Si's Year Out! (Plus Europe! Plus Morocco!): The Legendary Angkor Temples!

The Angkor period ran from the 9th to the 15th century, when the king of cambodia was supposedly the 'god-king'. The Angkor area was the capital at the time and each new monarch would build themselves spectacular temples, usually out-dooing the previous heads of state. In 1431 the capital was sacked by Thai invaders and the population moved south to the current capital of Phnom Penh. The result is a huge area full of amazing temples and palaces between 600-1100 years old, mostly in ruins.

The most famous is Angkor Wat, the largest single religious monument in the world. The Wat is surrounded by a huge moat and a big wall, about 3.6km long! Inside there are three rectangular galleries, each raised above the next. At the centre of the temple stands a quincunx of towers. It took about 2 hours to look around Angkor Wat. The details of carvings on the walls and sheer size of the spectacular buildings was amazing to see. You are allowed to climb around everywhere and there were some great views of teh complex.

Many of the temples have been restored in one way or another over the years but some are little more than piles of rubble. A load of the temples were even covered completely by jungle before historians cleared it away! One of these temples, Ta Prohm, was used as a location for the film Tomb Raider and is covered with huge trees spreading their roots everywhere and even knocking down walls!

The area of Angkor Thom is 9 square kilometers and was the last capital of Angkor. It contains lots of temples, including Baphuon, the Terrace of the Elephants, Phimeanakas, the Royal Palace, the Terrace of the Leper King, Tep Pranam and Preah Palilay, the Prasats Suor Prat, the South Khleang, the North Khleang, and Preah Pithu. I found the Khleangs very interesting. They were collections of red-stone buildings in a line and looked amazing against the background of the light green grass. It is said that they were used for royal performances and later for trials. Each party would be locked inside a building and the first to succombe to disease was proven guilty!

Another temple worth mentioning is the Bayon, which has 54 square towers, each with four huge smiling faces, one carved into each side. It is theorised that at the time Cambodia was split into 54 provinces and each of the faces looked to all four corners of each province to make sure the subjects were behaving themselves.

We looked at all these and more over three days and decided to do it by bicycle. It was a 6km scary ride there (the Cambodians all drive like madmen) and we usually did about 20km in the day. The first day I had a really good mountain bike with 21 grear and suspension but as the days went on, and my funds decreased (faster than i expected, as usual!) my bike got progressively worse until the third day when I had a womens bike with 1 gear and a basket! It was so much fun cruising around the place at our own pace and we got to see some of the really out-of-the-way stuff (not to mention the fact that it was cheaper!). By the end of the three days I was all templed out and ready for another interesting ride back to Bangkok....