The Best of Cambodia & Laos

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SIEM REAP
6
SIEM REAP ATTRACTIONS
point. Outside, you’ll find an image of the guardian of hell because the area site was a
crematorium. The top of the terrace is a statue of the king with leprosy (a copy of the
original). The long terrace is made of two walls and visitors pass through a shaded walkway
on the interior. The whole site is lined with rich relief carving and has been lovingly
restored and propped up with a new concrete wall that maintains the integrity of the
original. Note: There are portable toilets at the far north end of the Terrace of the Leper
King.
The Elephant Terrace This terrace is the south end (near the Bayon) of a long performance
terrace of the king, so named because of its elaborate reliefs of elephants, whose
trunks make decorative columns. The long concourse (about 350m/1,148 ft.) depicts
scenes of circus acrobats, wrestlers, and images of hunting elephants in the wild.
Preah Khan Built by Jayavarman VII in 1191, the name of the temple means “Sacred
Sword.” It’s rumored that this was where Jayavarman called home during the building of
the Bayon. You approach the Preah Khan through a walkway lined with low lantern towers
(note that the Buddhist reliefs were changed to divine vultures during the iconoclastic
period). The compound is surrounded by wall and moat. The moat represents the ocean,
the wall is a mountain, and the temple is Mount Meru—the mother mountain of Hindu
creation. Four gates face the ordinal directions, and each gate has a God and Demon
statue like entry to Angkor Thom but just a tower, no Apsara face. Stop in at the small
visitor center for information about preservation. The temple is a monastery, like Ta
Prohm and Banteay Kdei, and is thought to have been built in homage to Jayavarman’s
father. The site plan is much like Ta Prohm. The temple passage has lots of meandering
galleries and side rooms with statues (most broken or missing) and Shiva Lingam. Many
Buddha reliefs here have been chiseled off. Interior walls are lined with cross-legged,
bearded forest hermits in relief. The central tower is a stupa for ashes of a later king, dating
from the 16th century and replacing a large Buddha statue of Jayavarman VII that
was found by the French in 1943, then summarily lost. The many empty pedestals and
lintels are courtesy of the Khmer Rouge and many tomb raiders.
“Get High” at Angkor
Like many of the world’s great monuments, the temples of Angkor are laid out
over massive spaces, with miles of temple wall on the side of each temple, as if
a sign to the gods. Visitors approaching temples on foot experience the temple
like Khmers of the Angkor period would have, in procession from one side to
the other, but we see only one section of the main gate, for example, or experience
only the inner sanctum of the temples without being able to see the
whole. It is important to remember that the Angkor temples were each selfcontained
cities or large monasteries, with populations in the hundreds of
thousands. Now choked with jungle, these wider areas are best appreciated
from above, where the scope of the building at Angkor is best understood. The
rule is that there’s a 1km (half-mile) “no fly” radius around the temple compound,
and the tour operators know just where that is and can take you as
close as they are allowed.