January 21: Another visit to the Angkor Temples

It’s been widely written in tour books that the best time to visit the Temples, especially Angkor Wat, is at sunrise or sunset. Our visit there a couple of days ago was at high noon, so we decided to visit again in the early morning. We met a tuk tuk driver yesterday who is now our personal go-to guy, so he picked us up at 6AM, and we headed off to the ticket area (with no crowds at that time), and then to Angkor Wat. We weren’t the only ones with the sunrise idea!

But it was true, the sky lit up orange and yellow, and the reflection in the pool was stunning.  (The reflection of all the tourists taking pictures of the temple and the reflection was a pretty stunning picture too!) . We strolled through and around and met Vanny at the opposite gate and proceeded to go back to Angkor Thom. This complex is enormous and houses many temples in various states of either decay or restoration. We had already visited Bayon, the temple with the many faces on the towers, but went again for a quick walk through with hundreds of others — it was crawling with the contents of a tour bus or two.

We walked on to the Baphuon Temple which was built in the mid 11th C as the state temple of Udayadityavarman II, and dedicated to the Hindu God Shiva.  We climbed to the top of this temple and were surprised by the many different types of stones in use.  Turns out there have been multiple attempts at restoration, but only recently has it been opened to the public. It was converted to a Buddhist temple in the late 15th C, and a barely visible sculpture of a reclining Buddha was built on the second level, which likely meant some reconstruction as well.  After the other Temples we’ve visited, it wasn’t quite as impressive.

Along the wall framing the Royal Palace is the Terrace of the Elephants — depicting hundreds of elephants sort of on parade. The next section of that wall showed men holding it up, and then more elephants.  Because of this Terrace there’s an opportunity to ride an elephant offered at one of the gates; we didn’t see any tourists riding, but many were taking photos (including me). We finished our tour of Angkor Thom by walking through two areas of several towers that looked like they might have been sentry towers, and a quick look at the Preah Pithu Group of 5 Temples all in various stages of restoration.

We met Vanny at the north gate and he took us for some lunch near Preah Khan.  Built by Jayavarman VII in the 12th C to honor his father, it is the companion to Ta Prohm, which was built to honor his mother. It has a basic plan of successive rectangular galleries around a Buddhist sanctuary complicated by Hindu satellite temples and numerous later additions. I arrived in the midst of several tour busses of Japanese and Korean tourists and it was claustrophobic and hot and not all that interesting to look at.  It was the first time I’d seen Garuda depicted on the outside wall of the gate.

And then we were “templed-out” and Vanny took us to a Western coffee place for tea, and then back for an afternoon of rest at the hotel.  Followed by a massage.  He will be back for us at 6:45 to take us to dinner at a restaurant highly recommended by friends guide books. The Haven is a non-religious social enterprise and a training restaurant for vulnerable young adults from orphanages and safe shelters, as well as underprivileged young adults from very rural poor areas.  Should be tasty and meaningful.