Three Days in Angkor

The ancient city of Angkor, built over one thousand years ago.  The first true metropolis, the world's first city and the first with a population of over one million people.  It was also the seat of the ancient Khmer God Kings for whom over a thousand temples and palaces where built.

We started our tour by pedalling around the 26km 'Grand Circuit' which led us deep into the jungle where some of the most exotic and alluring temples in the world lie hidden among the dense undergrowth.

The first gateway we came across, our first taste of what lie ahead, was astounding.  As we approached, the web of tree branches above began to open, as if the jungle were peeling itself apart to envelop us.  And there, peering down from lichen covered stone towers, three giant ghostly faces carved into the rock, each softened and eroded by a thousand years of heavy monsoon rains and a pounding, blazing sun.  It was as if they had been carved by nature itself.  As the full outline of the structure appeared from the shadows, my hands clamped down  on the brakes, bringing me to a squeaking shuddering stop before I'd even had a chance to take my feet off the pedals.

Ankhor Thom - East Gate

Armed with nothing but a map and a picnic, we explored some fascinating places on that first day, stopping off at the side of the road where only small ticket check points marked the entrances to these spectacular locations.  Some were simple - consisting of little more than a small crumbled outer wall at the end of a dusty track with the ruined remains of a solitary temple in the middle, its brick columns leaning and crooked leaving dark crevasses into which the geckos would dart as we approached.  Despite their relatively diminutive size, we enjoyed exploring these lesser known spots.  In most cases, we were completely alone and well away from the giant battalions of Chinese tour groups who flock to the more tour bus friendly temples. 

One of the nicest things about all of the temples in Angkor is that, more or less, they are completely open for you to explore as you wish - only where deteriorating walls and ceilings pose a danger do you find a "do not enter" sign or a rope barrier.  And explore we did, climbing up into dark chambers, squeezing through tiny doorways and clambering over the stone piles of collapsed structures, long since devoured by the elements and the dense, ever creeping carpet of the jungle floor.

Long, empty roads carried us further into the complex, bordered by dense undergrowth and topped with a twisting ribbon of perfect blue sky.  Giant butterflies fluttered around our wheels, spindly spiders, as wide as my hand, hung from webs stretched high across our path, and armies of termites brought the grassy verges to life, swarming with a moist sizzling sound like oil in a pan.  Eventually, a high wall would appear through the trees.  We would follow it for hundreds of metres before it, and the road, would turn sharply, leading us along yet another vast stretch towards an imposing gate and an entrance into what lay within.

Leaving the bikes under a shady tree, along which ran a motorway of enormous ants, another darkened dusty path took us to the centre of the next, much larger temple site.  Entrance halls, built of darkened rock, dusted with a layer of moss and lichen, led us through to a long raised walkway of crooked stone which disappeared into the shadows.  Intricate carvings and stone reliefs depicting Hindu gods and ancient myths covered every square inch of the stone, and the squawks of bats, hiding deep inside the temples caverns and chambers, sought us through the unknown space ahead.  We moved forward, the dampness of the walls filling our noses, the feverish jungle air bringing sweat to every pore of our flesh.  Long corridors stretched to a tiny speck of light in the distance, a far off doorway perhaps.  Along the way, we stepped into cave-like chambers, each holding the fragmented remains of statues and alters and faintly alive with the sporadic flapping and squeaking of the nocturnal creatures above.  These junction chambers, like internal crossroads, lead both forward and sideways to yet more corridors and chambers - an infinite labyrinth of stone.  As our eyes adjusted to the dark, we looked upwards.  The chamber's ceiling, a terrifying spire of teetering stone blocks, each holding the next aloft like a house of cards, stretched high up to a thumbnail of light which fell down through the darkness in golden shards, the ashen spirals of incense smoke rising up from the makeshift shrines dotted around the walls illuminated in its warm glow.

Eventually, with sweat dripping from our noses, we found it, the centre, the heart of the entire site.  A cathedral like space - vast, consuming, reaching up far higher than any of chambers we'd seen on the way.  A stone plinth stood in the centre of the room, square, with raised edges forming a trough, and a spout like opening on one side as if it once produced liquid.  Within this, five unusual, cylindrical, dome topped ornaments stand in a neat arrangement.  It is like nothing we have seen before, as if placed by the hands of aliens.  The mystery of this sacred place is inescapable.

Banteay Kdei

Other temples stretched as far into the sky as they did across the ground - each outer layer accessed by increasingly steep staircases, all leading to one central shrine perched high above the forest below and again, with an ominous tower of stone resting on top (see the photos on the previous post).

Having cycled just over 40km on day one, discovered and explored seven temples of varying shapes and sizes and having devoured four litres of water each, we crashed into our bed and fell into a heavy sleep beneath the whirling fan which stirred our minds with excitement for the next day's adventure.

Day two was just as thrilling, taking us first to Ta Prohm, also known as the Tomb Raider temple (parts of the Angelina Jolie film were shot here).  At this temple monastery, the forest is actually  devouring the stone, leading to those iconic images of thick tree roots curled around windows and doorways.  In some places, trees grow straight out of the top of the walls and buildings, twisting their roots through them, crushing ceilings and devouring sculptures.  Apart from the obvious Kodak moments, captured while squeezed between one tour group and the next, this temple also offered some of the most serene solitude we'd experienced.  Turning against the guided route signs, we found ourselves alone in a courtyard of collapsed walls and fragile out-buildings - again, with tree routes permeating from every direction.  We crouched through tiny doorways, climbed up over piles of rubble and soon became lost in large parts of the complex no one else seemed to know about, with just the sound of the jungle and the click of the camera echoing around us.

Ta Prohm

The carved towers of Bayon

Day three and our backsides had had enough time in the saddle after cycling around 70km over the first two days.  We hired a tuk-tuk driver for the day in order to access some of the sites too far away to reach on bicycle such as the sparkling waters of Kbal Spean. 

Unknown to the Western world until the 1960's, this stretch of the Stung Kbal Spean river lying approximately 50km from Siem Reap, is home to hundreds of rock carvings.  Gods, Goddesses and other symbolic carvings look up from riverbanks and even from beneath the river itself, supposedly blessing the water which feeds the temples, moats and man-made reservoirs of the Angkor complex - again, all dating back over a thousand years.  To access it, one has to make a long ascent through the jungle, along a treacherous path measuring a draining 1,500 metres.  Drenched in sweat, we leapt from rock to rock across large boulder fields, crossed creaky wooden bridges and scrambled up steep rock faces, using tree roots and vines to pull ourselves up the hillside to the river and waterfalls at the top - it was worth the effort:

Now, day three actually began way, way before we reached Kbal Spean, and at 5 o'clock that morning we were racing through the empty streets of Siem Reap in our tuk-tuk, slipping through darkness and the cool morning air at full speed, straight towards the mighty complex of Angkor Wat.  With the black sky slowly turning to inky blue, we sprung from the tuk-tuk as our driver skidded to a standstill at the entrance gate.  Under the light of my trusty headtorch, we paced across the raised stone walkway ahead, over the wide moat still twinkling in the moonlight, and through the cavernous gate house.  As we emerged, the full outline of this, the largest religious building in the world, stood tall, wide and solid before us - charcoal black against a few warm wisps of colour arcing across the sky.  Deep scarlet flares in the twilight, offering a faint suggestion of the oncoming sunrise and the inferno lurking just beyond the horizon.  Taking our seats on the balcony of one of the many outbuildings - once a library I think - we sat back and watched the sun rise behind the towers of one of the most iconic buildings of the ancient world.  I think this post has had it's fair share of superlatives, so I'll let the photograph do the talking.

At the end of that long day, and the end of three incredible days of Indiana Jones-esque exploring, we hung up our whips and started our way back along the dusty road, back towards Siem Reap, a hot shower and a cold beer.  Rosie was so tired that, with her head on my shoulder and the tuk-tuk bouncing and rocking over the rough dirt road, strewn with potholes and loose stones, and with clouds of dust billowing through the open carriage, she fell fast asleep all the way home.

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I didn't want to go too much into the history of this place, so here is a list of the temples and sites we visited with Wikipedia links where available:

Preah Khan
Kraol Ko
Neak Pean
Ta Som
East Mebon
Pre Rup
Sras Srang
Banteay Kdei
Ta Prohm
Ta Keo
Chau Say Thevada
Phimeanakas
Baphuon
Bayon
Angkor Wat
Banteay Srey
Kbal Spean
Banteay Samre