I'm still processing the profundity of this experience. Bear with me.
I woke at 3:30 so I could meditate and write my morning pages and properly caffeinate myself before the guide pickup at 4:45am. Mr. Sopheap was his name and he met me promptly in the lobby with a pressed official collared guide shirt. I assumed we were going in a Tuk Tuk, he showed me the way to the Lexus where a driver was waiting.
Mr. Sopheap began talking as we drove through the dark streets of Siem Reap, turning from the main drag onto the darker road leading to the temple. He told me that this was the best tour they offered. (Gary had taken this same tour two weeks earlier and loved it). We were going to visit Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, and Ta Prohm.
As we drove in the dark he told me that great astronomers and architects chose this site because not only does the sun rise directly over the highest steeple on the equinox, but it directly corresponds to a Naga (mythological serpent in Hindu and Buddhism) constellation. Some 70 temples are situated along this constellation. But the very head of the Naga rises in exactly this point— Angkor Wat.
We drove to the East Gate, which is the back of the temple. I’d read that this was the best way to enter as all the tourists enter through the west gate. We got out of the car and were alone save one small tour group. My guide walked fast and held a flashlight. We turned onto a dirt road and walked faster, presumably to put the small tour group well behind us.
“We do not come to see the sun rise at Angkor, we come to see the sky change color, the clouds change color, and to see the way the light touches the temple. Look up at the stars. Beautiful.”
They were.
“I’m going to turn off the flashlight now so that our eyes can adjust and we can see the temple.”
He turned off the light and very soon my eyes did adjust, and the first thing it made out was the shadow of a steeple against a shadow of a sky.
“Beautiful.”
He’d repeat this refrain for the rest of our morning and afternoon together.
We paused when we got to the rear of the temple. We were all alone, though the tour group did gain on us.
“Why they have their flashlights on?” He asked.
He let the tour group pass us and go around the perimeter. Once they were out of site he said, “Come on.” And we went into the first perimeter of the temple, which I understand now is something you’re not supposed to do. But it was all us and we were all alone walking along the walls of this temple.
He stopped me when we got to the west side of the perimeter and told me to turn around. The first etches of light were coming into the sky. “Beautiful.”
I would soon understand that my guide had the tour timed down to the minute. He knew the best places, the best views, and at exactly the window in which to stand in those areas. He’d show me them all over the next hour.
He brought me to one of two reflecting ponds before the west facade. Already tourists with flashlights were showing up to get a good spot in front of the reflecting pool.
“Where the man in Red is, that’s the best place to take a photo. Meet me back here at 6:10am”
I wasn’t the first line of folks next to the pond but I was second in line. He was right, I had a spectacular view. I stood there for the next 25 minutes as tourists crowded behind me and as the light turned the sky pink and the temple a deep shadow against that pink.
5:23am
5:27am
5:38am
5:47am
As beautiful as it was, these photos don’t tell the full story—
It was hard to stand by all this for nearly a half hour. Once I’d snapped my money shot I decided I’d wander around. There were other angles, but my guide was right, that spot was the best.
Around 6am I found my guide again and he took me back to the perimeter (the area we’d breached earlier). “We have to wait until 6:10 when they open it.” People were waiting to be let in. My guide brought me to a corner and said, “Snap here.”
At 6:10, the woman doing the gate keeping allowed the throng of tourists to enter the perimeter, and so the temple. My guide walked very fast, and we were the first up the steps.
He told me that inside the temples they build a hall of mirror optical illusion. A series of Door Frames along a hall which seem to get smaller. And on either end a window looking out into trees.
My guide led me to another spot and told me, “stand in the corner here, the light is really good right now. Snap.”
My goodness, he knew his stuff.
He told me that most of the stairs weren’t ever meant for use. They had to stop using some of the ones that were in use because folks were falling to their death. Or as my guide put it, “they went bye bye.”
By 6:30 he had me wait in line to visit the upper temple. They only allow 100 people at a time up there. While I was not first in line, I was in the first group.
They’d built wooden stairs to go on top of the stone steps. The stairs were still incredibly steep. (they aren’t photographed). The top of the temple gave beautiful views in all directions. The highest point in Siem Reap.
Only the king and the high priests were ever allowed up here.
I came down after a while and my guide took me back through the main temple— pointing out the water reserves. There were four main areas to capture rain water. Each was associated with an element: wind, earth, water, fire. Depending on someone’s need, they would give them the appropriate water.
I gave a donation to a monk and sat on my knees and bowed my head while he chanted and tossed lotus water on me. He tied an orange thread around my wrist. It was lovely.
Soon after that it was getting bright, hot, and crowded. My guide led me through the west gate again and I met one of the locals having breakfast—
I learned that it took 40 years. 3 million people. And 6,000 elephants to build this temple. Each slab of stones has little holes in it. These holes were where men would drive sticks so they could lift the enormous slabs in order to carry them. They also had to drill those holes in the slabs by hand.
King Suryavarman II. Visionary or psychopath. Either way… it’s one of the seven wonders of the world. And nations around the globe, including the US, are committed to maintaining it to make sure it stays standing. Almost a thousand years later.
We met the driver at the West Gate and they drove me back to my hotel where I was to take two hours to have my hotel breakfast and a nap if I wanted, and to meet him again at 10am where he’d be waiting for me.
My head was spinning, the buffet was good. I didn’t think I’d nap but I managed to close my eyes for about fifteen minutes in my room before the time came again…
We had Angkor Thom and Ta Prohm temples to see… The site of the first university in Asia. And Banyan Trees growing on the temple walls, wrapping their vines through the stones in search of water…
(up next)