It's located ten km or so outside Siem Reap and hiring a tuk tuk and driver is the easiest way to be a temple 'raider' for the day. $15 for the near enough the whole day is the going rate; almost unbelievable. I get the impression you're paying for petrol and wear and tear rather than the driver's time as he is happy to sit around practically all day waiting for you while you get on with the serious business of raiding.
And so to the iconic Angkor Wat whose towers are depicted in numerous images throughout Cambodia. Braving the last few hundred metres walking across the moat's causeway in the dark, we arrived before sunrise to see the temple silhouetted by the dawn. Many tourists have the same idea and the best vantage points by the lake get crowded. Once the spectacle is over you can go inside the temple itself. Many things have been written about this place so I won't add to them, but the steep steps and the many Apsara (curvaceous ladies) carved into the walls are what I remember most.
After breakfast outside the Wat we picked up our tuk tuk driver and headed to Angkor Thom. This is the walled city next to Angkor Wat. Once home to Kings, their government and the military, it is surrounded by an even bigger moat than Angkor Wat. At one time the city was said to support over a million people in the area, now all that is left are these ruins. At its centre is the Bayon temple. This is famous for its 54 large faces carved into the towers, each with a subtle smile. Although this temple is younger than Angkor Wat it seems to have fared worse over the years.
Next on the to do list was Ta Prohm Angelina Jolie cavorted through this temple (like an Apsara?) in one of the Tomb Raider films. Unfortunately she wasn't here today, but we all agreed this was our favourite temple. The way the trees are entwined around, and in between, the temple structure is surreal. It's as if they grew together organically. In reality the temple came first and the trees are slowly destroying it. There are examples of these trees growing in isolation that give clues to how this happens, here's my theory: this particular tree type drops feeler branches that find soil and then grow. If this happens to be in a crack between the stones then eventually the feeler branches push apart the stones. It's a very slow process. This also means that a tree can appear to be growing from both sides of a wall once the feelers become larger and trunk-like.
There are several places where 'stages' have been built so that you can stand next to a gnarled tree for a photo. Two Chinese girls were posing in a very twee manner and I decide to copy their style when I did my own pose in front of the tree. On seeing this they rushed to join me and we had a group photo; just the twee of us! Boom boom.
Many of the temples are being restored. And Indian team was working on Ta Prohm while we were there and we saw the pile of rubble they still have to piece together like a giant jigsaw puzzle. It's very time consuming work, but the results they have achieved so far are very impressive. .
Siem Reap itself seems to exist largely to serve the Angkor tourist trade, which makes the town rather characterless compared to Phnom Penh. Thus the centre has many backpackers, tourists and shops/stalls selling the same products. The sellers are very persistent and pester you endlessly as you move between the stalls. I guess it's the same in many touristy destinations in the developing world.
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