February 20, 2008Written by: Brian
The Temples of Angkor Wat - 8th Wonder of the World?
After our four days in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, it was time to see the real treasure of the country. We boarded our bus at 8:00 am and settled in for a 6 hour trip up country to the city of Siem Reap and the Temples of Angkor. Angkor is an area in Cambodia where the Khmer empire flourished from the 9th to the 15th century. There are over 1000 temples that span over a thousand miles and it is the largest pre-industrial city in the world. During our three days there we saw over 20 of the largest temples and countless rock structures. Below is a detailed look at our favorite three temples.
The first day in Siem Reap, Susan, her mom, and I hired a tuk-tuk for the day ($10 USD) and headed off to the temples. The first stop on our tour was Angkor Wat which some people consider the 8th wonder of the world. Angkor Wat means “City” and was built in the 11th century and was actaully a city as well as a temple for the Hindu religion. There were over a million people living within the city walls when it was built. As we arrived we noticed the “Disney World” like crowds immediately. We followed the pilgrimage of souls across the stonebridge and proceeded to the city gates. We climbed the steps and stepped through the city walls and were greeted by our first view of the 8th wonder of the world.
The temple is a representation of Mt Meru; the home of the gods. At the top of the temple there are 5 spires that represented the five peaks of the mountain. We followed the old city road and walked past two old libraries and climbed up the steps to the temple. It is hard to put into words how amazing it is to enter a thousand year old temple. You definitely feel a sense of disbelief that this amazing structure was created by human hands so long ago. We walked into the stone courtyard that had four large pools used for bathing, cleaning the temple and statues, etc thousands of years ago. There were beautifully carved Apsaras, which are divine nymphs or celestial dancers, carved on the walls. The detail was amazing, so amazing in fact that you could see where some tourists decided to “cop a feel” as the stone was very smooth around the bosom area, maybe it was a “touch” of good luck....
Before we headed up to the top of the temple we walked through the Hall of Buddhas, which had over four hundred Buddhas at one time. Now there are less then that and most were decapitated by the Khmer Rouge in the 70's. It is sad to see what the Khmer Rouge did to these beautiful works of art. We then proceeded up the stairs to the upper courtyard and stared at the five towers that make up Angkor Wat. Unfortunately the stairs are steep and some tourist fell down them a few months back so access to the upper temples was closed. They are building new stairs over the current rock ones to ensure the safety of the tourists. We will have to come back again to see the view from the top.
We headed back down the stairs and back to the entrance of the temple to see the another amazing work of art, the bas-reliefs (carvings or etchings on stone). The entire four walls of the temple are carved with amazing scenes. The most famous is relief is the Churning of the Sea of Milk. It is based on Hinduism and represents the spiritual journey of a person who achieves self-realization though concentration of the mind, body and spirt. For the entire story click (Churning of the Sea of Milk.)
The highlight though of Angkor Wat was when we came back two days later for the sunrise at 5:30 am. It was by no means quiet and secluded. We were there with hundreds of other tourists walking around the temple grounds in the dark waiting for the sunrise, though when the sun begin its ascent we all stood in awe of the beauty of the temple.
We left Angkor Wat after 2 hours of exploration and headed of to our next favorite, the Temple of Bayon and its two hundred buddha-like faces that cover the upper terraces of the temple. The temple was built between the 12th and 13th century and was dedicated to Mahayana Buddism and was once the capital of Angkor Thom.
Bayon is not as large as Angkor Wat as it has no moat or city walls to walk through. As we walked towards the temple the Buddha faces come into focus and we start to notice that there are more faces then we had originally seen from the road. Before we climbed the steps to the temple we gazed at the bas-reliefs of the Bayon temple, which were similar to that of Angkor Wat. One difference though was that the Khmer had contact with the Chinese during this period and the Chinese people were portrayed in the reliefs assisting the Khmer fight their enemy's, primarily the people from Thailand.
We ascended to the upper terraces of the temple and were amazed at the face towers of Bayon, each tower has two, three or four smiling faces. As we walked around the temple it feels as if the faces are watching you. Today it is difficult to see all 200 hundred faces as some of the towers have been destroyed.
The central tower stands 150 feet above the ground and housed a Buddha statue that was 12 feet tall. The statue depicted the Buddha seated in meditation, shielded from the elements but during the reign of a Hindu King, the statue was taken down smashed and thrown to the bottom of the well. It was recovered in 1933 and pieced back together and once again sits on display.
We enjoyed the serenity of the temple so much that we came back on the second and third days to just relax and enjoy the architectural feat. There was also an amazing artist there painting water color drawings of the temple, we of course bought two of his paintings of the temple.
Approaching the end of our first day we came to our last and third favorite place, the Temple of Ta Prohm . The temple was built between the 12th and 13th centuries and unlike most of the temples of Angkor ,Ta Prohm has been left in the same condition that it was found. The jungle like atmosphere and the giant trees that have taken over the temple make it an amazing place to explore.
The trees growing out of the ruins is probably the most distinctive feature of the temple. The two types of trees, the giant Silk-cotton and the Strangler Fig now rule the temples and you feel like you are in a scene out of the Lord of the Rings.
It was an amazing three days exploring the different temple and learning about the history of the ancient Khmer civilization. That all these temples were built with out the aid of construction material is no small feat and that is why these temples may be the 8th Wonder of the World.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 26 February 2008 )
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Date: February 14, 2008
Written by: Susan
After celebrating the New Year in Vietnam, it was time to head out of the country to renew our visas and visit Cambodia. My mom was also going to go along with us on this portion of our trip. After our “tour package” experience with Dalat, we refused to even consider another tour although my mom kept dropping hints. Finally she gave in and we went and bought our bus tickets that cost $12. Not bad for a 6 hour journey.
The journey was rather uneventful. Not too much scenery except the occasional rice paddies and small towns that bumped up against the highway. We arrived at the border a short hour and a half after leaving Ho Chi Minh City. We had to all disembark the bus with all of our luggage and check out of Vietnam and then clamber back on the bus to get off 5 minutes later to check into Cambodia. Since it would take a half hour to process all of our visa applications, the bus took us to a nearby lunch place. The thing about these lunch places is that they are catered for the Vietnamese traveler. Luckily my mom was with us so she ordered up some rice dishes but every other westerner was stuck with Laughing Cow cheese and French bread which is what we would have done to if we were alone.
We were back on the road again. I would refer to it as a highway but that would be misleading although it is the only main road that connects Ho Chi Minh City with Phnom Penh. So it was back on the dusty, bumpy road for another 4 hours before arriving in Phnom Penh. At one point we had to cross the mighty Mekong river on a dodgy little ferry. The kind of ferry that you hear about sinking in the middle of the river and everybody on the ferry drowning. This is exactly what Brian said to me as our bus pulled up onto the ferry. I checked to make sure I could spot the life rafts in case of emergency, although I’m sure that it would be tough trying to swim out of a big bus before sinking to the bottom of the Mekong. But 10 minutes later, we were safely across and on our way again.
You know you’re in Cambodia when you start seeing the houses on stilts. Every single house here is on stilts because the rainy season is just so wet and floods everything. It is still hard to imagine though that a place could become so deluged with water that it requires homes on stilts. I can only imagine the difficulty it brings to people transporting goods and just trying to go about their daily lives.
Our arrival in Phnom Penh was met by not so good news when it came to our hotel. We had booked a hotel for fear that there would be nothing if we just showed up and also because we were with my mom. We had the tuk tuk driver show us a new place but decided we should stick with our original reservation. When he dropped us off, I went upstairs to check out the room (a must whenever we book a room). It was one of the scariest rooms I’d seen. Not only were the comforters and sheets old and dingy, the room had no windows. At this point in the trip, I could almost accept the old dingy sheets, but I knew I would not be able to handle the no windows issue. So I turned the room down, pissed off the hotel who had held our reservation, and headed back downstairs to the waiting tuk tuk, my mom and Brian and we headed back to the first place.
Our intial plan was to spend 2 days in Phnom Penh and head up to Siem Reap and see Angkor Wat (the whole reason we came to Cambodia). We didn’t plan it well though and arrived on a Saturday which meant we couldn’t apply for our Vietnamese visas until Monday and get them back on Tuesday. So our departure date for Siem Reap was pushed back a day. So we had 3 whole days to explore Phnom Penh.
Surprisingly, Phnom Penh is really modern in some ways and really third world in others. It reminded me a lot of Africa actually where you have the really rich and then the devastatingly poor with no middle class. The rich drive around in the Lexus, Mercedes, and Cadillacs, shop at boutiques that fit in Beverly Hills and eat at restaurants with the prices of New York City. It’s actually quite an easy place to stay in for the discerning traveler with its plethora of high end restaurants and hotels. Although there are still many deals to be had for the backpacker, it’s definitely not as easy to find as it was in Bangkok.
Top on our list to visit in Phnom Penh was the Tuong Sleng Prison and the Killing Fields. Both were very unpleasant places to visit, but really necessary in order to really understand the atrocities that Cambodia experienced between 1975-1979 during their civil war. The level of brutality was hard to digest at points and sometimes seemed surreal that humans could actually be so callously malicious. The prison showed us where Cambodians (mostly educated citizens from the city) were taken, beaten, and made to confess to things they may or may not have done. In the end though, all prisoners who were sent to this prison knew what fate awaited them.
The Killing fields were where the prisoners were taken to be killed and dumped into mass graves. Now the site, about 15 km from Phnom Penh, is just a big open field with huge holes in it where they buried thousands of the bodies. In each hole is a little sign that tells you how many bodies were buried in the hole. When you first get to the field, a soaring stupa stands grandly before you. As you walk inside you realize that it is a morbid testament to what really happened here. Three stories of skulls are on display in a glass case that soars towards the sky. A reminder of how many innocent people died for nothing during these years. It is a grand gesture made as a way of paying tribute to the many who lost their lives and a reminder to us all that it actually happened and continues to happen in other countries to this day.
After visiting these two places we pretty much just laid low the rest of the time in Phnom Penh. We went to a few local markets and spent time just walking around or enjoying our BBC and CNN in our room. Next stop: Angkor Wat!
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 16 February 2008 )
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February 11, 2008written by: Brian
Cambodia – Right or Wrong
We rented a Tuk-tuk for the day for 10 dollars and toured the city of Phnom Penh. As we were getting ready to head back to the hotel the driver and I started talking and he asked where I was from. I responded, I am from America. He looked at me and said “oh, very powerful, many powerful weapons.” I was a little taken back by his response and I didn't know even how to respond to that. He then asked what I thought about the war in Iraq, but before I could answer he said “I think it is a good thing you are there.” Again I was a little taken back by his response. Quickly thinking I responded. “Well war is never “GOOD” innocent people die and that is bad.” He nodded his head as if he understood what I was saying. I told him we will not know whether we did the right thing or wrong thing until 20 years from now and the world looks back and can analyze the final outcome. I am not sure he understood that last part as he just smiled, nodded his head and got back on the tuk-tuk.
His comment and the fact that we are in Cambodia, a country that the United States secretly bombed during and after the Vietnam war, got me to thinking of our and others countries involvement in world affairs. The secret bombings that occurred in the 60's and 70's were two-fold, one to scare the North Vietnamese (destroying what we thought were trade routes with Cambodia), and secondly, later to try and stop the Khmer Rouge from advancing on the capital of Phnom Penh. The bombings killed many more civilians then they did soldiers and we know now that North Vietnam was not intimidated by the bombings...
The bombings and deaths created a lot of resentment against the United States and the current government that we were backing and that created a large resistance that became know as the Khmer Rouge. The resistance gained support from the local village populations because of all the innocent civilians that died during the bombings. The Khmer Rouge won control of the country which then led to one of the largest genocides in history, as they murdered more then 1.7 million people or almost a 1/3 of the population.
Is America at fault for the millions that died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge??? Maybe we played a minor part at how quickly the Khmer Rouge gained support due to our bombing of the villages??? Today we can sit back and analyze the brutal atrocity of the regime but could we have really have ultimately changed it?
I tried to imagine what it was like during the Khmer Rouge regime, how these people felt and what it was like to fear for your life on a daily basis and why the world did not assist these people. Unfortunately though this was over 30 years ago and I could not grasp or understand the complexity of the times. Then it hit me that these “atrocities” are still continuing in the world today in places like Darfur, the Eastern Congo and Iraq. Yes, even today millions of people have died and hundreds more will die as you wake up, drink your coffee and contemplate your drive to work.
In Hollywood actors are pushing for a more active role, by world governments, in the Darfur crisis where there are millions of displaced individuals and hundreds of thousands of people have died in the conflict. Should we meddle??? Should we send troops into this hostile area that can not control itself and attempt to establish order to end the slaughtering of the innocent? What about the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which receives little to no publicity in America. It is worse then Darfur where more people have been displaced and died then in Darfur. Where do you start helping one country but refuse to help another?
Or is there even a right or wrong answer??? Who am I to say?
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 13 February 2008 )
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Cambodia 