ANDYBROUWER.CO.UK
CAMBODIA
TALES 2000
Angkor at leisure
On arrival in
Siem Reap, I was exhausted and took a moto to the Bakong
guesthouse at the far end of town close to the old market (Psah
Chas). I'd already booked a room via e-mail and a refreshingly
warm shower was just what the doctor ordered after eight hours
cooped up in an uncomfortable pick-up truck. After a quick nap, I
walked around some of the market stalls selling cheap souvenirs,
ate a hearty meal at the Continental Cafe and sent an e-mail to
my wife from the Neak Krorhorm office before I retired to bed at
10pm. Early the following morning, I took a moto to the Golden
Angkor hotel (also known as the Sovann Angkor) on Route 6, to
meet up with a moto-driver, recommended by a close friend. At
8am, Kim Rieng appeared and agreed 
to act as my motodub for a few days if he
was able to get time off from his job as a policeman. This was
quickly resolved with a phone-call and half an hour later, we
headed out along the road leading to the Angkor complex to get my
temple pass. The road itself was choc-a-block with security
personnel and roadblocks as the Prime Minister, Hun Sen, was
being helicoptered into a Tourism Conference at the nearby luxury
Sofitel hotel later that morning.
The
newly-installed Sokimex-run ticket center is a slick operation,
located midway between the town and the Angkor Park. The old
style tickets, prone to forgery, have been replaced by laminated
passes with a passport face photo to identify the owner for the
three-day pass for 
which I paid
$40. It took just two minutes to appear once I'd handed over my
fee and photo. We carried onto the western entrance to Angkor
Wat, where I left Rieng, to seek out some friends whose family
run a souvenir and drinks stall on the northern approach to the
main temple. I left a message with their mother that I'd return
later in the day and headed back to join Rieng to continue our
tour. Our first stop was at Ta Prohm Kel, a small sandstone
sanctuary-cum-chapel in a quiet clearing, where a single lintel
is still in situ before we moved onto the imposing South Gate of
Angkor Thom, a popular stopping-off point for tour groups and
today was no exception. Next on our whistle-stop tour was the
enigmatic Bayon, 
where Rieng
dropped me off at the southern entrance and met me at the
northern exit thirty minutes later. I viewed the less convincing
and unfinished bas-reliefs on the north and west walls and
visited the giant faces on the upper levels before taking my
leave of a temple I have visited on many occasions but always
manage to see something new.
The city of
Angkor Thom has five enormous ceremonial gates. Everyone passes
under the South Gate but very few tourists ever bother to visit
the West and East Gates, as both are off the normal circuit and
are usually in shade throughout the day from the surrounding
forest of trees. Not to be deterred, Rieng drove me along the
grassy track towards the West Gate and on cue, 
the 23-metre
tall gate was shrouded in darkness making clear photography a
difficult proposition. A few hundred metres back down the track
and off to the right is a small ruined sanctuary called Western
Prasat Top (or Monument 486). The forest setting was humid and
wet underfoot, the red ants protected the temple with vigour and
the shade didn't help with my pictures either. We then headed for
the identical East Gate, which was in much better light and the
nearby Mangalartha (or Monument 487), which was covered in
vegetation, before leaving the city via the Victory Gate,
stopping at the stone bridge, Spean Thma on our way towards Ta
Nei. The 
track to Ta
Nei was sandy and made it difficult to stay on board Rieng's
moto. The 12th century temple lies deep in the forest and is
being used as a 'training temple' for government conservation
officers and as such, is off limits for much of the time. Its
overgrown setting and ruined state makes it an interesting temple
to explore when you get the opportunity and it still has some
outstanding pediments and lintels in place amongst its gopuras
and sandstone sanctuary. We were lucky to find the temple open
and had the place all to ourselves.
We stopped at
the group of food stalls near the Bayon for a snack and an hour
spent wandering on my own around the rarely-visited temples of
Preah Pithu, Prasat Suor Prat and the Khleangs before moving on
to spend the rest of the afternoon at Angkor Wat. An elephant was
wallowing in one of the pools of water immediately in front of
the five sanctuaries of the Preah Pithu group. They are located
in a peaceful wooded setting, directly opposite the Terrace of
the Leper King and see very few travellers, hence a good place
for the elephants to rest before called into action to carry
tourists up to the top of Phnom Bakheng in time for the sunset.
Each temple has been reconstructed, decorative stone carvings
also lie scattered on the ground nearby while two of them have
lintels and pediments in situ 
and in fine
condition, as explained by twelve year old Prourn, who
accompanied me around each building, giving me a knowledgeable
running commentary in passable English. He proudly announced that
this was 'his temple' and he can be found there when he's not at
school. Next door was the North Khleang, sat behind three of the
dozen Suor Prat towers, which dominate the eastern side of the
royal plaza. A few hundred metres away is the unfinished South
Khleang. The Khleangs are imposing 
rectangular
structures up close, while the towers are less remarkable, lack
any decoration and are being patiently restored by the JSA team
from Japan. It was at this point that a film stuck in my camera
and after an initial attack of panic, I exposed the film and
loaded another. The second film also failed to wind on properly.
After a second bout of mild hysteria, my compact zoom righted
itself and I breathed a deep sigh of relief, as I'd already lost
the use of my favourite camera during my visit to Kratie.
Angkor Wat
was our next destination. On the way, Rieng told me he had passed
the tour guide exam but can earn more money from his two other
jobs as a policeman and a moto-driver. He asked if he could use
me as a guinea-pig to test his knowledge of the temple and I was
happy to oblige. He parked his moto with a friend and we walked
along the causeway with Rieng explaining in great detail about
the outer enclosure with its apsara carvings and large Vishnu
statue. Once inside the courtyard, we detoured over to the
souvenir stalls to the left of the royal pool to meet up with
some of my friends from previous 
visits.
Noung, Sokchata and their family were all in attendance and the
welcome I received was warm and genuine. I would see a lot more
of my friends over the next few days. Rieng and I dashed across
to the central structure of Angkor Wat as the first spots of rain
fell. The downpour lasted half an hour, produced a glorious
rainbow directly above the temple (unfortunately we didn't see it
as we were inside!) and gave Rieng the opportunity to explain in
great detail each of the bas-reliefs in an anti-clockwise circuit
of the 800-metre long wall carvings. The rain had left the inside
of the temple hot and humid and we climbed up the steep steps 
to the top
level to view the sunset, which was a cloudy, washed-out affair
but still very popular with the massed ranks of tourists.
Returning to the Bakong guesthouse, I thanked Rieng for his
expert guidance and agreed to see him again the following
morning. Waiting for me to arrive, I met Phalla for the first
time and we walked to the Continental Cafe for an early evening
meal at 7pm. Phalla was a friend and colleague of Sok Thea and we
talked about recent events which helped me fill in a few of the
gaps and understand more of the sequence of events that had taken
place leading up to the death of our mutual friend. It was
upsetting but I was grateful to Phalla for having the courage to
tell me even though the memories were still fresh and very raw.
During the
course of the next few days, I visited the Angkor Conservation
Depot, had an afternoon at the Western Baray and spent half a day
on a moto visiting some of the remotest temples on top of Phnom
Kulen. For my fifth day in town, I woke early and was soon
gingerly making my way along the Angkor Wat causeway in the gloom
to get my spot on the steps of the outer gopura to watch the sun
rise behind the central towers. Lots of other tourists had the
same idea and the place was alive by 6am with everyone vying for
the best position. Unfortunately, the sunrise turned out to be a
cloudy non-event and I was back at the Golden Angkor (I'd changed
my hotel
after a couple of days in town) and ready to meet Phalla and Lom,
our moto-driver, at 8am. Within the hour, we'd chugged along a
bumpy Route 6 and the fifteen kilometres to the Roluos Group of
temples. Preah Ko was our first stopping-off point but the six
towers and their exquisite series of carved lintels and guardian
figures were roped off from close inspection by a conservation
team from Germany who were working at the site. A couple of
playful souvenir sellers dogged our tracks as we wandered around,
reminding me that this was a common occurrence at the main Angkor
temples in recent years before these children were now banned by
the authorities. After a brief stop at the imposing Bakong, I 
suggested we
seek out a few of the lesser-visited Roluos temples with Prasat
Prei Monti our first target. Stopping to ask the locals, we took
a tiny track behind some houses and located the temple in a
clearing surrounded by trees with a pond closeby, arriving at
10am. The location of Prei Monti was perfectly peaceful, its a
9th century temple built by Jayarvarman III of three unfinished
brick towers with one lintel showing Indra still in place and the
whole site was covered in a bed of leaves and moss.
Asking for
directions, we were looking for Prasat Trapeang Phong when three
young boys took pity on us and offered to lead us to the temple.
Little did we know it was a couple of kilometres from the road,
as we were led past a handful of wooden stilt houses and across a
series of flooded fields by our three guides, Choun (aged 14),
Seng (13) and Caea (12). After a twenty minute walk under a
blazing hot sun, I could see the top of a large tower through the
trees but it was surrounded by a moat, so off came the shoes and
socks and we paddled through the knee-high water to reach the
site. In the middle 
of a circular
field stood an impressive nine metre high brick tower that made
the trek well worth the effort. It still retained some of its
outer covering of stucco on its carved apsaras and had also kept
three excellent lintels in situ above the doorways, while closeby
were two smaller ruined outbuildings. Our playful guides led us
back to the moto and were rewarded with a few hundred riel
apiece, as we set off to find Prasat Totoeng O'Thngai. It was
11.30am when we reached a small village and were led to the site
of the temple 
by a another
group of young boys. Disappointingly, after such a fine example
as Trapeang Phong, we found only a series of stone door frames,
carved pilasters, colonettes and heavy-duty pedestals and a
poorly carved lintel on the floor. After a game of football, we
headed back towards Siem Reap on a well-made World Food Program
road running parallel to Route 6 before rejoining the highway.
Back in town, I had lunch at the Greenhouse Kitchen before a
quick nap in my hotel room, next door.
Our
afternoon adventure began at 2pm with Phalla and Lom reporting
for duty on the dot. Our intention was to see more of the
countryside surrounding Siem Reap, so we headed southwest with
Wat Chedei as our destination. but taking the 
opportunity
to see a part of Cambodia that most visitors to the Angkor
temples never bother to see for themselves. The back streets of
Siem Reap town soon gave way to open spaces, stilt houses, a
mixture of green and brown fields with workers busy toiling away
and the occasional child tending water buffalo. We passed through
a few hamlets including one where all of the village's adults
were sat in an open-sided 
meeting hall
listening to speeches from the village hierarchy. As we drove
slowly past, the speeches stopped, everyone turned around and
waved - it was typical of the friendliness we experienced on our
trip. At the end of a long track across the top of a dyke
separating water-filled ricefields, we arrived at the entrance to
Wat Chedei. The complex of buildings and living quarters
surrounded two pagodas, an older one and a partially-completed
newer wat, under construction by a group of orange-clad monks.
Sat behind the older wat was a large cement stupa which housed a
reclining Buddha and an ancient lintel and two carved colonettes,
dating from Angkorean times, and now protected from possible
theft by a metal grill.
On our return
to town, we called in at Wat Athvea as Phalla had never visited
the wat with the 12th century laterite temple next door and then
watched a twenty-a-side game of football, played at a frenetic
pace by schoolboys in the grounds of the wat. To round off the
afternoon, we made a bee-line for the top level of Angkor Wat,
where many tourists had positioned themselves in every available
nook and cranny, on ledges and in doorways to catch the warm glow
of the setting sun. Meeting up with my souvenir-selling 
friends
(Noung, Sokchata and Heang) immediately after, we returned to
their home village whilst they changed and rode back with Phalla
and myself for a tasty meal at the Arun restaurant in town and a
late-night walk along the riverbank. I was up early the next day
to catch the sunrise over Srah Srang lake and an exhausting climb
to the top of Phnom Bok. After finally tracking down my e-friend
Pete Calanni in the middle of the day, I ate at the Greenhouse
Kitchen and returned to the Angkor complex with Phalla and Lom
for the rest of the afternoon. We initially stopped off in Angkor
Thom for a quick look around the most obvious 
sites like
the Terraces, Baphuon, Phimeanakas, Tep Pranam and Preah Palilay
before passing under the North Gate and calling in at Krol Romeas
('rhino park'), a circle of laterite stones actually used as a
training arena for the royal elephants. We moved onto the massive
temple of Preah Khan and wandered through its numerous passages
and galleries, admiring its intricate carvings, giant garudas
(located along the outer wall, there are 72 in total), the
mysterious two storey hall and the rebuilt 'dharmasala' before
heading back to Angkor Wat for the sunset. Beside the right hand
pool just in front of the central complex, I met up again with
the photographer Jon Ortner, who I'd bumped into at the remote
temple of Prasat O'Pong on top of Phnom Kulen two days before.
Jon and his partner, Martha McGuire were busy snapping away as
the light played on the walls of the temple and reflected in the
still water. What was particularly noticeable was the loud
croaking of hundreds of tiny frogs that were on the surface of
the pool. A little later as I sat at the top of Angkor Wat
watching the sun set and the sky turn red, yellow and orange, I
could still hear the frog chorus loud and clear.
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