Traveling is good
What distinguishes this temple from other Angkor temples is the saddening spectacle of gigantic silk-cotton, banyan and strangler fig trees, some of them more than 40 metres high, swallowing up large sections of the temple. This is the only structure that has been left as it is by the French, – the École française d’Extrême-Orient – who were doing renovation work, to bear testimony to the wrath of nature against man-made objects.
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The eco-system and habitat surrounding the Tonlé Sap Lake also pulsates with its seasonal flooding and draining. A great majority of the trees, plants and shrubs are deciduous. Instead of shedding their leaves during the dry season, they loose them when the lake deepens, when they are inundated. However, there are also several plant species that remain evergreen, despite being waterlogged for six to eight months, each year. They are laden with fruits and seeds, at the time of flooding.
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After entering the temple, we took a long walk on the main causeway to the entrance tower. I could see the curved inscriptions on the wall that tell a tale of a near thousand-year-old history.
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We called up our hotel in Phnom Penh as well as Can Tho, but no luck. Everyone shared the bus routes but all of them were going to Can Tho, via Saigon. It seemed so lame and dumb to do that. When everything fails, Internet comes as a savior so we started scavenging sites like TripAdvisor, Lonely Planet and what not. To our luck, we found one hard-to-believe post saying that
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No one aspires to be in Siem Reap for the city. Everyone comes here to go and experience the Angkor Vat. The temple complex is a bit away from the main city (under 30 minutes TukTuk ride) but then the reality is that after you done with all the walking and awe-ing on the scale, the craftsmanship, the stories, you look forward to some un-wind time. And for that, the city has a great street, aptly called, ‘Pub Street’. Good news is that the ‘Pub Street, as well as the other city-city places like Siem Reap night market is just a walk-away.
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