If you have read many of my previous posts on this blog you will know that since coming to Asia, I have frequently altered the number of days I have spent in each country.
On a daily basis I have to think about what time to get up (considering I stay up so late almost every night), and also how long to spent at each place I will visit. Even with no job to go to and very few other commitments, time has a massive influence on my day as I consider what time I leave the hotel and when I will return later on. Obviously that impacts other things including when I eat during each day and also how much time I get to spent working on my blog once all my exploring for the day has finished.
I feel like this is one of the factors in my trip that I seem to have a relatively good grasp of - perhaps more by luck than design.
Obviously I like to get the most out of each day, but it can be difficult to know how best to do that - especially if I visit more than one location on any given day. This is part of the reason why I try to give myself lots to do - too much if anything - but often it can be a difficult task to anticipate how long I will spend doing any one thing.
Time didn't play too much of a factor yesterday as I simply stayed at Angkor Wat until I had completed the mini-tour. Considering I was up early, I knew that I would be back well before I usually am, but today was a little trickier because I was planning to be there until the whole site closed, but also needed to make sure I had completed all of the day's activities in due course. I didn't want to leave anything out, but also hoped not to be hanging around for ages with nothing to do but wait.
I do make this travelling lark sound difficult, don't I?
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I can't remember if I mentioned but my hotel has a pool at the back of the complex - I briefly cooled my feet in it yesterday after a busy day out and about. Next to the pool is the restaurant where breakfast (and also evening meals should you desire) are served.
The two ladies working in the kitchen appeared to be taking custom orders for anything rather than serving anything specific so I asked for an omelette and had a couple of pieces of toast to get the day started.
I wasn't planning on heading out until around lunchtime today with the idea that I would do the Angkor Wat 'Grand Tour' this afternoon and hopefully cap the day off by seeing sunset at one of the temples.
At about 10am all of the electricity went off again, first it was just the air conditioning that stopped working but eventually it was everything. It is very strange how I have only experienced this in my stays in Thailand and Cambodia as I wasn't aware that it was a major problem in this part of the world, particularly when the weather doesn't seem to have been the influencing factor. It was hard to tell if it is just my hotel or other surrounding businesses too, but on my way out this afternoon I checked to see if it was the whole complex by stopping on each floor to flick the lights on and off but none of them worked.
Obviously it is unavoidable, but it is very frustrating and I feel like the inconsistency of technology has caused me a lot more problems than it should have on this journey. If it's not the internet connection being intermittent - or just not working, then it's the power going totally off or my showers not providing me with any hot water. I'm not trying to be a diva in anyway, but I prefer it when things either do, or don't work - not selectively so.
I obviously use the Internet quite a bit and rely on it more heavily than I probably should. I guess there are alternatives like Starbucks and McDonald's which provide you with free wifi, but that sort of thing shouldn't be necessary when you pay for a room in a hotel which states that it has free WiFi.
It's not quite in the same category but can you imagine if you got somewhere and the toilet wasn't working or the bed wasn't big enough for you to fit in? Those would certainly be inconveniences which could hamper your stay. Just so happens for me that hot water and WiFi are equally important.
Anyway, I digress as I crossed my fingers that when I came home the place wouldn't be in total darkness again.
I cycled a totally different way to get to the park this afternoon in what felt like slightly cooler temperatures than yesterday - don't get me wrong though, it was still extremely humid!
In an effort to cut out some of the re-treading I would have to do if I went through the main entrance, I spotted a different route on my map which meant going straight ahead from my hotel until I hit the main road. From there I had to go straight, and then left towards the Angkor Theatre. This allowed me to join up with the road which put me at the crossroads near Banteay Kdei which is the last temple I visited on my route yesterday.
I turned right to go in the opposite direction of Angkor Wat, and eventually came to my first stop for today.
Whether or not it made for good reading, it was much easier for me to break each temple down and describe it in detail as well as including pictures rather than covering them as a whole so I have gone for that format again today....
Prasat Kravan
Just before getting to the junction that would begin the 'Grand Tour' I found a temple which I somehow missed on my route back yesterday.
Prasat Kravan sits on its own, and is a bit out of the way which perhaps explains why I only saw a handful of people visiting there when I arrived. It has a bit of a platform which is no longer connected to the main section of the temple and its three stuppas. The middle one is the most interesting, but there looks to be a chamber and some kind of table in each one. The central one was not only the most impressive, but also the only one that it still totally in tact.
There was some interesting stone carvings above the door on each one, only a few of them were totally clear though. I somehow failed to mention yesterday that many of the temples have been restored as part of a project with other countries, mostly Asian ones however this one was part of a project funded by Germany.
Sras Song
Back on my bike I continued on to Sras Song which is the temple opposite Banteay Kdei which I wrote about yesterday. It's more of a platform than a temple with a few steps leading up to a solid area which overlooks a large lake. There looked to be a wall around the edge of the main platform which circulated the body of water, but it wasn't clear if this was actually part of the temple. There wasn't actually much to see at this one, and it looked a long way around the lake so I decided to press on and see what else was in store.
I guess one of the difficult things with the temples being created so long ago is that we don't really have much of an idea how they looked before they were discovered. Sras Song obviously had more to it when it was originally created, but the ruins themselves were pretty basic.
Pre-Rup
From Sras Song I had to cycle about 2km along the lake and then follow the road around to the left where I eventually came to a temple which was a little set back from the road.
Pre-Rup doesn't look very large on the map, but it is fairly imposing as you come towards it. I parked my bike up and set about heading round the outside to get a good look at the structure which was fairly tall. At first glance it appeared as if there were three stuppas at the top, but upon closer inspection there were five with one at each corner of the top platform and then one much larger one in the centre.
I completed three quarters of a circuit, impressed by the ruins at ground level, and then set about climbing up some huge stairs which gave me the feeling of what it must be like to climb up the sides of the pyramids in Egypt. The view from the summit was just as impressive as at ground level. Of the stuppas only the central one was accessible, and inside it looked as though there was a shrine of some kind.
From here I noticed there was a sub-level about two thirds of the way up the steps which had buildings at each corner. They were fairly ruined looking, but there was an open space inside each one of them which I can imagine used to have a statue of some kind contained within.
East Mebon
It was starting to heat up a bit now as the late afternoon sun was well and truly on display. Not stopping long as each temple was a blessing and a curse because it meant I didn't expose myself to direct sunlight for too long, and I also got a bit of a breeze from cycling, although I guess the energy I had to keep exerting for at least ten minutes each time I went from one place to another would eventually take its toll.
The next temple I got to was East Mebon which was another medium-sized temple which looked very similar to Pre-Rup.
The only difference I could see was that the second level of the temple was more of a platform meaning there was a large area between the ground and the summit. On the inbetween level there was what looked like twelve gate posts whcih two at the centre of each side, and then one larger structure in each corner.
There was one large building at the temple's centre which was hollowed out for worship.
It looked to have aged relatively well, but the orange coloured bricks across the whole structure looked to have holes in them which I presume was at least some kind of wear.
Ta Som
It was a bit of a cycle to the next stop on the list, although I felt like I was making pretty good time. Unlike yesterday where it was very crowded at every stop I made on the mini-tour I was finding that there were only the same ten to fifteen people I was seeing at each of the temple I visited. None of the sights I had visited were anything close to the size of Angkor Wat or Angkor Thom yet on the map it looked as though Ta Som would change that.
Set back with its own gated entrance Ta Som looked like a set of Aztec Ruins....
It shared a lot in common with Ta Prohm, and looked quite impressive from a distance, but felt slightly mysterious as I began to explore. I found it fairly daunting walking into the two major temples yesterday, and it was no different here as the crumbling rocks demonstrated that this had aged significantly (or not been restored) as Angkors Wat and Thom.
There were Bayon faces at the entry point I went through and straight away I got the feeling of being in a maze as I tried to follow a logical path in order to prevent myself from getting lost:
Despite looking like it could fall down at any given moment, the architecture inside was spectacular. There were carvings all over the place, and the moss growing on them gave a real feeling or authenticity and age.
Going through doors you appeared in a courtyard which led to more corridors, and more delightful looking paths which continued to lead you through the structure. Being so quiet it was really easy to explore, and it felt like I spent quite a while ensuring that I'd found every single nook and cranny of this one.
Neak Pean
My map showed I only had two major temples left, and after another short cycle I came across a clearing which led to another temple. To access this you had to walk along a long gangway with an ominous looking swamp on either side. It took a good five minutes to get to the end of the track, but when I got there it was a bit of an anti-climax as there wasn't too much to actually look at. There was a small pond at the front with a wall behind it which looked only partially in tact.
You couldn't walk any closer to it then when you stepped off the wooden gangway as there was a fence around it which left you walking horizontally across to the left and right. There was a central piece of stone containing what looked like figures at both sides of the lake. In the middle of it there was a stone piece which I'd imagine was the central part of whatever used to be there, but from where I was standing it was impossible to pick out what its purpose might have been.
Pream Khan
It seemed like I was headed to the largest temple last as my map indicated that in size Pream Khan was similar to the structure of Angkor Thom. I continued to follow my route around until I eventually reached the north entrance.
It had a bridge similar to that of a couple of the temples I'd seen yesterday, and it took a bit of walking to get to and from the gate. Almost immediately I could feel that this was going to be a complex temple as paths went off in all directions. It had so many doorways which seemingly led to different things. I found it hard not to be drawn off left and right, but continued towards the centre where there was a large bell-shaped stone carving.
It reminded me a little of Ta Som and Ta Prohm the way it was crumbling, and there were some parts where the roots of trees intertwined with the temple walls.
Pream Khan had twisty and tight corridors which gave you access to plenty of different hallways and other areas of interest. There were some excellent carvings on the wall, and even though it was quite complex to navigate I also felt like it was quite compact - especially when compared with the large hallways of Angkor Wat.
I thought I had reached the end of my journey and was about to head towards one of the 'Big Two' to end my day, but re-entering the gates of Angkor Thom - this time via the north gate - I came across a set of ruins that I discovered was the Royal Palace. These didn't seem to be on the map, unless they were considered part of Angkor Thom.
It was a fairly large and spread out structure with a huge bridge which allowed you to access the main area itself. It wasn't all bricks in this area as there were lots of open spaces, and even room for two swimming pools - one large, and one small.
Walking towards the Royal Palace itself it had a familiar shape to Pre-Rup and East Mebon, but wasn't accessible as accessible like the previous two temples. I walked around the edge to take in what I could, but was very concious that it was getting towards closing time.
In such a large space I figured they'd just lock you in if you were still in the grounds past a certain time. 5.30pm seems relatively early for such a major attraction to close, but in reality I guess it had probably been open for well over twelve hours considering that people arrive a couple of hours before sunset in order to get a good space by the reflection pool.
I felt like I needed to book-end my trip by seeing sunset within the grounds of the park as it had all begun with a view of sunrise.
I cycled back through the area around Angkor Thom and considered stopping there. It appeared that the later in the day it was, the more monkeys appear to claim their territory and it was like being back at the bird park as there were so many:
I was planning to head back to Angkor Wat to complete my symmetry, but caught a good glimpse of Angkor Thom bathed in sunshine which made me figure that there might be somewhere closer that I could finish off my day....
As I exited the gate and crossed the large bridge I saw an almost perfect view of the orange looking sun heading towards the west.
I decided this would be the perfect place to park my bike up, and along with a few other fortunate people stood and watched as the Cambodian Sky changed colours, and looked absolutely spectacular in doing so.
The sun disappeared behind a few clouds, and then eventually disappeared from view all together so I decided to make my way home before the light faded totally and I had to rely on my barely working dynamo light to guide me back to Siem Reap.
I travelled my fourth different route between Angkor and the hotel on my way back, and I'm not sure why this wasn't the one I'd taken all along as it was literally a straight line from the street my hotel is on to the temple. It was dark by the time I parked the bike up and put it to rest.
Having not eaten lunch I was extremely hungry, but decided to see what was going on in a different direction from the night market where I'd eaten lunch every night. I found a nice local looking place where I was able to get myself a tasty dinner of mince, vegetables and potatoes before returning to the hotel for my final night's rest in this stage of my journey.
Thankfully the power was completely back on when I got back to my room and I was able to write this without too many further issues.
Tonight is my last night's stay in Siem Reap - a visit which has gone by very fast. I feel like my two full days here have been very busy, and I really enjoyed everything about Angkor Wat and it's associated temples. Even though I did lots of exploring I feel like I could definitely come back and do it all again in the future. It's a spectacular place that I would urge everyone to visit or at least read up about, and look at some pictures online. I think in a few months I will be looking back, and considering this as having totally lived up to expectations.
Bicycle
Queen (1978)
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