Ever since my first visit to the ruins of Angkor one hellishly hot April in 1999, I’ve been wanting to see the temples when the moats and ponds had water in them. I last visited in January of 2008, when temperatures were cooler and things were greener, but I still wanted more. As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for. With a long weekend in Thailand on the horizon for late October, and with a local friend’s assurances that would be a good time to visit, I scheduled a trip to see Angkor Wat.

Little did I know that the remains of typhoon Ketsana would trigger some of the worst floods Siem Reap has seen in years, just three weeks before I was scheduled to arrive. The first bit of ‘good’ is that things were getting back to normal by the time I got there. As we flew in, I could see out the plane window that huge swaths of the countryside were still inundated, but Siem Reap was dry. In the city, you could see signs everywhere of high water, and several roads were in bad shape, but otherwise it was business as usual.

I arrive too late in the day to visit the temples, so after checking in there’s plenty of time to have a look around the old market area, where most of the restaurants and pubs are located. There’s a bit of both the bad and the ugly here. The area is starting to take on some of the worst attributes of other Southeast Asian tourist destinations. It’s hard to take more than a few steps without being assaulted with shouts of “Hello, mah-saage”. In addition to these traditional massage services, there’s also a perplexing number of “fish massage” places, where you dip you feet into pools filled with many small fish. This has been a growing fad throughout Asia, but I’ve never seen so many outlets in one place. The fish also look much smaller than other places. Perhaps feet stinking from a day tromping around the ruins is not a good diet for them.

However, once you get past these minor annoyances, you will find some very good restaurants selling cuisines from just about every country at very reasonable prices. There are also some nice pubs where you can have a drink or two or three and catch up with friends.

Of course, the whole reason people visit Siem Reap is to see the ruins of the ancient Khmer capital around Angkor Wat temple. Here, not much has changed, although the crowds are less than one would usually expect at this time of year. Still, there are crowds, especially around the most popular and accessible sites, like the Terraces of the Elephants and the Leper King. However, it’s surprising how easy it is to get away from the crowds and have some places entirely to yourself. For example, facing the Terraces across the open field are a dozen towers, backed by two large buildings. Just a few paces north of these structures is another group of five structures called Preah Pithu. Although not as large as many of the temples around Angkor, this group is still quite impressive, and absolutely nobody visits them.

There are several places like Preah Pithu where you can escape the crowds. On this trip, I also explored Ta Keo and the Thammanon temples, both of which are rather interesting and little visited. Even the massive Preah Khan doesn’t get large groups of visitors. It’s such a huge labyrinth that big groups would end up with people missing in its maze. Neak Pean, for all its uniqueness, doesn’t seem to get that many visitors either.

Away from the archaeological park, there’s now a large new museum in Siem Reap town, on the main road leading to the park. The Angkor National Museum houses about eight galleries on two levels. The museum features many sculptures – mostly in stone – taken from the temples around Angkor. Many of the most important statues you see at the ruins are copies, with the originals on display at either the Angkor National Museum or the National Museum in Phnom Penh.

The first gallery of the museum is by far the most impressive. The gallery of “1,000 Buddha Images” is pretty much exactly what it says. The dark red-painted walls are lined with small niches from waist level to the high ceiling, and each niche displays a small Buddha image from somewhere around Angkor. It’s somewhat reminiscent of Wat Phanan Choeng in Ayutthaya, Thailand, except each of the niches is lighted. Larger images in various poses are displayed around the gallery. The rest of the galleries, visited in sequence, will take you through the early pre-history of the Khmers, through the early kingdoms and up to Angkor Wat, which gets a grand gallery of its own with an impressive sound and light show.

The museum has a rather nice shop, and there’s also a whole shopping mall attached to it. Unfortunately, the powers that be appear to have grossly misjudged the profile of people that visit Angkor. They may like to visit a market, but they don’t live to shop, like many Asian travelers. The mall doesn’t appear to have ever gotten off the ground, and it’s obvious that several shops have failed already.

Posted by michael under Just back from...
Tags: Angkor Wat • Cambodia • Siem Reap
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