Cambodia: Angor Thom .. the second city?
Angkor Wat is the best known of the several cities which make up the Angkor region. Angkor Thom was built about 100 years later (late 12th Century). it is large (9 square Kms in area) and contains several fascinating temples, perhaps the best known of which is Bayon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Thom
Bayon
While the name Bayon may not be familiar, the image of it certainly is. This temple is the one with the mask-towers from which the enigmatic face of King Jakavarman seem to be watching your every move. From a distance Bayon appears to be a series of towers in rather dilapidated condition. There is some dispuite of the number of towers, but 37 of them survive from the original 49 (or possibly 54) towers. One thing is for certain. Once you climb up into the temple and start seeing the images in every direction that you look, the effect is stunning.
Bayon
One of the negative parts of vising Bayon is that there are many other visitors. In particular, the tour groups moving en mass tend to sweep everything (and everyone) aside and the tour guides with their portable loudspeakers are a real nuisance. One of the tricks to enjoying Bayon (or any of the other sites) is to see a vacant spot and constantly weave your way by avoiding the groups. This may mean that you are not always going through the central doorway or you may seem to be missing the gatehouse or small temple that everyone is crowded around, but I can assure you that there are great views apart from the most obvious ones, and eventually you will see the entire temple.
Phimeanakas
Phimeanakas (this is the one I climbed a couple of years ago) now has a flight of timber stairs inserted of the shaky steel rail I used. Big attraction was an Australian girl with her foot and ankle in a bandages who insisted on climbing up on one foot and one knee while her guide carried her crutches. Brave or silly? You decide.
Preah Palilay
I then set off through the forest looking for a small temple on the rough map in my guidebook .. got sort of lost. The whole compound is called the Royal Palace and is huge, so I knew I wouldn't get seriously lost. I was enjoying the peace and quiet of the forest (very dry...) and suddenly saw this tower through the trees. Perhaps it was the heat ..or just that my imagination is easily fired, but this faint green tower looked ever so much like a huge stack of blocks of ice.
I got a brief sense of what Garnier and the French explorers must have felt like when they discovered this lost city in the 1850s. As it happens, there is a more direct trail to this temple (Preah Palilay) but I am glad that I had the good fortune to get lost and then find it.
The fine print
Date of travel : February 2008
Country information :
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cb.html
Now what?
Return to Home Go to previous journal entry
Go to next journal entry