the temples of angkor

I've just spent three days touring the temples of Angkor, the massive complex of 12th Century Cambodian temples built by the mighty Khmer back when they dominated South East Asia, and years before Cambodian history turned sour.

The temples are many and cover a very large area - some are up to twenty kilometres apart - so I employed my own personal motorbike chauffeur, Lak, to take me here, there, and everywhere. I'd have been nowhere without him. He's done the most brilliant job.

It's all been fabulous. A trip highlight. But now I'm utterly exhausted. Here's a brief summary of where I've been:

Day 1: spent the entire day just at Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. Angkor Wat, as I mentioned in my previous post, is the largest religious building in the world so it took some time to wander around. Angkor Thom, the ancient city beside it, took almost as long. Within Angkor Thom I visited: The Bayon, The Baphuon, the Terrace of the Elephants, and the Terrace of the Leper King. At the end of the afternoon, at Lak's suggestion, I climbed the hillside of Phnom Bakheng and watched the sun set over Cambodia. It was glorious.

Day 2: did some serious temple visiting. Amongst others, I visited, walked round, mauled and marvelled at, the temples of Ta Keo, Ta Phrohm, Preah Khan, Preah Neak Khan, Pre Rup, Sras Srang, Banteay Kdei, Thommanon, and Ta Som. Ta Phrohm was my favourite for the day. It's a 12th Century Mahayana Buddhist temple which is in a semi-derelict state because the jungle has grown into, and over, it over hundreds of years. The roots of the more mature trees have slowly grasped, strangled, and crumbled the temple in places. It looks like something out of Indiana Jones.

Day 3: got up at 4am to watch the sun rise over Angkor Wat. The sky was cloudy so this didn't turn out to be as spectacular as I had hoped, but it was still nice to wander around the place a second time. After, we rode out to the outerlying temples of Angkor such as Banteay Srei and enjoyed the peace and calm of the monuments.

The best thing about this whole experience has been spending three days with Lak. He's been friendly, informative, kind, humourous, and never pushy, tetchy, or inclined to put the hard sell on me to spend more money. We've talked about the temples - their function and meaning, his life in Siem Reap, the Khmer Rouge (his father was a Khmer henchman), the life and rituals of Cambodian Monks, landmines, his thwarted desire to go to university, my fear of heights (some of the temples are a significant climb), rice production, my route plan through Vietnam, visas, and many, many others things besides.

It's going to be another early start tomorrow. At 6am I leave by boat for Battambang. I hope I can see a bit more of the 'real' Cambodia here. Next stop after this, in about three or four days time, is the capital: Phnom Penh.

Finally, to note, the computers out here are of a similar age to the temples, so connections are slow, and, in particular, it is taking me an age to download my most recent photos. I'm posting them up as quickly as I can but it's going to take me a while to get through the backlog (this morning it took me an hour just to get four photos on the site - something which would normally take me about two minutes elsewhere).