ANGKOR WAT AND THE OTHER TEMPLES

Well, I’d only seen this on TV a few times, and obviously hadn’t put much more thought into what / where / how / when re Angkor Wat … it’s taken me ages to even spell it correctly. But … the temples are amazing … they are all in the same area … and only about 8 k’s from town. AND, there was a lot of walking. So the flood water was up even further, and Sam and the driver kept apologising that the water had seeped into the floor of the car. It didn’t matter because they got it out, and they then sprayed the car with perfume (for our comfort). Everything they did was to ensure that we were going to enjoy Cambodia. Our meals were excellent, and I’d never eaten Cambodian before, but we both tucked in like there was no tomorrow. I’m now sort of getting an idea why I am not losing any weight!

So on the way to the temples (or between the early ones) ….. we’re walking down the road …. And there’s monkeys!! Lots of monkeys …. All playing on the road side and playing in the water. Sam tells us that when it floods, the monkeys come down the hills to play … they climb the trees and dive into the flood water on the side of the road …. Over and over all day … Can’t go near them though, cause they might have rabies …. Saw a 3 legged (armed???) monkey – must have been a land mine victim (and there are soooooo many human and aminal land mine victims ….. still…. You only walk on land that is signed to say that it is land mine free …. They got the Pol Pot army people who laid them, to start clearing them :o) … So this monkey just sits there like a beggar with one arm out … looking for peanuts???? Finally had our fill of monkey looking and we moved on! Think Sam was upset cause we were so interested in the monkeys, and less so in the temples ….

There are different types of temples, all with a long long history. I kept thinking, jeez Australia had not been discovered yet, not by a long shot. There are Cham, and Kmer and some other religions behind the temples …. I got confused, and could only remember that one lot had long ear lobes, but even forgot which ones!

Now, we’ve all seen temples before, and after a while, they all look the same and you kinda get this glazed interested look on your face after a while, but these ones held my attention for far longer than I ever expected. There are 4 main lots of temples … and many other small ones … they’re all different …. And huge …. And I have absolutely no idea how on earth they were made, put together or carved. What with I kept thinking??? …. Bit like the pyramids I’d say. Some of the carving and fine delicate work could not be done today.

So we trudged on for about 6 hours seeing temple after temple, and just when I was about to drop to the ground, Sam brings us to the last one … and it’s nearly sunset. He says that we JUST have to follow the path to the top of the hill and we will come to another old temple and that the view over Siem Reap and the temples will be amazing. OK I thought, I can do this … only problem was, I could not see the top of the hill …. After about 20 minutes of climbing, I’m singing ‘ï think I can, I think I can”, honestly thinking that I was going to collapse. Lee was OK, she’s a tad fitter than BM … she’s striding it out happy as larry! Ughhh …. Finally make it to the top, and yep, there’s steps to climb to get to the top of the temple ….

Now they’re not like the steps we have in Oz … these are hand carved … about 6 inches wide, and about 20 inches high … so they are steep ….BM throws in the towel … Miss Fitness decides to tackle them …. And makes it … only just … took a pic for me … and then decided that she was too scared to come back down the same way, and took another exit down. Yeah yeah … cause on her way back round to find me she finds the ELEPHANT RIDES…. Now Miss Lee has been looking for elephants ever since we landed in Cambodia … we knew they were somewhere, because EVERYTHING trinket has elephants on it …. So up the wooden ladder we go … and try and get on, which is not an easy thing to do when your heart is pounding …. There’s this plank across the shoulders of the elephant, with a little support rail all around (yeah not likely to hold anyone if they take a tumble) …. But on we get … giggling with more nerves than anything else … and off Cheetham (the elephants name) goes … DOWN the other side of the mountain that we had just climbed. V V V nervous I tell you! But we got the hang of elephant riding and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
Down the bottom we gave him a good old pat, paid the money (of course) and got our ticket which told us that they DID have insurance against people falling of elephants … comforting then!!

We finally got to visit to Angkor Wat the following afternoon, but it was not my favourite. I really liked the pink temples … Angkor Wat is so much like the Citadel in Hue and also the Forbidden Palace in Beijing …. They are all so far apart, yet all the same design, well pretty much anyway. But this one is so much better because of all the carvings …. Like nearly every meter of the place has carvings in / on it …. Leaving on sunset, was magic … the reflections in the ponds were great, and the camera got some excellent photos ….

Then had a great dinner and saw a Cambodian traditional dance (that held my attention right through) … and celebrated with a bottle of Tattingers (Lee had a phone call and was offered a job back in Oz … she accepted it … and was sad to have to cut her time short in Vietnam). She came back to Hoi An with me, but only to pack and fly out the next morning. Very very nice lady, and we’ve arranged for visits between Grafton and Noosa for all to catch up again in the future.

And so we headed back to HCM, then flew back to Da Nang the next day ….. nearly caught up with the days now!!