Siem Reap

There are a lot of words here, so if you want, you can take my word for it that Angkor Wat was completely awesome and just jump to the photos (and if you are really impatient, just jump to Angkor Wat). Otherwise, read on.

You really can’t talk about the temples and ancient Khmer cities of Angkor without a little context. So here is the cliff notes version of the cliff notes version, because anything else would be a book.

There’s the pre-Angkor period, 100-900 AD, that included the Funan Empire (originating from India) until 600 AD, and then the Chenla Empire until 900 AD. That’s when the Khmer empire came into its own right. For the next five hundred years, the Khmers built temples and capital cities in northern Cambodia. The capital was moved multiple times for short distances for various reasons, and the really successful kings built their own temples rather than extending the existing ones. It resulted in an area rich in ancient ruins that covers an area the size of Los Angeles. Only the temples remain; the royal palaces, and the cities themselves, where constructed of wood and there is little left other than post holes. The entire area was abandoned in 1431 (sort of, more about that in the details section) due to constant attacks from Siamese. Then less interesting things happened.

There’s one other component to the story, namely Religion. The primary religion of the Khmers shifted between Hinduism and Buddhism, flip flopping multiple times. Most of the temples, as a result, are either dedicated to various Hindu gods, or to the Budda. There are subtle variations in the ways the gods (or Buddhas) are represented as well as the Hindu stories depicted in the many bas reliefs adorning the walls.

Context recap complete.

And the non-cliff notes personal reflections on religion. I’ll go ahead and say that I thought Buddhism was kind of a far east version of the New Testament. Like Hinduism would be the Old Testament wrath-of-god kind of thing and Buddhism introduced the Buddha, who kind of like Jesus, said it would be great if everyone could just get along and be nice to one another, except they didn’t nail him to a cross for saying it. But they are, in fact, completely different religions. Except for Nagas, the seven headed snake, which is depicted EXACTLY THE SAME in both religions, but is a water god (or water gods, there were a bunch of named Nagas) for Hindus and an umbrella for Buddhism (it’s a very specific story but a lot of Buddha statues have the Naga hovering over them). Even sticking with Hinduism, there’s Bhrama, the four-faced Hindu god of re-birth, featured on the top of the Royal Palace with faces pointing in each of the cardinal directions, North, West, East and South. Just like the four faces on the gateways to Angkor Thom, except those are aspects of the Buddha because, duh. And then the four faced bass reliefs in Angkor Wat … except, no, those are demons who also have four heads, unless sometimes they have eight, which happens to be the same number of heads as Vishnu when he’s dancing. And Buddhism has no gods, only deities and demons – except maybe Indraa – and really, what’s the difference between a god and a deity anyway? Which is just to say, it was really hard to follow, despite our guide who clearly knew the difference and tried to patiently explain it all.

The stories themselves are just as hard to understand. Take the churning of the ocean of milk. The gods and the demons were trying to create an elixir of immortality by churning the sea with the body of a Naga for a thousand years. This caused Mount Hera (not Meru, the home of the gods, some other mountain) to sink, depressing real estate prices, so Vishnu reincarnated himself as a giant turtle (who is not called Vishnu by the way) to prop it up. That’s the kindergarten school version. As they say, you can’t make this stuff up, so it must be true, right?

It was all very, very exotic and more than a little confusing.

Before we go on, I’m also going to say that I’m presenting the temples in chronological order, rather than the order we saw them in, because I was particularly interested in how Angkor Wat came to be; that is, it was so vast, so perfect in form, that it couldn’t have sprung from nowhere. So I was interesting in the evolution of the temple complexes and the engineering and architecture that allowed the creation of the pinnacle of the Khmer empire, along with the massive water management infrastructure around it. And, oddly enough, didn’t get much information on it. Given they rival the great pyramids for complexity (that is, of course, based on complete speculation on my part) it was a bit surprising. The temples speak for themselves, but as impressive were the man-made lakes and the insanely large moats constructed as a bit of religious symbolism, a bit of defense, and a bit of water management to even out the flood/drought cycles. And yet, there wasn’t any indication or discussion about how they actually channeled the water or excavated a hundred billion tons of earth (likewise, I made that number up, but it was BIG) to create the moats and reservoirs in the first place.

Phnom Chhnork - 600 AD

Guessing a bit about the age, and this temple is in the city of Trapeang Pringin Kampot (south-western Cambodia), far, far away from Angkor Wat (in the north) and Kampong Thom (in the east, see the next ruin for details). This odd little temple was built in a cave, using bricks (which I think our guide called “Funan bricks” which might be something special, but they seemed like regular clay bricks to me). It can seat maybe four people. It was kind of cool to see because, you know, TEMPLE IN A CAVE and all, but otherwise not super impressive. The carvings were fairly worn, but also much more simplistic that the ones we would see later around Siem Reap. The caves were surrounded by farms that for the most part were tended by hand.

Sabor Prei Kuk - 700 AD

This temple complex was in the mid-west part of Cambodia, also far removed from the general temple complex. It was a Chenla, pre-Ankgor settlement. It has obvious similarities with the Angkor site. It was also brick construction. As Ginevra (the World Monument Foundation rep that gave us a tour much later) told us, brick was a much easier building material than stone, since it didn’t require quarrying, shaping, and transporting large blocks of sandstone and laterite. The temples were individual structures, but they had the standard shape (minus a lot of the decorative aspects) that dominated the later sites. One temple was left in it's overgrown state, a fascinating blend of ancient human ruins and the jungle. And there were monkeys. Lots of monkeys.

Prei monti and Bakong temples – 881 AD

We did these temples via bicycle, partially because Prei Monti is not accessible by car. Prei Monti was early 9th century, but there's not much left of it. Bakong was more interesting, one of the earliest temples to use multiple levels and Naga balustrades. It’s a bit of a mix, however, as the top structure collapsed and was rebuilt around Angkor Wat times, so it is much more modern than the rest of the temple (modern as in only 800 years old). The main structure was stone, with brick sub-structures around it. It’s the only temple we saw that had Elephant statues; for reasons that are not clear, elephants were on the corners while lions lined the staircases. Many of the carvings have been worn away by the elements, but you can see the sophisticated three-dimensional scroll work and representation of the Hindu gods in smaller sizes and quantities than the later temples.

Phnom Bakheng (WMF tour) – 900 AD

This was the private tour with Ginevra from the World Monument Foundation; we toured around the construction site with hard hats, which is normally verboten. Very cool. It’s also the first of two temples where the original reconstruction work did a lot of harm, because like Bakong, the temple was modified during the Khmer reign. That wasn’t due to collapse, it was one of the religious flip-flops of the Kings, and the original Hindu structure on the top was built over with a giant, 16-meter-tall Buddha. Unfortunately, the Buddha was built by scavenging blocks from other parts of the temple. It collapsed later. The original reconstruction team, only recognizing that the Buddha was an addition and deciding to restore the temple to it’s initial ten century representation, threw all the stones down the hill into a giant rock pile. Then they realized they couldn’t find major portions of the original temple. The new team is laboriously pulling the stones back up one by one.

It was also the first time we realized that once you have the stone and know where it goes, it’s a four-person team and an hour to place it properly. It seems miraculous how much progress has been made given how labor intensive it is. This temple was at the top of one of the few hills in the area and was somewhere near the center of the old capital city (the one before Angkor Thom, which was burned down by raiders). The temple was constructed by clearing the dirt on the top of the hill and literally carving the core of the temple into the bedrock. You could see Angkor Wat in the distance, rising out of the jungle.

One other interesting little tidbit; we noticed that the markers on the blocks waiting to be placed in the temple were different from other sites,and Ginevra told us that every site uses a different nomenclature for identifying where a block of stone or brick was found.

Bangeay Srie (the Citadel of Women) – 967 AD

Citadel of Women is a complete misnomer. There was some theory that the temple was built by women because the carving was so delicate and ornate, but it wasn’t true. This temple was a little odd because it was so flat; the multi-tiered structures of the older temples was missing. The carving, however, was extensive, very three-dimensional, and stunningly detailed. In fact, I’d say it was more ornate that what we saw at Angkor Wat; Angkor Wat was much larger, but the carvings were much flatter and simpler.

Found this placard to be particularly interesting; it shows different historical monuments built at the same time as some of the Angkor complex temples, along with who was the king at the time

West Mebon 1050 AD

Kabal Spean (river of a thousand Lingas) 1050 AD

This was a little side venture and it’s unclear how it fits into the overall picture. Hermits, or Monks, or some kind of holy men went up a mountain that has a small river that flows into the Seim Reap river and carved the length of it with Lingas (aka phallic symbols that represent Shiva the Destroyer … read what you will into that). The idea was to bless the water before it reached the river. But it was a very small stream feeding the Siem Reap River, which is a river you can literally jump over in places in the dry season to a football field wide raging torrent of water in the rainy season. No matter what, it seems like a drop in the bucket. But maybe watered down blessings are still powerful? It was a pretty strenuous hike, particularly since I decided to bring the Canon and 600mm telephoto lens, which are pretty heavy, on the off chance we would see some wild life (which we did not). The carvings themselves were mostly round circles (a simplistic representation of a lingas), with some very worn carvings of a reclining Buddha (which is sort of at odds with the Shiva Lingas) and other less obvious things. Nice hike, great views, but not a temple or even man made structure.

Angkor Wat 1125 AD

The crown jewel of the Angkor temple complex, and for good reason. If you are like me, you envision Angkor Wat being rediscovered as a cross between Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider, tough explorers cutting their way through the jungle with machetes to find, covered in lush jungle vegetation, the ancient stone work of a forgotten temple. But, according to our guide, Angkor Wat has always been inhabited. I read monks were still using it in the 17th century, but I didn’t know that it had never been fully abandoned (as many of the temples were). Maybe that’s why it is so well preserved. And it is a blessing that it is.

Angkor Wat is stunning in its scope. It’s the largest religious site in the world. Architecturally dazzling, the distant shots you always see are just the tip of the iceberg (and only part of the complex, which contains several buildings inside a gated wall). Every column, every wall, every corner is carved with complex scenes at a level of detail that is just stunning. You simply can’t do it justice with photos. You need see it in person. This was the first place we visited, and our guide did the first in what would be a continuing set of minor miracles in keeping us ahead of (or to the side of or behind) the crowds. It was like having the place to ourselves most of the time.

We went over in the wee hours of the morning in order to see the sun rise over the temple, and it was completely worth it.

Banteay Samre - 1150 AD

This temple, like the river of a thousand lingah, was a bit of a one off. It was built to honor an ethnic group, the Samre, who fought (apparently bravely) for the Khmers. As such, it was smaller than the god-king temples, but a lot of the carvings were similar. This temple featured a lot of scenes from the two monkey god brothers that fought for monkey supremacy; perhaps there’s a reason for that. Hard to say. It also had more of the highly three dimensional carving from Bangeay Srie instead of the flatter carvings from Angkor Wat.

Ta Prohm (The Jungle Temple) - 1186 AD

Also knows as the “Tomb Raider Temple” due to the iconic temple scenes from the movie having been filmed there. The equally iconic Kapok trees make it look like the classic picture of a lost temple (probably why it was used for Tomb Raider). Ta Prohm was odd in that it abandoned the multi-tier structure of many of the earlier temples in favor of a large flat almost courtyard chock full of smaller buildings and structures. None the less, it’s impressively large. Per our guide, there’s some documentation (Chinese) of the temple back in the twelfth century. It claimed the temple required 80,000 staff to maintain it, and that it had 1000 pounds of gold, 40,000 pearls, and five or six thousand gems decorating it; now there are just holes in the walls where those use to be. I imagine in it’s hey-day, it was a worth competitor to Angor Wat because of all that, but today, it seems like a step backwards. None the less, leaving the trees integrated in with the buildings gives it a atmosphere that’s hard to beat outside of a Disneyland recreation.

Angkor Thom / Bayon Temple 1200 AD

Angkor Thom was the capital built after the old capital was destroyed by the Champa (and there were some other moves in there due to accessibility to resources and the like). As such, it was protected by a moat outside a wall that stretches three kilometers (about two miles) on each side. Most of the nine square kilometer center is nothing but jungle now, since most of the homes and the royal palace was built from wood, but the wall, gates, and temples remain. Bayon temple is in the center of the city and is partially restored. It once had fifty-one spires, representing the fifty-one providences under Khmer rule. The downside is that it requires a lot of columns to provide enough structural integrity to hold up that much stone, so the inside is kind of cramped and claustrophobic, at least compared to Angkor Wat. One thing that was kind of cool was that, unlike the other temples, where bas reliefs were all dedicated to large battles or Hindu legends, this one had representations of daily life for the Khmer people, including some funny scenes like someone getting bit in the ass by a turtle. Whereas Angkor Wat felt like a mausoleum meant for religious ceremonies to honor a dead king, this felt like a giant billboard advertising hitting the top 100 on the music charts.

A little poem about Angor Wat

Beneath the sweep of saffron skies,
Where lotus blooms in stillness lie,
A temple sleeps in rooted grace,
Time etched in every weathered face.

The jungle stirs, but does not wake
The gods that vines and shadows take.
Their silence speaks in sandstone lines—
A hymn in form, a prayer in signs.

The walls still tell of kings and wars,
Of apsaras in sacred chore,
Their hands like wind, their eyes like rain,
Still dancing through the centuries’ pain.

The sun climbs slow, and gold ignites
The towers shaped from mortal might,
A stairway carved in dream and flame,
Still reaching for a higher name.

And though the world may crack and shift,
And forests rise and empires drift,
This temple breathes—stone, root, and sky—
A monument that will not die.