Travel Flashback #4 – Angkor and Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Travel flashback number four… can you tell I am itching to back out on the road. Damn this pandemic!

Angkor and Angkor Wat really are one locale that you should visit in your lifetime if you are able to. Magnificent ancient architecture, beautiful exotic surroundings, and incredible history. What is there not to like?

We had the privilege of visiting this area in 2013 as we were working our way around Southeast Asia before decamping to Hong Kong for an extended work stay. The photos are from that visit.

To clarify, the term Angkor refers to the entire region embracing the old capital city of Angkor Thom and many surrounding temples. Angle Wat is simply one of many temples located in this area.

A Wikipedia article provides a bit of important background information. You can read the entire article by following this link. You can read the entire article by following this link.

“Angkor … was the capital city of the Khmer Empire. The city and empire flourished from approximately the 9th to the 15th centuries. The city houses the magnificent Angkor Wat, one of Cambodia’s most popular tourist attractions.

The ruins of Angkor are located amid forests and farmland … near modern-day Siem Reap city in Siem Reap Province. The temples of the Angkor area number over one thousand, ranging in scale from nondescript piles of brick rubble scattered through rice fields to the Angkor Wat, said to be the world’s largest single religious monument. … Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom is collectively protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.”

When searching for information about this area to share I came across this tour company website which identified some of the better temples to see in the area along with some snippets of information about each. It includes a few other photos of temples we visited.

We flew from Saigon to this charming small airport located on the outskirts of the town Siem Reap. The flight was on a very modern and comfortable Airbus. Clearing customs was easy-peasy. Siem Reap is the town you stay at in when visiting Angkor Wat. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siem_Reap)

We stayed at the Somadevi Angkor Hotel and Spa.

The hotel was clean, modern and offered excellent facilities. I love the flow between indoors and outdoors that you see in most hotels in Southeast Asia.

The hotel had several large-scale ceramic reproductions of statuary that you see out at the Angkor site. This is the seven headed serpent. From Wikipedia…“At Angkor in Cambodia, numerous stone sculptures present hooded multi-headed nāgas as guardians of temples or other premises.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_(symbolism)

So let’s start off this visit to the Angkor site with my absolute favourite temple of all, Ta Prohm. Ta Prohm has a number of incredible sights like this one, gigantic trees growing out of a building. There are several, not just this one, but this one is the most spectacular. Yes, the first thought that popped into my head was “Ents”. You can see other photos on the Wikipedia Ta Prohm page.

You get a better sense of the scale of these big trees from the relative size of the guy sitting on one of the roots.

Another temple very worth visiting is Bayon. It is festooned with these gigantic heads.

This is one the five entry gates to the city of Angkor Thom. Angkor Thom was the last capital of the Khmer empire. This entry is through the south gate at the end of the causeway that crosses the hand-dug moat.

The causeway is lined by statues of demons and gods.

At the end of a hard day of Temple viewing, you can head back to Siem Reap and sit on the edge of a little pond like this and have small fish nibble away at the dead skin from your feet… Nope, didn’t try this one. 🙂

Slipping in the back door at Angkor Wat on day two. Our guide explained to us that the best way to visit the temple site was to start at the rear entrance and work your way towards the front entrance where everybody else will be pouring in. Seemed like a reasonable idea, and it worked out quite nicely.

There it is, our first sighting of this incredible structure.

This is a photo from the back corner of the Angkor Wat temple. It provides you with an immediate sense of its enormity.

It’s easy to become overwhelmed thinking about the logistics of the construction of a structure like this with hand-labour and simple tools. Even more incredible are the stunning bas-relief graphics chiseled into the walls.

This one is a portrayal of the story of The Churning of the Ocean of Milk, a Hindu legend which centers on the “ever-continuing struggle between the devas (gods) and the asuras (demons, or titans)”. https://www.britannica.com/topic/churning-of-the-ocean-of-milk

And this, adorning our walls at home, is a “rubbing“ of the churning of the ocean artwork. I bought it and 11 other pieces from a woman sitting on the side of one of the paths. She wanted the equivalent of $100 Canadian, I ended up giving her about $40 for all of them. I’m pretty sure she still made out like a bandit. 🙂

You can get up into the upper reaches of the Angkor Wat temple by going up sets of incredibly steep stairs like these. As you can see, the people descending on the left side are crab walking sideways to come down. Given my “deep affection” for heights, there was no way I was going up there. 🙂

The Love-goddess did though. I am down there somewhere. 🙂

Angkor Wat was originally a Hindu temple, and then became a Buddhist one. There are still some areas in the temple that are used as Buddhist shrines.

This is my “I was there“ photo. We have worked our way to the front onto the bridge that leads across the moat to the temple.

Video – I had forgotten that I shot this video before I went looking for pictures. It is a little wind-noise impacted at the beginning, but as the camera swings around it becomes less so. It gives you a bit of a sense of the true scale of the temple area.