Francesca and Henk-Jan's Backpacking Trip!

The third and final day of our pass came on the first of April, and Francesca and I chose to revisit some of our favorites as well as check out the few remaining temples on the ‘Great Circuit’ we had left. We thought about getting up for sunrise once again, but the forecast was not so great with clouds and more clouds. We ended up sleeping in until 8:00 AM and popped up at Angkor Wat a mere 30 minutes later. We made our way across the causeways once again and headed straight for the third inner enclosures. Since we had missed the third level (the ‘Bakan’) on the first day we’d come back to take a few pictures. Francesca and I were very surprised to hear Francesca could not go up: her skirt was apparently too short. There was not much we could do, so I headed up by myself.

The third level of Angkor Wat is reached by climbing a steep staircase, ending up on a raised part of said level. The raised walkway goes around the sides and through the middle, splitting up and going to the sides. The center had an old Buddha statue, which was still actively worshiped. Several elderly ladies were having their photos taken with other statues around. I walked around and got a decent look at four of the five main towers of Angkor Wat. Obviously I could not see the main one; it was somewhere above my head. As I walked around on the walkway I also got a decent look of the surroundings. I can imagine how impressive the city must have looked in its heydays.





I descended the staircase to go back to Francesca. I showed her the pictures I had taken and we were on our way again. Our next stop was, not surprisingly, the Bayon again. We both wanted some more time with the giant faces. But before we headed up to the visages Francesca and I read a little display on the research done on the faces and the Bayon itself. We read about the construction of the faces, which were worked on by two artisans at the same time, each doing one side of the work of art. It was the only reason they were done within a few months. We also learned the faces represented three different, but similar expressions.



Another interesting thing we had learned was that the Kings after Jayavarman VII had switched the state religion back from Mahayana Buddhism to Hinduism. They, along with Siamese invaders, destroyed all the Buddhist statues and carvings at all the temples. Without preserving the Buddhas they just chiseled them away. We had been looking carefully and actually found a few in a decent state! New knowledge absorbed we headed up the small staircase and went straight for our photo shoot. Whilst we were working on the poses I spotted a monk posing as well. Cool picture alert! Next, we tried to get a photo of us looking at each other with a stone smile behind us. Four different people didn’t get the simple concept, leaving us with a decent picture that could have been better. Anyway, here’s the result of the whole shoot!























On day one Francesca and I had missed Baphuon, even though it was part of the small circuit of that day. We asked our new tuk-tuk driver to take us there to get a chance to explore it. Wiki tells us: “Built in the mid-11th century, it is a three-tiered temple mountain built as the state temple of Udayadityavarman II dedicated to the Hindu God Shiva. In the late 15th century, the Baphuon was converted to a Buddhist temple. A 9 meter tall by 70 meter long statue of a reclining Buddha was built on the west side's second level, which probably required the demolition of the 8 meter tower above, thus explaining its current absence.”



Baphuon’s claim to fame is not in any of its architecture, however. Most of the temple was in a pretty poor state when it was rediscovered. The French had tried to restore Baphuon since the 1940s, carefully taking apart the whole thing, laying the stones out around the base and writing out every step of the way. When the Khmer Rouge came to power the French were forced to leave head over heels. When they came back they found their plans were gone… Now they were left with the world’s largest jigsaw puzzle. Only in 1995, after many years of research, did they start rebuilding. Even on the day of our visit rebuilding was still going on and our visit restricted. We actually couldn’t see much of the reclining Buddha at the back.

As I wrote this I realized Francesca accidentally already talked about Baphuon. I moved it from her post on the previous day to this one here so you can also read her account of our visit to Baphuon:





“We had first passed by Baphuon on our first day in Angkor Thom, but we didn’t realize the complex couldn’t be seen from the front. (It was our guide’s fault for not wanting to walk us in. Be careful your guide doesn’t try to ‘cheat’ you out of seeing what is on the itinerary! Keep track yourself. Guides in South-East Asia have attempted this ALL THE TIME with us so we should have known better.) Anyways, once we walked down the bridge towards the temple we saw just how huge Baphuon was. And even though it was currently under major restoration and you couldn’t go inside, it was worth it just to walk around the building and marvel at it. At the back was supposed to be a large reclining Buddha etched into the stone, but again, it was being reconstructed. I later went to the Cultural Village and saw what it should look like so I’ll post the picture I took of the model here.”



Next up were the two remaining temples of the grand circuit. Our guidebook told us Preah Khan was built on the site of Jayavarman VII's victory over the invading Chams in 1191. Like Ta Prohm, Preah Khan has been left largely untouched, letting the strangler figs grow in and over the temple. Francesca and I walked over the causeway and found another ‘Churning’ before hitting the main walls. A huge Garuda made for a good photo opportunity, as both of us posed with it, copying its outstretched arms. We headed inside and marveled at the size of the complex. We learned that at one point Preah Kean had 100,000 people scurrying about its premises. I actually felt quite humbled by the large stacks of rocks that were all over the place. It gave the place an eerie feel.







Neak Pean was the last grand circuit temple on our list. Technically, Neak Pean isn’t even a temple; it’s an artificial island with a Buddhist temple on a circular stupa-like fountain in the middle. The water that once might have filled the basin surrounding Neak Pean had dried up during the dry season, making it look far less impressive than it could have been. We saw restoration and renovation were going on, leaving the few carvings covered in protective wooden sleeves. We decided to turn around and headed back to tuk-tuk man.





Visiting so many different temples with similar names in such a short span of time makes it hard to remember everything you’ve seen. I thought that we had also missed Banteay Kdei on the first day of our trip, but when we showed up there we soon realized we had already seen it. Luckily there was one last place we had missed right across the street from Banteay Kdei: Srah Srang. Srah Srang was also not a temple. It was a water reservoir, in all likelihood built for either religious or agricultural purposes. The most notable feature of this so-called ‘baray’ is a sort of platform overlooking the reservoir. Statues of stately Nagas and Lions guard the water, as they’ve done for centuries.



This concluded our epic three-day adventure at Angkor, filling us with many memories and stories never to be forgotten. We asked our driver to take us to the city center, where an Indian lunch at Maharajah tasted extremely well after all the walking. Here’s Francesca scooping up some yellow rice, ready to devour her butter naan and butter chicken. I’ve yet to start on my chicken saag. After lunch we returned to the shadow and watched some documentaries on chimpanzees. We thought we deserved the quiet time!