Less than an hour’s flight from Saigon to Siem Reap, but into a whole different world. A town of only 18,000 people claims 10 5-star hotels. And I’ve only seen 4 paved roads. A huge change from Vietnam. But it has Angkor Wat.
The Temples are magnificent. More than 300 of them near this town. Almost 1,000 years old, the exterior wall at Angkor Wat is almost 3 kilometers long, surrounded by lakes. Then an interior wall, and the temples. Everything is solid rock. The tallest temple is 60 meters (~ an 18 story building). The steps to the top are each about 15” high (huge steps), and go up at a 70 degree angle. Around the inner wall, a mural is carved into the rock – it’s about 3 meters high (9+ feet), and more than 600 meters long (6 football fields). A
mural carved in rock!It took tens of thousands of people some 47 years to build the temples. They were originally Hindu temples. As the population was increasingly influenced by India it became Buddhist, and they took over the temples for their use. Today Cambodia is 97% Buddhist. Regardless, as in My Son, they were built only for use by the king and the holiest of monks; these people only visited the temples a few times a year. Which they probably spent some 30 million man-years of labor, to create temples which were used by a handful of people only a few days a year!! They wanted to demonstrate power, which they certainly did. . .
By the way, these temples are not “hollow,” they have no “inside.” They’re piles of earth, surrounded and topped by solid rock. To pray, the king and the holy men climbed to the top (sometimes to stay for several days at a time), and prayed. There’s no sanctuary, and no altar. Simply a Buddha at the top.
Carvings of angels, or Apsaras, appear throughout all of the temples. Fran was absolutely taken with them and plans to print a few for her meditation room
We also viewed Angkor Wat from up in the air. We took a tethered balloon ride at sunset.
Just beautiful!
Our hotel is lovely, our room looks directly across the park to former President Sihanouk’s house, it’s only about 200 meters away, with no forbidding walls or fences. I’ve never been this close to a President’s house, and I’ve never seen one this “accessible” (the sidewalk is only 10 meters (30+ feet) from the house.
(He’s a strange interesting fellow – check him on Wikipedia if you’re interested. He’s been King of Cambodia, President, Prime Minister, several times each, and has had a host of other titles. He’s had at least 7 wives, and at least 14 children, one of whom is now King. He kept Cambodia out of the Vietnam War, but is considered to have led the country into misery, and he made it possible for Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge to follow him. Two million Cambodians died, and the population today is only 14 million. He is not popular with most Cambodian people today, and he remains in self-imposed exile in China.)
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