Guess What? I wasn't involved in an accident today!! Although, given the traffic here, I'm a little surprised. We set off on our bikes this morning to visit a series of temples, including Angkor Wat, a world heritage listed and one of the man made 7 wonders of the world. The cambodians nominally drive on the right hand side of the road, but at your leasure it seems ok to just drive on the left hand side of the road, particularly if you are going to turn left. So it was not an uncommon sight today to see vehicles coming towards you on the wrong side of the road. The give way rules seem to be related to how brave you are, how big you are or simply who got there first. Having said that, I think I would still prefer riding a bicycle on the roads here than on the roads back home in Melbourne. At least here, the bikes are not considered a nuisance but rather another road user that needs to be negotiated. There is no agro on the roads, despite the constant beeping of horns, as people let you know that they are there and are going to overtake. After taking off from the hotel, we make a quick stop at the ticket booths for the temples where we got our 3-day pass to visit any of the temples in this region over that time. I think we will be all "templed out" by the time we leave here.
The first temple we visited was the Forest Temple. This is also the temple with the Tomb Raider movie with Angelina Jolie was filmed. I'm guessing it's called the Forest Temple because there are lots of enourmous trees growing through and around the temple. It's very impressive. The East and West gates are the most heavily used, but the South gate is the most impressive to my mind as it is all the original stones that were layed around 900 years ago (see picture below). Inside, most of the temple is in ruins, but there is a project sponsored by the Indian government, to help restore the temple to it's former glory (well as much as possible anyway). There are pictures throughout the site that show before and after the restoration works and the change is incredible. There are faces carved into many of the towers, which is a recurring theme through all of the temples, especially the Bayon temple. The Forest temple is surrounded by a moat with very high retaining walls as the moat waters rise significantly during the wet season. Once we'd seen the main section of the temple, we got back on the bikes and rode around a section of the top of the retaining wall of the moat. This way we were also able to see the North and South gates that were otherwise inaccessible, but it required a bit of off-road riding. This wouldn't worry me normally, but I was paranoid that I would hurt myself on something if I rode on anthing other than flat ground given the luck I've had lately. Anyway, we all survived it and it was worth it.
We then rode a little further to the Bayon temple. This was a much larger temple and even seemed to have a different look and feel about it. Apart from the clear lack of trees and other growth surrounding it, it was much taller, wider, and intense. There were many more towers in this temple and many more stone carved faces as each tower had four faces; one facing each direction of the compass. This temple was a bit better preserved in many ways, but it was still having some restoration works being done (come to think of it all, the temples were having some restoration work done.) The highlights at this temple for me were the carvings of the faces into the stone and the carvings of the gallery that told the story of the history of the people at the time. We discovered that the temple was built entirely without the use of any mortar or any type of sealant between the stones. They cut the stone in different shapes to create a type of interlocking mechanism between each stone, a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. For the stones that will be joining together, they smooth out the rock as much as possible to create a seal between them as the surface area of each stone is completely touching one another. This alone is a magnificent achievement in craftmanship and if that wasn't enough, they then carve intricate details in parts of the stone and also paint certain sections. We left here and cycled some more to Angkor Wat were we would have lunch before seen the Angkor Wat temple itself.
Angkor Wat, what can you say? (apologies for the really bad pun here) It is truely a wonder of the world. According to our informative guide, Nak, the construction of the temple was overseen by two different kings who ruled over two different eras, during a period of about 60 years and it is still not finished. The moat around this temple is massive, actually, everything about this temple is massive. Angkor Wat was originally built as a Hindu temple and in its most recent history, two Buddhist pagodas were built on the site as well and are still used to this day, but by far the most impressive part of this temple is the original Hindu buildings. This temple was also used by the Khmer Rouge when it took control of the county during the civil war in the 70s and 80s. Many of the artefacts of the original temple were destroyed or stolen during this time and bullet holes can be seen on much of the facade of the main entrance of the temple. In fact, we noticed that some of the bullets are still in the holes, lodged in the stone that they hit. The main temple is massive and consists of many section and of course the stone carvings of the smiling faces. There are a lot of intricate designs in the stone and it has a gallery of its own that tells a story of the people of its time. There are sections for royalty, religious people and the general population to worship. We also went to the section where everyone takes their photos of the temple with the reflection in the pool filled with lotus flowers. I think I managed a pretty good shot, but with restoration works going on, there is an aweful looking scaffolding with a green tarp on the front of it. I'm hoping to be able to photoshop that out. We cycled back to the hotel to have a rest and freshen up before dinner. We really enjoyed dinner, and lunch for that matter, and then it was off to the markets again. I explored a few different areas of the market I hadn't seen yet and bought a few more things.
Tomorrow is our last full day here before most of us head back home. We will be visiting more temples as well as a floating village.
The first temple we visited was the Forest Temple. This is also the temple with the Tomb Raider movie with Angelina Jolie was filmed. I'm guessing it's called the Forest Temple because there are lots of enourmous trees growing through and around the temple. It's very impressive. The East and West gates are the most heavily used, but the South gate is the most impressive to my mind as it is all the original stones that were layed around 900 years ago (see picture below). Inside, most of the temple is in ruins, but there is a project sponsored by the Indian government, to help restore the temple to it's former glory (well as much as possible anyway). There are pictures throughout the site that show before and after the restoration works and the change is incredible. There are faces carved into many of the towers, which is a recurring theme through all of the temples, especially the Bayon temple. The Forest temple is surrounded by a moat with very high retaining walls as the moat waters rise significantly during the wet season. Once we'd seen the main section of the temple, we got back on the bikes and rode around a section of the top of the retaining wall of the moat. This way we were also able to see the North and South gates that were otherwise inaccessible, but it required a bit of off-road riding. This wouldn't worry me normally, but I was paranoid that I would hurt myself on something if I rode on anthing other than flat ground given the luck I've had lately. Anyway, we all survived it and it was worth it.
We then rode a little further to the Bayon temple. This was a much larger temple and even seemed to have a different look and feel about it. Apart from the clear lack of trees and other growth surrounding it, it was much taller, wider, and intense. There were many more towers in this temple and many more stone carved faces as each tower had four faces; one facing each direction of the compass. This temple was a bit better preserved in many ways, but it was still having some restoration works being done (come to think of it all, the temples were having some restoration work done.) The highlights at this temple for me were the carvings of the faces into the stone and the carvings of the gallery that told the story of the history of the people at the time. We discovered that the temple was built entirely without the use of any mortar or any type of sealant between the stones. They cut the stone in different shapes to create a type of interlocking mechanism between each stone, a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. For the stones that will be joining together, they smooth out the rock as much as possible to create a seal between them as the surface area of each stone is completely touching one another. This alone is a magnificent achievement in craftmanship and if that wasn't enough, they then carve intricate details in parts of the stone and also paint certain sections. We left here and cycled some more to Angkor Wat were we would have lunch before seen the Angkor Wat temple itself.
Angkor Wat, what can you say? (apologies for the really bad pun here) It is truely a wonder of the world. According to our informative guide, Nak, the construction of the temple was overseen by two different kings who ruled over two different eras, during a period of about 60 years and it is still not finished. The moat around this temple is massive, actually, everything about this temple is massive. Angkor Wat was originally built as a Hindu temple and in its most recent history, two Buddhist pagodas were built on the site as well and are still used to this day, but by far the most impressive part of this temple is the original Hindu buildings. This temple was also used by the Khmer Rouge when it took control of the county during the civil war in the 70s and 80s. Many of the artefacts of the original temple were destroyed or stolen during this time and bullet holes can be seen on much of the facade of the main entrance of the temple. In fact, we noticed that some of the bullets are still in the holes, lodged in the stone that they hit. The main temple is massive and consists of many section and of course the stone carvings of the smiling faces. There are a lot of intricate designs in the stone and it has a gallery of its own that tells a story of the people of its time. There are sections for royalty, religious people and the general population to worship. We also went to the section where everyone takes their photos of the temple with the reflection in the pool filled with lotus flowers. I think I managed a pretty good shot, but with restoration works going on, there is an aweful looking scaffolding with a green tarp on the front of it. I'm hoping to be able to photoshop that out. We cycled back to the hotel to have a rest and freshen up before dinner. We really enjoyed dinner, and lunch for that matter, and then it was off to the markets again. I explored a few different areas of the market I hadn't seen yet and bought a few more things.
Tomorrow is our last full day here before most of us head back home. We will be visiting more temples as well as a floating village.
No comments:
Post a Comment