Sunday, Feb 10, 2008

Having bought a three-day pass (either one-day, three-day or week-long.. great selection) I obviously want to get my fill of Wats. With this in mind I set my alarm for 6:30am and was out the door before 7 with a bike that I would ride into the "park."

The ride took about 45 minutes this morning, close to an hour, but I was treated with a quiet observation of "the tree" at Ta Prohm. It certainly is a magnificent place. About ten minutes after I arrived the effect vanished as BUS LOADS of Chinese and Japanese poured in from BOTH sides of the Temple almost entirely consuming the tree, roots, view finder, and atmosphere. It was a shame, but gave me reason for pressing on. The grounds at Ta Prohm are huge and I explored them decently enough.

Here is my last photo before the "tourists" and this one seconds after they arrived--literally seconds; they flooded the place as if there was a race to the roots, as you can tell: multiple poses going on here.
From there I rode my bike to Takeo,l another pyramid-type temple, which was enjoyable but a little crowded so I left on a long bike ride--after breakfast--to a temple I seemed to have missed the previous two days: Banteay Kdei. Afterward, I triple-backed over the same road, past Ta Prohm, past Takeo to the small and secluded ruined temple of Tanei. I couldn't have more pleased with this place. So quiet, so natural; I felt as though I was the first to come upon it. There were no obvious signs of restoration and with the combination of the wind, the deafening silence and the mossy dark sandstone this place was heaven compared to many of the other temples in the area. I soaked up as much of this zen as I could and took it with me to Thammanon and Chau Say Tevoda temples, then finally back to Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat is HUGE. The scale, compared to other Wats, is at least double, possibly triple the size. And I'm just comparing the size and height of the temples inside the city walls and inside the barricaded protecting wall. The land is enormous around the Wat and I felt dwarfed by it's size and what must have taken place there hundreds of years ago. Visiting this place, among all of the other Wats has stoked my interest in the History of the Angkor people and I will certainly feed my curiosity when I have time to.

At this point I must biked over 28km, in the blazing hot, unforgiving, sun. I was tired and visited every single major site in Angkor and beyond. I returned to my hotel at 2pm, when I said I'd meet back up with the girls. Since then I've been trying to make room on my laptop for all of these pictures (since the new camera has a slightly larger file size than the old), and making sure I know which pictures go with which Wats. I must have visited 25 wats. Phew. It was worth each second and each sunburned skin-cell but I can say for sure that I am shot, and definitely ready to return back to Phnom Phen to secure my visa into Laos, a cheap night's sleep, and a day of reading.