Beyond Angkor Wat

June 19, 2012

It's going to be another steamy day in Siem Reap...we know it's humid outside because there is condensation on the outside of our patio doors...! But actually this stop in our journey has been a little better than we anticipated...we have not had any rain even though we are on the cusp of the rainy season, and there are really very few bugs...we though we'd be swarmed by mosquitos especially out in the jungle where the temples are, but we've been very pleasantly surprised.

Today we will go to another part of the Angkor complex to see some temples that are different from Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. Our first stop is Ta Prohm, a temple built by Jayavarman VII as a Buddhist temple...what is interesting is that the country was Hindu for most of its history, then along came Jayavarman VII who turned everything Buddhist and went on a huge building spree...temples, hospitals, etc...and after his death, his son turned everything back to Hindu and destroyed most of the Buddhist statues and carvings, sometimes carving over the top of Buddhist figures to make them look Hindu...there were obviously unresolved issues between the king and his son...This is Ta Prohm, which is a very active restoration project and has been left untouched in several places to show how the jungle can take over these stone temples and turn them into ruins...

This temple is actively being restored, and we see the work in progress as cranes are used to lift huge pieces of stone back into place to rebuild this temple...in some places, workers are carving replacement stones or gluing stones back together...

Coming from Angkor Wat, the expectation is that the temples are restored and compete, but Ta Prohm shows us that there are more sites like this...consisting of partially standing structures surrounded by piles of stones and collapsed walls...and we very much get the feeling that the jungle is stil intent on taking it all back...

If you look hard you can see the face of a small statue peering out from between the roots of this tree...as if to say "Let me out...!"

These trees seem relentless and appear to put a stranglehold on the ancient stone buildings...

 

This portion of a gallery has managed to stay standing after more than 1,000 years...

Here's a great example of what the restorations crews are doing here...the first photo is looking to the left of a corner portal of a gallery and you can see the gallery is completely collapsed...and looking to the right of the portal in the next photo you can see that the gallery has been rebuilt...

Here's a full shot of the restored gallery...absolutely amazing work on the part of the restoration teams...

There is a large display that shows the before-and-after, and describes the process of amastylosis (completely taking everything apart and rebuilding it like a jigsaw puzzle).

All around the site there are stones laid out and numbered, awaiting their turn to be placed back into this huge puzzle.

Those portions of the temple that are still standing but are not stable get a little added support from steel frames that the restoration teams put in place until they get around to working on it...there is alot of restoration still to be done.

After walking the Ta Prohm site, we hop in the car and drive to our next destination, capturing a few photos of the sights as we drive along...we'll come back later to see this temple up close...the rice fields are planted...

Our next stop is Banteay Srei which was built in the 900's, and one of the only temples built by someone other than the king. This is a "flat" temple, meaning that it is not built on a series of raised platforms or tiers, and therefore it has almost a miniature feel compared to all the other temples we have seen. The name Banteay Srei means Citadel of Beauty, and it is made out of red sandstone, which is harder than regular sandstone and allows for more intricate carving as we will see...

The temple is designed as a series of courtyards within courtyards...

This Sanskrit writing was carved into this stone pillar more than 1,000 years ago and is still legible...if only we could read Sanskrit...

We see our first rain during our tour of Banteay Srei, but it doesn't stop our guide Sunny from explaining the customs of the folks who designed and used this temple...

Here are some examples of the amazing stonework and carving in Banteay Srei...

Inside the main wall, but outside of the three inner rings of the temple, there is a moat...this perspective shows the flat design of Banteay Srei and relatively small scale...

On our way to lunch we have the opportunity to stop at the Cambodia Landmine Museum which is less museum and more of a monument to the struggle of the Cambodian people against the millions of landmines that were left behind in their country after decades of war. We learned about efforts to clear the country of landmineS...it is estimated that there are still 5-6 million landmines buried in the ground across the country, and the highest rate of injury and death from landmines is among rural people working in their fields.

The museum was founded in 1997 by Aki Ra who had been a child soldier with the Khmer Rouge...he used to plant landmines...and he began a campaign to defuse and remove landmines. Since then, millions of landmines have been removed through the work of this organization and the UN, and today the museum has expanded its mission to include caring for children who are victims of landmines...it's a pretty powerful place. Aki Ra won a CNN Hero award and it is displayed in the museum alongside decommissioned mines and stories of those affected by mines...

For lunch, we are treated to a meal at a local house...it is built up on stilts like most every home around here to accommodate the seasonal flooding.

This is dessert...OK, let's see, there are bananas, some pineapple, and....what's that slimy white thing with a hairy skin...? And how are we supposed to eat that?! Turns out it is call a Rambutan, it's like eating a sweet, slimy eyeball with a seed in the middle...interesting...and I think our host enjoyed watching us figure out what to do with it...

Our after-lunch stop is the Pre Rup temple, which also dates from the mid-1900's, and looks very different from the other temples we've seen due the materials used. While its color is red like Bantaey Srei, this temple is made out of bricks rather than large pieces of sandstone, so it shows it's age much more than the sandstone temples do.

This is another "mountain" temple, so we get our exercise climbing to the top. Here's a panorama view from the top of Pre Rup...and a look down at some of the lower towers on the base tier below...

We have to give a shout-out to the ladies in the green T-shirts...they were everywhere throughout the Angkor region, each of them sweeping and picking up around the temples, alongside the roads leading to the temples...they work hard to make the area look neat and clean at all times, and it makes a difference!

From the top of Pre Rup we can see the central tower of Angkor Wat...it's that little tiny point on the horizon between the trees..l

Some of the features at Pre Rup were created by putting stucco over the top of brick, and amazingly some of this stucco work remains today...

Here's another amazing little bit of design and engineering...this is a stone doorway that has stood intact for more than 1,000 years, and if you look at the corners you can see why. Way back when they were making this temple the builders learned that you could make a strong door frame by carving the header piece to include an overlapping piece that holds the miter joint together...pretty ingenious, and a tricky bit of stone carving...

There are a few locals enjoying the front lawn as we make our way back to the car...

One more temple to see today...Bantaey Kdei. This is another temple built by Jayavarman VII as a Buddhist temple. This temple is a flat temple and is designed very similarly to Ta Prohm with three enclosures as you make your way to the central tower. This temple is also a restoration project though it looks less active at the moment, and there is a lot of rubble around waiting to be catalogued, numbered, and put back in place.

 

Wow, that concludes a very full day of sightseeing, and it has been fun to see the different styles of temples that lie just a short distance from the more majestic and popular Angkor Wat. It's time once again to return to our hotel, clean up and cool off, and organize our blog photos and posts over a cool drink.

Tomorrow is our last day in Siem Reap and we're not going to see any more temples...instead we'll see something completely different...tune in tomorrow to find out more!