Today was an early start! We were up before the crack of dawn, at 4:30am to be exact (although there is some conjecture that it was actually 4am due to some watch discrepancies - at any given moment the time was proclaimed to be on the hour, the half hour after, the half hour before, or the next hour according to the clock at the resort, Tracey's watch, Milla's watch and my own) - anyway, point is, it was EARLY!! So, into the pitch black we trundled in our tuk-tuk, driving over pot-holed roads and bouncing around like popcorn, all in order to see Angor Wat at sunrise.
After climbing out of the tuk-tuk we headed up to the gates and the sea of smiling security guards, although the smiles slipped a little as we fought to prove that Milla was in fact nine years old (apparently she looks like Tracey's thirty year old sister). Still, even though she's taller this time around, the people of Southeast Asia still love Milla, the women at security giving her a cuddle as we waited.
Then, suddenly, we were in, stumbling around in the 5am blackness, experiencing distinct feelings of torch-envy (flashlight-envy for the Canadians) as tour after tour went past, their path well-lit by the guides. After a few comments like 'wow, I bet this is stunning when you can actually see it' and 'now, was that furry animal that just ran past a cat or a rat?', we decided it would be best to follow the tours which all seemed to be congregating in one spot over by the lake. As it turned out, this led to prime viewing of the sunrise over the temple (see? sometimes it does pay to follow the crowd Mom!). Words just can't do it justice...the whole thing was breathtaking...
Some information on Angkor Wat (as your official tour guide for this blog) - it is the world's largest religious monument, the symbol of the Khmer Kingdom at its peak, and the heart and soul of all Khmer people apparently. The temple itself is more than one square kilometre and is surrounded by water. The walls of the temples are covered by carvings depicting stories and characters from Ramayana and historical wars. All in all - awesome!
We then headed off to Angkor Thom, via Bayon, or the four-face towers, which apparently stands for the four qualities of Nirvana - compassion, humility...and two others that I sadly cannot remember - something deep though certainly =] Making our way to Angkor Thom we decided to ditch the tuk-tuk and opted for a slightly different mode of transport...
I was unsure about the elephant riding at first, but after feeding them turned out to be such a blast (bananas surprisingly) , and Tracey and Milla did a lot of fast talking about bravery, adventure, and missing out on the fun, I decided to suck it up and on we climbed. It was fantastic! Like riding a very tall, very wobbly horse =] Our destination, Angkor Thom, was amazing, a sea of faces carved into stone. And there we met a very friendly police officer who decided to double as a tour guide and took us on a personal tour of the temple, telling us about the symbolism of the different carvings, religious symbols, and signs of war (one bullet hole was particularly striking). He also took some great pictures!
During the afternoon we took in a few more temples (much like the Louvre, the majesty started to wear off sadly, perhaps there's simply a human threshold for awe-inspiring sights so that once crossed, the individual is simply unable to work up any kind eye-widening wonder...), then finished off our day with Ta Prohm, one of the few temples that hasn't been restored and is slowly being reclaimed by the jungle (you may recognise it from Tomb Raider...)
All in all, an amazing day! The temples were breathtaking and gave a real sense of peace (when we weren't being followed by aggressive market sellers going 'Lady, lady, you buy? you buy?' that is). The only downside to the day was when we lost our tuk-tuk driver - he had been amazing all day - no matter how far afield we wandered, he always managed to find us again just when we needed him but at the very last temple, we had to hunt. Not really a huge problem, but the hour of walking in, out and around the temple, in the rain that started falling about five minutes into our search was just not a great way to end the day. Finally we found him though and it was back to the resort after nine and a half hours of temple exploring. So now, time for a bit of relaxation and getting ready for the big day - tomorrow is Milla's birthday!
1 comment:
That nose to nose picture is AWESOME.
It is very depressing that we get so saturated by the awe-inspiring so quickly. Going through the British Museum - after about and hour you can't help but yawn and rush past ancient priceless relics of great historical import. We suck.
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