need to take a tuktuk from site to site seems a little lazy, but trust me, it isn’t. Even being driven around the temples I did over 25,000 steps according to my step-tracking phone, and that includes some pretty steep steps (more on them shortly) and it was about 30 degrees and sunny, too.

I did the loop known as the small loop, it’s only about 25km around, and at the end I skipped one of the temples because, after about 7 hours I was definitely temple-fatigued. So I just did Angkor Wat, a small part of Angkor Thom, Bayon Temple, Baphuon Temple, The Terrace of Elephants, Chou Say, Ta Prohm, Banteay Kdei, and I think that was it (I got to the point of taking pictures of the signs). And that’s the small circuit. Each temple has it’s own feel, Bayon had many spires with faces, Banteay Kdei had many carvings of Apsara dancers, Ta Prohm had lots of trees growing through the walls of the buildings, and so on. So many temples, so little time.

And steep steps. I don’t know exactly why the Khmer built such steep steps up their temples, but they must have had calves of steel. And probably small feet, as we’re not talking large wide steps here, but slim with a decent drop: basically a stone ladder. Calves of steel. Baphoun has a climb almost to the top, and it’s a workout.

Along the way I also got to see monkeys and chickens, take the tuk tuk (driven by Mr Lim, who picked me up from the airport) over a wooden bridge that also gets used by tour buses, and drink 3 litres of water.

Temples, amazing, great big stone buildings (I guess the other thing to remember is that we’re only seeing the bits built from stone, so the most important bits, when they would have been surrounded by masses of wooden buildings where normal folk lived, so the complex is really a big ghost city). It’s kind of crazy, walking around the ruins of a civilisation that ruled huge amounts of Thailand, Laos, and Viet Nam for a while.

Enough about temples: you just have to go and check them out and form your own impressions. For me, just as I doubt I’ll be able to comprehend the huge scale of what the Khmer Rouge did in a handful of years, I only barely grasp how large and civilised this small part of the world once was.

The afternoon was spent in relaxing and pampering, a wonderful foot massage restored some life into my aching feet, and a Cambodian chicken and chili and lemongrass dish, followed by three exquisitely fried chicken wings with a kampot pepper dipping sauce with a 50c local draft beer brought my poor, dehydrated taste buds back to life. The wings were really good, fried crispy and might just be about the best chicken wings I’ve had in a very long time.

While I was sitting back at the hotel, a short but massive thunderstorm fell upon the city, making me a lot happier about my decision to have a 4am wakeup to catch the sunrise rather than do the sunset touring.

I tried not to do too much evening wandering, but failed, checking out a bunch of night markets, finding a bunch of bars in a complex built out of shipping containers, having mama’s stir fried noodles at a little street van by the river, and generally taking in the sights and the sounds of the city.

While finding the bunch of bars sounds cool and hipster, I’m yet to actually work out what time Siem Reap really kicks off. While it’s a bit of a noisy place with lots of bars and streetside vendors cranking out all manner of tunes, there doesn’t appear to be a lot of people actually out and about before 9pm, which is generally the time I’m looking to head back to the hotel. In the container bars complex staff outnumbered patrons. I thought I’d check out a bar called X as it’s on a corner near my hotel and has lots of noise and flashing lights, advertising pool tables and a skate ramp and other stuff, and I hiked up three flights of stairs to be the only person there at 9pm. While I guess it’s not high season, even the busy streets aren’t that busy. I kind of wish they were, as it might share around at least a little of the tuk tuk driver attention — I’m now well versed in how to say no — oh tey — in a singsong fashion so they get the picture and no one loses face.

The night markets have been pretty empty, too. Walking through there’s more attention, and pleading: they plead for my custom while I’m pleading for other customers to come past and become the focus. I know that there’s the expectation that westerners in south east asia are mobile ATMs, and I accept this most of the time, but it does get a little tiring. Ah the Goldilocks travellers’ dilemma, there’s either too many or two few people.