Angkor temples

We landed at Siem Reap, the gate to the ancient Hindu-Buddhist temple complex Angkor, which spreads over an area of 400 sq. km. and represents the Khmer art and architecture in the period between 9th and 14th centuries.
So we landed in one of the prettiest airports I’ve seen so far – it resembles motifs of Khmer temples found on the murals of some of the Angkor temples nearby. We went to our hotel (Hari Residence & Spa, a beautiful place with a pool on the rooftop and AC in the rooms, i’d totally recommend it and the staff is amazing) and the hotel was near the center of the town, only 5 min from the famous Pub Street and countless shops with beautiful local clothing for a great price. So we went to explore the little town and to see the central places and the shops around. I got the best pants for like 5 EUR, they were basically a piece of fabric that you wrap around in a magical way and voila! You’ve got some awesome wavy pants, which you could customize and wear as pants or as a skirt 😀 Well.. i thought it’d work for the scorching heat, but it didn’t.. it was beautiful, but synthetic so it didn’t really allow any wind to come through and to let my skin breathe, but i wore it around Angkor one day nonetheless. You will see it on some photos of me, the yellow pants. I loved them, but.. i ripped them on Ta Keo temple’s super high stairs 😀 Aaaaanyway. First things first.. we had to figure out where to rent an electric bicycle for our Angkor park tour, because Angkor may seem close enough but it’s actually pretty far from the city, so usually you have to go by tuk-tuk, no way you can walk to it, the temple site is huge. So usually tourists take a tuk-tuk to go around the temples and that means many people at the same time in the park and being rushed around which i didn’t want for THE place I booked this whole tour to see. Angkor was the reason why we were in Asia in the first place, I’ve always wanted to see the temples, so definitely wouldn’t choose the rushy option. So we went to two locations around and they had no such “animal” as an electric bike anywhere, so we gave up. So what else could we do? As we walked around, we saw the office of an electric scooter rental place (Green e-bike) and we thought why not? (but.. now when I look at the Google Maps photos of Green e-bike, it looks like they might have electric bicycles, but back in 2022, they didn’t). We thought of getting one scooter for both of us and Fill would ride it and i would sit behind. This seemed perfect for me, however when he tried the scooter, it was quite uncomfortable and difficult to ride, he said. Then he was offered another, smaller scooter, more like an e-bike and it was much easier to ride, but.. it was for one person. The price, however, was really good, something like 20 eur for both or so. So want it or not, we had to get 2 and that meant i had to ride my own bike.. Gosh, it was scary.. until you got used to it. The bike could go up to 30 km/h but the “Green bike” person said we should drive 20 at most, so the battery lasts longer. He said there are stations for charging in the Angkor park, but when we looked for one he showed us on the map, such a station did not exist. It was very funny because when you turn the handle to start, it’d shoot you forward if you did it too quickly. So it took some getting used to, and especially it took some getting used to the traffic. Crazy! But we survived somehow and we were the slowest of everyone but it was soooo much fun! Especially on the empty roads between the temples in the forest. At some point, I was very confident and I was taking photos with the camera and drinking water and putting on and off my sunglasses, all the while I was still going with the bike 😀
We got the bikes for 2 days and planned to go around and explore first the eastern side of the temples and then the western with Angkor Wat being the very last temple to see. Actually, the temple I really wanted to see, was the Ta Prohm temple, with the famous huge tree going over the stone wall. I just loved the whole area, despite the scorching heat, walking around the temples was something unforgettable. We were riding the e-bikes and when we entered the temple area there’s someone who checks your ticket and once you enter the Angkor park, there are two recommended tours around, we did both of them. The first day we went the long route, the blue one on the ma below, starting at the Banteay Kdel temple, which was amazing to walk around, and people were playing some instruments and it gave the place a very nice vibe as you walked around the ground covered by the roots of the trees. Then we continued to Pre Rup temple, Ta Som, Neak Pean, Preah Khan and then the big square around the Bayon Temple. The Bayon temple is one of the biggest of the temples in the park, it was built in the late 12th – early 13th century as the official state temple of the Mahayana (more about Mahayana here) Buddhist King Jayavarman VII, and even though it has an impressive amount of murals with motifs on it, it is less preserved than Angkor Wat temple as a structure. Another impressive thing about it, besides the murals, are the 216 faces carved all over the place. They bear a resemblance to the king himself, although they are supposed to represent Avalokitesvara, a Buddhist who reached nirvana and was then known as the compassionate bodhisattva (i.e. “someone who is on the way to becoming enlightened.”). However, even though the Bayon temple is not as preserved, this is probably one of the prettiest temples in the whole park. With its richly decorated stone walls depicting images from the everyday lives of people – battles between Khmer soldiers and Cham warriors, scenes where people bring a carriage with the king on it, it is really mesmerizing the level of detail and enormity of the walls with stonework on them. I think i have maybe more than a hundred photos of these walls alone because I just had to go and take pictures of almost everything there, it was so amazing! Also, around the Bayon temple, we saw a monkey and I was sooo surprised, I didn’t know there would be monkeys and this was, i think, the first time i saw monkeys in Asia, so I got super excited, we stopped to check it out and noticed that it’s full of them. There was a group of photographers gathered at one grassy area next to the Bayon temple and it was a mother with a baby monkey. The monkeys were macaques. I remembered that I had some mango in my backpack and kneeled down to open my bag a take it out. The moment I kneeled and they heard the sound of the plastic bag, I didn’t have enough time to put my sunglasses back in the case and also take out the mango when i saw a monkey speeding towards me, I got scared that it would steal my glasses or phone or something, so i just gave it the mango as it was – in the bag. I regretted it 2 seconds later but it did manage to rip open the bag and eat the mango. I did want to break it into pieces and was worried that it might choke, but luckily, none of these things happened. We also bought some bananas and I wanted to give them to the young and baby monkeys but the adults were quicker and also as soon as they see you holding the fruit, they start coming towards you 😀 I got scared so i tried throwing bananas in the direction of the young ones and hoped that they’d get to it before the big ones. Once we were out of bananas, we proceeded to actually look around the temple and saw the things I mentioned above.
The last temple in our daily tour was the best one – Angkor Wat 🙂 The Angkor Wat temple was constructed in the 12th century as a Hindu temple for the Khmer Empire and gradually transformed into a Buddhist temple. Angkor Wat is the best-preserved and the largest temple in the park, which makes it a significant religious center nowadays, the only one in the park. We got there around sunset and actually, it was so beautiful, couldn’t have gotten there at a better time. Yes, we didn’t have a LOT of time before it got dark, but we got the golden hour, so it was worth it. We had juuust enough time to enjoy a bit the outside of the temple and to go inside to walk around the temple’s inner walls, to see the Buddhist altars, and see the sunset over the temple grounds from the highest points inside the temple itself.
On the next day, the Ta Keo temple was really impressive. Not because I managed to ripped my pants, ofc.. but rather because it was really high up and you had to climb super high steps towards the top and from the top you could see the whole structure of the temple as well as the whole jungle around it. This was my little moment of peace where I could just sit down, listen to the jungle sounds without people talking around me, for some reason there was really nobody around us. I could also take photos of some beautiful green doves who made a nice record on my birdwatching list 🙂 I have a whole gallery only with birds from this trip. Look for the post about it to see them, if interested. I promise, there are many amazing birdSies there, too cute to be true 😀
As we were riding around the park one of the days, we bumped into some sort of a ceremony, we couldn’t continue before a procession of people passed on the road in front of us and went into one of the temples. Trucks with people on top, monks and more people followed on foot. It might have been a procession for a diseased person because there was also a tree with money, which is where people give offerings in the form of money to the family of the diseased to make for merit.

Kulen elephant sanctuary

Kulen Elephant Forest, one of the FEW real sanctuaries, read this post

Angkor Jungle Zipline

Besides the tour around the Angkor park and the elephant sanctuary, we had also one more adventure booked – A Zipline in the middle of the jungle! I was soo excited, this has been an all time dream of mine, especially since I never returned to the adult track inside Sofia’s park “Borisova Gradina” “Kokolandia” where you can walk over obstacles and zipline over the trees and into a net 😀 This genuinely fueled my inner child’s energy 😀 But times 10000! We got picked up by a van and traveled back into the Angkor park, which is close to the Bayon temple complex. We went in and were greeted by our safety guide and his fresh new assistant. For that day we would not be only with him, but with the two of them because the new guys has to learn. They instructed us to never touch the metal rope as it cuts hands, to land always with one foot and then the other and if we start to turn, to just relax, the safety guide will catch us. Then off we went. We started with a rope bridge and went on from one tree to another. Then, there were stairs going around the next tree, we climbed up, then onto our first zip line – the baby zipline as they called it. It was short and easy (well, didn’t look like that to me back then 😀 ). But we did it! It was sooo freeing to experience flying in the rainforest. We went onto more stairs, more ziplines and we reached a point soo high up in the tree crowns that we couldn’t see the forest floor and the foot paths anymore. We approached a rest stop where they kept some water for people. But.. when we approached the guide asked us if we are afraid of snakes 😀 I thought he was randomly asking and joking, but he wasn’t.. 😀 he told us to stay behind him, he got a stick and opened the box and from it fell a green viper. Well, safe to say, i’m glad he saw it. He explained that sometimes snakes go inside there because they can pass between the wooden planks constructing the box inside which is the big 10L water bottle and the cups. The snakes hide there from the heat and the sun.

They explained that once a woman gave them a bad review because there was a snake and.. apparently it was “their” fault. I mean come one.. stupid people.. how could that be the zipline people’s fault? Snakes are wild animals, you go to the forest you take the responsibility. Don’t go if you can’t handle it. Easy. Anyway, we finished by literally jumping down holding a pole like the fire brigade in the movies 😀 This was so fun. Then we walked for 20-30 min or so back to the camp while reading different signs placed along the path about other forest inhabitants. Apparently, there are around 100 Indochinese Tigers in Cambodia. Way too little 🙁 There are also leopards, clouded leopards and leopard cats and, of course, hornbills (luckily we saw these in Phnom Penh) as well as many other birds of prey and some AMAZING owls like Oriental By Owl and Buffy Fish Owl. In the end, they drove us back to Siem Reap.

My scare and concerns about malaria..

Of course, with my bad luck, one of the days on our way back from Angkor Wat, I felt very cold, which was quite odd, considering the fact that the temperatures were nearing 40 degrees. Well.. as it happened, my own temperature was also nearing that temperature. Oh gosh, what kind of a virus was that, no idea, but I had to wrap myself in the super thick, winter blanket they put in the room. I honestly have no idea why they’d put a winter thick blanket at a place with 35+ degrees temperature on average. I suppose it’s in case you catch my virus 😀 So you can sweat it out and get your temperature down. Ok, i know.. you should sleep on AC to keep mosquitoes away, but i never do bc it makes me sick.. but now it was a virus..
I got e thermometer and some Advil and started taking pills, put clothes on and went under the blanket, totally wrapped. If i just moved a little and allowed for some air to come under the blanket, I was shaking like crazy. It took around 3h to sweat it off with cold water compress and pills and in the end it was down to 37.6 or so. Much more bearable.. BUT.. i didn’t realize that the bed would be absolutely soaked. It was so wet, there was no way to dry it and sleep on it. So we had to sleep with the blanket over it and with a bed sheet as a blanket and with the mosquito net.
The issue was that I got panicked. Before coming to South-East Asia i was very concerned about malaria, we got some pills but i was very anxious bc in Vietnam people told us they are taking pills as a PREVENTIVE measure, while again.. Dutch healthcare system.. they didn’t allow us to take pills like the others – every day during the trip or like in the case of another person – once a week for a few weeks before, during and after the trip. No, our instructions were “if you get symptoms like virus, fever etc, take the pills”. So that’s what I did. I do realize the pills were very heavy because I started feeling nauseous and felt like vomiting etc but I’d rather take less strong pills for longer than only when i have symptoms. Because it might not have been malaria, but might also have been and what if i get symptoms, take the pills, it wasn’t malaria and then i get symptoms again and i have no more pills? Hm? What then? This still pisses me off, it ruined my vacation, really. I was under a lot of stress because of these bullshit doctors.
Anyway, in the end I got better and could enjoy further the vacation, I believe the zipline tour was the day after I got the fever. I was thinking of canceling of fear that I might get unwell again. However the funny thing in this hot and moist environment there is that you don’t feel your fever as much, but that can only make things worse, I imagine. After that I didn’t want to see this room anymore, it was a great room, but I got my nightmare fever in it and somehow i felt negatively towards it, but after our trip to Battambang, we went back to the same hotel and they wanted to make us happy and gave us the same big room again… oh well. So that was that..