It is unclear whether or not we’ll actually get to the temples of Angkor Wat because of the monsoons. It was supposed to be the end of monsoon season here, but obviously the weather gods hadn’t heard that. Anyway, in preparation for a trip to Angkor and trying to be optimistic we went to the Angkor National Museum, which is a museum devoted to the historic past in general and Angkor Wat in particular.
The museum is housed in a beautiful building that was built fairly recently. Although new it has elements of classical Khmer architecture, spires on the red tiled roof and lovely tiled pools with plants and statues placed artfully around. The museum is also well designed in terms of the exhibits. There’s a spiral ramp that takes you up to third floor (the top) and you look down on the pool on the way up. At the top there is a briefing room where they show an orientation film that is very informative about Khmer history. Then it’s on the gallery of a thousand Buddhas which is just what it sounds like. Statures of Buddha displayed in niches, on pedestals and just scattered around the room. There are seated Buddhas and standing Buddhas and lying down Buddhas. Almost all are carved of sandstone. Some have a natural finish, some are lacquered and some are painted. Some are fairly plain and some are intricately carved but all are beautiful. The faces are all classically Cambodian, however. The ethnicity of Buddha seems to change depending on what country you’re in.
There are numerous other galleries that display archeological finds and art from Angkor Wat. It was clearly a very high civilization.
Downtown Siem Reap was under at least a foot of water today. It’s not too flooded at Jenn and Alex’ place.
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