Preparation

My first preparation for this trip was done unintentionally. While browsing for books at a China website (you know how expensive it is to buy books in Singapore), I came across 'Cambodia' by Lonely Planet, Chinese version, selling at around USD6. It's dirt cheap compared to the English version selling in Singapore (easily USD30). At that time I bought it merely because it's cheap. The impulsive act had turned out to be rewarding.

After my pilgrimage trip to India, I learnt a lesson: be well prepared before the trip. During my trip to India, especially the later part, we visited so many ancient ruins that, now I browse the photos we took, I couldn't even call out the name of the place, they all look identical to me. I wouldn't consider that as a wasted trip, afterall, the places that we went really worth visiting. Reading the itinerary for Cambodia, if I'm going without any read up, the outcome would probably be the same, if not worse. We'll be visiting more than 20 temples. Better still, I don't even know how to pronounce their names.

I spent close to a month read up the History of Cambodia, study all the temples in Angkor Wat, search for beautiful photos of all these ancient temples. Before I came to realise, my enthusiastic became stronger than that I had for India. I concluded that I made the right decision in choosing Cambodia as my travel destination.

Khmer is the main ethnic group of Cambodia.

Red Khmer referred to the ruling Communist Party in 1970s. It was the biggest catastrophe Cambodia had gone through.

Vietnam was not a big bully, she liberated Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge.

Cambodia has got a nice name given by China Yuan Dynasty: Chenla. During Yuan Dynasty, China sent an envoy team to Chenla. One of the envoy Zhou Da-Guan, wrote a book that described the gloriousness of the Chenla Kingdom which impressed even the Yuan Emperor. Too bad, the Yuan Emperor did not get to visit Chenla, but we do.

The name 'Angkor Wat' carries multiple meanings. It is actually the name of the biggest temple in Siem Reap, in fact biggest religion building in the world. Because it is so big and so prominent, the name 'Angkor Wat' is being used to address all the temples in the Angkor region. So, today when you go to Angkor Wat, you don't just visit the one big temple by the name of Angkor Wat, you visit the rest of smaller temples too.

Most of the temples in Angkor Wat are Hindu temples, a handful of them are Mahayana Buddhism temples and a mixture of both. Other than Buddha, Avalokitesvara was commonly worshiped at that time. It is a myth how the Mahayana Buddhism got into Cambodia (as we know, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, even the modern Cambodia, practise Theravada Buddhism).

Some people claimed that Angkor Wat is one of the new 7 Wonders. Nope, it's not. It was nominated into top 20, but it did not make it to top 7.

Since most of the temples belong to Hinduism, it would be good to have some knowledge of Hinduism in order to admire the beautiful bas-reliefs in Angkor Wat which would be the major activity while visiting the temples. If you cannot appreciate the bas-reliefs, then your trip would probably end up like my India trip.

After a month of read up and preparation, I became so familiar with all the temples that I just need to close my eyes, and I'm there. I could imagine what I'll see in each temple (seen too many beautiful pictures online), I could even read out the names without much effort (though I wasn't sure if I pronounced it correctly).