Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Marvelling at ancient temples

It is all too easy to wax lyrical about the temples of Angkor, where we spent three days exploring temples devoured by jungle, examining carvings of dancers and gods and admiring statues of Buddha.

The most famous temple, for it's sheer size, is Angkor Wat. This wasn't however the first temple we visited, or by any means our favourite. We started off in Bayon which is within a larger complex Angkor Thom. This was amazing there were two levels that were accessible and within these you could wander around, over and through. Every surface seemed to be carved and we felt much more like we were exploring the site than we had expected. Some temples were under restoration and lots have scaffolding holding them up, but others like Bayon are in amazing condition. One, Ta Prohm (made famous by Lara Croft), has not been restored allowing you to see the state they were found in. Enormous trees have caught root in the temples forcing the stones apart. There are many areas of Ta Prohm that were in serious danger of falling down and wooden walkways take you around these, but once you are inside you are able to climb over crumbling pillars, squeeze through doorways and appear in a surprisingly intact room with carvings hundreds of years old (and usually no other tourists).

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