“Travelling! Young men travelling! I
cannot, my dear, but think it a very nonsensical thing!...To see a
parcel of giddy boys...hunting after – what? - Nothing; or at best
but ruins of ruins”
Letters of Harriet Byron to Lucy Selby
The quote is found in Colin Thubron's
Mirror to Damascus which I
finished a while ago, yet is a rather fitting introduction to this
post, as a parcel - well, 2 - giddy boys did indeed go hunting for
ruins of ruins, more specifically Angkor bloody Wat!
One of the wonders
of the world – in reality, if not officially - apparently covering an area
the size of metro LA, the various temples, gates and lakes
of Angkor are truly a sight to behold. While most are in
understandably derelict condition, it is not so much the
architectural wonder that I was most impressed by, as the sheer scale
of the place. Contained within a wooded and remarkably undeveloped park – for want of a better word – it
takes a whole day to simply travel between the various sights, all
built at different periods of the Angkor empire. Actually stopping to
explore anywhere, and doing the requisite sunset/sunrise viewings
ensures that days are in fact needed to see a suitable amount, and
weeks to have seen everything.
First stop, after a
gruelling 8 hour night bus on frankly terrible roads (the old road
was dug up last year, in preparation for a resurfacing, that has
subsequently been put on hold, how lovely) was actually to a temple
not even in the Angkor park. Beng Meala “one of the most mysterious
temples” according to Lonely Planet, is as close as one can now get
to how those who re-discovered the Angor temples would have found
them – piles of stone that the jungle had done a very good job of
reclaiming.
(How some of this stuff is standing is beyond me)
While is has been
tamed somewhat, nothing has been rebuilt, and many of the trees still
wrap their giant roots in, through and around the ruins. It was a
fantastic sight, and with less tourists than the main complex, more
fun to explore. The hour long tuk-tuk ride out from Siem Reap city
goes through quiet villages and rice fields and is a lovely ride.
Siem Reap itself is
a strange town, existing as it does almost solely due to Angkor, it
is a town of hotels, markets and restaurants, and not much else.
Which is not to say isn't is pleasant, as the area around the river
is very nice, and the whole place has an energy to it which Phnom
Penh - despite the frantic traffic - lacks. It is however full of
the tattoos, vest wearing backpackers on the
Thailand/Cambodia/Vietnam route (who largely by-pass Phnom Penh, or
at least the south where I live), and it was a bit of a shock –
lots of pizza restaurants, cheap beer and offers of weed were a
rather different Cambodia experience than I have had thus far.
But that didn't
really matter, as I had a good cheap guest house in a quieter part of
town, and I wanted to explore! I don't really feel like listing every temple visited in order, but suffice to say,
they are all amazing. My top tip is it choose which temple you
REEALLLYY want to visit, and head there straight after sunrise, at
6.30am or so, and it will be pretty much all yours, and from 7.30am
onwards, the tour groups arrive and any ambience is lost for the day.
Enjoy the photos:
Took a different
route home, pausing briefly in Battambung, which has a few French
colonial buildings left, and what is aiming to be a bohemian cafe/
art scene (much of which seems to be closed on Mondays alas), but it
made an interesting detour.
(The market roof and tower)
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