Temple raiding at Angkor Wat

The Khmer kingdom was the most powerful civilization in the history of southeast Asia. At it's height in the 11th and 12th centuries it controlled most of present day Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, and their capital city of Angkor was likely the largest city in the world.

The Khmer civilization lost steam and was eventually defeated by the Thai Ayuthaya kingdom. The mainly wooden city of Angkor was abandoned and reclaimed by the jungle, and only the ~100 stone temples survive to this day. The temple complex area is enormous, and you could easily spend a whole week exploring everything. The temples were built as Hindu temples but later converted to Buddhist, and are a mix of tall "temple-mountain" style and galleried temple style. We spent two very packed days seeing almost 20 temples representing the whole range of Khmer architecture.

We started with sunrise at Angkor Wat. Even with 5AM tourist hordes, it's magnificent. It combines the mountain-temple and gallery-temple styles, with towering quintuple spires and hundreds of meters of carved galleries. It's so big that even with thousands of tourists there it doesn't feel crowded. Enough intro, here are the photos:

Angkor Thom is the largest complex, and was built to be the capital center, complete with royal palace and the king's personal temples. Notable temples include the huge faces at Bayon and the lines and lines of spirits and demons on the Terrace of the Leper King. Angkor Thom is surrounded by a moat, and the entrance causeways are lined with stone guardians brandishing a naga like an enormous firehose.

Ta Phrom was reclaimed by the jungle, and was my favorite temple. It's overgrown with trees and many parts of it have collapsed. It's "lost temple" look is so atmospheric that it's been used as a filming location for several movies, notably Tomb Raider. If you look closely there's what is obviously a carving of a stegosaurus, proving that the Khmer would have used dinosaurs to build their temples if possible.

Banteay Srei is 30km out and predates most of the other ruins. It's small by covered in intricate carvings. Banteay Srei was the site of the "Malraux Incident." In 1923 22-year-old French writer Andre Malraux pretended to be an archeologist and plundered several of the carvings to sell. He was broke, and targeted Banteay Srei because it was far enough from Angkor Wat that it had an uncertain legal status. He was caught at the border and there was a huge scandal, but he narrowly avoided jail and later in life became the French Minister of Culture. Seems appropriate.

Here are some photos from the many, many other temples we saw:

Siem Reap, the closest town to Angkor, is the most heavily touristed place we've been on our trip, but somehow it's surprisingly great. All the competition means that prices are reasonable and quality is high. Angkor Wat attracts every type of traveler, so in the earlier evening hours at least the streets are a cosmopolitan mix of tour groupers, couples, party backpackers, etc.

We ended our trip watching the sunset from yet another temple, and the sun is setting on this trip as well. We're waiting to board our flight home! A few more posts to come though.

-Peter