Day 2: The Face of Buddha

Our second day in Siem Reap was all temple-viewing. We started off at 8.30am and met our tour guide, Dara. Somehow the majority of tour guides here in Siem Reap are men.

Our first stop of the day was at the South Gate of Angkor Thom, the city of the great King Jayavarman VII, the temple builder extraordinaire. Anything with a tower with four Buddha faces on it - likely it was built by good old J the VII. But the gate itself was very impressive. It is reached by a causeway over a moat with a row of demons lining the right of the bridge, and a row of gods lining the left, all holding the naga serpent. According to the guidebook, it is actually a representation of the churning of the sea of milk, from the Hindu mythologies. Some of the statues lost their heads over the years and through the war but most have been replaced. It is quite easy to tell the difference. But apparently the thieves will steal the new heads too.

Passing through the gate, we went to the Bayon temple. Frankly, if we are talking about the Hindu conception of the universe, with the holy Mount Meru surrounded by the mountain ranges, then Bayon is probably the most mountainous of them all (including Angkor Wat which is more restrained and refined). It is a truly imposing monument. Tower upon tower, each building up to the topmost tower at the peak. And all the towers have the four faces of the Buddha on them - so we are surrounded by these serene faces with smiles so inscrutable that they could have taught the Mona Lisa a thing or two. But the temple itself was full of visitors from all over the world, all making this the first stop of their temple-hopping day. Each group had their own guide, speaking to them in English, Chinese, Japanese and French. It was interesting to see that the French-speaking guides tended to be the older Cambodians. We had to take our turn to go and look at the bas-reliefs, and to move along the galleries, and to go up to the top of the temple where we have to take turns to take photographs at the most scenic spots.

We went next to explore the series of monuments by the Bayon temple. First, the Baphoun temple-mountain, which would have required us to climb up a lot of steps to the top of the base for the temple itself. The temple was being restored, with each of the stones removed, numbered and set aside for subsequent replacement. (That's the auld anastylosis technique). Its amazing to think that in the past it was human hands and backs which had to place each block in place whilst now the work is being done by cranes.

The Terrace of Elephants, the Terrace of the Leper King and the old Royal Palace (plus their bathing pools) followed. Then we went back to town for lunch. It was at a Chinese restaurant! Alas, the typical Singapore tourist's penchant for Chinese food caught up with us. It was a fairly tasty meal nonetheless.

We went next to Ta Prom. This was truly exciting, because it gave a good sense of how nature slowly took over the old temples over the years. Ta Prom was built by King J VII and thus has many architectural similarities to Banteay Kdei and the Bayon. But huge strangler figs and silk-cotton trees (as shown in the photo) have slowly been growing around and on top of the buildings. The massive roots of these gigantic trees had pierced through the roofs and walls of the ancient temples such that they had become part of the fabric of the building. Tree and building now require each other to exist - when one falls, so could the other. Apparently this was the temple where a famous scene from "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" was filmed. So we went to the spot and yes, there were people queuing up there to get their photo taken as well (I did!).

Finally, we went to Angkor Wat. Now some people think of just the five towers when they go to Angkor Wat and that picture postcard view of the towers reflected in the lake. In reality, Angkor Wat is a much larger complex. To get to the innermost shrine (the 5 towers), we crossed the causeway over the moat, through a first set of city walls, down another road and past two pools (these were people to bathe in and wash away their sins before going further into the temple). Then we came to the main temple itself. Now as mentioned before, think of this as a wedding cake of about three tiers. As you move further up and further in (through the galleries of bas-reliefs, past more pools, past galleries of Buddha statues, past libraries) the closer you get closer to the holiest of holies, the innermost tall towers of Angkor Wat. This innermost shrine is again like a temple-mountain in itself - the pilgrim must climb these very steep and narrow stairs to reach his final destination - the shrine at the top of the stairs.

Yesterday's pilgrim, today's tourist. We were (more than anything) relieved to find that the topmost shrine was temporarily closed for maintenance and to build a new staircase (with a less steep incline) over one set of the old staircases to the shrine.

After leaving Angkor Wat, we were pretty exhausted. But there was still one more temple mountain to see, this one perched on a true mountain (or rather, a hill). We clambered slowly and painfully up the hill. There is an elephant ride available for the less active but at US$15 per pax, it was just a bit too expensive. Finally we reached the temple on the top only to realise that we needed to climb up yet another set of steps to reach the shrine on top of the temple base. Let me just say we finally managed it. But unfortunately, the cool of the evening meant that there were slight mists in the air. The view of Angkor Wat was not clear, and there was to be no glorious sunset that evening. So we clambered down again.

We ended off the day with a foot massage - wonderful - and dinner. Totally exhausted, we got back and had an early night.

Here's the Flickr link again for those who want to look at photos.