A Thousand Years Ago – The Cities of Angkor, Cambodia

I had been looking forward to Cambodia a great deal as the temples and palaces of ancient Angkor loomed and they did not disappoint.

One of the bonuses of staying at our (great!) hotel was that we had the same tuk tuk drivers for our trip. So, we got to know Mr. Coll and Ta quite well and they were always happy to take us to our various destinations. We spent two days among the Angkor ruins and decided to hire a local guide to take us through the history, architecture and stories of Angkor. Supai, a student of history and guide for the last 4 years was our guide and his knowledge was immense and fascinating.

Day One – Angkor Thom, Preah Khan, Ta Keo and Ta Prohhm

I guess the first most amazing fact about this place was that it was a huge and powerful empire from the 8^th century until the 16^th century. At one point in the 12-13^th century, Angkor Thom (the city proper which is about 9 square kilometers) had over 1 million inhabitants and was the largest city in the world – greater than any of those in “modern” Europe.
This empire stretched into modern day Thailand, China, Laos and Vietnam.

The cities of Angkor and their temples have been built to worship both Hindu gods and Buddha over the years and the evidence of these changing religious commitments was evident every where we went. An example was the many (many) headless Buddha statues as the Hindus would remove them when they ascended to the throne.

Angkor Thom (built in the 12^th and 13^th century was a magnificent walled city with its front gates protected by 54 gods and 54 demons each waging in a tug of war using a seven headed serpent. Its gates were always topped by four large heads each facing in perfect symmetry to the main points of the compass. A treat for us all inside the gate was a family of monkeys that we watched for some time. We were told that it was unusual to see them up so close so we enjoyed that experience and the kids were mesmerised!

Bayon was the center of Angkor Thom with 54 towers each with four carved faces on the top. These temples and palaces were built using a foundation of volcanic and honeycomb rock and then topped with sandstone for the walls and ceilings. The sand stone was also used as a canvas as it was elaborately carved with stories (in ancient sand script writing) and art. There were lots of pictured depicting dancing nymphs – the king’s concubine and Madeline decided she was one of them and spent lots of time over these two days dancing through the ancient ruins.


While we were there parts of Bayon were being restored by a team of Japanese archaeologists.

We also visited Phnom Bakheng – the hilltop temple of the city, Preah Kahn which was once the temporary house of King Jayavarman VII (aka King J7) while he was rebuilding Angkor Thom after it was damaged in an attack by the Siamese (Thai) people. Ta Phrom was originally built as a Buddhist monastery but has not been restored and left to the jungle so as you can see by a couple of the pictures, huge trees have become one with the stone buildings creating a fantastic combination demonstrating the changes in time between nature and man-made buildings. At its height, Ta Prohm housed 12,000 people who lived and worked in the monastery.

The day ended with a climb (in the very hot sun) to the top of a temple that provided a great view over the Angkor area and in the distance beckoned the towers of Angkor Wat – our next day’s adventure!!

Thankfully our hotel had a pool that welcomed us back after a long day of exploring. Supai was a fantastic guide and we continued to talk about what we learned over dinner in Siem Reap.