Abroad, Travel

Temple Tripping—Stories from Siem Reap, Part Two

Now he’s happy about something… must be the New Year ;)

So what are your resolutions for the new year? Lots of people will have travel on their list, and we couldn’t agree more! Hopefully we’ll have more travel posts (both around the Philippines and abroad) this year… and we’d love to hear about your travel adventures and discoveries too. To get you inspired enough to start planning, we return to Lod’s temple adventure with Day 2 in Cambodia.

Angkor Wat

Like I said in my last post as we ended Day 1, Day 2 is the major temple journey because today we get to visit *the* Angkor Wat itself, together with Bayon and other structures in between. Our package from The Villa Siem Reap came with a one full-day temple guide (plus a sandwich lunch pack!), and it was on the second day that he walked us through history of these temples.

The North Gate

After our breakfast, we rode our tuktuk and began our journey via the North Gate. From this entrance, we headed to what turned out to be my favorite temple, Bayon. It has 37 towers, most having four carved faces of some persona of the Buddha. There is one famous tower that sports the smiling Buddha, and two other ones, where, by the simple device of forced perspective, you can take a picture of yourself nose to nose with (or if you’re feeling romantic, kissing) the Buddha. Ask the guide to bring you to the spot where you can see three Buddha faces looking at you. The Bayon has a more unique look, and it feels as if you’re transported to another world when you’re walking amidst the structure. What is great in the Bayon are its bas-reliefs, and those on its southern wall contains scenes from the sea battle between the Khmer and the Chams, interspersed with daily life scenes. My favorite scene showed a turtle biting a man’s behind. Cute!

Bayon

The three Buddhas

Nose to nose with Buddha

Turtle bites man’s behind… Ouch!

Phimeanakas

After spending considerable time at the Bayon, we quickly went through four structures between this site and the Angkor Wat. First was Phimeanakas, a laterite and sandstone pyramid, which served as the king’s temple. It is the tallest scalable temple in the area, with a nice view from the top, but after all the temples we’d already seen, it didn’t look very interesting, so we just took a picture from below and headed towards the next structure, Baphuon. Baphuon is a temple mountain, but largely in ruins. When we got there, a lot of restoration work was being done. We went up to the first level, took some pictures, and went down for coconut juice break (refreshing, but still… nothing beats the Philippines’ buko). We didn’t even look for the reclining Buddha somewhere in the west side.

Baphuon

The Elephant Terrace

We then took the tuktuk to the Terrace of the Elephants and the Leper King. These two terraces are side by side located in the middle of Angkor Thom. The Elephant Terrace is a 2.5-meter tall, 300-meter long terrace wall with intricate carvings of elephants and garrudas. The Leper King Terrace is where a replica statue of the Leper King sits (the original one is housed at the National Museum in Phnom Penh). Legend has it that when the original statue, which depicts the Hindu god of death, was found, its mossy condition gave it a leprosy-like appearance—hence the name. These two terraces face the east so it they’re best photographed just before noon. Across the terraces are twelve sandstone towers belonging to the Prasat Suor Prat, which were apparently used to settle disputes and matters of criminal justice.

The Leper King

Several of the Prasat Suor Prat towers

After this, we went to a row of places to eat, ordered coffee, and ate our packed lunch. There were a few places selling stuff such as t-shirts, wood carvings, paintings, and the like. Joy fell in love with a painting of Angkor Wat with the sun rising in the background and bought it for about US$20.

Angkor Wat in all its glory (you don’t need a sunset for this!)

View of the moat and exterior wall

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the Angkor Wat, the centerpiece to any visit to the temples of Angkor. It is truly massive, awesome, and breathtaking! A three-tiered pyramid with 5 lotus-like towers, it’s surrounded by a moat and exterior wall. The northern reflecting pool is the most famous place to take pictures, and a favorite location to watch the sunrise from. We actually went very early the next day when, unfortunately, it was too cloudy to see any play of colors. Anyway, the Angkor Wat itself is best visited after 2PM, and as you ascend to the towers, you can watch the sunset from there. From afar, the Angkor Wat seems flat against the sky, but as you cross the gate and approach the temple, it slowly gains depth. Most visitors (us included) actually start by going through the bas-reliefs in a counterclockwise manner in the first level, and it is really here where the tour guides are most helpful, as they explain the stories behind the bas-reliefs. Each side depicts a story, the most classic of which is the “Churning of the Sea of Milk,” the Hindu creation myth.

Bas-relief carvings

The tour guide may also be helpful in explaining stories of the chambers, statues, and architecture as you go in and up the temple, but I decided to tune out after the stories of the bas-reliefs (just a bit too much for ADD-me… I have very short attention span) and just slowly walked around the temple, enjoying being transported into another world and taking as many pictures as I could. The energies of this place were awesome! And because the place is massive, it doesn’t seem crowded once you were inside, even with the throngs of visitors within the site; there is enough space for everyone.

A new friend

We spent about two hours within Angkor—we planned to see the sunset from the towers. I also read that there are four Buddha images in the central tower, and they were said to bring luck if you pay homage to them before leaving Angkor Wat. Unfortunately, the path to the top was closed for some restoration work.

We left Angkor Wat just before sunset, and made a stopover at the Victory Gate. It looked very similar to the North Gate. Our driver and Joy chatted for a bit while I trekked the sides to go up and view the arc up close. After about half an hour, we finally headed out and asked our tuktuk driver to drop us off at the Old Market area. Here, we decided to look for a massage place to soothe our tired feet. There are many massage and spa places along the Old Market area that offers traditional Khmer and Thai foot massage. We finally settled for one (the name of the place escapes me right now) which offered a 1-hour traditional Khmer foot massage for US$6. It was definitely a bargain! We walked around for a bit and then headed back to our hotel to get ready for our last day of temple tripping. More on that soon!

Read about Day 1: Temple Tripping—Stories from Siem Reap, Part One

and Day 3: Temple Tripping—Stories from Siem Reap, Part Three

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