Following up on our exploration of ancient civilisations, we arrived to Angkor Vat; a huge complex of Hindu and Buddhist temples built by the Khmers and dated 10th to 13th century AD.

It’s quite fascinating to visit them almost back to back after the Mayan Palenque, the Incas’ Machu Picchu or the Moais of Easter Island, because it calls for comparisons !

Well, I’m not going to wander too far in comparing things I am most ignorant about, but two aspects in particular struck me.

On one hand the carvings. Angkor Vat is dated four to five centuries earlier than the Machu Picchu, yet the carvings are so much finer and delicate here. Of course they’re completely different civilisations, yet in so many ways, it seems that even back then, the world was somehow connected.

The other one is the cut and adjustment of building blocks, which I was expecting in Machu Picchu but I was surprised to find also here in places, mostly on floor stones. Different civilisations, seemingly same concepts.

These temples are a confusing mix of Hinduism and Buddhism. They were built at a time when the Khmers were transitioning from Brahmanism to Buddhism and were later reused and modified.

There are so many clichés and books and movie sets inspired by Angkor Vat that we didn’t even know what to expect! For instance I was somewhat expecting to see the temple of King Louie in the Jungle Book movie, but that one was created from scratch for the movie, it doesn’t exist in real 😅

We spent 3 days visiting only a few of the dozens of temples in the complex. One can easily spend a whole week there. Of course after a while they all start to look alike, but there are lots of forest paths to explore away from the main road. Angkor Vat is the main temple but we found other temples more interesting than this one. Bayon, the second most important, is impressive with its many Brahma faces looking in all four directions, unfortunately the top level was closed for renovation. Then Bantey Srei, further away from the rest of the temples, features the finest carvings, in red sand stone. But our favourite was Ta Prohm whose ruins are covered with ginormous tree roots! We reached Ta Prohm from the « back door » via a path in the forest. On the way we encountered the most beautiful gate, alone in the forest, away from the crowd.

We had rented scooters to get to the temples. Rita was not very self assured at first, but she had already rented scooters when she was in Bali. And indeed once accustomed to the road, she was riding just fine, all the way to Bantey Srei and back.

But after lunch, one afternoon, she was just turning the bike around to the other side of a small road when another bike came waiting for her. But instead of quietly finishing her manoeuvre, she suddenly panicked by fear if disturbing the traffic, hit the gaz and got dragged to the side of the road where she fell!

We ran to her and realised she had a cut on the right leg and the left foot was swelling! By chance there was a dispensary just next door that quickly cleaned the wounds. Then we took her to the nearest hospital to get an x-ray and we were relieved that no bone was broken.

The next day we’re heading to Thailand. Not by bus this time, but by plane because Rita needs a VISA on arrival which may not be done at the land border. With her injuries, it’s also better that way