Angkor What?!

May 29

Got behind. Skipped this day and caught up on all the others so I don't remember as much because it was 4 days ago. Things go so quickly here and we pack so much into the days that 4 days ago seems like a century ago.

Hammocks. Literally they are all over the place in Cambodia. People just string them up anywhere it seems like. Only qualification, there must be shade. There was even a guy the other day who was rocking his hammock from the side of the wall to a tree, across the sidewalk. It wasn't like he was blocking traffic though because it was close to the entrance for a huge building so people weren't really walking through there. It was just kind of funny though.

This morning we woke up at like 4:30am and met at 4:45am so we could be at Angkor Wat with enough time to see the sunrise.

We boarded the bus and went directly to the ticketing booth when we arrived. Here, we had to get our picture taken for our day pass. They personalize it for everyone so they know it is your pass only. The pass allows you to get into any of the temples for that day only. It was $20. It was also 5am and we were smiling and my face looks weird. Not one of those I just woke up things. More of like there was a disconnect between what my brain thought I was doing with my face and what actually happened. I was smiling... But it looked all square and crooked. I honestly don't even know how it happened. It's like my zygomaticus major muscles weren't working properly or something.

Anyway, we then headed for Angkor Wat. To get into the temple area you have to enter a lot of different walk ways. There was a long walkway over a moat type thing. Then we walked down a longer stretch of path. Then we came to the part where you could see the Angkor Wat reflection in the water. We had 45 minutes to wander around here and take pictures and watch the sunrise. Unfortunately, it was pretty cloudy so the sunrise wasn't too spectacular. I wonder if ill ever be able to see a good sunrise on this trip.

After that, Dat talked to us about the history. Matt told us last night that there are over 1,000 Khmer temples in 4 countries. The Khmer Empire stretched all over SE Asia. So you can get a day pass or even a week pass and still not see anywhere close to all the temples!

Most of the temples were built between the 9th and 15th centuries. I feel like most of the ones we saw were built in the 11th century.

Dat explained to us that your element and zodiac are very important. Most of the ucountry is Buddhist and or believes in animism. I think it's technically not correct to believe in Buddha and animism but Dat believes in both. He said to not tell anyone.

Anyway, the zodiac and element are extremely important. Dat said at clubs and other areas like that, that the first line of a conversation with a hot chick would be, "so what's your element?" Definitely not "how are you?" You then continue talking or not with someone based on how compatible their element is with yours. The zodiac and element are based on what year you are born. I am fire and snake. So basically I'm a bad ass. Don't mess.

There are 4 elements that you can draw water from 4 different pools inside the temple for blessings. The pools were not filled. The 4 elements are earth, wind, fire, and water. There are 6 elements you can be named based on your year though. Fire, water, earth, gold, metal, and wood. There is no wind in this one. And no one would ever take water from the element pool for wind.

I may miss the name of a temple and everything we saw had a name, even the little bridges, so I definitely won't be able to tell you the names of all of those. But, it was amazing. Coolest thing ever.

Everything is carved out if stone and it is so intricate and detail oriented. I think it was even more impressive than Agra Fort and that had taken 90 years to build so I couldn't even imagine how long this must have taken. I asked. It only took 35 years to build Angkor Wat. Not that that isn't a ridiculous amount of time still but I figured it had to have been at least 90. I guess to be fair, Agra Fort was probably way bigger than Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat was built during the mid 12th century by Suryavarman II. It was originally a Hindu temple but Buddhists use it now as well. It's a massive 3-tiered pyramid crowned by 5 lotus like towers. It is 65 meters high. It was built to be dedicated to the god Vishnu. It is surrounded by a moat and an exterior wall. It is 1 sq km. It is literally covered in apsara carvings. They are all perfect as well. Dat said they used a lot of different pieces of stone to make even just a wall. You can still see the different pieces when you look closely at the carvings. But, they couldn't take the stone out if they made a mistake. The lower level walls have a bunch of stories and characters from Hindu mythology and the wars at the time. The top tower has 4 Buddhas each facing a different direction. This helps remind them that even though it was originally built as a Hindu temple that it has been used as a Buddhist temple since that became the primary religion of Cambodia.

There were pretty steep stairs going up to different little stupas around the Angkor Wat temple. Like to get up it you literally are climbing with your hands and legs.

The group of people I'm with are so great. Everyone gets along and can talk and hang out and people all really want to take pictures. So I have way more pictures with me in them on this trip so far than I think I had total in India and Nepal.

Dat said that he is Buddhist and also believes in animism. He said technically it isn't okay to do both but he doesn't care because that is what he believes.

After Angkor Wat we went back to the hotel to eat breakfast. It was only 8am. We had 2 hours until we would go back out again. We came back to the hotel because it was included. It was an omelet, toasted baguette with jam and butter, and fresh fruit.

There were 2 people from the group that had missed their flight in New York an hadn't made it to Bangkok in time. They arrived in Siem Reap this morning. They got here and were exhausted. I felt really bad for them. They had to pick up immediately and go walk around the temples with us without even sleeping. And, it was a super hot day. They hate temples now haha. There was a pillow in one of their rooms that had a temple embroidered on it and they chucked it across the room. We were all sweating a shit load. I was a little sad because this was everyone's 2nd day here so everyone was really tired and hot and not used to things so we stopped around 4pm when we were supposed to keep going until sunset. This means we missed a few temples we were supposed to see, but that's okay I guess. It meant we had some rest time. I'm always really tired but I don't want to nap, especially later in the day because then I don't sleep at night.

We saw Bayon which was WAY cool. It was built in a piece by piece fashion for over a century in the late 12th century by Jayavarman VII. It is a Buddhist temple. It has 37 towers with 4 faces carved in each one facing the different cardinal directions. They aren't sure exactly who the faces are. Alyssa, you should definitely see this temple. It's beautiful and amazing. The things I can say about it won't even do it justice. I have some great photos but you should definitely go look it up on google images to see it sooner.

Then we went to Angkor Thom. Thom means big and Angkor means city. Big city. And that it is. It was constructed in the late 12th century by Jayavarman VII and is Buddhist. It was the last capital of the Angkorian Empire. There are 5 entrances to the city. You have to walk along a bridge and on the left side there are statues of gods, and the right side statues of demons. This is over a moat. And then there is a stone gate you have to enter that has 3 faces on it.

We went to Baphoun which is a Hindu temple but was built in the mid 11th century. It is in Angkor Thom. There is a large reclining Buddha here on the west side which I unfortunately didn't see. It was added to the temple later.

We walked past the terrace of the elephants which is a 2.5 meter tall and 300 meter long terrace with elephants on it. It surrounds the royal palace, phimeanakas and Baphoun area. It was built in the late 12th century by Jayavarman VII. We were supposed to see phimeanakas which is the kings temple in the royal palace but Dat must have skipped it for us. It is the tallest scalable temple in Angkor Thom. I is said that the golden tower at the top of the temple had a serpent living in it that would transform into a woman and the kings of Angkor were required to make love with the serpent every night to avoid disaster for himself and the kingdom.

After this temple, we went for lunch on the grounds at a restaurant. It wasn't anything too exciting. Aside from the fact there was shade and fans with mist. It's always so nice to take a break from sweating buckets. I used a 20,000 Riel bill to pay. That's only $5 though.

After lunch we made our way to Ta Prohm. AKA the tomb raider temple. It was constructed in the mid 12th century to early 13th century by Jayavarman VII and is Buddhist. It's pretty cool because there is still a lot of jungle growing in and around it. There are a lot of really cool trees here as well growing from or on top of the temple walls. They were doing a lot of restoration work on it though. It was a really rich temple in the day and Jayavarman built it for his mother. I think it had a lot if jewels in the walls (they have all been stolen now). I say I think because I'm not sure if it was this temple or another one. You can still see all the holes. It's cool to imagine what it must have looked like with the gems in the walls and the sunlight coming in and reflecting off them making colorful light spots everywhere.

We also went to Preah Kahn, built in the late 12th century by Jayavarman VII for his father. Preah Kahn means sacred sword.

As I mentioned earlier, we ended the tour early and went back to rest. We had 3 hours. I blogged and read and slept for maybe 15 minutes even though I was trying so hard not to!

We met for dinner around 7pm and Matt took us to a restaurant that had great Western Food. I felt a little silly ordering western food but I didn't really care. After last week I couldn't eat more rice or noodles. For a while, the smell of rice an noodles would make me feel so sick because that's all we ate at the elephant nature camp. I ate a vegetable pizza. It wasn't as good as the veggie pizza in Nepal but it was still really good.

We got to watch traditional apsara dance while we were there as well. The dances are a lot of intricate hand movements. It was cool. The costumes are very elaborate as well with head dresses. Some of the dances told stories. One was about the hunt of killing animals. Another was about 2 young people falling in love and people finding out when they were trying to hide it. The show was about an hour. We got to go up and take pictures with the dancers at the end.

It was raining pretty hard when we were going back to the hotel. The power lines on the side of the building were ridiculous. They would never look like this in the US. It was literally a tangled mess of maybe 30 or 40 power lines. A mess! I tried to take a picture but it didn't turn out because it was too dark and rainy.

We went to walk around the market for a bit. I saw a necklace that I couldn't dip thinking about. I ended up paying $5 for it which it wasn't even worth that probably. I need to be better about paying attention. I said $4 and she said $5 and put it in a bag and handed it to me. I gave her $4 and she said no you took it, it's $5. But she started at $8. It's a gold color and has a circle with a wire flower over it.

The group then went back to buy a T-shirt from the bar "Angkor What?" And I bought one. Why? I have no idea. I thought it was funny but I don't need the T-shirt. So that was silly. Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing. Maybe I'll be happy when all my other clothes are dirty and I have this T-shirt. It's black though so it'll be super hot.

It was then time for bed! Bed is always amazing.