Visiting Angkor Wat

The Angkor temple complex is enormous – it spreads over 1,000 square kilometers. It’s way too large to see in one day. We bought a 3-day pass, which we could use over the course of a week.

The staff at La Noria recommended on our first day that we visit without a guide. We had grand notions of arriving in time for sunrise, so we set our alarm for 5:30 AM with a goal of getting out of our room by 6:00 AM, and to Angkor Wat by 6:30 AM. Didn’t happen. Neither of us move quickly in the morning, and that morning we were absolutely slothlike. We left our room at 6:40 AM.

Next step was to hire a tuk-tuk and driver for the day. Tuk-tuks are motorized open-air carriages pulled by a driver on a motorbike. Finding a tuk-tuk driver is not difficult, and probably is impossible to avoid (walking through Siem Reap one evening, we decided to count how many times we are offered rides – we get to 24 in about half an hour and stop counting).

We walk out of the gate from our hotel, and are immediately surrounded. We start talking to one driver, Sovann, and arrange to hire him for the day. The going rate for a tuk-tuk and driver for the inner temple loop is $15 for the entire day.

We depart, staying mostly on the shoulder of the well-paved road. There seem to be few official traffic rules in Cambodia, rather only guidelines. Stop signs are suggestions, helmets are optional, and driving on the wrong side of the road is common.

That said, there is a pecking order. The general rule is that the bigger guy wins. So when a truck/car/tuk-tuk is overtaking a car/tuk-tuk/motorcycle/bicycle, the driver honks once. This seems to mean “I’m approaching, move over”. If the warning is unheeded, two short honks are sounded: “Move your a** or I’m going to hit you”. If that still doesn’t get the desired response, the long steady honk is issued…which is the last thing the smaller party will hear if they don’t move over. We haven’t seen any accidents yet.

It took about 20 minutes to get to the Angkor Wat temple, which is the most famous of all the temples within the larger complex. We missed the sunrise completely, and we were like salmon swimming upstream against the wave of tourists who actually made it for the sunrise.

The temple is enormous, surrounded by a moat. The temple was built during the 12th century by King Suryavaraman II to honor his preferred Hindu god, Vishnu. Now the temple primarily is used as a Buddhist temple, and many of the statues of Vishnu have been replaced by stone Buddhas.

The carvings are spectacular. Several hundred feet of wall carvings tell stories from the Ramayana, Mahabharataand Suryavarman’s lifetime. We kind of wished we had gotten a guide to get more insight.

We climbed the steep steps to the top towers. Visitors are required to remove their hats, and women wearing sleeveless tops or mid-thigh shorts had to cover up with sarongs before ascending the steps. We were happy to see many Cambodians amongst the visitors.

One thing that surprised us both is the smell within the towers. Sort of like urine, but not quite. We noticed lots of droppings, and only can guess that there is a healthy bat or rodent population enjoying temple life.

As the morning wore on, it became incredibly hot. Cambodia feels much hotter than Thailand. We’re taking 3-4 showers every day because we sweat so much whenever we walk outside. We’ve heat-adapted somewhat, but I’m beginning to understand why a dry heat is considered more pleasant than a humid heat. It’s just so frickin’ HOT!

After spending about three hours at Angkor Wat, we moved on to Ta Prohm. Imagine hacking through the jungle and stumbling upon an ancient temple that the jungle has almost reclaimed – that’s Ta Prohm.  The trees are spectacular, and the way they have pushed their way towards the light and twisted through heavy blocks of sandstone is truly impressive. While Angkor Wat was very crowded, we had parts of Ta Prohm to ourselves.

My sister told me Ta Prohm is also famous for an Angelina Jolie movie (Tomb Raider), but neither of us have seen it. Sovann saw Angelina when she was in town filming and said “she is very pretty, big lips, very tall, slim”.

At every stop during our day, we were surrounded by people looking to make money from us.  We were approached by women selling bottled water, children selling bracelets or pirated copies of the latest novels or guidebooks, and elderly women begging. We walked past landmine survivors-turned-musicians hoping for a donation. One of the most heartbreaking things we saw was a teenage girl with no face. It looked like her face had been burned off, and she was begging with her hands outstretched.

This is a country whose people have great need. Mark made the comment that he has never felt so much like a walking dollar sign. I had similar experiences in Ethiopia and Kenya, but I don’t know if you ever get used to it. Not sure I want to – I fear that becoming accustomed to this kind of suffering would take away from being a compassionate human.

By mid-afternoon it was over 100 degrees, and we’d both turned to mush. After nine hours of exploring temples, we called it a day and headed back to our hotel, grateful that we could do so. A memorable day.

More Angkor Wat photos