Angkor

Friday Oct 1, 2004

We had breakfast next door at an upscale French restaurant called La Noria. Then on to Angkor. First up was Angkor Thom. My favorite temple of the day was Bayon, for its architectural feel. I’m not a museum person, the historical facts of things don’t generally interest me, and the same was true at Angkor. I more appreciated the scale and architecture and feel of the temples. On the other hand I’d love to see the temples as they were originally, including the people there and what they did on an average day. What year something was made or for what king doesn’t seem to hold any interest for me, but being able to go back in time and see how they used to look and what people did would be extremely interesting. It’s possible that someone could develop some software to provide an immersive VR-movie of a day at a particular temple complex, but it would be a huge undertaking.

The following are pictures from the Angkor Thom complex:

The Angkor Thom entry road. The Angkor Thom gate.

The moat around Angkor Thom. The Angkor Thom gate. Elephant rides for sale.

Wall surrounding Angkor Thom. Bayon temple in Angkor Thom complex.

Apsura Dancer carving.

Guess they had crossbows. Smiling Buddha in Bayon temple. Me in a window at Bayon.

Smiling Buddha carving. A Bayon tower. Part of Bayon.

The Elephant Terrace. Tough work, cutting the grass. A road in the Angkor complex.

The FCC in Siem Riep.

The following pictures are from Banteay Kdei (The Monk Citadel Temple) I think:

A brick-wall carving, Shiva? There was lots of carved writing on the walls.

The Ta Prom causeway. Inside the Ta Prom entrance. A Ta Prom fig tree.

A Ta Prom fig tree. A strangler fig at Ta Prom. Part of Ta Prom.

Ta Prom Ryan by a fig tree in Ta Prom.

Right after this last fig tree picture a couple women said hello. They’d recognized my Mercer Island Half Marathon T-shirt, and they were from Bellevue . Small world.

Ta Prom was my favorite temple for this day. The feel was great, more like how the temple would have been when first rediscovered after having been taken over by the jungle. Ta Prom was also apparently used in Tomb Raider.

Jungle from the top of Pre Rup.

I liked the Ta Prom temple the most, but my favorite part of the day was being up on Pre Rup at dusk. Most of the other tourists had cleared out, and it was spectacular finally feeling a cool breeze after a really hot day, looking at the beautiful view out over the lush green jungle and listening to the jungle sounds.

My camera was full of pictures by that point, so Ley and I dropped by a local camera shop where for only $2 they burned a CD for me so I could erase the card.

Dinner was at the Red Piano, where I experienced Angelina Jolie’s Tomb Raider drink: lime, vodka, and tonic I think. It’s a good place for dinner, though it was a little noisy from the construction next door.

I couldn’t hardly believe all the new hotels that have recently been constructed or were then under construction. I don’t have any statistics but every time we drove down a different rode Ley pointed one out. There are huge 5-star, $400 per night hotels there. The tourist industry is booming. Ley had recently bought some property, and he said property values were skyrocketing.