WILL WONDER NEVER CEASE?
NIGEL THOMPSON visits one of the seven wonders of the ancient world – and says why it should be on your post-pandemic bucket list
AT 660ft wide, the waterway was so big, I assumed it was a river. It wasn’t. This was just the 3.4-mile long moat around the Angkor Wat temple complex in Cambodia. Our genial tuk-tuk driver, Mr Chantol, laughed when I explained my mistaken assumption and said “bigger things’’ awaited.
Indeed they did. As he swung around a sharp corner and the forest cleared, we got our first glimpse of the 12th-century stone structure on the outskirts of Siem Reap.
“Bigger things’’ barely covered it and my wife Debbie and I stared in a reverential silence, trying to take in the scale of the temple city.
Pack your superlatives, you’ll need them here.
So, some numbers: Angkor Wat, thought to be the world’s largest religious building, is on a 400-acre site, with a 2.2-mile long perimeter wall.
It was built on the orders of the Khmer Empire’s ‘godking’ Suryavarman II between 1112 and 1152, using 300,000 workers and 6,000 elephants.
It was created from sandstone and laterite blocks quarried
30 miles away and transported down the Siem Reap River.
Mr C had picked us up from our hotel in town, the luxurious and thoroughly excellent French colonial Victoria Angkor Resort & Spa – the hotel cars are vintage Citroens – and had first taken us to the Angkor Wat ticket office, which is en route to the Hindu-Buddhist temple.
Dropping us by the moat and checking we had plenty of water (absolutely essential as it was a cloyingly muggy 34°C), Mr C arranged to pick us up later to see two more of the area’s temples, part of a 154-square mile UNESCO
Siem street eats
World Heritage-listed archaeological park. Perhaps 500,000 to 750,000 people lived in the park at the height of Khmer power, making it the largest city of the preindustrial world.
It is only when the human eye sees it that you truly appreciate the colossal scale.
The stone causeway across the moat is being renovated, so we joined the throngs on the floating temporary replacement, the 6,720 inflated white polybags making it an amusingly bouncy experience.
Then we stopped and stared in wonder again (there is a lot of stopping and staring in wonder to be done at Angkor Wat) as we got our first proper view of the 770ft-wide entrance porch, before moving on to the central temple complex, reached by a 1,560ft grand avenue fringed by large ponds.
Finally... what must be the world’s grandest of grand entrances, to the temple proper.
It is here, amid the ancient, black-stained stones awash with intricate carvings, that you truly feel the weight of time. Humans have a finite period on Earth but you do feel that this worn but defiant – and still functional – magnificence will be here for a thousand years yet, no matter what happens to mankind.
Once the coronavirus crisis is over, you’ll have to queue for half an hour or so for the absolute high point (in every sense). The 210ft Bakan Sanctuary is the heart of the complex and the stairs up are dizzyingly steep, befitting the Khmers’ challenging heavenly ascent to see their chosen gods.
It is a special place, so make sure you get in the queue for Bakan and do not miss it.
This is an exhilarating high point in a place which is, whatever you think about religion, a triumph of the human spirit.
A rich king and an army of labourers helps, of course.
Temples abound in the Angkor area and Mr C also took us to Bayon, which is made up of 216 ingeniously carved stone faces, and Ta Prohm – used in the first Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider film – which is being reclaimed by the jungle in a startling way as trees grow right through the stone structures.
The selfie opportunities are stellar at both these sites and you will again feel the centuries enveloping you.
We were really smitten by Cambodia. The country endured the savage Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s and 1980s and is absolutely back on its feet, warmly welcoming visitors.
So, once the coronavirus outbreak is over, go if you can – it’s a terrific, safe, good value and friendly destination, and Angkor Wat is worth the journey alone... a marvellous and magical place.
You won’t regret it.