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Tourism at Angkor Wat

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When visiting Angkor Wat, one thing you’re sure to notice is that you’re not alone; there are thousands of other tourists from all over the world coming to see the same sights in the area. So if you’re imagining having the place for yourself and take photos like what you might have seen in guidebooks, well, good luck…

The increase in tourism in the area in the recent years is definitely welcomed economically for a country like Cambodia that is in the process of recovering from years of civil war. But I thought it’s interesting to observe this first hand, and to hear the thoughts from a local Cambodian like our guide Vanna.

It’s pretty easy to notice the official tour guides in Cambodia as they are required to wear a uniform (tan-colored, long-sleeve shirt). What’s interesting is when you listen closely to the tour guides talking to to their guests, you might actually hear these Cambodian tour guides speaking fluently in many foreign languages. Vanna was very fluent in English; he even volunteered as an English teacher during his time off from guiding. During our tour around Angkor Wat, we also overheard other Cambodian tour guides talking in German, French, Japanese, and Chinese to their respective guests. Vanna said each tour guide pretty much decides what language he/she wants to master, and then they would look to guide tour groups that speak that language. English, French, and German were pretty popular languages for most visitors from Western countries, but apparently in the recent years there were quite an increase of tourists coming from other Asian countries like Japan, China, and Korea.

I asked Vanna if he had any particular group of people that he preferred or liked guiding. He said generally the Europeans and Americans were pretty nice. The Japanese were generally quite generous. He didn’t like the Koreans because typically they came in big groups with their own Korean tour guide, and his words were translated into Korean by the guide and most of them wouldn’t listen anyway.

Another thing I noticed was there were many little kids and locals trying to sell snacks, drinks, and bootlegged guidebooks to the tourists. During a hot day, sometimes those bottled waters might be nice even though they might be overpriced. And I’ve read that the bootlegged guidebooks, though might be a bit poor in print quality, might be a good, informative reference to have especially if you’re exploring on your own. What’s impressive though was to hear even some of the kids that must have been the age of 5 to 10 years old being able to promote their goods in fluent foreign language like English, and they could have conversation with the tourists when asked about what they have to sell.

One thing I also thought was the interesting contrast between the tourists who have come from far away to see such a magnificent sight, perhaps for that one time in their lifetime, and the locals who live nearby and have seen Angkor Wat on daily basis. It’s no longer a special place, and I suppose when you’re trying to make ends meet, the last thing you think about is learning about the history of the temple…

The photo below was taken as we walked through one of the galleries at the temple. You could see the tourist groups, each listening to a tour guide wearing tan long-sleeve shirt.

Tourists at Angkor Wat

First Visit to Angkor Wat

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So you plan to visit one of the world’s famous monuments like Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, Cambodia, and now you’re finally there… now what? I think for most first-time visitors coming to Angkor Wat, what they’re expecting to see is something that’s big, grandeur, magnificent, as that’s what you read about or even see in travel programs featuring the place. But just like many other iconic places like that in the world (the Grand Canyon and Statue of Liberty came to mind), you really need to come and see it in person to be able to put your own words on the experience. And I think a combination of having done some homework to learn about the place, having a knowledgeable guide to accompany you experiencing the place, and being observant of what you’re seeing around you (the details, other visitors’ take on the experience, the locals, etc.) would enhance your experience there.

For me, prior to coming to Angkor Wat, I had done some cursory readings of guidebooks on Cambodia (the ones from Lonely Planet and National Geographic Traveler are quite good) and watched a couple of travel programs on TV on Angkor Wat / Cambodia. So in my mind, I had quite an expectation of seeing something ‘grand’ and ‘large in scale’. As I mentioned yesterday, the initial approach to Angkor Wat was not what I expected. After getting our entrance pass to visit the temples, we continued our drive, and we saw what looked like a lake or river on the side of the road. I asked Vanna our tour guide if that was a lake, and he said, ‘No, that’s the moat that surrounds Angkor Wat. You’re looking at Angkor Wat across the moat.’ From the distance, we only saw trees in a forest across the moat; there were no magnificent temples to see from the ground level. But few minutes after, we approached the west side of the complex where the entrance gate and bridge was located, and then I saw the outer part of the magnificent temple complex for the first time.

Our driver dropped us near the bridge, and after showing our newly-printed entrance pass to an official who checked that near the bridge, we walked across the bridge just like hundreds of other visitors to enter the temple complex. Honestly, at that moment, with so many visitors who are clearly tourists (a large number of them came as part of large tour groups in big tour buses), it felt more like walking in from parking lot to the entrance of an amusement park. Fortunately we didn’t have to wait for a long time to go through the gopura (gate) to get to the pathway towards the main temple building. This was where you could hear the ‘oooh’ and ‘aaah’ from the visitors and they saw the panoramic view of the magnificent temple building for the first time.

The next thing I noticed was that there were a lot of tourists there. We came to visit towards the end of the year where it was somewhat of a ‘high tourist season’ there, so that was somewhat expected. But there were a LOT of them… So we had to work our way around large tour groups as we walked into and toured the interior of the temple building.

We spent about three hours walking around the temple interior. Vanna turned out to be quite knowledgeable about the history and the details of the temple — I could tell he’s done his own study on the topic, and had done the tours many times before). He gave us an overview of the history of the Khmer Empire around the time when Angkor Wat was built. King Suryawarman II built the temple as his state temple and capital, and since he dedicated the temple to the Hindu god Vishnu, some said that was the reason why Angkor Wat complex is oriented to the west, contrary to most of other temples in the area that had eastward orientation.

Around the temple interior visitors can observe the galleries of bas-reliefs that depicted stories from Hindu epics Ramayana and Mahabharata and one section depicting King Suryawarman II and the life in the Khmer kingdom at the time. As we went through these galleries, Vanna gave pretty good overview of the scenes/stories that were depicted on the wall. I tried to follow along, but honestly there were so many details that after a while things kind of blurred together in my head, so I thought I’d just remember the main themes, and focus on taking detailed photographs of parts of the bas-reliefs that seemed to be good representatives of the story, and moved on. I think that’s probably similar case for most of the visitors who came there — they didn’t spend as much time looking for the details because they were part of large tour group that had to keep moving on, or they didn’t care as much learning about the details. If you really want to take in as much as you can and appreciate what you’re seeing there, I think it’s probably best if you allocate at least a day of your visit to be go there on your own and just take your time to observe the details.

The photo below was taken as we toured the interior of the temple. This was one of around 3,000 apsara (celestial dancer) figures that were carved on the temple walls. This particular one looked like she was looking from behind the wall of carving, and the afternoon light came through at an interesting angle from the left.

Apsara behind the wall

Angkor Wat

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Angkor Wat is a temple complex within the Angkor Archaeological Park, located about 6 kilometres north of Siem Reap, Cambodia. It was built almost 1,000 years ago, and it is among the most well preserved among the temples in the area. It remains to be used as a major religious center in Cambodia (it was a Hindu temple, now it’s a Buddhist temple). Given its grandeur, it has become the national symbol of Cambodia, and it’s the country’s primary tourist attraction today.

The temple complex was designed in a Khmer architectural style, with a site plan that resembles temple mountains (temples inside that looked like pyramids, with the center part elevated representing the sacred Hindu mountain, Mount Meru, and having the temple complex surrounding by a moat representing the ocean). The temple buildings are also decorated with intricate bas reliefs depicting several stories from Hindu myths.

Angkor Wat was the first temple we visited during our visit to the Angkor Archaeological Park. Our guide Vanna suggested that we visited Angkor Wat first before visiting the other temples not only because it’s the most magnificent to see, but also to provide good overview of the history and the Khmer architecture style.

When we approached the complex for the first time, from a distance we saw what looked like a lake. I didn’t realize that it was moat that surrounded the Angkor Wat complex. Once Vanna mentioned that, we saw the front entrance to the temple — full of tourists from all over the world.

The photo below was taken as we entered the temple complex. You could see the large crowd of tourists, and in the distance part of the temple towers were covered with construction nets as it was in the middle of restoration works. It’s unfortunate that it looked like an eyesore, but it was necessary to preserve this magnificent structure so it can be enjoyed by future generations.

Angkor Wat

Angkor Archaeological Park

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The Angkor Archaeological Park is an area stretching over 400 square kilometres near Siem Reap, Cambodia, that contains many remains of what was the capital area of the Khmer Empire during the 9th to 15th century. It included one of the largest pre-industrial city in the world (the ancient city at its height was more than ten times the size of modern-day Manhattan borough of New York City). Today visitors come to the area especially to visit one of the finest ancient monuments in the world, Angkor Wat.

To visit the Angkor Archaeological Park area, if you’re not a local Cambodian, you would need to get a visitor pass that is valid for either one day, three days, or the whole week (we got the three-day pass, which cost USD$40 per person). You need to stop at the front gate, pay the fee, and get your photograph taken to get the pass. You will then need to carry the pass with you at all times. At the entrance of the temples, typically there is someone checking for the pass before you can enter. The pass has your photo on it, so you would have to carry your own to enter the temples.

Angkor Wat is the most popular temple in the Park, but there are others that are equally unique and worth visiting. There is Phnom Bakheng, a temple on top of a hill that provides a nice vantage point of the surrounding area especially around sunset time. You can also visit the ancient city of Angkor Thom with its temples inside. Or you can go to Ta Prohm, a temple ruin consumed by the forest trees that was made famous by the movie Tomb Raider.

The French did a lot to preserve the Angkor temples when they colonized Cambodia. Today two of the main routes for visiting the Angkor Archaeological Park, known as the Little Circuit and the Big Circuit, were routes that were established by the French to visit these temples.

The photo below was taken near the entrance gate while I was waiting to get my entrance pass processed. It’s an illustrated map of the Angkor region, showing the landmarks around that one can explore while visiting the Park.

Angkor map

Siem Reap

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Siem Reap is the capital city of the Siem Reap Province in Cambodia. Its name means ‘the defeat of Siam,’ commemorating the victory of the Khmer people over the invading Siam (Thai) people in the 1500s. Today the city is fast growing because of the booming tourism / hospitality business. The city is located very close to the site of the ancient city of Angkor, which was the seat of the Khmer Empire that ruled a large part of Southeast Asia more than 1,000 years ago. Today tourists come to Siem Reap and use it as the base to explore the area that is full of temple ruins, including the famous Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat, which is still in use for worship by the locals, is the world’s largest religious monument.

We came to Siem Reap after our visit to the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh. Our stay in Siem Reap was arranged through a local tour company called Derleng Tours. They suggested a typical itinerary for a three day, two night visit to Siem Reap, which we then customized to what we would like to see and do. During the duration of our stay, we had a private tour guide and driver with air-conditioned van that accompanied us to places around Siem Reap that we wanted to visit.

The photo below was taken in downtown Siem Reap on a street called the Pub Street. This place is a popular hangout place for foreign visitors. The particular place on the photo is a pub/restaurant called The Red Piano. It became famous because it was visited by Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie when she came to the area to film Tomb Raider.

Red Piano