Angkor - Day 1, Afternoon

After lunch, we returned to Angkor Thom, to the north of the Bayon and walked past the Baphuan, a large temple being restored by a Frenchman named Pasteur. Beside that was the Terrace of Elephants, an amazing display of bas relief (carvings done on low walls) and which acted as a front wall of the Imperial enclosure – a large walled area that used to hold the king’s wooden palace. Inside the enclosure were several huge swimming pools (hundreds of meters in length), that allowed some of the King’s 3,000 consorts (!) a place to relax. Next to the elephant terrace was the Terrace of the Leper King, which had hundreds of carvings as well. Opposite that area, across the road, were 12 large towers spaced along a 500 meter tract of land, which some Japanese archaeologists were restoring. According to history, ropes were strung between the towers for circus like performers to entertain the King.

Through the east gate on the left was Thommanon, a nice temple with excellent sand stone carvings around the doorways. A mother, daughter and infant son were working the area. The daughter was so cute, before I knew it I’d bought two drinks and Krama, the traditional Khmer In return for the sale, I was allowed to take a great picture. multipurpose cloth, usually worn around the head.

The next stop on the little circuit was Ta Keo, a large unfinished temple. There were 40 kings during the Angkor Period (630 years) and it wasn’t befit of a king to complete another man’s work, rather, everyone had to start a new religious monument in the hope that he would earn favour in the eyes of his gods.

The last temple of the day was Ta Prohm, built by King Jayavaram VII to honour his mother (in Buddhism, there were three Buddha gods, Buddha, his mother and his father – at least that was the level of my understanding!), another key in his hopes to become a god himself. Ta Prohm was one of my favourite temples, because it had been left alone and completely overrun by the jungle (it was a featured set in the Tomb Raider movie). Huge silk-cotton trees and strangler figs draped down over the walls, and snakelike roots were growing everywhere. When we walked around, I really got that “Indian Jones” like feeling sending chills down my body. Sophia University of Japan was attempting to restore parts of Ta Prohm –but they had barely made a dent. By the time Lap Tek finished talking, and we’d bought drinks for the fourth time that day from some more cute girls, it was time to see the sunset. We could have gone south, but we took the longer route back the way we came. In hindsight, Lap Tek probably didn’t want us to see any of the next day’s temples prematurely. We passed the fan girls, and they gave us huge smiles and friendly waves – that made me feel better about our small “donation”. We made it to the hill temple of Phnom Bakheng at 6:15 just in time for sunset. Standing at the top you could see Angkor Wat beautifully lit up to the east, lush green jungle to the north, Siem Reap to the south and beautiful reflections off the waters of the western reservoir to the West. I climbed up one of the dozen or so towers for a better vantage point – it was utterly beautiful and I felt completely at peace. What we didn’t realize at the time was that this hill was usually packed at sunset with hundreds of people clamoring about to see the beautiful sights… we were extremely lucky to be the only ones on the hill that evening.

That night, we were absolutely dead tired. I felt like it was my first day of high school – so many new things, and lots of names to remember. We got to bed early as our second day at Angkor we were scheduled to watch the sunrise at Angkor Wat.