Tomb Raiders

The real reason why we have ended our sojourn at Siem Reap is, of course, to enjoy the wonders of the Angkor Archeological Park not, as you may be forgiven for believing, Pub Street. We decided to keep Mr John on as our private tuk tuk driver, partly because he seemed a nice chap and spoke good English (self taught, as it turnes out), and partly because he only charged $15 a day. Day 1 saw us set the alarm for 0530 hrs, John patiently waiting for us after a hastily swallowed breakfast of eggs benedict and orange juice. Our first visit just after sunrise was Angkor Thom; built 900 years ago by Angkor's greatest king, Jayavarman VII, and covering an area of 10 sq km. Passing through the impressive South Gate, the orange rays of the rising sun through the trees revealed the Bayon, a collection of 54 gothic towers decorated with 216 coldly smiling, enormous faces of the great king himself (not a narcissistic god-king, then). The whole area is in a delicate state of reconstruction having been hidden from the rest of the world in dense Cambodian jungle for many centuries. Another few hours tracing the wonders of the Baphuon, the Terrace of Elephants and the Terrace of the Leper King saw us very, very sweaty with sore legs and a growing realisation that we'd forgotten where we'd left our faithful tuk tuk driver. It didn't help that there were around twenty thousand more people standing around by lunch time.

Anyway, having found him asleep in the back of his machine, we journeyed on past older individual temple sites to Ta Prohm, a site made famous by Angelina Joli in Tomb Raider (although as I remember it, one doesn't pay too much attention to the scenery when she is wearing tight "adventure suits"). This site is distinctive in that the jungle really has the upper hand. You can see from the picture that it is really difficullt to separate the vegetable from the mineral. Loads of pictures, of course, although I fail to see why, with all this ancient splendor, tourists insist of prancing, mincing and posing in front of the temples so their spouses can take endless pictures of them standing in the bloody way!

Day 2 saw an afternoon start to see the famous Angkor Wat, believed to be the largest religious structure in the world. The Wat is surrounded by a huge moat, a rectangle around a mile long each side. The western entrance is a dramatically wide causeway leading to an outer wall, followed by another causeway leading to the temple proper. There are three levels to the temple, the second and third storeys marked by symbolic lotus bud towers. Rising 31m above the third level and 55m above the ground is the central tower (see picture) inside which you can climb up some steep steps and walk around. If you are into photography, this place is staggering at sunset when all the stones are cast with an orange hue and the bas-relief carvings are emphasised with shadow. Come anywhere near our house this spring and I'll bore the pants off you with my slide shows!!

The end of the day saw me climb the mountain with the same twenty thousand other people who had been following me around for the last two days to the temple of Phnom Bakheng. This site turns into a bit of a circus as it is famous for sunsets over the jungle: people climb the narrow (about an inch) but steep (about 8 inches) stone steps, worn smooth by the passing of many a sandle, to the top of the temple, set up their cameras and tripods to snap away at the sunset, and then all try and get down at once before the light disappears and everything turns black. I used some intelligence for a change and escaped down the mountain track while hords of people were still coming up. Linda sat with John during this time learning about his life (he has four childrn and runs a small farm 3 klicks outside town; his father was a teacher and was murdred by the Khmer Rouge - a common tale when you talk to the locals). A few beers later at Pub street and we were sound asleep for about the next 10 hours.