Temples in Cambodia by Mia

This morning we woke up early and ate breakfast at the hotel. Then we took tuktuks and went to three really cool temples, Angkor Wat, Wat Bayan, and the jungle temple (forget what its actually called). They were all really awesome especially the jungle one because it was amazing how old it was! Wat Bayan was cool because there weren’t as many people and Angkor Wat was just so big! It’s cool because they are just a tiny fraction of how amazing they were before the Khmer Rouge.

Picture the tour guide took in front of Angkor Wat. Daddy is surprised at how
 good it is. :)

            The first one we visited was Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is the biggest temple in Cambodia, and the biggest religious building in the entire world! It’s huge! There are three levels and all sorts of galleries. There are different entrances for the king, the first officer, the people, and the elephants that helped build it. I’m guessing that made it way harder to build because the builders couldn’t use the middle entrance. The first level is the outer wall and the really long walk to the second level which is farther in, nearer to the middle or the area in the wall. The building on the inside of the wall which is the main temple is the building that is on the Cambodian flag.

            The temple was build a long time ago as a Hindu temple. There are statues of Vishnu, a Hindu god, in the first level. The big high temple in the middle is supposed to symbolize Mt. Meru, the home of the Hindu gods. Sort of like Mt. Olympus. After Buddhist prince turned it into a Buddhist temple, a bunch of Buddha statues were put in everywhere.  The king had a few pools on the high temple to swim in when he was up there praying. They are dry now, but it must have been tough work filling them up, because they are really big! The stairs up to the high level were almost vertical and they didn’t let kids under 12 up or people with heart conditions and stuff. The whole thing was really cool, with intricate carvings on all the walls and stuff, but by the end of that we were all very tired!

Faces at Bayan.

             After a quick refresher at the hotel, we went to Bayan Temple. Bayan was really awesome! I think it was my favorite out of all the ones we have seen because it was like ancient ruins and there weren’t as many other people there. There were big faces carved into the stone everywhere and all the stones were mossy and crumbling. There was also a ton of rubble from walls that had fallen down. The entrance has a tower thing with four faces facing the four directions and a bunch of elephants carved into the stone. There was a bunch of intricate stone carvings all over the walls at this temple too and little statues with incense and stuff next to them for praying. The temple was way better than any we had seen in Bali because it was old, and that made it a lot cooler.

With giant tree at the Jungle temple.

            That last temple we saw was the jungle temple. There was a small walk before getting to the actual temple, which has giant trees growing all over it. It was really amazing because the trees looked really old and, because they were growing on top of the temple, the temple had to be older than the trees! I think it was built around the 11^th century which was like a thousand years ago. The trees were actually slowly destroying the temple and growing over it. The roots were oozing between stones and snaking along walls and stuff. We hung out there for a little bit in the shade before going back to the parking lot.

            All the temples we saw were really amazing and diverse that we didn’t even get bored (like in Bali), just tired from walking around all day in the heat. They were amazing even though there were pieces of statues missing and bullet holes in some of the walls. There was so much history there, it was practically oozing from the walls! It’s crazy that they are so awesome now even though they are so old and crumbly and they have been looted by the Khmer Rouge. They were probably really cool when they were new!