Day of Heat and Temples (In Mostly Pictures)

     
     As per the advice of a Croatian woman that we met on a day I have yet to write about, we went to the temples early and late.  By waking up at four thirty we made it to Angkor Wat as it was opening and joined the crowd gathering for the sunrise.  Because of the clouds we left before the sun was visible and evaded the throngs temporarily by going to Angkor Thom.  When we arrived there were two other people there.
     Instead of biking through the complex we hired a tuk tuk for the day.  A guide was also hired through the hotel but we had mixed feelings about that, as though he helped us figure  out where to go when and what everything was his accent was difficult to understand and there were points when we wanted to wander through the abandoned rooms rather than listen to a lecture about them.
                                     
     Various countries are assisting with the restoration of the sites and go about it in different ways.  France sorts through the daunting piles of rubble and fits the pieces back together like a puzzle while Japan carves completely new pieces that look like the originals in their original state.  I hope that they only do this in some place and leave others in their original state.
 
     To get to Angkor Thom we passed over a bridge lined with gods and demons playing tug-of-war, gods to the left and demons to the right.  The gate at the end was built with dozens of small chunks of carved rock fitted together and built in a way that seemed very insecure.

After our guide described the gallery of carvings we walked through the temple. The religious aspect of the buildings figured a large part in our day, but the details on the walls that really say that a human carved them hundreds of years ago were more interesting to me.  I know some people are really interested in the symbolism of the carvings but I was more intrigued by the stories carved in, like the man turning around and yelling at the woman whose turtle is biting him.

                                    
     At the second building in the complex there was a giant reclining Buddha built into the wall of the building and steep stairs that led to it.
      At the third there were more steep stairs, and a legend of a snake turning into a woman every evening.
      Our last stop there was at the Elephant Terrace, where the king would watch parades and games from.
     From there we got back in the tuk tuk and went to the library and university of Preah Khan.  Every few feet there is a doorway and lintel used to hold up the ceiling, and the walls are covered with holes that were used to hold up the jewel-studded copper that was looted in the fourteenth century by the Thai.  Every so often we would come across an irregular pedestal in the ground that had held a statue of a Buddha centuries until the same time the copper vanished.  The structure was very long, and to the side were stupas dedicated to generals.  The walls to the stupas were decorated with intricate carvings but in many places there were large chipped-away places where a Buddha was removed by King Jayavarmin the eighth, who converted the country back to Hinduism.  In the back of the complex there was a two-story building used to house the sacred sword and trees growing over a couple of the walls.
                                     
                                 
     By eight in the morning it was getting hot so by ten we were glad to be heading back to the hotel.  Our guide told us that his parents never took him to Angkor Wat and he eventually went with a friend while in secondary school.  Like so many people, he was good-naturedly bitter, remarking that he always knew he would be a guide.  He lives in Siem Reap, what else could he be?
     Our hotel serves a flexible breakfast that we ate when we got home before a quick swim and a long nap.  We met the tuk tuk outside the hotel at two.
      After driving for about ten minutes we heard a loud bang that signaled the popping of one of the back tires.  The driver drove back to trade out his vehicle but was back in less than ten minutes.
    The path to Ta Prohm was filled mostly with tourists leaving but that didn't mean that there weren't clusters of people taking hundreds of pictures and being in the way in many places.  Ta Prohm is notable for all the trees that have taken root on the walls and it was definitely surreal and beautiful.
                                  
                                
                                 
                               

    Finally we went to Angkor Wat.  Most people go to the temple in the morning because it's cooler than so we decided to go in the afternoon to get some space.  I don't know how the crowds compare but it was really hot and not hardly deserted.   The road we walked on to get to it had a few dozen whisker monkeys on it, the babies holding on to the mothers' bellies and the big males staring at us and being scary.
 
     The entrance we went through had a wooden built up to it not because the original stone stairs were too worn down to be safe but because the king would ride up and disembark from his elephant.  Through a passage filled with statues decapitated during the Khmer Rouge we reached a courtyard with a tall structure in the center.  The line was long and the stairs were steep so my mom opted to wander through the relatively empty rooms lower down while we went up.  From there we could see the entire complex and honestly were a bit relieved that it wasn't as huge as we feared.
                                                                            
                                     
 
                                   
                                
     When we came down we saw another long gallery of carvings before coming to a hall with several pools once filled with water and a surviving Buddha. We also saw an intact Vishnu statue that people had put incense in front of.
                                   
                                                                                     
  I don't recommend falling asleep in a tuk tuk.  My head kept snapping backwards but I couldn't stay awake long enough to get home.