Angkor Wat... Not in Missouri

My daughter had a Friday off and my parents were in town so at the last minute we decided to hop on AirAsia (low cost airlines) and in 2 hours stepped back in time… to the 12th century.

We flew into Siem Reap on Friday and made our way to our hotel. If ever you find yourself in Siem Reap, Cambodia you gotta stay at the FCC Angkor Hotel. Great place and nice price. Renovated from the old French Governor's mansion, this hotel possessed a quiet elegance. The first thing you notice when entering the room is the smell of lemon grass. They burn lemon grass oil in the rooms… very soothing, very refreshing.

After checking out the bathroom, drawers, bed; a general scoping out of the room, we had lunch at the hotel’s café. We went with the Khmer Platter for two (times 2 for the 5 of us). It included: duck cake, spring roll, fish amok, by char, Cambodian curry, beef lok lak with steamed rice and mixed sauces. We were not disappointed. The food was wonderful.

After lunch we started walking towards the ‘Old Market’ but got a little turned around and twisted in the chaotic streets; traffic on the roads, traffic on the sidewalks, dust, noise, people, litter (both organic and inorganic), smells. We ended up in the Pub Street area and found a nice, somewhat quite place for dinner and coffee.

We awoke Saturday morning at 4:30 so that we could get to Phnom Bakheng near Angkor Wat to watch the sunrise. Unfortunately the sun rose before we did. On the way to Angkor the sky started lighting up in the east. We urged the driver on… faster, faster please. We alighted at the jungle trailhead and started climbing up the hill to the temple on top. By the time we climbed the near vertical steps to the top of the temple the sun was peeking over the horizon. There were only about 8 other people there for the sunrise so it was very peaceful and quiet.

After the sunrise and the short trek back down the hill, we visited other temples in the area. Over the years, the jungle started reclaiming the ancient town of Angkor and all of it’s stone structures and carvings. It’s hard to tell if the buildings are holding up the trees or the trees are holding up the buildings.

One obvious problem we noticed: many of the heads and hands of the sculptures were missing (and are probably in homes of the rich and scattered in museums around the world). It really is a shame that such a place could be so desecrated. But then when you consider the destruction and genocide under Pol Pot’s rule… well, with such a sad and tragic past, Angkor Wat did survive.

Before Pol Pot died in 1998, he told a journalist that he had “a clear conscience.” Yet, between 1975 and 1979 he oversaw the executions, starvation or death by overwork of more than 1.5 million people who shared a common history, including one of the eight wonders of the world.

Some of the walls at the Angkor Wat temple, built between the 9th and 14th Centuries, still contained pock marks made by bullets, residues of Vietnamese and Cambodian “communists” fighting each other amidst the splendor of palaces built by grandiose kings.

We walked around until 2:00pm and then went back to the hotel for a swim. The temperatures were in the high 90’s. At 5:00pm we went back to Angkor to visit the famed Angkor Wat. We climbed the near vertical stairs to the top of the temple and look at more carvings illustrating the stories and beliefs of the ancient Cambodians. We then watched the sunset. After the sunset we walked to the edge of the temple platform for the climb down. Climbing down is not for the faint-of-heart. It’s like climbing down the side of a cliff. Your legs shake, your breath becomes short and you grip each step with white knuckles… then you look over and see a monk casually walking down the steps with a smile on his face… hmmm… seems his faith was stronger than mine.

On Sunday we flew back to Kuala Lumpur and made our way back home leaving behind some really nice people, but bringing with us memories of an unbelievable time.