Angkor Wat

Julie and I woke at 4:45 a.m. in order to meet our tuk-tuk driver at the front gate of our hotel. This was the morning that we would sacrifice a couple of extra hours of sleep, a morning read of the newspaper and some coffee in order to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat. We met our driver in darkness, we got in the tuk-tuk and off we sped towards Angkor Wat. The ride to the Wat, although only 4 kilometers, served to wake us up as it was cold and the exhaust from the tuk-tuk blew in our face (not quite the smell of morning coffee). Anyway, we come to a point in the road where our driver pulls over and tells us to get out...it seemed a little suspicious at first, as we were in complete darkness, under the stars, and although we could hear voices, we couldn't see anything. After being reassured by our driver that he wouldn't leave without us, we walked towards the voices. We followed the voices along the path through the first temple and towards Angkor Wat. Julie and I were awake by this point and were anxious to see the sunrise over the Wat. We saw a crowd gather near the pond that sits in front of Angkor Wat and we meandered over that way, taking our time as it was only 5:30 a.m. Dawn soon broke and the stars began to fade, and with that the towers of Angkor Wat silhouetted against the rising sun; it was amazingly beautiful. It was like you would picture it out of a movie or on a postcard and we took it all in, ignoring the clamoring sounds of people and tour guides moving about us. It was awesome. We were so happy that we had made it for the sunrise and after staying for another 30 minutes (having seen the sun rise) we walked away, satisfied with ourselves and our trip to Siam Reap'(although it wasn't over!)

We came back to the hotel and had breakfast and then had a guide pick us up and take us on a tour of Angkor Wat and other surrounding temples. We actually walked to the Wat and up the large stairs...actually they weren't really stairs but sandstone blocks that were worn from centuries of decay. We began our ascent and at times were gripped with vertigo, climbing the full 37 steps up to the top of the towers. Once we reached the top we were exhausted, yet proud of our accomplishment, giving ourselves the proverbial 'pat on the back'. As we were standing there, giving each other kudos for the climb, thinking we were the only ones who could make it up to the top, we were bombarded by a tour group that had already made it to the top...it was like summitting Mt. Everest and looking at a busload of people who had reached the summit long before you! As we stood looking at the crowd there was a woman who was probably 90 years old and bent over at the waist, moving very slowly...Julie and I looked at eachother, dumbfounded, wondering how this woman made it to the top. Sure enough, moments later, we saw her husband (presumably), who was even older than she was and who was moving a lot slower than she was and an even more unsteady gait than his wife, at which point, we didn't feel quite as accomplished as we had moments before we saw the couple. After walking around for about 45 minutes we decided to descend. We were told by our guide that the government had placed a handrail to climb down the sandstone blocks, so people wouldn't fall. This seemed logical. Although once we got to the area of descent and looked at the handrail, we thought it was a joke - it was an extremely thin metal rail that could barely hold my weight, which was made even more dangerous by the fact that everyone was sweating profusely, so that you could not actually maintain a good grip on the metal rail, but slipped all the way down. Once we did reach the bottom, I thought I'd ask the question on everyone's mind, "so, has anyone ever fallen down these steps?" to which our guide told me, "Yes, in fact, within the last six months, a gentleman slipped and fell to the bottom and died." He said it so non-chalantly, which made the statement that much more chilling, as if this happened more often than we'd hoped. Glad we heard that after we came down...although would have been nice to know before we went up!

Anyway, whether it was due to sunstroke or dehydration, Julie and i asked some questions of our guide that we are sure will go down as one of those 'not so bright questions' tourists ask him. First, one of us (not going to mention which one of us, although rest assured, we both were guilty)pointed to a pillar in the structure and asked our guide, "What do they call this?" He looked at us and said they call this a "Pillar", enunciating with such emphasis that we don't think he thought English was our first language. Next up, we were looking at a sculpture on the wall of the temple depicting heaven and hell and all of the bad things that happen to you in hell and one of us (again, not mentioning names) asked the guide, "So, did they do that in hell?" To which our guide graciously responded he was not sure. Yes, it must have been sunstroke or dehydration. We both got a good laugh after listening to our questions and realizing they probably made the guide think we were a few cards short of a full deck.

On the tour with us were a married couple from France, now living in Hong Kong. They were very nice and we chatted them up during the tour. We ended up meeting them for drinks after the tour at the Foreign Correspondents' Club. We had a great time and told them we may see them in Hong Kong when we head there in April.

We are taking the bus back to Phnom Penh tomorrow. The following day we are headed to Bangkok, then on to Ko Samui to meet friends from home. It has been a few exhausting days of travel - the last 4 nights we have stayed in 4 different hotels - but well worth seeing Angkor Wat and other surrounding temples.