Angkor and the Floating City

Reciting the mantra “there’s never enough time” we powered through Angkor. A three-day pass is actually kind of a joke it turns out, because even with three full days, you’re scrambling just to see the most famous of the sites. What’s left of the empire are the ruins of over a thousand stone temples covering an area of a thousand square kilometers. The real kicker is, all that’s left is what was made of stone. According to Angkor law, only the gods were allowed to dwell on stone. So every other building, every residence from those of the lay people to the most powerful ruler’s where made entirely of wood and therefore have long since disappeared. We stuck to the center, where the 72 most famous temples are found, and still didn’t even come close to seeing them all.

For those archeology nerds (of which I know there is at least one reading), the carved friezes are some of the longest (a hundred meters or more) and most detailed in the world. There are battle scenes between warring nations with archers mounted on elephants and terrifying Hindu deities hashing it out on the brink of oblivion. My favorite, the Churning of the Sea of Milk, is the Hindu creation story where the Devas pull one end of a giant serpent and the demons the other. Watching over it all is Vishnu in multiple incarnations just acting like the boss of the whole universe. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samudra_manthan)

I really don’t think describing these places is going to paint you an accurate picture, so hopefully a very limited selection of the far too many pictures I took while I was sweating and hiking and biking and tuk-tuk-ing through the ancient city will suffice for now. I think there’s a sufficient amount of literature out there as well for those who I just can’t satisfy.

It’s like I’m Mogley and I should be getting hypnotized by a boa constrictor and then saved by a panther

Monks – Angkor Thom

Angkor Wat before the sunrise (the only time I was up for the sunrise, having slept the night before, in years)

Angkor Wat – Sunrise

Angkor Wat – Daytime

Angkor Wat – Frieze

The Bayon

Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm 2 – Apparently where they filmed parts of Tomb Raider. Has anyone actually seen that?

Preah Palilay

Preah Khan

Blessing

Banteay Srei

The Elephant Terrace

The Floating Village

Defusing a Landmine at the Landmine Museum

Rice Field

Preah Khan – Sunset

The first day (pardon the anachronistic timeline of my writing) we went to a floating city. Unfortunately it is a bit dry at this time of year, but the houses were perhaps even more impressive without water around them, rising over ten meters high on stilts. The boat took us down river and through the town, where the people were surprisingly jovial about us passing through and snapping pictures of everything. We visited the schoolhouse (pictured in the previous post), temple, and town center before the boatman took us down further into the biggest lake in SE Asia. The only bodies of water I am afraid to swim in are here where I am now, so of course I went in (mostly clothed).

Other stops of note: The Landmine Museum, the curator of which began his adolescence as a Khmer Rouge soldier fighting against his own people, later defecting to the Vietnamese Army to then fight the Khmer Rouge, and has spent the last 30 years of his life (and continues to do so) defusing and collecting antipersonnel and antitank mines, grenades, and unexploded bombs, rockets and mortar rounds.

See, I can keep it short.

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