The blackness of night whips by and we are again heading due North into the heart of the Angkor complex. The only reason that this mission might work is because of our transportation: The Minsk. Otherwise, no Tuk Tuk driver would be stupid enough to let us hire them for the undertaking and an assault on foot would prove disastrous since it would be impossible to outrun night guards on speeder bikes if worse came to worse.
Instead of taking the main road into Angkor where the largest concentration of guards patrol, we turn off a few kilometers before the ruins and take the back way that we had scouted a few days before. Revving at full speed we approach the smaller guard post which is responsible for stopping tourists from entering the complex after sunset. We are counting on the fact that many locals must use the roads around the ruins to get to their villages and homes that are scattered throughout the area. Their presence there rightfully grandfathered in, so some traffic at night is expected. The idea is that the guard will never suspect a motorbike at 11 o’clock at night to carry two foreigners. It is illegal to rent motorbikes in Siem Reap, so just the fact that we are on two-wheeled transportation makes us look un-suspect. We keep our heads down, wrap our faces with shirts and pull our hats low over our brows.
Then all of the sudden, before we even have time to worry ourselves into a frenzy, we zip past the guard post, our little headlight streaking by, our engine popping and churning, spitting out black smoke from the excess of engine oil we un-proportionally mixed in with the gasoline. We look pretty standard I guess, an overloaded bike, belching sooty exhaust, heading home in a hurry. We make it through.
The trees break around us into a clearing and we see it: Angkor Wat, the most famous temple of the Angkor complex and the focal point of ancient religious life in Khmer society. An enormous feat of architecture and manpower, Angkor Wat is the largest religious building in the world and one of the most iconic buildings in history. The place is normally crawling with tourists, but this night, under the silvery blue of the full moon, it stands like a silent sentinel, resting from the onslaught of feet and the flashes of cameras that it endures everyday. We have the place to ourselves.
We circle around to the west side of Angkor Wat and park the Minsk stealthily behind a tree. Every once in a while a car or motorcycle approaches and we duck behind bushes to avoid the revealing glow of their headlights. Some of the traffic is undoubtedly locals, but others are certainly night guards. It is highly illegal to be in the temples after dark and the consequences of getting caught are dire, either jail or a lot of bribe money. We are illegally tromping through a UNESCO world heritage site and I feel scandalous, but not guilty. I feel blessed. I feel like we are there for the right reasons, with the right intent, we are there to celebrate the New Year as it should be celebrated and where it should be celebrated. At Khmer cultural ground zero.
We grab our supplies and hammocks off the bike and make a dash across the large clearing to the sandstone bridge that crosses the 160 meter wide moat into central Angkor Wat. We quickly survey the surrounding area, noting there are no headlights approaching and make a run for the walled city, completely exposed as we dart towards our destination.
The doorway of the outer wall frames the interior of Angkor Wat perfectly as I walk through it, the frame growing and growing as my perspective changes until it finally dissolves out of my peripheral vision and I enter the full grandeur of the scene. I feel like I have crossed into another world, walked through a portal, walked into a picture or a painting, walked out of my time and place into a place of enchantment and mystery. Suddenly I am inside the magic and although it is nighttime, the moon illuminates the structure perfectly, its nightly hue making everything look even more mystical. My first un-obstructed view gives me a commanding panorama of the temple center. Five enormous towers stretch into the sky, one for each cardinal direction and a fifth in the very center, 65 meters high, symbolizing Mt. Meru, home to the pantheon of Hindu gods.
We cross the causeway which links the outer walls and gallery with the central structure. From the outside of the moat to the center of the temple is about 730 meters, ¾ of a kilometer. Keeping to the shadows and keeping quite we enter the main temple, past the ancient bathhouses and towards the central towers. There we scale up the insanely steep stair sets, passing signs of “Do Not Enter” we crawl up into the focal point of the symbolic center of Angkor society.
On the eve of the year 2555 of the Khmer calendar we climb to the very center tower of Angkor Wat, string our hammocks amongst the temple pillars and stare in awe at our surroundings. From the vantage point of our new bedroom the sprawling grandeur of Angkor Wat spreads out below us in every direction. The temple is literally radiating heat, pulsing like a living entity, the enormous thermal mass of millions of pounds of sandstone releasing its stored energy into the night sky.
It is incredibly humbling to think of the celebrations that took place at Angkor Wat 1,000 years ago during the New Years. In fact, it was probably the largest celebration on the planet. But here we are, looking out at the now silent grandeur of Angkor Wat, feeling lucky and feeling small, but feeling literally on top of the world.We sleep in our swinging hammocks for a few hours until daybreak and then stealthily make our way down from the temple just as the hordes of tourists begin to arrive for the official opening of the park at 5:30 AM. We have no tickets since we have squatted the whole night through, but we slowly mingled in with all of the camera-toting travelers. We have perfect cover, able to blend in with the newly arrived crowd even though really we have been in the temple for hours already, taking in a view and experience that none of them could ever imagine.
We casually snap a few shots of the sunrise over Angkor Wat with the rest of the crowd and then stroll straight out the main gate, smiling and waving at the guards as we pass (you never get checked for a ticket on the way out). I feel like a jewel thief that just completed a caper and is strolling through the open streets with a bag of stolen goods. We are all smiles, just two more tourists walking past the authorities. Beneath my mask of serenity I am internally bursting, knowing that I have acquired something precious and fleeting from Angkor. A memory I will never forget for the rest of my life.
