Angkor Wat

We didn't wait until the next day until we went to Angkor Wat, oh no, we were far too excited. We had heard from our driver that drove us in a tuk-tuk from town to our hotel that from 5:00pm on it was free to go watch the sunset on top of a hill. So we hired him for $4.00 to take us to the hill. The driver's name, we later found out, was Ra, like the Egyptian Sun God.

There was a problem at the ticket office when we got there, though! Dad got us three-day passes, which were $4o each. He had already handed in the money and was reading the rules when he saw that children under twelve years old do not have to buy tickets. Now, I am very tall, and in parts of Asia people are short, so now I am the height of someone who's 20 years old. I mean, I'm just eleven! So they had to check my passport because they didn't believe Dad, and there was all this big fuss about it but Dad got his $40 back, which I'm glad for.The sunset was nice, and the view was great!


Maybe I should tell you about The Angkor Temples before I go launching into all the things we did:

‘The Angkor Temples’ is a term used for describing the hundreds of temples built in the area of Cambodia. Angkor wat is by far the largest and the most popular of them. They were built in the 9^th to the 15^th centuries by the Khmer empire, established by Jayavarman II in 802. The Angkor Temples were built out of huge sandstone blocks quarried more than 50 kilometers away from the site of building. The huge blocks were then floated down the river on rafts or carried in carts by elephants and oxen. To be carried to their specific places the Khmer drilled holes into the stone and wedged sticks in them that have long since rotted away, and then carried the stones by the sticks. Pretty cool, huh? The temples are covered in carvings of gods and apsara, dancers (which are in the picture). There is even a temple where there are huge trees growing on top of the walls, with their huge roots climbing down the walls.

After the sunset we went home.

The next day we visited the main three temples. We decided to rent Ra out again since he was so nice yesterday. The main part of Angkor is surrounded by a man-made moat measuring 190m wide! Think about it... this was in the day they didn't have earth-movers, or construction equipment, and they still managed to dig that! Angkor Wat is amazing! They have done so much with it, restoring it, and everything! With the pieces they restored, they put a one-step rougher finish on it so you can see what's original, and what's not. They also put only restore it if the count of restored ones was less than half of the count of originals. In the picture below, you can clearly see what's restored and what's original.

Yet again, I must say that the Angkor temples are amazing! I am sorry, but I cannot explain it as well as most of you would have hoped. I guess this time you really do have to believe!

Scholars have long been puzzled by the position of Angkor wat. It faces to the west, whereas most temples face to the east. West is also the sign of death, which leads many to believe that Angkor Wat was originally intended as a tomb. But the temple is also dedicated to the god Vishnu, who is a god of the west.

The most famous things in Angkor Wat are the bas-reliefs (pronounced base reliefs). Bas-reliefs are intricate carvings carved out of the stone wall picturing wars, scenes of legends, and daily life. They are amazing! And some parts even look like black marble from the many hands that have touched it. That sounds so poetic! Go me!

Since this post is very long, I will write about the other three we saw this day tomorrow. Bye!