With a brief stop at Phsar Leu bakery to gather provisions for the ride, we set off north up Aspara Road, left onto Road 60 and then joined the main route, Charles de Gaulle, towards Angkor Wat. We had our first taste of the crowds at the ticket office, where busloads of temple-goers were being disgorged. Even though a photograph is required to be taken for the pass, the system was smooth and efficient, so we were on our way in no time at all. As we are in town for the best part of a month, we went for a non-consecutive seven-day ticket, which will allow us several bites of the cherry over the coming weeks.
For our inaugural route, we decided on the small tour, or 'petit circuit', as the French archaeologists termed it. This takes in Angkor Wat, the large Angkor Thom complex, Ta Keo, Ta Phrom, and Banteay Kdei. We had no idea what to expect from these arcane names.
On a recommendation, we bypassed the flagship temple, Angkor Wat, saving it until later in the day when the sun passes overhead to illuminate the west face.
Seeing a vendor of the bamboo sticky rice (krolan) we had found in Phnom Penh, we seized the opportunity for some breakfast. Two dollars bought us a section of roasted bamboo each, which had been packed with sticky rice cooked with coconut and black beans. As we peeled away the woody bamboo, a thin edible papery layer was left behind to hold the rice in shape. One stick was a huge amount of rice and kept us going all day in small amounts.
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| South Gate of Angkor Thom |
Heading directly to the ancient citadel of Angkor Thom, we came upon the south gate. An enormous face carved in the sandstone, smiling beatifically, looked down at the scrum of tourists disembarking from tuk-tuks and buses. We made our way on bike over the bridge, crossing the moat, which surrounds the entire city.
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| Faces of Bayon |
Situated at the very heart of the square city walls is Bayon. This temple sports 54 of the same wide smiling faces as the gate. It is in remarkably good condition for its age and was one of the last of the temples to be constructed in the late 12th century. Everywhere I turned a stone face beamed back at me. It was eery being watched by the same faces that looked down on a civilisation almost a millennium ago. The effect of being watched was eery. I tried and failed to imagine what these same faces had seen then. With few remaining written records of this time and civilisation, scholars have had to tease out what little they can and much seems to be conjecture.
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| Baphuon |
We went on a small meander of intriguingly named sandstone structures, such as the Elephant Terrace and the Terrace of the Leper King. However, hands down my favourite edifice was the imposing Baphuon, reached by a causeway over a green-blue pool. Restoration work on this was only completed in 2011, after a hiatus caused by the Khmer Rouge, and the results are astounding.
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| Reclining Buddha |
Baphuon was built in the 11th century and served, as many of the surviving buildings of Angkor, as a religious monument. The buildings were constructed by one of a number of successive kings over a five century period and were often dedicated to religious deities, to the kings themselves, to other nobility or to deified parents of the king.
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| No spitting in the temple |
Baphuon was originally dedicated to the god Shiva, but in the 15th century, after the angkorian period, it was converted, as many others, to a Buddhist temple and some of the materials were repurposed to create a large reclining Buddha along one of its walls. A series of iconoclasm has led to many of the temples being transformed from their original religious dedication and subsequently defaced years later as religious affiliations changed.
The Angkor Thom complex (literally meaning 'large city') is 3km on each side and so covers a vast area. The geometric shapes formed by the walls, moats and structures of this and other temple complexes, each aligned with the cardinal directions, is astonishing when viewed from above on a map.
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| Dry moat at Ta Keo |
Exiting Angkor Thom by the east gate, with another identical face (apparently of the bodhisattva Lokesvara) gazing impassively down at us, we made our way to Ta Keo. This is a pyramid structure surrounded by a dry moat. A sign indicated that some restoration work was being undertaken in collaboration with the Chinese.
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| Ta Keo |
Increasingly steep flights of steps brought us to the top tier, from which I had an excellent view over the surrounding jungle. The climbing made for thirsty work and, to be honest, getting back on the bike for a breezy and shady ride to the next temple was a blessed relief.
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| Ta Prohm |
Our next stop was Ta Prohm - also known as the jungle temple and famous for its appearance in the Tomb Raider film. This maze-like temple was left in its original state by the French archaeologists performing restoration in the early 20th century. As such, nature is bursting from the man-made structures. Trees grow from the tops of the temple and entwine themselves in the stone bricks.
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| Ta Prohm |
The tree roots strain like sinews, bursting out of the masonry like something from Japanese anime. Some of the tree roots are buttressed, as they can no longer support their own weight. In the trees, crickets screeched, the rhythm of their individual chirruping combining into a high-pitched tone that almost, but not quite, drowned out the braying of the many tourists. One could imagine, in a more isolated setting, just how the first European explorers felt as they set foot in the temple grounds.
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| Banteay Kdei |
Our next stop on the 'small circuit' was Banteay Kdei. This illustrated to us a different kind of ruin. While the jungle flora had been cleared, the masonry was largely in poor repair. It is a long temple, whose name translates as 'citadel of chambers', and our journey from one end to the other revealed a number of small rooms, some of which were impassable as the roof had simply fallen in.
We had spent a long time making our tour and were hot and sweaty by this point. The shady, well-surfaced avenues running between the temples made the journey easy. Less easy was clambering up the stone steps in the heat of the day without cover from the blazing sun. Given this, we decided to leave Angkor Wat for another day and head home.
It was an impressive introduction to the old cities of Angkor. The temples were best when not mobbed by people as we could then get a real sense of the eery quiet and lost civilisation.
The structures were highly photogenic, set in the jungle scenery, their stones covered in moss and lichen. Every viewpoint seemed like a postcard, so it was with great frustration that I attempted to capture in the camera the astounding scenes and atmosphere before me. The frame seemed too small to fit the majesty of Bayon, the dynamic range too limited to render accurately the kaleidoscope of light in the jungle-covered ruins of Ta Prohm. A still image does no justice to the screeching of the crickets we heard.
Having filled up on krolan rice, and with the heat working as an appetite suppressant, we dined lightly on some lemongrass soup noodles. I attempted to make a zingy broth from galangal, lemongrass and lime leaves, into which went tofu, daikon radish and courgette. It was a little underwhelming but a fresh taste to lift our weary spirits.
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