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The most important tourist destination in Cambodia is the temples of Angkor Wat. These temples are located in the city of Siem Reap and Siem Reap is located in the center of the country at a six-hour drive from Phnom Penh. Siem Reap is surrounded by forests. The air is ‘green’, lush and open, the city is refreshing, its atmosphere is gentle, refreshing and a spiritual slowness.
Ninety-nine percent of Cambodian tourists come to visit this city. There is no hustle and bustle in the city. You go anywhere and you will see thousands of white people from Europe who live in Siem Reap for two or three years and enjoy the weather.
See temples and enjoy Cambodian hospitality. Siem Reap has an international airport with flights to Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Laos. The airport was built by a French company and is clean. It’s neat and tidy’ In Cambodia, flights take off on time and land on time, and this attitude is surprising despite the poverty.
Me and my friend Mubasher Sheikh came to Siem Reap by sleeping bus from Phnom Penh. Sleeping bus has berths like a train and passengers can lie down or sleep to reach their destination. We liked the sleeping bus for three reasons. The first reason is flight. Thi’ We were not getting a morning flight while all the tourists go to Encore Wat to watch the sunrise.
We didn’t want to miss this sight ‘second reason’ we had never traveled by sleeping bus in our life and third reason ‘we only had one day’ we had to reach Angkor Wat in the morning and return in the evening because the next morning We had a return flight.
So we took a sleeping bus to go and a flight to return. Our bus left at 10:30 p.m. All the berths on our left and right and up and down were occupied by whites. There were double beds on one side of the bus. And there was a street in the middle, there was also a washroom, the bus was fine, but our journey was not very comfortable.
For half a time it felt as if the bus was falling into a ditch and with this feeling, we lost our sleep. The berths of the bus also felt like graves, even though Sonax was an unbeliever. Arrived in Siem Reap.
There were rows of tuk-tuk rickshaws outside the base. The tuk-tuks took passengers first to the ticket house and then to the temple. The ticket house was in the middle of the city. It was modern and spacious. We were surprised to see 22 counters there. It was found that there are so many tourists coming here during the season that even 22 counters fall short and queues reach the road.
There are two types of tickets available at the counter – one day or three day ticket – tourists need at least three days to visit all the temples – a three day ticket costs $70 while a one day ticket costs $35. This gives you an idea of the earnings of Siem Reap’s temples. Credit cards, debit cards and ATM facilities were also available. We took the ticket anyway. Can’t give
We then boarded a tuk tuk again and arrived at Angkor Wat ‘The temple is nestled between small pools of water and is a truly amazing complex ‘Hundreds of rooms with long stone corridors’ The ceilings are high and stone’. The walls are carved by hand, the corridors are covered with murals, the stories of Maha Bharata, somewhere, the king is being enthroned.
Somewhere there is a celebration and somewhere there is a war going on. All the carvings are carved in stone with fine tools and they are truly amazing. And every side takes you by surprise. There are dozens of buildings. All the buildings are built on high ground and open to some pond, lawn, garden or forest. Temples are built on rocks hundreds of feet high. One has to struggle a lot to reach there.
The guides claim that the temples of Encore Wat were built by them and this claim is felt true at every step, ‘It doesn’t really feel like human work’, so fine and that too on giant rocks and stones, it’s not the work of any human being. Lagga’ The temples of Encore Wat are called the 8th wonder of the world’ Is this claim true’ I can’t say definitively’ Why? Because the four buildings of the world are called the eighth wonder.
These include the lost city of Petra in Jordan, the Terracotta Warriors in Xi’an, China, the ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru, and the temples of Anchorage. Truthfully, I couldn’t give any of these three the title of eighth wonder.
These three are really the point of man-made perfection. I can also say here that our Mohenjo Daro is much better than them, but unfortunately we have not been able to market it. The four places attract millions of tourists every year and these countries collect billions of dollars in investment from them.
Siem Reap has dozens of temples like Angkor Wat. This area was actually the center of the Khmer (Khmer) civilization. They were the rulers of today’s Vietnam, Laos and half of Thailand. Siem Reap was their capital. Reaching the peak of civilization, they built temples and palaces in the city like other civilizations. The palaces were destroyed but the temples survived.
This civilization ended like other civilizations by touching the height and those people scattered in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, but they still call themselves Khmer today. There are two times to see the temples in Siem Reap. Arrive at Angkor Wat Temple and view the valley from Bekheng Temple at sunset.
We arrive at Encore Wat. ‘There is a pool of water in front of the temple.’ All the tourists stand by the pool with their cameras.’ So that scene is truly divine and priceless. We also stood with hundreds of tourists and watched the sun rise from the back of Anchorage and kept thanking God for a long time. What did our God do on this earth? He has cultivated the scene and at the same time has given the opportunity to see this scene to unworthy and ungrateful people like us.
No matter how much we thank our Lord for this favor, it will be less, so we stood there thanking Allah, bowed before the sun, looked at the temple and descended into the forest of buildings, these buildings once worshiped false gods. There used to be places,’ said our true Lord, ‘false gods escaped from here and after that our true God made this place a place of instruction and trampled under the feet of tourists, and people still see the world from where they see the morning. So come here ‘Trample the shrines of false gods underfoot and confess the glory of the true God and go back’ Angkor Wat temple is deserted by eight o’clock ‘People see the temple’ Breakfast at makeshift canteens We do and go back to the hotels. We also left. We took the hotel and slept for six hours.
Another important visit to Siem Reap is the Shiva temple at sunset. We reached Phonom Bakheng before dusk. It is a small hill outside the city and requires a regular trek to the top. There is a temple and it is also amazing, but to reach the top of the temple one has to climb one and a half to two hundred steps.
Believe me, the view of the sunset from this peak is truly one of the most precious scenes in the world. It is the “Mother of All Waves”. Then it is being born, as if Allah Almighty has said once again, the universe has been shaken and the earth has been born from a black hole, or as if the last breath of the universe has come and nature has killed its favorite people. We were all looking towards the west with bated breath.
As we watched, the sun kissed the earth’s forehead, the four ends of the sky opened and the tent of the universe caught fire, and the waters of the distant lake rushed towards it to quench the thirst of fire. That moment is not just a moment. That was the moment of creation and I captured it forever in my camera. I captured both a morning and an evening of Siem Reap.
