What’s Wat…?

#avalon

#checkthisoffourbucketlist

#cambodia

#siemreap

#ankorwat

In the 16th Century Portugese traders and missionaries discovered a vast stone city hidden in the Cambodian forests. This is the description of their find from the year 1589:

Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia

“Half a league from this city is a temple called Angar. It is of such extraordinary construction that it is not possible to describe it with a pen, particularly since it is like no other building in the world. It has towers and decoration and all the refinements which the human genius can conceive of. There are many smaller towers of similar style in the same stone, which are gilded. The temple is surrounded by a moat and access is by a single bridge, protected by two stone tigers so grand and fearsome as to strike terror into the visitor”. Diogo do Couto

And frankly nothing really has changed since that description of Angkor Wat. Built in 1150 as a Hindu temple dedicated to the deity Vishnu, it was gradually transformed into a Buddhist temple towards the end of the Century. Angkor Wat is regarded as the largest religious structure in the world.

When I started doing our research for choosing this vacation my priority was to make sure that we got to visit Angkor Wat. When we last visited Vietnam on the 2022/2023 Viking World Cruise there was no opportunity to travel from Saigon/ Ho Chi Minh to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Just like visiting Petra, Jordan, Angkor Wat was one of those ‘top 10’ places in the world I wanted to visit,…a bucket list place to visit, so to speak.

Our Avalon tour to Angkor Wat today started out by meeting at 8:30am outside the Park Hyatt hotel (where we are staying in Siem Reap). Rather than take a bus to Angkor Wat, we are riding two people to a motorcycle tuk tuk! What a cool experience! We had to dress appropriately to visit the temples which meant having clothing that covered our shoulders and our knees. Richard wore long pants and a golf shirt and I wore a lined dress that had some elastic at the waistband. When packing for this trip I realized all of my sundresses are sleeveless and so wanting to wear something loose and cool, also meant nothing I owned would be appropriate to visit the temples, so at the last minute I found a dress on Amazon and another one at Winners to bring with me that were long enough and that covered my shoulders. I suppose I could have brought a scarf to cover my shoulders but that also meant keeping it on the whole time we were visiting a temple and dealing with where to put it in the Tuk tuk…

We convoyed from the Park Hyatt to the Temple ticket office as we all had to have our photos taken for the 3 day temple pass…kind of like the “all access pass” at Walt Disney World, but instead it was for the over 72 major temples which are found around Siem Reap. In Cambodia there are over 4,000 ancient Khmer temples, 4300 Buddhist temples and over 6,600 total ancient structures.

Angkor Wat was constructed during what is known as the Khmer Empire and the Khmer’s were known for their building skills with a unique Khmer architectural style. Built at the behest of the Khmer king Suryavarman II at the capital as his state temple and eventual mausoleum. Angkor Wat is surrounded by a moat more than 5km and is enclosed within an outer wall that is 3.6 km long. The expansive temple complex covers an area of 400 acres. UNESCO designated it as a World Heritage Site in 1992 and Angkor attracts more than 2.5 million visitors every year.

The towers at Angkor Wat are positioned in an east-west orientation and specific towers show the precise location of the solstice at sunrise. Discussions from scholars still today try to determine whether the temple was built in an east-west orientation rather than the usual west to east because it was built to be a funerary temple given Hindu rituals for funerals are in reverse to the normal order. To this day no one knows why the temple was oriented the way it is.

Trying to explain the various sections of Angkor Wat would take me days to write. Needless to say we walked, climbed, listened, walked, climbed, listened…..etc….etc…watching our steps on the uneven ground and trying to understand the very complex temple of Angkor Wat.

Our guide that Avalon has hired for the time we are in Cambodia is a walking Wikipedia expert! Its difficult to comprehend how he can not only remember all of the stuff we are learning, but when we ask a question he can respond to that as well with even more detail. There is soooooo much history in Siem Reap and so many temples and how anyone can keep straight what photos belong to what temple all depends on the Apple lookup feature on the iphone! Thank goodness for that feature or there is no way after leaving Siem Reap to keep everything clear in our heads!

Angkor Wat is best viewed at either sunrise or sunset so we were both a little disappointed that the Avalon tour was NOT first thing in the morning at Angkor Wat.

It is super hot, I mean super, super hot here and it feels like 40C and standing on heat retaining stones, surrounded by heat retaining stone structures, really makes for a drippy, sweat running down our backs like a river experience. I know we have felt heat before in Indonesia, Malaysia and Riyadh, Saudi Arablia, but we think this heat tops it all as the hottest place we have ever travelled to!

Our Tour Director Ha had wet wipes he was handing out to us to try and wipe our faces so the sweat and sunscreen wouldn’t run into our eyes. Unfortunately for Richard he put sunscreen on his forehead and it dripped into his eyes under his baseball hat. Our tuk tuk drivers had ice cold bottles of water in coolers for us, but drinking water is not the solution on such a hot day. Hydration tablets are really necessary to prevent heat stroke and luckily we brought with us our NUUN tables that we use when golfing in Canada and Florida in hot weather. I also brought BLUME Super fruit hydration packets to use in our water, since I knew we would be sweating a lot in this climate.

After visiting Angkor Wat we met our motorcycle Tuk Tuk driver KEA (ours was #11 and we had to remember what our Tuk Tuk number was) and he drove us the 7 minutes to the Bayon Temple at Angkor Tomh.

Angkor Tomh is a smaller temple built by King Jayavaraman VII in the late 12th century. It covers an area of 9km within which are several monuments from earlier eras. At the centre of the city is Jayavaraman’s state temple, the Bayon, The Bayon style uses laterite and there are face towers at each of the entrances to the city. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider features several characters visiting Angkor Thom during their trip to Cambodia.

The faces on the temple were very neat and it was nice to climb around the temple on our own for a few minutes since the temple was not as overwhelming as the size and structure of Angkor Wat.

After visiting 2 temples today we were pretty much exhausted. The heat just knocks it out of us and thank goodness we had our hydration tablets to at least replenish some of the natural salts we were sweating out.

After we finished at Angkor Tom we were driven back to Siem Reap’s downtown by our Tuk Tuk drivers and deposited at a lovely air conditioned restaurant for our Avalon pre set menu for lunch. I immediately ordered a mango juice and we started chatting with our fellow passengers who were already suffering from heat exhaustion!

We started talking about hydration tablets and one well travelled lady we had met said she would visit a pharmacy and get some tablets for the rest of our tour. Another lady from Canada ordered a mango juice after I suggested she was starting to show signs of heat stress. She had drunk 4 bottles of water but yet she had a headache and her face was flushed.

It is a BIG miss on Avalon’s part that they did not mention in the pre-information kit we were sent to pick up some hydration tablets or packets to add to the water bottles because there is no way just drinking regular water is going to rehydrate us after how much salt we are sweating out in Cambodia!

After lunch we headed back to the hotel and we had found out at lunch from the well travelled lady that there was a laundromat immidiately to the right of the hotel. If we dropped off our clothes to be laundered today they would be ready tomorrow and instead of Park Hyatt prices of $9 US per shirt, we could have 5 kilos of laundry done for $10US. We sorted our clothing to be laundered and determined that linen shirts and pants etc we would wash ourselves in the sink and hang in our air conditioned room with a the overhead fan on to dry them. The rest of the laundry we would drop off to get laundered. What a deal and that is why its great to get to know fellow travellers to find out what they are doing and where they are going! The tips and tricks of travelling!

On that note, as we were walking around at Angkor Wat and fellow travellers we met on day one from Colorado mentioned that they had hired their Tuk Tuk driver tomorrow morning at 5am to go to see Angkor Wat at sunrise and if we wanted to join them we could split the cost with them. We said “we’re in!” Even if it meant an early morning, its the iconic shot of Angkor Wat that every photographer wants. Angkor Wat at sunrise! Another iconic shot is Angkor Wat at sunset but once the sun sets there is nothing to see, so iit’sprobably better we go at sunrise!

After Richard napped, we spent some time wandering around downtown Siem Reap. Cambodia has a lot different vibe than chaotic Vietnam. Even crossing the street is easier because the Cambodians slow down and are respectful; vs the Vietnamese who look at you and keep driving!

I went in this white store. It was definitely a Zara knock off with some higher end, fancy clothing, sportswear and womens and teens clothing.

Look at the Cambodian language. The letters are different than we are used to.

I loved the look on this woman’s face. Outdoor markets are prevalent everywhere.

Hot dog anyone?

Pub Street which is full of bars and restaurants. We ate at a pizza/steakhouse restaurant the first night we arrived in Siem Reap. Not all of our meals are included on this trip which allows us some freedom to try meals outside of our hotels. My rib eye steak with fries and veggies was $25US.

Cambodia seems to be cleaner than Vietnam too. We have not seen the hovels or shanty’s like we did in Vietnam. The concept of ‘Shop houses’ exists to a very small degree, but most of the stores are like we would find on any busy shopping street. Single level, or some with two levels, but not the tall, skinny shop houses with people living and working in the same house.

The Cambodian economy runs on US dollars and the Cambodian Riel. We were advised not to convert our money into the Riel as it is not widely circulated outside of Cambodia and we would not be able to get our money back from the bills we had leftover from our trip.

We went shopping down the main streets in Siem Reap and I picked up a nice linen dress at a ladies dress shop. Sizing is somewhat sketchy through having tried on two large dresses and one fit and the other one was way too small!

Entering the cultural centre. We were not advised we would be outside tonight.

There were a couple of men dressed up as monkeys and they were acting like monkeys when we entered the cultural centre.

The full Hunter’s Moon over Cambodia. Avalon had reserved the entire centre for us this evening.

Dinner was a short 15 minute bus ride away to a cultural centre where we were to see 3 different kinds of Cambodian dances during dinner. Unfortunately there was no air conditioning at the Cultural Centre and the heat was oppressive over dinner. I wasn’t hungry since our lunch was late and hearty, so I passed on most of the dishes except for the fruit at dessert.

The dancer had a small orb in her hand and she used it to slay a devil who came to attack her.

Fishing dance. The men use the larger baskets to catch large fish and the women use the smaller baskets to scoop up smaller fish.

The Cambodian dancing was beautiful to see. If you look at the feet and the hands you can see how intricate and difficult it is to perform the dances. My hands and feet just will not move like these dancers hands and feet move!

One of the fellow travellers who we were to see Angkor Watt with at sunrise tomorrow was sitting next to me at dinner and started to feel really sick. She had heat stroke and didn’t know it. Being from Colorado she is not used to the heat and humidity that we were experiencing and didn’t have any hydration tablets during the day. Once the food arrived, it completely turned her inside, out and she had to leave the meal and go back to the hotel with some hydration tablets from the well travelled lady.

It is a big miss on Avalon not to prepare people better for the heat but it is also good to do some research and determine what do I need to stay hydrated in a place with 90% humidity and feels like 40C weather????

AI generated image of sunrise at Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom were amazing to see and to try to fathom the history that went into building such large temple complexes with the tools and labour that they had available to them back so long ago. And we just scratched the surface frankly on seeing the temples around Cambodia but I am so glad I’ve finally seen Angkor Wat and I’m really looking forward to seeing the sunrise over Anghkor Wat tomorrow morning! I hope it is as good as some of the internet photos that we have seen and want to emulate!