Cambodian Temples - Angkor Wat

I've wanted to go to Cambodia for over 10 years now, ever since the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider movie came out in 2001.  Remember that movie?  With Angelina Jolie and an almost-naked Daniel Craig?   In the film, Lara Croft has to explore an ancient Cambodian temple and almost dies while recovering an important artifact.  The ruined temples looked so mystical and fascinating, and I decided that my next big trip would be the temples of Cambodia.

As it turned out, Cambodia wasn't my next 'big trip.'  Since 2001 I've been fortunate enough to travel to Australia, the Caribbean, Europe, and Asia, but I failed to make it to Cambodia.  Until now!

Look at all them ruins!

My excellent travel buddy (my mother) and I spent a week in Siem Reap, one of the two big tourism cities in Cambodia (the other being the capital, Phnom Penh).  Siem Reap is the gateway to the Angkor region, a vast and spread-out collection of ancient temples.

After talking to people at home and telling them about my trip, I realized that many people know nothing about Cambodia.  Let's take a moment for a quick primer.

(If you are a complete plebeian and want to skip all the interesting historical information and just get to the pretty pictures, click here.  But know that I'm judging you.)

Cambodia is located in Southeast Asia between Vietnam and Thailand.  The country has a long and interesting history, and the temples of the Angkor region of Cambodia were built by the kings of the Khmer Empire.  The language and people of Cambodia are called Khmer, and they are still ruled by a king.  The Angkor region was once the capital of the Khmer empire, and flourished most between the 9th to 15th centuries.  The kingdom began to decline in the 12th century and the Angkorian era ended in 1431, when the Angkor area was invaded.  The temples fell into disuse and were lost to the forest until the early 1900's, when recovery efforts began on some of the temples.

Recovery efforts are still ongoing today.  Many of the temples are being restored, but many more are still in a state of ruin or disrepair.  Other problems, such as looting and tourism, threaten the ancient temples.  Many more temples are suspected to be buried in the forest, and recently an entire city with nearly 100 temples was discovered using laser imaging technology from helicopters.  (I was lucky enough to meet the guy who discovered this city on a tour, but more on that later!)

Unfortunately, most of the Cambodian landscape is not safe to explore.  The nation is littered with landmines, planted during the Cambodian Civil War.   Around 20% of Cambodian villages are contaminated with landmines.  Between 2000 to 2005, Cambodia had about 850 landmine casualties each year--more than anywhere else in the world.  A third were children, and almost all boys or men.  Keep in mind that many of these victims aren't killed, but seriously and permanently maimed and disabled.  With agriculture still being the main source of income in Cambodia, landmine victims are at a severe economic disadvantage.  While there are government efforts to locate and disarm the mines, it's predicted that it will take at least 20 years to disable most of the landmines in Cambodia, and that they will never be able to completely rid the country of them.

(If you want to know more about the Cambodian Civil War and subsequent genocide, keep reading.  If you don't give a crap about the murder of 2 million people and want to get to the pretty pictures, click here.)

Between 1967-1975 the country was embroiled in a nasty civil war between the Kingdom of Khmer (later known as the Khmer Republic) and the National United Front of Kampuchea (FUNK).  The Kingdom of Khmer was backed by the USA and Southern Vietnam (remember the Vietnamese War?  We were supporting the democratic southern side in that war.), while the FUNK was backed by the Communist Vietcong.  The commies won, and a new regime called the Khmer Rouge took power.

The new king, Pol Pot, wanted to more or less reverse the traditions of the country.  He established a class system, abandoned the Buddhist values, and indoctrinated the country's children with the regime's new ideals.  The government systematically arrested, tortured, and executed their "enemies," which included anyone with connections to the former government; professionals and intellectuals (like professors and doctors); anyone of Vietnamese, Chinese, or Thai descent; Christians, Muslims, and Buddhist monks (as religion was banned); and people who had previously lived in urban areas and didn't know how to farm, if they hadn't already died of starvation.

These people and often their entire families were arrested and taken to prison facilities.  They were photographed and forced to give detailed biographies of their entire lives.  They were then tortured with the goal of making them confess to whatever crimes they had been charged with.  Torture methods included electrocution, branding, hanging, suffocation, pulling out fingernails, pouring alcohol on wounds, waterboarding, and (in the case of females, though it was officially against policy) rape.  Some prisoners were medically experimented on, including being drained of blood to see how long it took them to die.  Difficult prisoners were skinned alive.  Once a confession was given--and assuming the prisoner didn't die of torture-inflicted wounds--the traitor would be executed.  It's assumed that most prisoners' confessions were fabricated under the stress of torture.

Due to the scarcity of bullets, most prisoners were beaten or hacked to death with crowbars, axes, machetes, and other blunt force objects.  They were thrown into mass graves.  Approximately 2 million Cambodian citizens were murdered during the Pol Pot's rule.  The Khmer Rouge regime finally fell to the Vietnamese in 1979.

Today Cambodia is still a poor nation whose economy relies primarily on agriculture and tourism.  The best and most sought after jobs in Cambodia are tour guide and hotel worker.  The average Cambodian makes just USD$500 per year.  Many children are forced to work or beg at tourist sites by their parents rather than attend school.  Outside of the cities, most houses do not have electricity or modern plumbing.  But despite this, the Cambodian people are generally quite friendly and happy.

Now that you're an expert on Cambodia, let's get on to the real reason you're here: pretty pictures of gorgeous old temples!

The first temple we visited was the most well-known temple in the Angkor Archaeological Park: Angkor Wat.

There it is!

Angkor Wat is the largest religious complex in the world.  It was first Hindu, then later a Buddhist center of worship.  It was built in the 12th century, and has become such a powerful symbol of the country that it's featured on the national flag.  It's oriented to the east (unlike many other temples) and is a popular place to watch the sunrise.  It's surrounded by a large, rectangular moat.

A photo from the air, courtesy of Wikipedia.

The photo above is taken facing north.  The main entrance is on the west, the skinny bridge on the left of the photo.

Here's my mumma on the bridge!

And me on the bridge!

Once you get onto the island, there's a gallery, which is a long covered passageway (seen in the photo above).  Here's a simple map of the complex:

Thanks again, Wikipedia.

The map is a little confusing, so we'll take it area by area.  Visitors enter from the west through the moat gallery.

The moat gallery is open on one side for a great view of the moat.

Once past the first gallery, there's a long walkway to the main part of the complex.  Before the main complex, there are two library buildings (the little brown spots on either side of the walkway) and two ponds (the blue squares).  There's an exit/entrance for locals on the eastern side. Some people live inside the the complex.

So far away!

The view from the gate.  Notice the library on the left.

Here's the southern library, viewed from an angle.

The northern library, viewed head-on.

The northern library from the west.  You can barely see one of the ponds behind it.

You can't walk straight into the temple currently, as it's under construction.  The buildings are very old and sometimes get damaged by all the tourists.  Several other countries are helping to restore the ruins, including Germany and Italy.  We used a side entrance and wandered into a big green area, where we saw this:

Outer wall on the left, going up to main temple area on right.

Where are we?  Back to the map.  Look inside the central complex, and you'll see the two kite-dots at the top and bottom left.  Those are more libraries.  There are three galleries (the brown lines), the covered passageways.  The little ticks on the galleries are entrances to the next level.  Each level is higher than the next.  The first level is on the ground, the second level is about 30 feet off the ground, and the top level is pretty darn high, at least a hundred feet.

Here's one of the two inner-complex libraries.

Those steps are STEEP.

There was nobody else around, and there's no signs saying 'stay off,' so of course we climbed up inside.  The steps were steep and slippery with moss, and the inside was dark and full of bat poop.  We loved it!

Trying to come down.  It's pretty steep.

Seriously, those steps are like 5 inches long.  Way too small for my
enormous American feet.

There's that same structure from the side.

This structure is pretty big!

Taken from the second level gallery.

A group of Korean guys asked us to take their picture, and since the rules of picture-taking demand that you get your own photo taken, we got a nice shot with both of us!

Check out our cool shoes!  These things were a LIFESAVER.
Also, I'm really glad we got a photo before we got sweaty.

Behind us you can see the second gallery and one of the four smaller towers.  We climbed the steps to the second level and honestly, there wasn't a whole lot there.

That's the top level, viewed from the second level.

We decided to climb up to the top level--and I mean climb.  The steps up were about three inches wide and I was clinging onto the railing for dear life.  Fortunately, the view was really great!

That little red-brown thing is a garbage can.

This is facing the front entrance.  You can see one of the ponds, both exterior libraries, and the entrance gallery.
In the front of the photo we've got a front-side entrance to the second level.  That's not a tower on the right;
the towers are on the third level and much larger.

That yellow thing in the back is a balloon.  You can take hot air balloon tours of Angkor!

The top level of Angkor Wat is shaped like a cross.  The gallery on this level goes all around the edge as well as forming a t-shape.  There are four small courtyard-type areas, and at the center is the largest tower.  Each corner has a tower too.

In one of the four courtyard-areas.  (I'm psyched I got this shot with no people in it!)

Another view from the top.  That black tarp on the right is covering an area currently being restored.

There were tons of incredible decorative carvings on everything.  They've mostly been pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle during restoration, so some pieces are missing.  But the pieces are original!  These carvings have lasted over 500 years and still look great.

Look at all the detail!

Here's a view of the semi-boring second level.  There's a lot of rocks.  They're there to be added during the restoration process.

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A view of the middle and outer galleries.

On the second (middle) level were some cool costumed people who posed for photos--but only if you paid them, of course.

Wearing shorts and tank-tops is fine in most of the temple, but if you want to go to the top level of Angkor Wat, you need pants and sleeves.  Not capris.  Not tiny short sleeves.  Pants and sleeves.  They were very nitpicky!  Fortunately, our excellent driver, Mr. Kim, convinced me to buy a pair of Cambodian Tourist Pants before entering the temple.  I call them that because literally every tourist who fit into them was wearing them.  Many people, both men and women, were turned away from the top level because they weren't wearing exactly the right clothing.

Here's a photo of me in my pants... as well as my super-sweaty shirt.  It was about 100 degrees (Fahrenheit) and about 100% humidity that day, and you know what?  I'm not ashamed of my sweatiness.  I was far from being the sweatiest person there.  And this was the cool season!

Ewwwwww.

Less sweaty than me... but still sweaty.

A few more from the top:

This is a slightly squished panorama from the top.

Facing the front entrance again.

If you've noticed that some of my photos have a weird glow at the top, it's because they're overexposed.  Turns out it's pretty hard to take photos on bright cloudy days!  I've never claimed to be a photographer, only a person with a fancy-pants camera.  (Which I don't really know how to use. I've made it off 'auto' to 'creative auto,' but that's it.)

This is a panorama that is both overexposed and photographed crooked.  It's certainly not meant to be artsy.  :(

Some more structures in the front.  This part is kinda cool, actually.  Notice the raised walkway in the center.

Back down to the first level...

Scary steps!

Back on the first level.

On all three levels of Angkor Wat we noticed decorative carvings on the walls.  Some were in better shape than others, but all of them were beautiful.  I couldn't even carve a stone with modern tools, so the ubiquity and complexity of these carvings was pretty impressive.

These are dancing ladies.  Yes, those are nipples.

She's missing a piece.

Those are on the top of a gallery, along the whole gallery!  Dang!

I love the colors on these.  Each pose is unique!

Close-up.  Appreciate that detail.

These ladies look familiar, don't they?  They're all over Angkor Wat.

Another fancy lady.  Her feet appear to be missing.

Head detail.

Skirt detail.

Flowers.

I think these are... chickens?

There are two little people in here, see them?

Dragons?  Hawks?  More chickens?  I have no clue.

These are my favorites.

There were also tons of decorative supports in the windows:

See those cool beams in the window?

Close-up of a window support.  I told you things looked cooler in the rainy season.  Look at that lichen!

 On the outer edge of the second gallery were incredibly detailed carvings that depicted stories.  Some historians believe that these carvings are more important than any other part of the temple.  If you look closely, you'll notice that each soldier has a unique face!  Take a moment on each one to really appreciate all the detail.

We've got an elephant, soldiers, trees on the top (look at that leaf detail!), and canopies.

Some of the carvings have been rubbed smooth by visitors.  You're not allowed to touch them now.
(Which is good!  I'm all for the protection of world treasures.)

I think that's a... donkey?

Very similar to the first one, but there are some differences.

The elephant looks like he's smiling!  The man on the back is yelling.

Three horses with three riders.

Look, each face is different!

Trees!  People carrying something!

More horses, rubbed smooth by tourists.

I am really digging those trees.

After spending some solid time checking out carvings, we headed behind the temple to the rear (eastmost) entrance building.  The entrance buildings at the edges of the moat are called 'gopuras.'

A view of the main Angkor Wat temple from the gopura.

Gorgeous gopura!

Check out those hot pants.  Aw yeah, this is a good look for me.

Supermodel.

And those shoes, so chic.  (But seriously, those shoes
were lifesavers.  Not joking.  I love my tevas.)

You can see the main Angkor Wat temple from inside!  So cool!

Look at all the pretty colors!  Mostly moss and lichen, and only
seen during the rainy season, I think.

From the back.  We're very close to the moat right now.

This was one of those moments where I felt like Lara Croft.

Behind the gopura was the entrance for locals, and the moat!

There's the moat and the road for locals.

Somebody set up a tiny shrine on one side of the gopura.

I took two of these, and they were both so cool that I had to include them.

Same with this one.

We also visited the northern gopura, which looked very similar.

Very pretty, and nobody around!

Walking back from the gopuras was another gorgeous view.

From the rear.

From the north.  Look how tall those trees are!

I love all the greenery.

Artistic floor-level shot?  No, more like a too-lazy-to-climb-the-stairs-so-here-will-do shot.

From the north... I think.

A panorama!  I adore panoramas.

Such a beautiful and huge temple!

Time to leave and go see more temples!

Back to the front.  You can't see it here, but to the right of this pond is a market where Cambodian sellers
obnoxiously try to sell you random souvenir crap.

You can see the market in this one!

View of the main entrance from the temple.

And a few more panorama shots that I forgot to add and am now too lazy to put in the right place.

This is the outer gallery of the main temple complex.

There's a big piece of orange cloth draped on there.  Not sure why.

There's a guardian 5-headed snake-lion thing in this one!

And that's the end of Angkor Wat!  Looking back, I'm really glad we visited this temple first.  Angkor Wat is huge, and we were so excited by it, but compared to some of the other temples it was rather unimpressive.  I admit it, we became temple snobs.  I am a temple snob.  As cool as Angkor Wat is, it's far from my favorite.

More to come in the (hopefully) near future as I continue going through my five bajillion photos!

Cheers,
Ashton