After a quick lunch consisting of noodles and stir fried vegetables and a bit of rest at our hotel, we were ready to roll! At 2:30 PM, Dara was there to pick us up. As usual, he came five minutes ahead of time. Our destination this afternoon was the most famous of all Cambodian temples – Angkor Wat!
When we arrived at the temple (~2:45 pm) tourist buses had already started unloading and there were a lot of people. We walked across the bridge, over the moat and past the main doors and finally had a view of the whole temple. It was large and magnificent. No matter how many Angkor Wat photo’s you may have seen, you have to be there to believe it! We just stood there admiring it. I mean, after all, this was the reason we planned this trip! And it took me 9 years to get here…
We then walked past the libraries (1 on either side) of the walking platform. I noticed that half the platform was uniform and maintained, while the other half was worn out. Dara mentioned that a Japanese team was working on the project and they had restored half of the platform and work was on to restore the other half.
We then entered the main temple complex. The first thing we saw was a large statue of Lord Vishnu with multiple hands. To this day people were praying to this statue and making offerings. We stood there for a few minutes, but then noticed that the tourist gangs were coming up so hurried away before they could start a stampede. Next, we walked around the temple and saw the bas reliefs for which Angkor Wat is really famous. Three walls with three different themes: The Ramayana, The Mahabharata and The Samuthra Manthan. Dara explained each relief, but he did not have to delve deep into the story since we knew them before hand, instead he asked us questions about the story to fill his gaps. We got to play guide for a while – a short while. The carvings are on a wall and that is really very long and in detail. What is even more amazing is that not only are they extremely beautiful, they’re also flawless. The stones were first laid out and then the artisans in teams created these lovely reliefs. Dara challenged me to find a flaw. I gave up after a while since I would rather admire the craftsmanship.
We could not climb up Angkor Wat, since they had shut access to the main towers a month before we got there. It is now deemed unsafe as the stones cannot handle the amount of people that all want to climb up there. There was some restoration work going on to open them again. Good, since all I need is a reason to go back!
This post is a part of the Thailand, Laos and Cambodia 2007 itinerary
