Temple-tastic

(written on 14/08/09, posted 03/10/09)

Yes, yes, it's touristy but who cares? L and I have come to Siem Reap and we're going to spend the next three days doing the temple circuits at Angkor Wat. The tuk-tuk driver we agreed with the hotel picks up us at 10am. We really didn't want to do a sunrise after travelling all day yesterday.

Wandi introduces himself and says most English speakers call him Windy as they can't say his name. Nice. He's a brilliant laugh and gives us loads of tips. We agree with him that we'll start with the Rolous as they are the oldest temples dating from the late 9th Century.

We then head to the next group which were built after the Rolous group temples. Each temple has it's own characteristics and different features. After we've done about 6, I head into a small Buddhist temple, a modern one built alongside the older temples. L waits outside as she's already been round Thailand and states she is templed out. By the time I've come out, she has agreed with 4 people waiting outside that we'll visit their orphanage on Monday after our 3 days of temple-seeing. It seems like a good thing to do and we spend most of our tuk-tuk journeys for the rest of the day discussing poverty and eco-tourism. We admit we only have a faint idea of what we should do as responsible travellers and it seems more important in Cambodia than anywhere either of us have been so far. We agree we'll decide on things to take up with us on Monday.

As we reach each temple on the circuit, it seems to get hotter and busier. As it got nearer to sunset Wandi whisked us off to near Angkor Wat. We were pretty early but as we had to climb up the hill behind Angkor and scramble up some steep steps to get a spot it seems like a good idea. Arriving at 5.30pm we realised we had some time to go so sat down and relaxed. An hour later just as the sky was started to redden tourists started to clamber up the temple steps from all sides. People were jostling for a space to sit, out came the tripods, umbrellas used for parasols were bashing into each other and there was the unmistakable beep-beep of the mobile phones of humanity. L and I could only watch in horror. The 45 minute display of the changing colours of the end of a day was accompanied by a soundtrack of camera shutter clicks and ringtones.

No finding the silence within possible on this temple, sorry. Tourism had well and truly arrived in Cambodia.