Finally! We’re going to see the temples of Angkor, the capital of the Khmer Empire, first-hand. Our guide is picking us up at 8:00 AM. We’ll visit a couple of temple sites this morning, have lunch, then visit a couple more this afternoon. Let’s go find out what these amazing structures and the people who built them are all about!
The Walled City of Angkor Thom
The Khmers established a number of capital cities over their 600-year existence as an in-tact empire. Angkor Thom was the last of them. They built it in the 13th century during the reign of Jayavarman VII. It was a square city, enclosed by four huge walls and a 300-foot wide, crocodile-infested moat. Each of the four walls is nearly two miles long. There’s a gate in the center of each wall.
Why the big walls and moat way out here in the middle of the jungle? Was Jayavarman VII paranoid? Nope. He was smart. Before his reign, a group of people called the Chams launched a massive attack and destroyed much of what had been built prior to Angkor Thom. Under Jayavarman VII’s leadership the Chams were driven off.
(Just to give the Chams equal time, the Khmers invaded Champa – the Cham’s homeland — and conquered them many years before. Champa was located where South Vietnam is today. Did the Chams start it by attacking the Khmers first? I don’t know. The answer probably depends on whether you ask a Cham or a Cambodian, eh?)
Let’s Go In!
Meanwhile, here we are at the entrance to Angkor Thom. I don’t know about the other gates, but the one we entered through is really impressive. Large statues of figures holding onto a long, seven-headed serpent line the road leading up to the gate.
(The serpent is called a “naga. “Naga’s” are serpent/spirits from Hinduism and Buddhism. One of the Cambodian versions is a snake having multiple heads. You thought the Thai’s had a lot of spirits? In the “spirit” department, the Thai’s don’t have anything on the Cambodians. More on this later).
The road lined by the naga-carrying figures leads up to an awesome-looking structure towering over the southern entrance to Angkor Thom. When you look closely at it, you can see a big stone face that looks like a Buddha. It’s really neat. I can imagine how impressive it was 700-800 years ago.
The Bayon
Once inside the gate, the structure that grabs your attention is the one that was the king’s palace. It’s called the “Bayon.” Fifty-something stone towers rise up out of the Bayon. On the walls of each tower, four gigantic Buddha-like faces stare out to the four directions. It’s an awesome sight.
Most of the previous Khmer kings had been Hindus, but Jayavarman II, (and therefore most of the Khmer population), was Buddhist. The stone faces may represent a particular Buddhist deity, but they’re also said to resemble Jayavarman VII himself. I can tell you one thing — everywhere you walk in the Bayon, you can feel them watching you.
Our guide lead us through the Bayon, explaining things we would have had no idea about if we had been on our own. He did a great job. I don’t think the “tuk-tuks-don’t-have-brakes-guy” would have done as good a job. Ha ha!
The Khmers carved illustrations of their stories, history, and daily life into the temple walls. The closer you look, the more detail you see. And with our guide’s help, we could really see whatever it was that the artisans were trying to say.
From the Bayon, we walked a short distance outside the walls of Ankor Thom to a temple called Ta Keo. The Khmers started building this temple in the 10th century, 200 years before the Bayon, but they never completed it. One story is that during its construction, lightening struck the temple. The Khmers of old knew a bad omen when they saw one, so they stopped construction, and never restarted.
Ta Keo has a pyramid-like structure with steep, but climbable steps for those foolish enough to try. By the time I got to the top, (ahem), my glutes were screamin’. You’d think there’d be a breeze blowing at the top, huh? Nope. And by this time it was getting seriously hot. I wish I could say that the view from the top was amazing, but I guess the bar for “amazing” had already been set pretty high that day.
Ta Prohm
From Ta Keo, we walked to the remains of a Khmer temple called “Ta Prohm.” (We walked quite a bit that day, but we moseyed along at a leisurely pace — Cambodian style – like our ride in from the airport. It was shady and nice walking between sites while our guide told us all kinds of interesting things along the way).
Ta Prohm, like the other Angkor sites, had been lost to most of the world for 500 years or so. The western world “rediscovered” Angkor in the mid-19th century. People have extricated temples like the Bayon from the jungle that had reclaimed them over the years. But in the case of Ta Prohm, someone wisely decided to leave it alone. So when someone visits Ta Prohm now, they almost feel like they’re discovering it themselves.
Here at Ta Prohm, it looks like nature hasn’t yet given up its hold on this ancient site. (See photo at top of page). Roots of huge trees snake all around, inside, outside, and through the beautifully carved walls. It’s eerie. I’m glad it’s the middle of the day. It would be way too spooky to be here at night. Yikes! Angelina Jolie & Co. must have thought this was a pretty cool-looking place, too, because they filmed parts of the Tomb Raider movies here at Ta Prohm.
By the time we had finished exploring Ta Prohm, it was mid-day, and the temperature was on the rise. Fortunately for us, it was a short walk to a clearing where a mini-van was waiting to take us to lunch. Our driver greeted us with cold bottles of water. Ahhhhh.
We had a lunch at a nearby restaurant. I couldn’t tell you what we had, exactly, but there was a lot of food, and everything was really good. AND we were sitting down, AND it was nice and cool inside. It was a great stop.
To be continued…
Specific tour details are on this Travel Notes page.
