Cambodia: Sunrise at Angkor Wat

Welcome to one of the major highlights of our trip to Cambodia! Day one of our trip here was one of the most overwhelming of our entire trip, and honestly couldn't be topped. Today was a 4am wake up call to travel to Angkor Wat for the sunrise. I was personally worried that waking up the kids that early would be a bad idea, considering that little Monster and Little A are not morning people, but they surprisingly did so well with the early wake up. Furthermore, the hotel didn't offer breakfast that early in the morning, so we had to wait until almost 9 before we ate.  

So we feasted on memories instead! Our driver picked up the Fillmore's and us and we drove out to first go and get the tickets. The lines were insanely long, but luckily we had a hook up with our driver that made it easier. When we arrived out there we could barely seen the outline of Angkor Wat, which at first glance you can tell is absolutely huge. 

Angkor Wat means "Temple City" and has been in existence since the 12th century. It was originally constructed as a hindu themed temple, but was transitioned to a buddhist centered temple as the kingdoms religious affinity changed. You can see themes of both throughout, which was amazing. 

We decided to limit the tour length to just the highlights. We stood out at sunrise to see the sun come over the east of the ruins, which brought with it a since of serenity and peace. Everyone was so quiet and calm, just soaking in the perfect reflections on the pool and the cool air. Monster was periodically grumpy, but who can blame him. 

This sunrise was breathtaking, and for the first time my family and I looked upon something 800 years old! It was interesting because our tour guide told us that the majority of the tourist leave right after the sunrise to go home and sleep some, and sure enough it was a mass exodus of people leaving, which opened up the place for us to see. As we started to the walk the grounds, he took us down some of the outer halls, showing us the intricate stone work. The sun broke through the pillars in such a majestic way. 

It's hard to picture, here, the size of this place. It's amazing to think how many people and time it took to be build something so large and expansive!

Our tour guide would take the time to tell us little nuggets of knowledge. One of them was the search for this sacred amulet (like on Big Hero 6: The Amulet was green). In the process of stone work they  periodically would chip away stone accidentally, and then have to repair it. The legend was that they hid this sacred amulet of limitless power within the walls of the temple, and the country was overthrown again and again, different rulers would punch holes in the walls to search for the amulet.  The legend says that the amulet was finally found in this hole that our tour guide showed us.  He said that since there was a small hole that went behind the stone, it was where the amulet was hidden.  We all took turns reaching our fingers in to feel a small stone size hole.

Down the vast corridors the entire walls were carved with religious figures, in what appears to flow in a continual story, all carved by hand. Now, the areas "darkened" as you can see are areas that people have touched so many times that it was become smooth.

The halls were head to toe carved with the most intricate of designs, built to last as they have being fully exposed to the elements for 800 years!

As we rounded the halls we then came across the location where the King would arrive to the temple. I must say, kings back then (and probably kings now) have such a pride complex and a completely wrong and ridiculously perspective on life. Case in point was this: Multiple locations in the temple were for the King only. He would arrive on an elephant, his entrance would be higher than every one else, and he and only he was allowed to the go through the center of the temple into the main area, when all others had to go around, signifying his superiority and access to the temple was his alone. Barf! But it made for good pictures despite being the most incorrect and ridiculous perspective on life.  You can see here how high these elephants were to drop off the king into this entrance. 

These were the other entrances for the servants, off the side, out of sight, to remind them of their inferiority. Barf again...

As we entered into the central area of Angkor Wat, we got a chance to see perhaps the best picture we took of size comparison. On the west side of the inner temple is found the "stairway to heaven." Once again, only the King in all of his glory had sole access to this location, and representing the highest point of the temple grounds he was only allowed to be the one closest to God. Lame! The stairs were crazy steep, super thin and small, but my little rock climbers started up, and naturally, Heather went as she is in our family the nearest to the quality of King, so it was only fitting! I had little Monster on my back so that ascent didn't sound rather safe. It was amazing thing to behold, however.

From there we made our way through the rest of the temple grounds, seeing the height and expanse of decades of work that was built to last throughout time. 

Next we saw that these areas had built in baptismal fonts. There were four in this large temple, each one representing a different element of the earth. Now I know you may think that you can progress from one baptism to the other, but no, you were branded a certain element and allowed only one baptism in that font. If we were elements back then, I would put Heather as Fire because she's smoking hot, and I wouldn't mind being baptized by that fire! You can see M & M standing by these fonts, much similar to the ones we use in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints only missing the authority to do so. 

So at this point we were spent and starving, so we headed out to go to one of the local restaurants to get breakfast, which was amazing! Lo and behold though, on the way out was the realization that this place is covered with monkeys, and they were cheeky! 

We seriously had the best tour guide.  He took us to amazing restaurants, he made sure we went when it wasn't crazy crowded and he would tell us the neatest things about the temples.  Our guide was Kamsan Sreng with bestangkorguide.com.  He really was so amazing and took such good care of us.  I can't praise him enough.
-Kevin