Amazing Angkor

You know when you spend years looking forward to seeing something amazing, and build it up so much in your mind that you're just a little disappointed when you finally see it in real life? Well, Angkor Wat is nothing like that.

Despite wanting to see it almost since I first heard of it, and despite looking forward for months to visiting these ancient ruins as one of the big highlights of the trip, I was still surprised and amazed by Angkor Wat. It is, literally, awesome.

You know it must be great - it's not only on the national flag, but the national beer is named after Angkor. Can you think of a higher honour? Me neither.

We got up to Siem Reap, the nearest town to the temples, by boat from Phnom Penh. The boat plies its way up the Tonle Sap – which starts off as a river, then widens into a flooded plain and, finally, becomes the biggest lake I've ever seen. It's virtually an inland sea, and its waters help feed practically all of Cambodia.

The boat up here isn't particularly pleasant, unless you like to be squeezed into a cramped seat deep inside a narrow metal sweatbox. If the boat were operating anywhere outside of Asia, it would be sealed from the off – you wouldn't be allowed outside.

But in this region devoid of health and safety regulations and personal liability laws, you're more than welcome to climb out the front doors and risk life and limb tiptoeing along a precariously narrow apron along the outside – all while the boat zips along at about a million miles an hour.



But the boat is always overbooked so someone has to make that dangerous journey to get to a spot on the roof. Fortunately, it wasn't us.

After five hours, we reached Siem Reap and were picked up by a cheerful tuk-tuk driver sent by the guesthouse. We spent the afternoon checking out the town, which is great. A bit Wild West, Siem Reap is dusty and a bit backwards, packs of stray dogs wander about and the electricity seems to go off at three o' clock every afternoon – but the people are friendly and the whole place has a great vibe.

And how many other towns do you know can boast a restaurant with a pit full of live crocodiles – big ones – in the corner?

The next morning, we were ready to see Angkor Wat. The name 'Angkor Wat' is used to describe a whole region of many and varied ancient temples and ruins, but Angkor Wat itself is just one of them – it's the most famous one you will have seen in all the pictures.

It's not like, say, the Taj Mahal – you can't just go to one spot, see it and go home. You need transport and at least a few days. You can hire a car or a van, you can go on an organised tour on a bus, or you can hire a tuk-tuk driver to pick you up each morning.

We hired a tuk-tuk. We chose the driver who had picked us up from the boat, Sukla. Sukla ferried us about for most of the next week for about $10 or $15 a day. A bargain – he was knowledgeable, helpful and attentive (his contact details are below if you're coming here anytime soon).



We climbed aboard that first morning a pair of very excited tomb raiders. First we had to stop off at the ticketing area and buy a pass – we opted for the full week version for $60. You can also get a one-day and a three-day version, but the one week pass is the best value if you have the time to use it.

Then it was back into the tuk-tuk for the short drive to Angkor Wat. We were practically leaning out of the tuk-tuk to grab that first glimpse, and as we rounded the temple's enormous moat we finally saw it in the distance.

We gasped. For a start, it's absolutely enormous. The three towers, shaped like lotus buds, pierced the sky in the distance as we scrambled to reach the stone causeway that bridges the moat.

But first we had to negotiate the crowd of kids you get at every one of the Angkor sites, selling guidebooks, drinks, scarves and all manner of souvenirs. After a while , the shouts of 'Lady, you buy from meeeeeee' or 'Meester, you wanna a cold beer' (at 9.30 in the morning?) become as much a part of the Angkor experience as ruins and carvings.

Fortunately, the kids are sweet and not too pushy - although you can't help but feel concerned that they are here selling things when they really ought to be at school. But that's Cambodia - you work before you can even walk, apparently. For all its cute-ness, it's a sad thing to see.



And these kids are smart little cookies. When they find out which country you're from, they spout all sorts of amazing facts and figures, and a stunning variety of expressions in poor Aussie accents. We've had everything from 'g'day mate' to 'how you goin', Sheila' to - a classic, this one - 'a dingo stole my baby!'

But my absolute favourite had to be the young girl who drew a deep breath and blurted out, as if it was one long word, this little gem: 'John-Howard-is-your-prime-minister-but-not-for-very-much-longer'. Girl after my own heart. Still didn't buy anything off her, though.

Once past the kids and across the causeway, we were in Angkor Wat itself. You walk through an enormous stone structure and find yourself in something akin to a courtyard - the biggest damn courtyard in the world.

In the distance are the beautiful three towers - right at the end of another stone causeway flanked by beautiful ornamental nagas and other figures from Hindu mythology. It's a breathtaking sight.



The temples were built around a thousand years ago by the Khmer kings - Khmers are ethnic Cambodians, essentially - who once ruled huge swathes of South East Asia. They traded mainly with India and were apparently deeply impressed by their culture. So they adopted the Hindu and Buddhist religions, and built many, many great temples to display their piety.

Inside many, if not most, of the temples are intricate and elaborately carved bas reliefs depicting scenes from the Ramayama, the great Hindu epic, stories about the kings that built the temples, and hundreds and hundreds of Apsaras - the topless celestial dancers who entertained the gods. Some of the reliefs take up 50 or 60 metres of wall, all in meticulously carved detail.



There are something like 30 or 40 of these temples scattered across the countryside - some of them, like the main Angkor Wat, beautifully restored and as close to pristine as a 1,000-year-old temple can be. Others are ruins buried deep in overgrown jungles.

And as huge as Angkor Wat is, it's not even the biggest of them. Just to the north is Angkor Thom, an enormous complex of temples and royal palaces.

That was our next stop on that first day - to see The Bayon, a brilliantly crumbling collection of black-rock towers. There are dozens of these towers, each carved with three or four serene and enigmatic faces. It's hard not to be in awe as you look up at all these huge and ancient faces smiling down at you.



One of the surprising things about Angkor is how free you are to do what you like. Some of the most precious bas reliefs are roped off - though no one guards them - but in most of the temples, you're free to wander around and touch anything you like.

I don't know if it will last forever. It probably shouldn't, really. But while it lasts, it's certainly fun to scramble around, through and over just about anything you see.

Another essential part of the whole Angkor experience are sunrises. If only seeing them didn't involve setting off at five in the morning. But, the very next morning, we did just that. It was worth it - witnessing the golds and purples of the sun rising over the towers of Angkor Wat is something Amanda and I will never forget.



Unfortunately - there's another essential part of the whole Angkor experience: the crowds. It's not even high season yet, but there are a lot of people here at the moment. A lot.

Even at that ungodly hour there were at least a couple of hundred people awaiting the sunrise. In a temple the size of Angkor Wat, there's plenty of room for everyone. But at our next stop, a distant but small temple called Banteay Srei, the crowds made the place uncomfortably cramped.

And, after we took a day's break, we found the crowds not only large but obnoxious on our first visit to one of the 'jungle temples' - temples rising out of a barely cleared stretch of dense jungle. This was Ta Prohm, an incredibly atmospheric crumbling ruin.

The bits of ancient temple lie around covered in years of moss, or are half-choked by the grasping tendrils of huge strangler fig trees.



It's an enormously picturesque scene, and that's part of the problem. The masses of tourists we encountered here are not content with standing back and taking photos of the ruins.

Oh, no. No, they have to put themselves in every picture. These people were practically fighting each other - I certainly saw a little pushing and shoving going on - to get themselves in front of one of these trees for a keepsake photo. And many of them weren't happy with one - they did it for every one of these trees they saw. Do they have shockingly cynical friends who simply refuse to believe they went to Angkor Wat unless they bring home photographic proof?

Even a tough climb doesn't put off the crowds. One late afternoon, Amanda and I walked for 20 minutes uphill on a dirt track to watch the sunrise on Phnom Bakeng, a steep hill overlooking Angkor Wat. It was already crowded when we got there, but as sunset approached more and more people streamed in. When the crowds got so thick that we literally couldn't see the horizon, we gave up on that sunrise.

Then on the way down we passed one tour group after another. We must have passed, literally, 600 or 700 people on their way up. God knows how they all managed to fit up there - or how disappointed they all were when a storm eventually blotted out the sunset.

But don't get me wrong - the crowds are nowhere near bad enough to ruin the experience, but I wouldn't want to be here in high season and I certainly wanted to get away from them.

Fortunately, I found a way to do it. It's pretty simple, really: get up very early and head for one of the outlying temples.

So the next morning I was up at 5am again for a trip to the Rolous group. This group of three temples were part of an older city built by the Khmers before they moved some miles away to Angkor.

I headed for the main temple of the three, called Bakong, to watch the sunrise. There's a working, modern monastery at the foot of Bakong and when I got there at first light there were just a couple of monks about.

One had a torch and raced up what is basically an enormous ancient pyramid topped with the same lotus-bud tower as Angkor Wat. The orange-robed boy's name was Somna and he was just 12. I didn't really need his help getting up, but I was happy to have his company as I sat at the top and waited for the sun to rise.

He was as fascinated by me as I was with him, but he was even more fascinated by my camera - it all looked deceptively professional sitting atop a tripod and pointing towards the spot where I figured morning would break.

I was still barely awake, but the early rise was worth it. I got to sit atop an ancient temple pyramid, just me and a monk, and watch the sun rise over the surrounding fields and rice paddies.



I wanted to take a photo of the young monk but as the dawn arrived, the sounds of chanting started up from the monastery and Somna raced off without a word. Never did see him again.

I wandered around the ruins for ages - enjoying seeing it bathed in a golden morning light. And even after all that time, there was no one else around.

Except for a cow...



...and some kids on the way to school.



After Bekong, Sukla drove me to Beng Mealea. This ruin is even further away - it took more than an hour to get there - and if you want 'jungle temples', this one is the real deal.

It's well off the beaten track and it's a completely unrestored ruin. I wondered why that was until I crossed what was once the temple's moat and saw a sign on either side of me. They both proclaimed that 'This minefield has been cleared'. And only about five weeks ago. I was a little stunned.

You need a guide to get around this one, and one of the gaggle of uniformed girls who staff the place leads you around. Over piles of precariously balanced rocks, through tiny holes in walls, down darkened internal corridors. And, again, not a tourist in sight.



If you have an Indiana Jones or Lara Croft fantasy, then Beng Mealea is the place to live it out.

But travelling to somewhere well off the beaten track is no guarantee you'll miss the crowds. The next day kicked off at a place called Kbal Spean. It took well over an hour and a half to get there, crashing and bumping along the most diabolical dirt track I have ever seen.

'This is great,' I thought to myself. 'No tourist bus is ever going to drive across this.' Wrong. When I got there I instantly noticed - count 'em - nine tour buses parked outside. Bugger.

Kbal Spean is not a temple, but a length of burbling river running down a mountain. What makes it remarkable is that someone, a thousand years ago, carved depictions of Vishnu and Shiva, a Yoni and hundreds and hundreds of stylised Lingam (ask your mum).

These things are carved into the living rock below the waterline. Someone actually waited until the height of the dry season and laboriously carved shapes and pictures out of the rock of the riverbed. It's amazing.



But what's even more amazing is just how many tourists are happy to ignore the very clear warning signs to wade into the river - which flows dangerously fast down a steep hill until it reaches a waterfall with a very long drop to the bottom - to stand on these precious, and slippery, carvings. All for a photo opportunity.

I'm surprised none of them died. Maybe some did. Here's hoping.

But for all those crowds, Kbal Spean remained a remarkable sight.

That was the last of five days of exploring temples, and I spent the rest of the day touring East Mebon, Ta Som and Neak Pean - all uniquely interesting places in their own way.

Sukla was keen to keep going for a sixth day, but I was finally all templed out. It took five solid days of exploring, two sunrises and something like 24 temples. I was tired, happy and completely in awe - and resolved to visit Angkor Wat again someday.

But next time, I'll make sure I'm there in low season.

If you're coming to Angkor Wat and want to hire Sukla, you can give him a ring on 012675726. Or you can find him parked outside the Two Dragons guesthouse - look for the guy with 1079 on the back of his tuk-tuk tunic. I can't recommend the guesthouse (it's rubbish) but I can definitely recommend Sukla!

Oh, and all my Angkor Wat photos are here.