Angkor Temples - Bayon

We left first thing in the morning to explore 3 of the Temples at Angkor Wat! We had a local guide for the entire day and two private vans to take us around.

On the ride over our guide, Potha (spelling?), explained a bit of the history of Cambodia to us. Recently, 8 million people were killed in genocide, and for comparison, there are currently 23 million people living in Cambodia. Our guide himself lost 4 of his family members because they were doctors. The genocide focused on killing all educated people. Presumably so that the population would be easier to control and there would be more labourers to grow food for China. Apparently there's a good movie to watch to learn more called "First they Killed my Father" in partnership with Angeina Jolie. She apparently has a soft spot for Cambodia, and we'll be visiting the temple that tomb raider was filmed in. We also learned that all of these Temples were once covered in gold and jewels but were raided when Thailand defeated Cambodia in a war. The first documentation of the Temples of Angkor Wat were photographs by a French man in 1920.

We stopped before entering the grounds to obtain our passes which are good for three days. They took our photos and we were good to continue on! The Temples are surrounded by a huge moat and even though the water looked quite disgusting there were children swimming in the water.

So, the first temple we visited was called Bayon which means magic because of all the faces carved into the towers on the temple. There are four faces which face NSEW and stand for love, compassion, sympathy, and neutrality; the four faces of a good person.

The temple was big and filled with very steep steps, narrow corridors, and lots of space for praying. Restoration efforts haven't been completed yet and there are still piles of rocks lying around, but the effect is impressive nonetheless. Some of the carved faces have been defaced as the Temple was originally Buddhist, but at one point in history an evil king tried to change all the carvings to represent the Hindu religion. So third eye has been added in many places. All the carvings were done after the stones were placed for construction and you can see in some stones holes that were drilled so that workers could insert sticks into the stones to ease in transportation. The quarry is 55 km away and of course during that time everything would have been walked over on the backs of labourers.. Or floated down the river for a short while. A person would have dedicated their entire life to building one of these Temples.

For those of you who maybe don't know, Angkor is a "city" filled with Temples, and there is a specific temple in the complex called Angkor Wat, the famous one that some consider a wonder of the world. That was the third temple that we visited.Read more