Mesmerizing Angkor

The idea of this vacation was to explore the adventurer and the historian within us. We wanted to experience the thrill, the wonder of being in a 900 year old temple complex which was lost in time and rediscovered by some unknown traveler and remains the biggest jigsaw puzzle of the world. We were in Siem Reap to visit the temples of Angkor and our friend and guide in this sojourn was Joy – our car driver whom we paid 25 USD/day. We decided to begin our historical journey by first paying homage to the most famous of the temple complexes – Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat was constructed as a Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Vishnu. It was later modified by various kings to represent a dedication to Buddism as well.

To visit any of the temples around Siem Reap, what you need is a temple pass. We bought a three day temple pass for 40 USD per person. Angkor Wat and the temples are essentially in a forest and now concrete roads have been constructed owing to the tourist attraction these temples have become. Angkor Wat is surrounded by a huge water body called a moat and all the structures in the complex have intricate carvings of apsaras and incidents from hindu mythology. The fact that these temples were later converted to Buddist, is also visible in the statues of Buddha placed amidst a typical hindu mythology incident. On one of the outer walls of this complex, there is an intricate carving describing the war between Pandavas and Kauravas – the battle of Kurukshetra. It’s a beautiful and extremely complex carving.

We also managed to visit Ta Phrom that afternoon. This complex has been almost completely eaten away by the forest. It is almost as if nature was taking its revenge against man. But its beautiful the way it is. One of the spots at this complex has been made famous by Angelina Jolie as a sequence of her movie Tomb Raider was shot here. It’s the place where everyone wants to get a picture clicked and there is actually a queue to get yourself clicked. I managed to anger quite a big group of tourists by posing in front of this landmark without realizing that I was breaking the queue.

The next day, we were up early in the morning to see the sunrise over the towers of Angkor Wat. It’s the most wonderful sunrise I have seen. When we reached, there were hundreds of people already waiting for the sun to rise. It almost felt as if we were all one big global community waiting together with bated breath to watch the oft-seen spectacle of sunrise, however this time over the mesmerizing towers of a centuries old temple. It was spectacular.

During the course of three days we visited the Bayon, Phimeneakas, Preah Khan, and Angkor Thom. We did not hire a guide to these places and hence we were on our own amidst these mysterious temples. We sometimes found a cool spot and just sat there amidst the beautiful carvings of apsaras, Gods, demons, garudas and wondered what this place would be like in its true grandeur. One of my friends carried a book on Angkor with her and at times we played this fun game of finding structures mentioned in the book and felt like discoverers when we finally managed to find it. Archeologists from around the world have worked on solving the jigsaw puzzle of these temple complexes and what can be seen now is the partial solution. The solution is sometimes wrong, we found, as most of these temples are Hindu temples and being Hindus, we realized that the symbols and the structures were slightly mixed up at times.

My favourite temples amongst the ones we visited were Bayon and Ta Phrom. Bayon - an interesting mix of manmade art, history and intrigue and Ta Phrom – nature’s work of art, destructive yet beautiful. The creativity of both man and nature is astounding in these monuments. Although, I managed to get lost in Bayon, the monument with its 200 faces of Lokeswara, staring at you in all directions with the same peaceful expression, will stay fresh in my memory for a lifetime.

I wish to go back to Siem Reap and to Angkor as one visit is not sufficient to take in the glory of these wonders. Some day, I will go back to get in touch with the explorer within me. Till then, it was Thailand calling!

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