Cambodia Pt 1- Siem Reap

Cambodia as a country is just starting to reappear on the tourist trail after years of being off limits due to civil war. Whilst most of the country is rural farmland, there are 2 main cities which have embraced tourism, Phnom Penh (The capital) and Siem Reap-both of which we visited on our trip. The first stop was Siem Reap, the home of the ancient temple city of Angkor. The temples at Angkor are world famous and there are LOTS of temples; if they aren't your thing I would skip ahead the next few paragraphs now as its quite temple heavy. After 2 days of seeing them, the more cynical side of my personality just began to see them as piles of old rocks. However when you first see them, you cant help but be impressed. We saw about 20 temples in total during our 2 day trip, but the big 5 are the following Angkor Wat, The Bayon, Phra Thom, Bantay Sreai and Kbal Spean. We saw the first 3 on the first day, as well as lots of others, but the main ones can be described as follows. Angkor Wat is believed to be the largest religious structure in the world; although personally, I think it cheats a little because this includes the whole area enclosed by the outer wall of the complex. It is a stunning building overall, when you first approach it, there is a large exterior wall which is quite impressive. I was quite impressed that they managed to build something so large by hand, when even the smallest job is done my machine on sites these days.

Once you get through the entrance gate, the full structure becomes clear and you get an idea of how large it really is. You cant help but be impressed, even in its current dilapidated state. Angkor Wat was the first of the temples to be built in this area, and was ordered by an ancient King of Cambodia to be constructed. It is part temple and part mausoleum as it is believed that the king is buried here. The temple is built over 3 storeys, however you can only gain access to the lowest level these days as the upper levels are being restored. The stairways to the upper level are VERY steep. This was deliberately done as the top level represents heaven and the stairways represent how hard it is to get there. I was secretly pleased that they were shut, as my fear of falling down them over-ruled my curiosity about what was at the top. Whilst Cambodia is now predominantly Buddhist, at the time of Angkor Wats construction, the population were Hindu, As a result, the corridors of the lowest level are engraved with scenes from the Ramayana - An ancient Hindu myth. It looked like a stone version of the Bayeux tapestry and was very intricate, if a little repetitive and hard to understand. Despite some areas being in bad condition, on the whole however, it is a very impressive building and you can understand why the Cambodians are rightly proud of it. The image of Angkor Wat is on EVERYTHING in Cambodia, its on the flag, they named their beer after it, nearly every business or guesthouse in Siem Reap is named Angkor something or another.

The Second most famous temple, and the one I preferred out of all of them, is The Bayon. This temple was constructed much later and represents a different architectural and construction style. The big draw of The Bayon is the large amount huge stone faces of the Buddha which have been carved into the temple. These are another iconic site from Angkor and will be shown on any TV program or article about the temples. There are 54 faces carved from stone that are dotted all around the temple. All of them have the same basic face with a half-smile staring down at you. If you are a little paranoid, this it not the place to come as they are all staring at you. They are believed to represent the 54 states/provinces of Cambodia that existed at this time and each one is supposed to watch over them. This temple is much smaller and narrower and whilst quite intricate in some of the carvings, the emphasis is on the large faces dotted around . Of all the temples, this is my favourite.

The last temple we saw on our first day, Phra Thom, was a completely different kettle of fish . This temple is deeper into the jungle than the others and had been nearly completed overrun by trees when it was discovered. As a result, there are a lot of trees which cannot be removed without the structure falling down. This is the temple that was used in Tomb Raider and is fairly recognizable. As it so much wilder than the others, it makes for a more interesting highlight of any tour as there is so much variety working around the temple structure.Saying that, by the time we got to this temple, we had been on the go for about 6 hours and they had started to become a bit same-same and we headed home.

On the way, Emma obviously felt taken over by the spirit of Angelina Jolie as she decided it was time to hand out some gifts to the local kids. At every temple there are loads of kids trying to sell you stuff, they are an equal mix of cute and irritating. They are all quite bright and ask you where you are from….they then start reeling off facts about the country. Unlike in India, they also know lots about Ireland so that tactic didn't work. In one of the guides it recommends that rather than keeping them begging, if you want to give them something you should give small toys to them. Having read this we brought some with us when we started travelling…only little things like you get in goody bags. As we came out of the temple, Emms decided to give some to 2 little girls and was instantly surrounded by kids…! They appeared out of nowhere and Emma eventually handed over the whole bag or else she would probably have lost her arm in the scramble J

Our hotel in Siem Reap was quite nice, although possibly a little overpriced. It has been in Siem Reap for years and has a good reputation, although as the tourist scene has grown, there are a lot of competitors now and it may need to step up a level to justify the cost. It was an old French colonial building which looked out over the river (not a selling point during the dry season, trust me) and each room had its own balcony as well as a communal one that you could have your dinner on.

The 2nd day, we only had 2 main temples to see…although these are quite far from the rest of the temples and Siem Reap. Our tuk-tuk journey took approx 2 hours on what were barely dirt tracks in places to get to Kbal Spean and then we had to hike for 2k, up a mountain to get to it. I'm not a big fan of hiking anywhere, but it was still more enjoyable than the journey there….at one point I spent a good 10 minutes trying to work out how strong the roll cage on the tuk-tuk was.The site at Kbal Spean is not actually a temple, it is actually a place of worship carved into the river. In Hindu religion, a Linga is a phallic symbol which is believed to bless the water that is poured over it. At Kbal Spean, the Hindu's carved over a 1000 of these symbols into the riverbed to bless the water than runs along the river. As we were in the height of the dry season, the river is very low, which makes it a little disappointing initially as we were expecting a large river and waterfall, however it does mean that you can clearly see the Linga's in the riverbed. There are also carvings of Buddha in separate places that had been made once Buddhism took hold and the Buddhists updated a lot of the places of worship.

Lastly, we made our way back along the dirt roads to the final temple on the hitlist, Bantay Sreai. This temple is believed to have been carved by women, as it is said that no man could be careful enough to do such intricate work. Emma found this quite funny and after a quick think, I realized that I couldn't really argue…certainly not with my clumsy skills in anything manual. When you get there it is clear that, even in comparison to some impressive stuff so far, Bantay Sreai is actually very well done. There are some slight but clear differences on the style of carvings and there is more emphasis on small but detailed figures throughout the building. That was the last of the temples we had been to, and it was time to head home.

**** Finished the Temple stuff, please feel free to start reading again *******

After we headed home, we had found a Catholic church in Siem Reap and decided to go to mass, which was on Saturday night in English. It turned out to be the most bizarre mass I had ever attended. Firstly, the church itself was small, and had only a handful of seats so everyone sat on the floor as they would in a Buddhist temple-this made a bit of sense as its probably a cultural thing more than anything. There was also a very odd sermon at this mass, as the priest seemed to have a touch of the showman about him. Firstly he picked on people he didn't recognize or who were clearly tourists to ask where they were from and then everyone gave them a round of applause! He then offered the mic to anyone who wanted to describe what God meant to them. There were 2 visiting Jesuit students from a Chinese seminary in the crowd and both of these got a chance to talk to everyone….and they really took the opportunity each of them going for about 10 minutes. I'm not sure if it was all a setup, but it didn't seem like one as it was very off the cuff. When this was over, things returned slightly to normal, only with less kneeling and standing than I am used to as we were all on the floor. All in all, a bit strange, but a good experience anyway.

On our third day, having definitely seen enough temples for now; we decided to venture a little further out of town to visit the floating village.The Tonle Sap lake runs through the heart of Cambodia and is very clear on any map. During the rainy season, the lake can swell to up to 16'000 sq/km and is up to 9M deep. During the dry season which is when we were there, it shrinks to around 2'500sq/km and 1m deep. The lake has a number of communities who live on the lake itself as floating villages. During the rainy season, the families gather their houseboats and shelter on the shore, becoming fairly land based due to the bad weather. However during the dry season, as the water level drops to only 1m in places, they move further out into the lake so that they can continueto fish. They then live there for 24hrs a day, 7 days a week until the rains come again, 6 months later. We got a tour that took us into the village and paddled around a number of houses. It was really interesting to see how much they lived their lives permanently on the water. Personally I think I would go slightly mad if I wasn't able to just stroll down the road to get out of the house. Every house had its own generator for electricity, and they all seem to have TV based on the number of aerials we saw poking out of the top. There is a ful community setup there, including a floating shop that passes by if you needed anything and even a floating church and schools.Some of the houses even had cats and dogs and I am sure that they are properly put out by the whole concept. The locals survive by fishing and selling the fish, they also cleverly have constructed fish farms from bamboo and netting to keep the fish until they are ready to sell. It was very interesting and a welcome diversion from temples.

Siem Reap is a lovely little town, its quite compact and has reacted well to the influx of tourists over the last few years. Its not without some hard work dealing with locals like much of SE Asia, and there is a lot of kids scamming/begging near the temples. But it has managed to integrate new developments into itself without going mad. There is a large area called Pub Street which is sort of the Khao San Rd for the area, only less hectic. It is definitely somewhere worth visiting if you are in this part of the world. I doubt I would go back there again as it lacks a certain depth that would make you come back again and again like we found in Thailand. We had finished with Siem Reap now, and for our last night I tracked down the ubiquitous Irish pub where I watched the Man Utd Vs Chelsea game. (Very good Guinness here, however it was in a can so it probably doesn't count as having a Cambodian Guinness -I did however like the local Angkor brew though) The next day, we headed for the Cambodian capital, Pnohm Penh.