“The good, the bad, and the ugly is a simple way to sum up Cambodian history,” my guide book states, “... but no matter how ugly things got, the Cambodians built Angkor Wat and it doesn't come better than that.”
The Killing Fields (1984) is of course the quintessential movie about the Khmer Rouge period but it was the demi-god Angelina Jolie in Lara Croft:Tomb Raider (2001) who put the area back on the map for millions of tourists and hence created employment for many tens of thousands of people.
I hadn't realized that there was more than one temple. There are dozens.They were built by a series of very successful kings about 1000 years ago. “Ancient Angkor used up far greater amounts of stone than all the Egyptian pyramids combined, and occupied an area significantly greater than modern-day Paris” according to Wikipedia. They were deserted at one point and completely overgrown with huge trees. When re-discovered by the Europeans several hundred years later some of the temples had all the overgrowth removed and were at least partially re-constructed while others remain still effectively untouched.
You can spend days traipsing happily round them. I know, I did.
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| Some of the temples are HUGE. Buildings within buildings within grounds and walls and an outer moat. The sheer volume of landscaping, let alone quarrying, is absolutely mind boggling. |
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| There are intricately carved walls some 3 or 4 meters high and hundreds of meters long... |
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| ... they tell stories of the kings' lives, tales from mythology, or just depict everyday life. |
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| The trees which grew on the temples unchecked for hundreds of years are beyond picturesque... (Could someone please explain to me why I'm travelling without a proper camera!) |
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| (Yup. I'm here for scale.) |
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| ... but the trees also created huge amounts of damage. |
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| Resident type #1. |
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| Resident type #2. Families already living in what is now UNESCO park are grandfathered in, with restrictions. Kids do school either 7-noon OR noon-5 and usually spend the other half of the day working. |
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| Resident Type #3: Several monasteries have permission operate within the park boundaries. |
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| And, of course, gazillions of tourists visit! |
Angkor Wat wasn't really on my bucket list or even my radar. I just ended up there by mistake. But I recommend it. Highly.
