WESmile Magazine October 2018

TRAVEL
Travel Tips:
THAI Smile has daily
flights to Siem Reap
from Bangkok’s
Suvarnabhumi Airport.
Flights are only about
1 hour and 5 minutes long.
Renting a bike and
seeing the Angkor Wat
complex is a great,
eco-friendly option for
sporty visitors.
The Grandeur of Angkor Wat
and Angkor Thom
The centuries-old descriptions of Angkor
temples by French explorer Henri Mouhot
describe a magnificent temple complex
set in a jungle teeming with wild creatures.
It was written as part of a chronicle of his
travels during 1858-1861 through Siam,
Cambodia, Laos and Indo-China. He was
struck by its architectural beauty, no less
so than visitors in our 21st century, 160
years later.
The only difference is that the
wild animals are gone. Only masses of
international tourists now flock to admire
this fascinating series of temples.
Angkor Wat: Wonder of the World
Henri Mouhot’s “discovery” brought
Angkor Wat to the attention of the West.
The French government allocated a
budget to restore this ancient religious
site, which became a Unesco Heritage Site
in 1992 under the name “Angkor”.
Angkor Archaeological Park covers
an area of 400 square kilometers, with
temples, pools, moats and canals around
this ancient Khmer capital. The temples
include Angkor, Bayon, Preah Khan, Ta
Prohm and Thom.
Angkor Wat is a must-see place of
great significance. It is made of sandstone
from Phnom Bakheng mountain
approximately 50 km away. It was built
during the reign of King Suryavarman II in
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honor of the Hindu god Vishnu, as well as
to serve as a royal mausoleum. Thus this
temple is oriented to the West, pointing to
the sunset, symbolizing death.
The temple is surrounded by moats,
and is 1 km wide and long. At its entrance
is a long causeway leading into the main
building, which has three levels. Each level
is circled by a balcony. Five towers rise
from the third (and highest) level.
The highlight of this temple is certainly
the over different 1,000 apsaras (Hindu
deities), all with different poses, faces and
clothing, making this a picturesque scene
indeed.
Visitors should be sure to catch the
sunrise at the West-facing pool of Angkor
Temple. The sun will rise from behind the
temple, creating beautiful reflections on
the water’s surface.
Venerated Thai historian and writer
M.R. Kukrit Pramoj also wrote about this
in his book on Cambodia, which raised
much interest on this temple among his
Thai readers. “Once built by the hands
of tens of thousands or hundreds of
thousands of workers, then thousands
of craftsmen had to come in to carve this
temple. It seems beyond the strength,
faith and dreams of humanity to be able
to create such a major structure as this –
and with only the use of simple tools, and
hard manual labor too.”
Angkor Thom: Ancient City
While Angkor Wat is a temple surrounded
by moats in all four directions, Angkor
Thom was a living city, the last and most
enduring capital home of the Khmer Kingdom.
Thom means “magnificent” to signify
a capital larger than Angkor Wat.
King Jayavarman VII had it built on top
of an old city. Bayon Temple was the center
of the capital, home the Mahayana Buddhist
god. It was surrounded by four 3-km rock
walls. Each side has a gate, including the
southern gate, which has a four-faced deity
statue standing guard over the city. From this
gate, roads lead visitors to the center of the
city, to the Bayon.
The Bayon Temple’s most distinctive
feature is its multitude of serene and smiling
faces on its many gate towers, which coined
the expression the “Bayon smile”. It is
believed each face is of King Jayavarman
VII himself. Others believe the faces belong
to the bodhisattva of compassion, called
Avalokitesvara, or the Hindu god, Brahma.
Whomever they depict, all visitors are always
awed and amazed by the faces smiling back
at them from this ancient wonder.
As Henri Mouhot put it, seeing this
structure “made us forget our exhaustion
during our journey. A great admiration
wells forth, along with an immense joy
– more refreshing than any cool water in
a desert oasis.”
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